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Musings on Streets and Flyovers

2011-09-12T01:21:00.001+05:30

I have now spent quite a few months back in Bangalore and it looks like I will be here for some time now. Over the years, this city has changed quite a lot and as an old-time Bangalorean (or at the very least, someone who is constantly exposed to complaints from old-time Bangaloreans), I can't help noticing these changes every time I pass through areas that I remember quite clearly from the past (damn, I sound old...I wonder what I'll be like in another twenty years).

South Bangalore, in particular, has changed drastically - the traffic has become insanely horrendous, much of what I remember of areas like Jayanagar and Basavangudi no longer exist and there is an infestation of flyovers, underpasses and similar pieces of construction happening all over the place. The last is something that is particularly dramatic. I think planning authorities in Bangalore have become unhealthily obsessed with constructing these pieces of gargantua in every nook and cranny they can find and these pieces of concrete dot the landscape with as much frequency as roadside temples used to, once upon a time. This particular blog post tries to address this last issue. It's a collection of arguments that I have been having with myself for a long time now (in fact, something that began during my years in Mumbai) and I have tried to put them down in as concise a manner as possible. Let me begin with a criticism of these road projects.

One of the fundamental drawbacks that I see with flyovers and underpasses (or similar constructions) is not a technological or engineering flaw but a sociological one. In order to understand this drawback, let us first begin by considering the area upon which a flyover is constructed (and often ignored later) - the city street. What exactly is the function of a city street? A normal city street isn't just a stretch of concrete that allows for the passage of vehicles from one point to another. Like any other feature of the urban landscape, it forms a fundamental component of the ecosystem around which social evolution takes place. Carefully observe any road in a city and you will be able to make out the delicate socioeconomic system that has woven itself around it.

The most visible examples of such systems can be seen in old market areas such as Mumbai's Crawford Market or Bangalore's Gandhi Bazaar. In such areas, the function of roads is no longer to smoothly facilitate the movement of vehicles but to serve as a common public area where pedestrians can obtain access to the multitude of shops and stalls that line the sides. The movement of vehicles is a secondary, perhaps even a tertiary function, no matter what is said in official records.

Market areas are not the only places where such socioeconomic structures evolve into being. Residential areas have such systems too, though they are far more subtle and much more difficult to observe. The relatively smaller streets often serve as common ground in closely bound neighbourhoods where evenings witness local children playing cricket, residents going out for walks or even simply indulging in conversation with each other. Somewhat larger streets serve as local markets, being home to shops that supply residents with daily provisions or stationery. The relationship between vehicular traffic and the local area is somewhat more amicable in these places, but increase the value of just one factor - say, the number of shops or the volume of traffic - and you will quickly witness a degradation of this amicability. Within cities, roads aren't just agents of communication; they're spaces for competition.

The biggest drawback of new transport solutions such as flyovers or underpasses is that planners or builders rarely take the above argument into account. The construction as well as the very existence of flyovers drastically distort the local socioeconomic systems and sometimes, this may result in losses that are far more immense than any loss subverted by the flyover itself. Let's consider the local economic impact, for example. What sort of effects are perpetrated, do you think, when a massive flyover is constructed on the top of the main market street in a fairly residential locality?

I personally don't even need to theorize, because an excellent example of such an event occurred a few years ago in my neighbourhood, when the city authorities decided to build an underpass to replace a prominent traffic junction (or 'circle' as it's called in Bangalore). Prior to the construction of this underpass, the circle was a prominent landmark in the locality and was home to a string of shops selling various articles as well as a sizeable number of small restaurants. These commercial establishments were fairly prominent, easy to spot and relatively easy to access. However, the construction of the underpass changed all that. It resulted in a drastic widening of the main road as well as its division into four lanes - two wide lanes that simply went below a bridge and two, extremely narrow lanes at the sides, which served as connectors to the intersecting road. As a result, a majority of the traffic which was, effectively "passing through" was diverted to the wider lanes while a smaller segment filtered through to the narrower lanes in order to access the intersection.

Courtesy: The Hindu

Now, I haven't conducted a formal study of this case, so I may be completely wrong on my following point. However, simple logic coupled with regular observation told me two things. First, the percentage of commuters who could see these shops and restaurants from the road was effectively cut down to that segment which accessed the narrower side lanes. This naturally means a loss of brand visibility for these establishments. Second, access to these shops from the road was severely reduced. The road-widening brought about by the construction of the underpass also damaged the footpaths and discouraged a large number of pedestrians from walking on that street (in fact, this is a common phenomenon - how often does one see pedestrians trying to navigate their way around flyovers or underpasses?). Additionally, the narrow width of these lanes also eliminated parking space and induced vehicles to move through as quickly as possible, in order to avoid getting stuck in potential jams. So, based on these two points, I may be able to claim that the construction of the underpass must have resulted in some fairly large losses for local businesses.

I am pretty sure these arguments can be applied to almost every major place affected by the construction of these structures. As one of my economics professors was fond of saying "flyovers literally fly over everything", conveniently ignoring the often drastic distortions caused to the local economic ecosystems by their very existence. Along with this, factor in the damage caused to the physical environment (in Bangalore, this is usually most visible through tree felling), the long gestation period before these things become operational and the torment that local residents go through during this period and one begins to wonder whether such things are really worth the effort.

Are they worth all the drawbacks? It's impossible to make a universal judgement on this matter but whenever I think of things like this, I try and come up with counter-arguments to justify the opposite side. One of the first counterpoints that occurred to me (apart from the obvious "smoother traffic" argument) was that the construction of these things probably benefits local residents and businesses by increasing the value of local real estate. Businesses may find themselves sitting on more valuable land caused by demand for proximity to smooth, efficient roads and they might be able to use this value to obtain better loans to finance their ventures. Now, once again, I haven't made any formal studies but I don't accept this argument to be universal in nature. Certain road projects may indeed push up the prices of local land - a superb example of this is the inflation of real estate prices caused by the construction of metro-rail bridges, since proximity to a mass transit system usually always increases the value of land. Someone who owns such a plot of real estate can consider himself to be very lucky.

However, this may not apply in cases such as the underpass mentioned above. Such projects don't really give any physical benefits to nearby residents or entrepreneurs - they largely cater to people who are coming from somewhere else and passing through to get to some other place. In fact, as I mentioned above, such projects may make access to road systems less efficient for local residents and as a result, there may not be much of an increase in real estate prices; not enough for businesses to effectively utilize anyway. Under such circumstances, the costs of putting up with the construction and existence of a flyover may simply not be worth it.

But there is a very strong argument in favour of flyovers and underpasses that I am perfectly willing to accept. This argument is simply one that flyovers do often smooth traffic effectively. Take, for example, the J.J. Flyover in South Mumbai, the numerous flyovers on Mumbai's Western Express Highway, the flyover constructed on New Airport Road in Bangalore that separates airport travellers from other road users, the Mekhri Circle underpass and so on. There is no denying the fact that these constructions have smoothened the flow of traffic considerably, increased the efficiency of road travel and have probably resulted in high economic benefits to numerous citizens over the course of time. Even in the case of the underpass mentioned above, traffic conditions have certainly improved.

An additional point is that a lot of damage to local communities can be simply reduced with better design. A good architect or civil engineer will realize the adverse effects that the project may have upon neighbouring localities and modify the design of the project to reduce these effects. Thus, much of the costs of such projects can be reduced (though never eliminated), thereby increasing the overall benefit.

The ultimate issue therefore becomes an act of comparing the benefits of such construction with the costs of the damage caused in the process. Now, first of all, this is not an easy task for the first question that needs to be asked is "Whose benefits or losses should we prioritize?" - those commuters passing through an area or those residents living in the locality? Also, calculating the benefits and costs cannot be done very easily since both are often intangible and difficult to formulate effectively. But what bothers me most is that, second of all, few are attempting to undertake this task. Difficult as the process may be, it's something that needs to be done. But we rarely see planners and city authorities indulge in this task, at least in public. Occasionally, a local politician may cause a ruckus or some resident welfare association may go on protest but there are no formal processes for assessing the views of residents or taking their prior approval before commencing a project. This is unfortunate, because in order to calculate costs and benefits effectively, the views of residents and local businesses must be taken into account.

Ultimately though, we must see some sort of (I hate using this term but I think it's relevant) paradigm shift (aargh, aargh) in our approach towards designing and maintaining city roads. Planners need to understand that city streets aren't the same as highways and most of them never ought to become like highways. Streets serve a variety of functions in a city and many times, these might even have to take precedence over simple traffic movement because the overall social benefits may be greater. Some roads may be better off with narrower concrete strips and wider footpaths. Some streets might be better off without certain types of traffic and others might not need traffic moving on them at all (consider Mall Road in Shimla, for example. Traffic is banned in this place and yet, it's the most vibrant street in the entire city). On the other hand, there have to be roads where the movement of traffic takes priority over everything else and the construction of projects that increase traffic efficiency is fully justified. All this requires better and smarter planning but first, we need a drastic change in perception.

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PS - Does anyone know if there have been studies conducted on the impact of flyover construction on local economies? I am curious to see how right or how wrong I am, empirically :)

Image Courtesy: funonthenet.in

10 Questions I've been asked (regarding my views on the Jan Lokpal Movement)

2011-08-25T01:03:00.016+05:30

Okay, this post ought to have been published a week ago but the whole cacophony that was being generated by politicians, journalists, social activists and enthu cutlets put me off so badly that I decided not to add to the commotion. Ah well, my timing is not always impeccable but this article is something I've been wanting to do for some time now so I'm putting it up anyway.

Over the last few months, I've made my disapproval of the Jan Lokpal Movement fairly clear, both on this blog as well as on Twitter. As a consequence, several people (most of whom were nice and friendly) have questioned me about my views, wondering why I am not supporting something that seems like such a worthy cause. Well, this article lists out ten of the most common questions that I've been asked along with my answers. I am thankful to Nitin Pai and his blog The Acorn - it was Nitin Pai's set of Frequently Asked Questions that inspired me to compile the questions that I've been asked, with appropriate answers. Do take a look.

1. Why don't you support Anna Hazare? Are you not against corruption?

This is the most common question that I've been asked - both online as well as in the real world. Let me answer this question carefully and hope that you will read this carefully too.

I don't support Anna Hazare on two grounds. First, I don't agree with several points of the Jan Lokpal Bill. I think the institution being promoted by Anna Hazare and his supporters is much too strong and risks concentrating too much power in the hands of one agency. Second, I don't agree with the manner in which this bill is being forced upon Parliament for implementation. A mob of people glaring at the government and forcing them to accept a policy is not the right way of getting things done. This will have consequences in the future.

Having said that, I don't hold any sort of grudge against Anna Hazare or his supporters. I can understand the frustration that lies behind this movement and the need felt by some of Hazare's supporters to get something meaningful out of their government. Nevertheless, my empathy doesn't lead to sympathy. Sorry.

2. What is wrong with the Jan Lokpal Bill? Don't you think a strong institution is needed to keep corrupt politicians and bureaucrats in check?

Let me answer the second part of the question first. Conceptually, a strong institution keeping a strict watch on corruption may sound like a very good idea. But just try and imagine the daily workings of such an institution.

Firstly, there is the problem of size. If you wish to investigate everyone in the government ranging from the lower bureaucracy all the way up to the Prime Minister, you will need a massive workforce. Where are you going to get this workforce from? Remember, these people can't be picked randomly from the ranks of civil society or judiciary. They need to demonstrate detailed knowledge of law, impeccable understanding of procedures and a good ability to detect acts of corruption (which are going to be hidden as well as possible). Do we have such talented people within our ranks?

Even if we do, what assurance do we have that such people won't become corrupt themselves? We can keep on creating higher and higher institutions to keep tabs on the lower ones but we have absolutely no guarantee that these institutions won't become corrupt themselves, especially if you're looking at a slightly longer time frame.

Regarding the provisions of the bill itself, there is not much to say that doesn't come under the arguments above. For a more detailed criticism of the bill, you can check out this article by Amba Salelkar.

3. But the Jan Lokpal will be an independent agency with some degree of autonomous power. Won't that act as a deterrent against corruption?

Yes, a greater degree of independence may serve as a stronger deterrent but the important question you have to ask yourself is, at what cost? Granting autonomy or independence to a government institution is always fraught with risks and should not be done unless it is absolutely necessary. More importantly, under no circumstances should autonomy be granted to an institution that has too much power or control over a major section of the government.

This is the major difference between granting autonomy to an institution such as the Election Commission and to an institution such as the Lokpal. The EC has a very specific function - to ensure the conduct of free and fair elections. While this is an important role, the EC is not allowed, by law, to interfere in issues of governance or policy. The Lokpal envisioned by the Anna Hazare movement however, gives a lot of power to the Lokpal to not just investigate the motives behind government policies but also prosecute those who it believes to be indulging in misuse of power. This will give the Lokpal enough potential to interfere in matters of governance and policy and there is a very real risk that the Lokpal may find itself dictating what it considers "appropriate policy" to those who are supposed to be framing the laws of this country.

There is one more point. A greater degree of autonomy can also make it harder to remove a corrupt officer from the Lokpal. We saw a recent example of how difficult it is to remove a High Court Judge - it required the consent of a majority in both houses of Parliament. However, the judiciary is not a proactive agency and (generally) does not have the power to take up cases on its own. Can we say the same of the Lokpal? No. What would happen if a corrupt Lokpal Officer decides to torment a government official for some unworthy reason? Under such circumstances, it may become very difficult to prove a case against him and make sure he's held accountable.

4. So are you saying we should do nothing against corruption?

Not at all! As far as the Jan Lokpal Bill is concerned, all I am asking is for people to consider alternatives seriously. A lot of media attention has already been given to Aruna Roy and the NCPRI's version of the Lokpal which I personally feel is a much better version (in concept that is - I don't think a proper draft has been made yet). Additionally, there might be other ideas for the Lokpal that may have been ignored in all this brouhaha and ought to be brought forward.

There is also another option that one can consider - forgetting the idea of the Lokpal altogether and concentrating on strengthening the existing institutions such as the Vigilance Commissions. There are risks involved in all these proposals, it's true. But here's the thing - there has been no discussion whatsoever right from the start. While the Anna Hazare camp did invite proposals for modifications and suggestions, they were very clear that the central components of the Jan Lokpal would remain unaltered. The Government, of course, has been even more hopeless.

5. But the people have already decided in favour of the Jan Lokpal! Why bother with discussions?

Firstly, what do you mean by "the people"? Are you referring to the hordes who've turned out at places like Ram Lila Grounds and Freedom Park to give voice to Anna Hazare? All right, if that's what you mean, you may have a rough idea of how many people support the Jan Lokpal Bill. But what about the numbers who don't? How many people do you think turned out for the protests? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Ten Lakhs? A Crore? That's about it, I think. One crore or Ten Million is a safe enough estimate. Now, what's the population of this country? 1.2 Billion? Which means you can, at most, account for approximately 0.8% of this entire country! Even if you take only the opinions of those who are above 18 years of age (which is roughly 65% of the population or 780 Million), the percentage of people who can safely be said to support the bill equals only 1 in every 78 people.

It is in such instances that one can appreciate what an incredible exercise our elections truly are. Even if just 35% of our adult population came out to vote, you're still taking into account the opinions of more than 270 Million people. This is why elections matter more than protests on the street. Even if you amass a 100 Million people (for comparison, the population of the entire city of Mumbai is around 17-18 million) to confidently support the Jan Lokpal Bill on the street, you would still have less than half the number of people in an election characterized by a poor turnout.

Secondly, choosing a bill without considering the alternatives is not choosing at all. It's arbitrary selection. This is why every bill proposed by the Government's Executive is discussed and debated in Parliament before being passed into law. Alternatives that may not have had a chance to be heard are brought forward. This is clearly not happening in the Jan Lokpal Movement and is one of the reasons I don't support it.

6. The number on the streets don't matter. There are bound to be millions who support the Jan Lokpal Bill and haven't come out.

Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not. There's no way of determining what those who don't come out in protest are thinking. In fact, how can you be sure that everyone who's on the street supports the Jan Lokpal? It may be that most of them are simply against corruption and don't care what sort of bill is passed as long as it's reasonably good. Under such circumstances, can you confidently push forward the Jan Lokpal Bill citing the support of millions?

Please don't forget, this "will of the people" argument is an ancient one. Political parties have used this excuse to do outrageous things, all the while claiming the support "of the people". Riots have occurred, property has been damaged and even lives have been taken because "the people of this country/state/religion/community are behind us". The argument against such actions applies to the Jan Lokpal Movement in equal measure, though it is a peaceful, non-violent movement. How can you be so sure of the numbers that support you?

7. So are you saying the only way to protest is through elections? Should we wait every five years to showcase our dissent? Isn't that ridiculous?

It is and that's precisely why I am not making that argument. Elections constitute an important part of the democratic process but it's not the end of a voter's responsibility - it's the beginning. A voter shouldn't move from E to F that is "from Elect to Forget". He or she should stay on E - "Elect and Engage". Engage with the government. Work with them regularly and build better relationships with them. Only then can we have a proper, functioning democracy.

What we need are new, innovative platforms to engage with our Governments on a regular basis. We already have provisions for such platforms to function at a local level - ward committees and area sabhas. What we need to do is strengthen these platforms, increase our interaction with the people who govern us and try to come up with ways and means to interact with higher levels of government as well (though I admit, this is easier said than done). How is this different from protests and hunger strikes? For starters, such platforms are more stable, more versatile and more accommodating. Secondly, such platforms are about interaction, not confrontation like protests and hence, allow for a more friendly working environment. However, I am not going to pretend that such platforms will solve all our problems. Nevertheless, I feel they're a better thing to campaign for as compared to higher and higher regulatory authorities.

8. Are you saying protests and hunger strikes are bad? Don't we have the right to protest?

Let me make this very clear. A citizen certainly has the right to protest. And even though it may not be legally acceptable, I personally don't care if someone goes on a hunger strike as long as the person is fully aware that he or she is putting their body, health and life at significant risk. However, the Government does not...and I repeat...does not have any obligation or duty to listen to your protest or pay attention to your hunger strike. This may seem outrageous, but think about it. Protests and hunger strikes are carried out every single year by some group or people or the other for some cause or the other. Many of these causes are in fact, extremely worthy and need to be taken up. However, if the government had an actual, legally specified duty to listen to protesters, it would spend all year negotiating with protesters over a number of issues and the basic function of governance would be left lying undone.

Some of you might think that this movement deserves to be treated as a special case. Let me point out something - every movement is special to those who take part in it. Those who protest for the victims of Bhopal feel that their campaign is special. Those who're protesting against AFSPA feel that their issues deserve to be heard. And they're not wrong. There are genuine issues that lie behind every protest, including the Jan Lokpal Movement and it is normally recommended for Governments to pay attention to these issues. But that's where it should stop, at recommendation. Governments usually have enough incentive to pay attention, even if they're not legally obligated to do so. Why else do you think the UPA even bothered inviting Anna Hazare and his team to form a part of the initial Lokpal committee? Why else has Varun Gandhi stated that he will introduce the Jan Lokpal Bill as an individual MP's recommendation in Parliament? Incentives.

9. But Mahatma Gandhi did the same thing as Anna Hazare during the Freedom movement. Are you saying he was wrong? Do you dare oppose Gandhiji's own methods?

First of all, I am highly uncomfortable with the idea of justifying something simply because it has been done in the past. Yes, Gandhiji may have resorted to such methods but can any of us say we truly understand the circumstances under which he carried them out? Few of us were alive at that time and even if some people were, can we truly and confidently assert that Gandhiji would have approved of us using his methods under such circumstances for such an issue? If you wish to do something, it would be better to justify it on logical grounds as compared to historical. Today, in 2011, I find it wrong to use a hunger strike to enforce a bill, regardless of how appropriate or inappropriate it was in the past. And therefore, I object to it.

Secondly, opposing methods such as hunger strikes and protests doesn't make me unpatriotic. I am still against corruption, I too dislike most of the politicians we have in office and sincerely wish for a day when we aren't bogged by these heavy problems. My disagreements are with the specifics of this movement.

10. But shouldn't we go out and show support for Anna Hazare's intention of eradicating corruption? Even if we have doubts about his bill?

I have made the following point in one of my earlier posts. Mass movements cannot make complicated decisions because the message they send out to the country has to be simple and precise. The Jan Lokpal Movement is just that - a movement for the Jan Lokpal. If you choose to take part in this movement, you're essentially communicating your desire for a Jan Lokpal, regardless of whether you actually want it or not. Sure, you may be against corruption but that is already implicit. What the Jan Lokpal Movement asks of you is to show more than just your dislike of corruption.

If you have doubts about the Jan Lokpal, I advise you to stay out of the movement. Go show your support only if you really and truly want the Jan Lokpal to come into existence, exactly as Anna Hazare and Co want it to be.

Bonus Question (not meant for the nice inquirers): You're a CONgress stooge.

Good joke, troll. Now go grunt somewhere else.

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PS - As an afterthought, I'd like you to consider this - close your eyes and picture the Jan Lokpal Movement that is occurring with full force in the cities across our country. Now imagine that instead of a neutral, apolitical man like Anna Hazare, the movement was being conducted by a politician heading a political party. Every thing else is the same; the hysteria, the slogans, the discussions, the shouting, they're all identical. Now answer me honestly - how different do you think this movement is from any standard political campaign? Would you have supported this movement if it had been headed by a politician?

PPS - Is it inquire or enquire? I always get confused.

Image Courtesy: cupidspeaks.com

Dear India Against Corruption

2011-08-13T13:45:00.001+05:30

Dear India Against Corruption,

While I strongly believe that corruption is a serious, maybe even a dangerous problem plaguing this country, I also believe it to be an internal, domestic matter.

Therefore, I find your move to protest in front of the United Nations extremely disgusting, stupid and indicative of your morbid fascination with appealing to higher and higher institutions.

This is a matter that needs to be sorted out by India, between Indians and frankly, the United Nations cannot intervene in this matter. Had there been a Galactic Federation of Planets comprising largely of aliens from outer space, would you have appealed to them as well? Think about it, what you're doing right now is not that different.

Yours,

AA

Photo Courtesy: United Nations (www.unmultimedia.org)

Some Thoughts Regarding Recent Policies and Policy Making

2011-07-23T14:44:00.004+05:30

About a couple of months ago, during the Baba Ramdev incident, I had written a blog post complaining that news regarding actual government policy has been totally obscured by all the fighting that was taking place between politicians and civil society. Thankfully, that trend seems to be reversing somewhat, though it remains to be seen whether this reversal will last. During the last week, when news headlines were still being dominated by squabbling politicians and self-righteous activists, a little bit of news regarding some of the Government's major policies came to light.

The first piece of news which caught my attention was an article in The Hindu, an open letter to Manmohan Singh, jointly signed by several college students and research scholars from institutions across the country. This June, these people had done the incredible job of visiting over a hundred randomly selected villages in various parts of the country in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the Public Distribution System (PDS) and identify the problems associated with its operation (Disclaimer: Some of those who participated in this study are close friends of mine). The conclusions of the study were fairly clear. The PDS has clearly improved in its effectiveness and the amount of grain leakage into the open market has reduced substantially over the years. However, there are still several problems. The list of those who are entitled to food supplies under PDS is faulty, the improvement of efficiency isn't universal (Bihar remains an exception) and there is a serious case for direct cash transfers though many families surveyed opposed it. On the whole, the letter advocated a near-universal PDS with strict exclusion criteria ("everyone can get food except so-and-so") instead of a specific Below Poverty Line (BPL) list ("Only so-and-so can get food"). There was also a disapproval of the alternative of direct cash transfers ("instead of food, give them cash") though it wasn't completely written off.

A study like this can often bring several points to light that years of theoretical debating cannot. Though the details of the study are not yet available, there is a clear and confident assertion that social security schemes like the Public Distribution System can work and are indeed actually working in many parts of the country. This is in contrast to a heated debate over the last few years where social sector schemes such as the Food Security Act and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) have come under intense criticism for ineffectiveness, leakage of benefits and distortion of local markets. It is too early for generalizations but some more ground-level studies may actually bring many benefits of such schemes to light.

However, contrast the optimism of the letter in The Hindu with the criticism in this article from Network 18's firstpost.com. Published this morning, it caught my attention largely because it seems to present a view opposite to that of the article in The Hindu (although it must be noted that the Firstpost article concentrates more on the government's NREG Scheme rather than the PDS).

The arguments made in this article are not without merit. Simple logic tells us that any major intervention by a government will create drastic distortions in local economies. Indeed, distortion is the objective.The question that needs to be answered is whether such distortions are desirable or not. Some distortions can indeed set off virtuous cycles that will propel local economies to better levels of prosperity and more importantly, opportunity. On the other hand, there can be many distortions introduced by government intervention that can have negative effects, especially in the long run. Some of these effects are mentioned in the Firstpost article - the creation of an unhealthy dependence on government dole, the formation of an "entitlement" economy, the lack of incentives to develop skills and so on. This naturally creates arguments against any sort of interventionist social schemes or at the very least, advocates schemes that are less distortionary on paper (such as direct cash transfers).

So who's right? I think the answer can be summed up by what one of my friends (who took part in the PDS study) said to me. "...what i did realize was that a blanket policy simply wouldn't work. There are too many disparities, even among neighbouring villages and given the current situation, some villages simply wouldn't be able to use the proposed cash transfer system..."

You see, I believe that questions of policy (particularly economic policy) cannot be given simple answers. Anyone who reads my blog regularly, knows that I dislike solutions based merely in ideology. Such simple solutions are often touted as panacea to economic ills. However, the world we live in isn't simple, it is complex. Simplifying our world through ideology is just a method of dealing with that complexity. It is not a substitute for the complexity itself.

Under such circumstances, problems such as poverty, unemployment and lack of economic freedom may require a variety of solutions. Some of them may work, some of them may not. Some may be effective only at a certain time in a certain place while others may be flexible enough to be adopted more widely. As my good friend noted, blanket policies will not work. So what does that imply? It implies policy-making cannot be confined to the national or state levels. Such national-level policies are important and may continue to remain so for a long time but there is a definite need for greater policy and decision-making at lower levels as well. Sometimes, it might even be necessary to withdraw Central Government schemes in favour of schemes by district administrations. Other times, it might be good to introduce a centrally sponsored scheme as an alternative to a badly functioning state or district policy.

All this requires the presence of educated, aware and committed policy-makers (so the process is definitely not going to happen overnight). Nevertheless, there are certain changes that one can make to the governance system itself, that can bring about an increase in efficiency. Decentralization of government power and devolution of funds to lower levels of government is one such step. Strengthening the powers and clearly demarcating responsibilities of regulatory institutions is another. Yet another thing we need is reliable data (probably the most important requirement today, given the severe lack of both raw data as well as analysed information). There are many other steps that can be taken at ground level as well - for example, making it mandatory for higher government levels to interact with lower levels on a fixed, regular basis. Perhaps, when such changes are made, educational levels are increased and economic freedom is expanded, we might see drastic changes that can set this country on a desirable path in the long run.

An Atheist's Stand on a Controversial Issue

2011-07-20T00:25:00.085+05:30

One of the big problems about being an Atheist in a country like India is that I am often compelled to take a stand on issues which, under ideal circumstances, should have nothing to do with me. To make matters somewhat worse, my (lack of) religious belief takes the form of a very classical, rationalist sort of atheism - similar to that of people like Richard Dawkins, though not quite so radical (the person whose views correspond closest to mine is Amit Verma - you can read his excellent post on Atheism here). In other words, I am neither a "Hindu Agnostic" nor do I follow a brand of Atheism similar to the ones practiced by some Hindus. This makes it all the more difficult for me to comment too much on religious matters. As a matter of principle, I believe religion to be a purely personal affair because a religion is ultimately a way of life and how a person should lead his life is up to the decisions of the person himself. A religion should not - I repeat, should not - be allowed to direct politics, economics or policy in any society.

Unfortunately, things are not so simple in India where religion is freely mixed with both political and social issues. True, India is much better off than some other countries where religion dictates the law itself. Nevertheless, there is a de facto recognition of the power that religion has over Indian society. Some of our taxes are spent on funding religious programs. Recently, the Chief Minister of the state I live in decided to deal with a political rival by challenging him to an oath-taking ceremony at a place of worship. The producers of a recent movie were sued for allegedly insulting an article of clothing with religious attributes. I am not even going to bother talking about the more violent aspects of these influences - the smaller incidents are disturbing enough. In fact, I am going to concentrate on the latest episode of religion mixing with politics - the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita to children in schools.

Before I elaborate, let me just clear a few things up. First of all, I am not going to use the old arguments of "secularism" and "interests of the minorities" because I know what the reactions will be. There will be accusations of pseudo-secularism, lack of respect for Indian culture and even lack of patriotism. Besides, there are others who will be making these points anyway. Instead, I will try to argue this issue on a different ground by using the very arguments made by those who support the teaching of the Gita in schools. Therefore, I will accept that the Gita is an important text - not just for Hindus but for other Indian citizens as well. Why? I will accept its importance because I believe the Gita does form an important part of India's history and that it did play a significant role in India's cultural development. Now, before some of you on the "secular" side start getting outraged, I suggest you read the whole post before pronouncing your judgement on me.

I accept the Bhagavad Gita to be important in the same way I accept any other religious text to be important - as an agent that facilitated cultural and social developments in history. The Bible played a similar (indeed, a much stronger) role in Europe and the Koran did the same for many countries in the middle east. Each of these texts was followed by group of people who became politically or economically powerful and as a result, the way they led their personal lives became the basis for how society ought to function. In other words, I accept the Bhagavad Gita to be a historically important text as well as a culturally important text but not as a religiously important text. Since I also believe that it's important to learn history (as well as contemporary society), I don't have objections if students are taught about the importance of the Gita in a historical context or about its importance to a large section of modern Indian society. I only have objections if someone tries to force students to accept it as a way of life.

However, is the Gita the only important Hindu text? Even back in the days when I used to worship the Gods on a daily basis, I never found the Gita to be as appealing as, say, the Upanishads or the Rig Veda. In fact, even today, there are parts of the Upanishads that I strongly sympathize with (such as the philosophical dialogues between Uddalaka and Shvetaketu). Furthermore, I believe it were the Vedas themselves that played a much more important role, historically, in India's cultural development rather than the Gita. I agree, the Gita is meant to simplify the teachings of the Vedas for the common man, but that shouldn't concern us because we are ultimately supposed to be teaching about those texts that have had greater historical or cultural relevance. I think the Vedas, the Upanishads and perhaps even the Puranas have had greater relevance than the Gita. Additionally, let us not forget the Ramayana and the Mahabharata of which, the Gita is a part. Surely, these epics as a whole have played a greater role in India's cultural development than a single component like the Gita. But this is just a personal opinion. If anyone feels offended by my statements, I'm quite happy to state that I'm not a qualified historian so I might be completely wrong.

However, there is another point which I believe is a much more valid argument. Is the Gita the only important work of philosophy that originated in India? Of course not. There is the entire philosophy of early Buddhism that has not only had a profound effect on India's cultural development (especially during the time of the Mauryas) but also on the histories of many other parts of the world. There are the agamas of Jain philosophy which are strictly followed even today. There is the Guru Granth Sahib. There are even texts or verses belonging to Atheist schools of thought (such as the Samkhya or the Carvaka). Some of these philosophies are not only different from the philosophy of the Gita but also have significant cultural influence that cannot be ignored. Why shouldn't these be taught in schools as well?

This brings me to my comment on teaching the Gita in schools. I am opposed to it. It is not because I have anything against the Gita nor is it because I believe it will be a bad influence on the children. I am opposed to it because I don't see this as a "should-we-shouldn't-we" issue. I see it as a "how-exactly-is-it-going-to-be-taught" issue. I don't mind if students are taught about the historical importance of the Gita as a religious text and the role it played in the development of the Hindu religion in India. I also don't have a problem if the Gita is presented to students as an important Indian text that forms a part of the country's cultural heritage (because believe me, it does). But it should not be taught as a separate subject, with each syllable being recited by a teacher and each verse being explained in class.

Why not? Firstly, because I consider such a manner of teaching to be an imposition of a certain way of life onto the students. That violates what I believe to be a fundamental human freedom. Secondly, because it's not so important that you need to turn it into an entire school subject. That's right. It's not so important as to be made compulsory. If you think it's important for children to learn the Gita, I can also argue that it's important for them to learn the Upanishads, the Vedas, Buddhist sutras and the Guru Grant Sahib. Even if you argue that only religions that originated in India are part of Indian culture, then these texts are as important as the Gita.

But I won't even go that far. I can simply argue that there are far more important things for a student to learn in schools these days.For instance, I would it consider it more fruitful if children were taught the meaning and implications of some of our Fundamental Rights. It would much better if children came out of school knowing how to deal with natural disasters or terrorist attacks. It would definitely be beneficial if schools allowed them to do some social service or volunteer work in their localities. Let's not waste the resources we have in teaching them a text which is not as important as some other things in life.

Additionally, I do not see this as a move to "promote Indian culture". It's my personal belief that this is simply an agenda by certain politicians to impose their own views on society and frankly, I find it disgusting. Indeed, I find it disgusting that politicians at a state level still get to decide what is taught to children in schools. Such issues ought to be sorted between parents and schools or at the most, by a locally elected representative - NOT a State Government Minister. It is time we realized that education ought to taken out of the hands of ministers and given over to either the private markets or to local communities. Otherwise, we will constantly find ourselves trying to fight the prejudiced opinions of a few powerful individuals every time we want our children to learn something new.

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PS - There are other, far more valid arguments that can be made against the teaching of the Gita (or any religious text) in state funded schools. I did not focus on these points because I think everyone else is making them. Anyway, here is a simple one from the Times of India which I am fully in agreement with.

Sobering Up the Growth Story

2011-07-06T01:42:00.001+05:30

A few years ago, I had attended a talk in Mumbai about India's rising economic status and it's quest to become a global economic force. The mood back then was upbeat. Those were the days before the onset of the recession in America and more importantly, before the infamous crash of the SENSEX from the gravity-defying heights of 20,000. The speakers were highly optimistic of the Indian Growth Story and statistics were tossed around the room like chocolates to be devoured by us eager children. One of the most frequently cited pieces of data came from the 2003 Goldman Sachs Report on the BRIC nations which has now achieved something of a cult status. The report predicted that given high growth rates, India (along with Brazil, Russia China, Japan and the US) would be among the six biggest economies in the world by 2050. This is arguably one of the most famous predictions regarding India made in recent times. The Goldman Sachs report led to the popularization of the BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) concept, dozens of articles on the emergence of Asian superpowers and millions of opinions regarding India's status as a rising nation.

Mind you, I don't entirely disagree with these notions but even back then, I couldn't help pointing out one thing (to anyone who would listen that is - a notoriously small number). The Goldman Sachs prediction (as well as any other similar claim) was based upon one important assumption - "Given current growth rates". The implication here is that if India's growth rates were to ever falter on a long-term basis, the prophecy will not be fulfilled. Now, a faltering growth rate is not so much of a problem if you're considering a time frame of say, the next seven or eight years. If a country's GDP has been growing at the rate of 5% a year for the past three years, you may safely assume the trend will continue for at least some time into the future (there are problems with this assumption too but let that be). However, predictions based on statistical extrapolation become extremely tricky when you consider them over a much longer time-frame, particularly if you're looking at twenty, thirty or fifty years. There is even a concept in Financial Economics that describes this phenomenon - the further back in time the occurrence of an event, the lesser will its impact be upon present conditions. Longer time periods often bring in a variety of factors that may be unaccounted for while making a prediction, thereby drastically altering the course of history.

I am not saying the guys at Goldman Sachs did a bad job. I'm sure their statistical skills are much better than mine and for all I know, their prediction may be completely accurate. Nevertheless, their statement about India making it big by 2050 depends, at the very least, on how well we can sustain our growth rates and believe me, maintaining growth rates at over 7% a year for even fifteen years is difficult, let alone fifty. Anyone who doesn't agree has to just consider the example of Japan in the 1990s. Also, let us not forget that GDP alone doesn't ensure progress. A lot depends upon how we structure our private and public institutions, how we handle governance and what sort of environment we create for entrepreneurs and businessmen. GDP is at best, an estimate of our potential for a developed society, rather than a measure of actual development.

All this, of course, did not matter to an enthusiastic India, ecstatic about being recognized as a potential world power. In the middle of our romping celebrations, we forgot the caveats included in the predictions and began to accept our growth rates as inevitable. The only ones who seemed skeptical were the leftist wings of academia. Unfortunately, they took the opposite stand and tried to persuade us that all of this was an illusion. Few seemed to understand that the truth was somewhere in between and the best attitude to adopt was one of cautious optimism.

Our first big shock came with the notorious stock market crash of 2007-08 when the SENSEX, having reached the dizzy heights of 20,000 odd, plummeted like Icarus did in Greek mythology. The months before were dominated by a weird craze where every Amar, Akbar and Anthony clawed and fought with one another to put their money into hot stocks and huge IPOs. Most of the experienced traders probably knew what they were doing but there was no doubt that many of the newcomers had no damn clue. This cluelessness even permeated to those you normally wouldn't expect to go crazy. Two months before the crash, a bank manager confidently told me to invest in some specific stocks rather than fixed deposits stating that "these stocks will never go down, even if the rest of the market tanks". Funnily, twelve of these twenty stocks went down so badly that they took a good four or five years before they reached their earlier levels.

Before long, problems began to creep into other, more fundamental components of the economy. Affected with liquidity crunches and recession in the United States, Indian companies were finding themselves bereft of funding from abroad. Public Sector Banks were ordered to fill in this gap and the Indian government released stimulus packages to relieve the tension. Thankfully, India was in a somewhat better position than most other countries and began to recover quickly. However, problems such as high inflation (I recall inflation rates touching 14%) began to arise at the same time. This caused devastation in some sectors - particularly small, local economies. I remember a small-scale restaurant near my college eliminating half the items on their menu, retaining just one waiter and closing down an hour earlier than usual because costs were too high. Nevertheless, India still seemed better off than most other countries and recovered faster too. Before long, we were more or less on the move again.

One would have thought such events would sober down our over-enthusiasm. Instead, they had the opposite effect. Pointing out our "resilience", the media went ballistic once more. The talk now began to concentrate on the decline of the United States as a global power and the gap left on the world stage - soon to be filled in by India and China. Once again, our rise was accepted as 'inevitable' and that 'sooner or later', the world will pay attention to India again. The biggest problem was that these statements were not exactly false but exaggerated. India was (and still is) a relatively important country, both economically and politically, but we had a long way to go before we could begin to talk of replacing the United States or even competing with China on an economic front. We still have a long way today.

The second series of shocks however, have been much more potent and funnily, had nothing much to do with our economy, at least nothing directly. The first issue that cropped up was the Maoist insurgency. For the first time in quite a few years, the media began to talk of a direct threat to our long-run economic well-being. However, most people (excluding the perceptive few who always exist) failed to make connections between our economic growth and the increasing Maoist opposition. I am no Arundhati Roy fan but I can't deny that there are some subtle but strong connections between the growth of our manufacturing industries and the growing number of reported conflicts related to displacement, land-acquisition and human rights violations. This doesn't mean we start baying for corporate blood but rather understand that high growth may impose heavy costs upon certain sections of society and solutions for these costs need to be found.

The biggest shocks however, started occurring last year and have continued occurring since. Much of these shocks such as corruption charges and embezzlement have strong political implications but their economic impact cannot be ignored either. The lack of strong effective governance has stalled any attempts at economic reform. The cabinet remains reluctant to propose several economic changes including changes to labour laws and further liberalization of the public sector (why it continues to prop up Air India remains a befuddling mystery) as well as to review and improve existing schemes. All this is negatively affecting the growth of our economy not to mention stalling investment from abroad. Few investors would want to put their money in a country where the government has no effective will-power to improve business environment. Add to this our persisting inflation woes (much of which is caused by fiscal deficit) and a possible slowdown is hardly surprising.

I'm not writing off the Indian growth story. Neither am I predicting a definite slowdown. What I am asking is for people is to take a few reality checks. First, high growth rates aren't inevitable. We need a continuous creation of capital and a vibrant entrepreneurial sector if we wish to persist with our growth story. This in fact, has been the biggest failure of our attempts to liberalize the Indian economy. All we are doing is encouraging the same old business groups to venture into areas previously held by the public sector without attempting to create an environment conducive to enterprise. Second, high growth rates aren't enough. A rapidly growing economy with the same old political and social structures will only result in inefficiencies such as corruption. We need to amend our governance mechanisms, decentralize the power structure of the administration and improve both transparency and accountability within the system. Finally, let's not, in the rush to be the greatest in the world, forget the fundamental objective of a good society - to provide each of its members with the political, economic and social freedom to lead their lives as they see fit. If a society can provide this much to each of its members, it's already Number One according to me. GDP be damned.

Image Courtesy: picturesindia.com

The Sankey Road Incident and What We Can Do About It

2011-07-01T16:36:00.005+05:30

The Issue

For the last few days, there has been a violent storm brewing in the teacup that I call my neighbourhood. Many of the residents of Malleswaram in Bangalore have been up in arms over the decision by the City Authority (the BBMP) to widen one of the roads in the area called Sankey Road (official name: T Chowdiah Road). Sankey Road is a fairly important thoroughfare in this part of the city. Running along Sankey Tank, the locally well-known lake, it connects places such as the Indian Institute of Science and Malleswaram with locations as far off as Palace Grounds and Kaveri Junction. Unfortunately, the usefulness of this road has a downside - heavy traffic jams occur almost every day as commuters make their way to various parts of the city via this road. In order to tackle this problem, the BBMP decided to indulge in a spot of road widening to increase Sankey Road's capacity to handle traffic.

I have some objections to this proposed solution but before I elaborate, let me provide a brief account of what happened once the BBMP announced their move. The proposal to widen Sankey Road entailed the cutting down of several trees in the area and this immediately brought out angry reactions from environmental activists. It must be noted that tree-felling in Bangalore has become a regular feature thanks to a lack of space for implementing new infrastructure projects, particularly the Bangalore Metro Rail. Therefore, a large number of Bangaloreans have been steadily complaining about the fall in tree cover for which the city was once famous and every new tree-felling proposal is met with suspicion and hostility from at least some local residents.

Furthermore, Malleswaram and surrounding areas have been in the centre of quite a few controversies in the recent past. A few years back, the construction of an overpass at Malleswarm Circle resulted in copious tree-felling as did a recently started project at the IISc Junction. Additionally, a proposal in the recent past to construct luxury apartments on the edge of Sankey Tank was met with hostility as many felt it would result in encroachment of the surrounding park. Barely a month ago, authorities were forced to demolish a part of a well-known mall in the area constructed illegally on public land. Needless to say, all this has contributed to both suspicion and opposition to this latest move by the BBMP. Opponents contend that the reason for so many traffic jams on Sankey Road is due to poor road management and not due to a lack of carrying capacity. And of course, there are the usual rumours that all this is being done to benefit timber merchants who have probably made a lot of profits in the recent tree-felling spate.

The BBMP was supposed to hold an auction for the fallen trees day before yesterday but was forced to call it off after activists descended upon Sankey Road and physically prevented the trees from being cut. The auction that day was more or less a failure, with timber merchants backing out at the last minute due to activist pressure. However, the incident took a rather melodramatic turn last night when three of the trees were chopped down in the dead of the night. As of today, tempers are running high and both the authorities and the activists are refusing to back down. Several arrests have also been made.

What Now?

Is it really necessary to chop down these trees in order to bring about smoother traffic flows? I confess I don't know. Like many other long-time Bangalorean residents, I often complain about the city's vanishing tree cover. But then, I also complain about the horrendous traffic. Ideally, I would like a situation where I can move from Point A to Point B as smoothly as possible under the soft green cover of tall trees. Unfortunately, this may not always be possible and there may be times when one thing has to be sacrificed for another. It's basic economic decision-making.

However, regardless of how the Sankey Road incident turns out, the real questions we ought to be asking ourselves are firstly, who makes this decision and secondly, how do they go about it? The entire Sankey Road episode has been characterized by one big factor - the absolute refusal of the BBMP to listen to local residents. It is true that residents themselves are not always correct but this doesn't mean they have no right to voice their objections. There was practically no effort from the BBMP to engage with the local community or to inform them about their infrastructure projects let alone to invite suggestions or complaints. This is hardly a new phenomenon in India. Starting from the hugely controversial SEZs and going all the way down to the local slum rehabilitation projects, Indian citizens have witnessed their governments simply steam-roll their way to success, flattening every objection that comes their way, no matter how valid they are. Witness, for example, the idiotic and frankly disgusting decision to cut down trees in the middle of the night, when the activists weren't on watch. This attitude of the authorities is simply not conducive to a healthy democratic environment and needs to be addressed immediately.

BBMP authorities have argued that the road widening project is for the betterment of the citizens themselves and those objecting to it are simply mistaken. The Deputy Mayor went so far as to say that those who are raising objections are simply not qualified to understand the nuances of urban planning and such affairs are best left to the civil engineers and experts of the BBMP. He may be right but since when did the affairs of a democratic society become the exclusive domain of experts? Even if the engineers of BBMP are better qualified to make decisions in urban planning, they still have a duty, as public employees, to explain and justify their actions to those who have a stake. Furthermore, it is their duty to listen to the suggestions and objections of those who are affected by their decisions and take these into account during the planning process. Such duties are fundamental components of any public process and needs to be recognized as such by governments.

Issues like these are not exclusive to Bangalore or even to India. Check out this article from the right-wing American Thinker website and you will find eerie similarities between the Deputy Mayor's statement and that of engineer Kevin Lacy. Though I don't usually mix with right-wing arguments, I have to agree with the guys who raised objections to Lacy's attitude.

Any Suggestions?

Anyway, coming back to our issue over here, how do we force authorities like the BBMP to listen to us? I argue that the best option we have right now is a full and complete implementation of the Community Participation Bill which has been passed in a heavily censored format by the Karnataka Government. We need greater public participation at the local level (something that I have been arguing for in my previous posts) and more importantly, greater political power to local Area Sabhas and Ward Committees. If we can make our corporators accountable to us rather than some superior in Vidhan Soudha or the Corporation Offices, we can at least ensure ourselves some degree of say in what happens to our communities. Additionally, we need greater transparency in the workings of the BBMP. It's a fine organization as far as city councils in India go but it can do with a lot of improvements.

On a side note, I have serious objections to road-widening projects. My observations in the past show that the effects of these projects are at best temporary and they seem to follow the old adage that "supply creates its own demand". A greater road capacity only seems to invite a larger number of vehicles on to that road and voila! Within a few months, we find ourselves back at square one. Additionally, there is one powerful but politically controversial weapon that the BBMP can employ but simply refuses to do so (for obvious reasons). Has it ever considered raising the taxes on petrol for private vehicles?

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PS - The Sankey Road issue is more than just about the trees. Reports indicate that any road widening in this area may result in a breach of the banks of the lake. Additionally, a school situated nearby claims that the road widening may result in the demolition of some of its buildings. As of now, however, the major issue seems to be about the felling of 19 trees in the area.

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UPDATE: Remember what I said about road widening only increasing traffic in the long run? Well, voila. Looks like some other people agree with me.

Image Courtesy: The Hindu, Bangalore City Edition, June 28 2011

A Lesson in Exchange Rate Economics for Baba Ramdev

2011-06-09T16:19:00.000+05:30

One of the many ridiculous proposals made by Baba Ramdev is to make the Indian Rupee equal the US Dollar in value (that is, to ensure that Re.1 can be exchanged for $1 on international markets). He makes a seemingly rational argument by accusing the Americans, the World Bank and the IMF of establishing a currency exchange rate system that benefits the West. He goes on to say that a cheap Rupee (currently, the Rupee is hovering around 45 per Dollar) allows Developed Nations to bleed India out of its best goods (which are exported) while selling goods to India at expensive import prices. He therefore argues that India should revise its exchange rate to somewhere between Rs. 7 to Re. 1 for every US Dollar. This will drastically reduce import prices, making petrol and other imports highly cheap, prompting economic growth.

A very suave and patriotic argument but there is a problem. Baba Ramdev seems to have absolutely no idea how foreign exchange markets work. The exchange rate of a Rupee vis a vis the Dollar cannot be arbitrarily reduced. We cannot just wake up one morning and say something like "Hmm...I think I'll set the exchange rate at 7 Rupees to a Dollar today" and wait for all our troubles to disappear. Think about it - if we could have done that, why do hundreds of finance students spend hours learning the intricacies of Foreign Exchange Management? Why do so many traders on the financial markets spend precious time keeping track of every movement in the Rupee-Dollar index? All the traders would have had to do is petition the Government to keep the exchange rate at a level that would benefit them. Why don't they do so?

The exchange rate of a country's currency vis a vis another country's currency is determined with certain principles in mind. The most fundamental principle is that the exchange rate should reflect the differences in prices of the same product in different countries *. For example, a pen sold in America may be valued differently from a pen sold in India. There could be a variety of reasons for this including product quality, product demand, costs, location, taxes and so on. Therefore, if an Indian and an American decide to switch pens with each other, they are not exactly exchanging the same product. There is a difference in price between the two products. As a result, when currency is brought into the picture, it is important to reflect these price differences in the exchange rate. If someone spends $1 on a pen in America and another person buys a pen in India for say Rs.10, the exchange rate should be set at Rs.10 for every $1 (assuming that pens are the only goods demanded in both countries). The argument can be expanded to include the price levels of all goods that are commonly sold in both countries and exchange rates therefore, are designed to reflect differences in price levels of a basket of goods.

Now, if the price of a good is quoted in Dollars in one country and in Rupees in the other, how does one compare prices between countries? This is not an easy answer for economists are deeply divided on the methodology. In the early 20th Century, most countries used something called the "Gold Standard". The principle underlying this method was that gold is the best representative for the value of a country's goods and products. This means that the price of a commodity could be stated in terms of gold quantities (how much gold is needed to purchase a certain amount of goods). The differences in these gold-denominated prices between countries then became the exchange rate. Many economists (typically those who belong to Libertarian and Austrian Schools of Thought) argue that the Gold Standard is still the best way of determining exchange rates and the world should go back to such a methodology.

The problem with the Gold Standard is the overemphasis on a single commodity, gold, as the best representative of an economy's value. Apart from theoretical defects, this strategy also encouraged the hoarding and speculation of gold in order to increase international prices. Therefore, a few other systems were tried out in later years. A dominant methodology in the 1950s was the Bretton Woods System where every country fixed its currency as a certain pre-determined percentage of the US Dollar. The value of the US Dollar itself was dependent upon the price of gold. Any differences in exchange value of a country was settled through the buying and selling of the US Dollar. This strategy was not really all that different in theory from the Gold Standard but made significant differences in practice because it created a huge demand for gold in the United States and large demands for the US Dollar abroad. Effectively, the United States found itself producing currency notes for not just America but the rest of the world as well.

Ultimately, the demand for gold in America and for Dollars abroad became so huge that the United States began forcing other countries such as West Germany to stop purchasing gold and hold US Dollars instead. There also began the threat of "gold runs" - speculations in gold that sharply increased prices of the yellow metal. Finally, in 1971, the Bretton Woods system collapsed and there was a breakdown of international monetary management. However, the US did get several benefits during this period. The unique status of the US Dollar allowed the United States great flexibility in foreign policy as well as a huge trade surplus. It had the power to intervene in any global crisis and determine the manner in which it could conduct its operations. I strongly suspect that this was the time when perceptions of "western influence" and "American manipulation" began to first circulate among Developing Nations.

The collapse of the Bretton Woods system brought out a slew of different methodologies by which countries managed their exchange rates. Some countries opted for something called "Free Float" where exchange rates were simply determined by currency markets through demand and supply. Others fixed their exchange rates to prices of other currencies such as the US Dollar and (more recently) the Euro. However, most countries today (including India) have a system called "Managed Float" (also known as "dirty float") where the exchange rates are fixed in a certain bracket (such as Rs. 40 to Rs. 50 per $1). The country's Central Bank will intervene and manipulate the exchange rate only if the rate moves out of the bracket (for instance, if market forces drive the exchange rate down to Rs. 35 or up to Rs. 55).

But wait, didn't I say that we can't arbitrarily fix exchange rates? So how are these brackets fixed by the Reserve Bank? Well, in order to manipulate the exchange rate, the RBI maintains huge reserves of gold, US Dollars and other currencies. Let us say the exchange rate is driven down to Rs. 39 per $1 by the markets. Then, if the bracket is set at [Rs. 40 - Rs. 50], the RBI will start releasing some of its US Dollar reserves into the market in exchange for Rupees. In other words, it starts buying Rupees from the market in exchange for Dollars. This reduces the price of the US Dollar (due to an increase in supply) and increases the price of the Rupee (due to a decrease in supply). The RBI will continue doing this until the exchange rate is safely above Rs. 40. Similarly, if the rate is driven up to Rs. 51, the RBI will start releasing more Rupees into the system to increase supply and bring down prices.

Why does it do this? The exchange rate has important implications for exports and imports in a country. Typically, export firms in India (such as Textile exporters) have very low profit margins and a slight change in exchange rates can have a severe impact on their profitability. If the exchange rate declines to say, Rs. 35, it means a decrease in prices of exports as well (For example, an Indian export costing $2 in America will now get converted into Rs. 70. Had the exchange rate been at Rs. 45, the same product would have sold for Rs. 90). Similarly, if the exchange rate goes up too high, import prices increase as well (A barrel of oil at $100 will cost Rs. 5000 at an exchange rate of Rs. 50 for $1. In contrast, the same barrel will cost Rs. 4500 if the exchange rate is Rs. 45). Since India's ratio of exports to imports is nearly 50:50, there is a need to pay attention to both sides of the coin. Therefore, the RBI tries to ensure that the exchange rate is neither too high (affecting imports) nor too low (affecting exports).

This is why Baba Ramdev's proposal is so ridiculous. Firstly, reducing the exchange rate to Rs. 7 or lower is not a matter of national pride; it will only result in a collapse of our export industry. Secondly, reducing the exchange rate to such drastic amounts cannot done whimsically. It will require humongous reserves of gold and US Dollars which need to be released into the currency markets. Moreover, equally large reserves are required to maintain the exchange rate at such a level. Where will we get these reserves from? Even if we do have such reserves, why should we waste them completely on exchange rate manipulation?

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* This is a very simple, non-technical way of putting it. Formally, the exchange rate is determined with the help of concepts such as The Law of One Price and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). The former states that if you ignore transportation costs, prices of a commodity will equalize across markets in the long-term. The latter concept states that a unit of currency should be able to buy the same quantity of commodities across markets. These two concepts can be used to prove that as long as purchasing power is the same in both countries, the real exchange rate will not change and the nominal exchange rate (which is normally what we mean by 'exchange rate') will reflect the price levels in those countries. For a more formal explanation of how this happens, you can refer to Economics: Principles & Applications by Gregory Mankiw (Chapter 31, Topic 4).

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PS - I was initially planning to write a sequel to my previous post but this was too tempting a topic to ignore. It's been a long time since I wrote anything on economics. My next post will be a continuation of the criticisms against the KDA's language development proposals.

Language, Language!

2011-06-08T14:27:00.021+05:30

I am usually careful when making comments about issues of language and linguistic cultures. Having been brought up in Bangalore which is quickly transforming itself into a linguistically hypersensitive city and having spent almost five years in Mumbai where such issues are fiercely debated, I have tried to keep my distance from these topics in order to avoid being dragged into lengthy, provocative debates which usually end in abuse or name-calling.

However, an article published in Bangalore Mirror yesterday couldn't stop me from seething with fury. Apparently, there is a state government body called the Karnataka Development Authority or KDA which has made a list of recommendations to be implemented in Karnataka in order to "preserve the Kannada language". Frankly, I didn't find a single recommendation in the article worthy of implementation. The recommendations included making non-Kannadigas residing in Karnataka pass a Kannada exam within one year of residence, directing telecom companies to use "Kannada software" (what the hell does that mean?) on their cell phones, seizing all palm scriptures in Kannada from private owners and bringing them under Government ownership and setting up online Kannada learning centres to "reach out to the tech population among non-Kannadigas".

All right, the last recommendation is not all that offensive if implemented in a fair manner but the rest of the provisions deserve to be tossed into the nearest paper shredder. Four years ago, when I had just begun blogging, I had written a post on policies regarding the promotion of language within a state. Back then, I was a lot more sympathetic to the cause of language promotion but even so, I had criticized several of the policies recommended by pro-Kannada organizations at that time. Times have changed and I am somewhat less amenable to linguistic policies that are biased in the favour of a particular language, especially those implemented at a state or national level.

Before I outline the reasons for my position, let me clarify who I linguistically consider myself to be. I was born and brought up in a household that speaks both Kannada and English at home and have formally studied both languages for twelve years. I never studied Hindi after Class 2 but have picked up the basics of the language and can now understand it perfectly (though I still have trouble speaking it). Furthermore, I've formally studied Sanskrit and spent one disastrous year in college attempting to learn French. So, strictly speaking, I consider myself a bilingual since I am fluent in English and Kannada.

Any linguist worth his salt will assert that language is an extremely complex phenomenon and it is difficult to define or classify a single language and differentiate it with respect to other languages. This is largely because a language is more of an event rather than a thing. It is always in flux, changing with every generation, being modified to suit the requirements of the present as opposed to those of the past. This process of change in a language's characteristics (particularly its vocabulary, less so with its grammar) is such a difficult thing to analyze that linguists still have debates over how the process actually occurs. Psycholinguist Steven Pinker (in his book The Language Instinct) asserts that characteristics of languages are modified by children of a new generation when they first begin to speak. Others argue that languages are culturally taught by parents to children and changes occur when the teaching process is not efficient. Whatever may be the reason, it is sufficient to say that it is difficult to differentiate between the development of an entirely new language and the regeneration of an old one.

Indeed, it is difficult to even differentiate between dialects. For instance, the English spoken by the Black community in America is considered to be a separate dialect (called African-American Vernacular English). At what point does a spoken tongue become so different from its root language that it turns into a separate tongue? More importantly, what differentiates a "dialect" from a "language"? This is an important question because it has direct implications on the policies recommended by the Karnataka Development Authority. Many linguists such as Steven Pinker and Max Weinreich say that differentiating between a language and a dialect is a bit misleading because (as Weinreich put it) "a language is nothing more than a dialect with an army and navy". In other words, a language is a language because it's popular while a dialect is a dialect because it's not widely spoken.

The reason I made this long argument in the previous two paragraphs is because the recommendations of the KDA are rooted in false perceptions and unjustified fears. The reason the KDA wants to promote Kannada through extreme measures such as making it compulsory for everyone is because it fears that Kannada is becoming an obsolete tongue and is under threat from languages such as English and Hindi. There may be some truth in this statement but the validity of this argument can be challenged by asking the KDA what exactly they mean when they say "Kannada".

Are they talking about the Kannada used in literary works such as Kavirajamarga and Kumara Vyasa's Karnata Bharatha Kathamanjari? Of course not, because these works are centuries old and no one speaks Kannada like that anymore. In that case, are they referring to the Kannada spoken, say a hundred years ago (such as the language used in Lakshman Gadagkar's Suryakantha)? Are they referring to the preservation of Kannada as spoken during the Navodaya period of Kannada literature? Or are they referring to the Kannada spoken by our parents' generation in the 1960s and 1970s? Each of these periods has a different style of speaking and writing and the preservation or promotion of one style will necessarily mean sacrificing other styles. Under such circumstances, what exactly is the KDA going to promote when it says it is going to promote the Kannada language?

Similar arguments can be made on a cross-sectional basis as well. Does the promotion of Kannada mean the promotion of Kannada as spoken in Bangalore or Mysore? Are the people of Mangalore and Karwar allowed to speak Kannada the way they want to, incorporating words from Tulu and Konkani? What about Kannada speakers in places such as Dharwad where the language is significantly different from the language spoken in South Karnataka? All these regions can be considered as Kannada-speaking regions but the language differs somewhat in every case. This is because each region has liberally mixed words from other languages, incorporated phrases from other tongues into their own vocabulary and developed their own brand of the Kannada language. Are these different styles "wrong"? Are they "bad" Kannada? Many linguists would object to such statements and would oppose any policy that seeks to impose a particular style of speaking or writing upon every region in Karnataka.

On the other hand, if there is nothing wrong with having different styles of Kannada in different regions, what is wrong about mixing English with Kannada, as they do in Bangalore? Why do so many conservative Bangaloreans object to "polluting" Kannada with English if they have no objection to say, mixing Kannada with Tulu terms and references? Is it because they consider English to be a "foreign" language? Look around you, it's been almost 65 years since an Englishman forced a Kannadiga to learn English. You were probably not even alive back then. So why not consider the Kannada spoken in Bangalore as a special brand in its own right?

In fact, Peter Colaco, an old time Bangalorean, argues just that in his book Peter Colaco's Bangalore. He argues that like English, Kannada has a great capacity to absorb new words from foreign languages and give them specific meanings. For instance, the English word coffee is now so well-integrated into Kannada as the word kaaphi (or kaapi) that it's hard to imagine it as a non-Kannada word. In fact, it is a Kannada word now, distinct and separate from its English origins. Similar arguments can be made for words such as saar (from Sir), udd-jest (from Adjust) and maaru-katte or maar-keyt (from Market). Laughable as it may be to purists, it's an incontrovertible fact that much of what is considered impure or bad Kannada can be simply recast as a separate dialect or at the very least, a different style of speaking the language especially because the grammatical structure of the spoken language has remained unchanged. The fact that much of the vocabulary has its basis in English or Hindi is of no significance because words between languages are exchanged all the time.

As a matter of fact, the strength of Kannada's grammatical structure is so pervasive that one can argue that English is being "corrupted" by Kannada. Talk to a typical Bangalorean in English and you will realize that much of what he says is conveyed in a grammatical format similar to that of Kannada. For example, the sentence "What you're doing, man?", which has amused (and bemused) many visitors, is grammatically very similar to its literal Kannada translation "Yeno maadtha ideya neenu?". If anything, arguments can be made that this so-called corruption is a two-way process, affecting both English and Kannada and if one observes this phenomenon carefully, one will realize that what we are witnessing is the evolution of both languages to suit the requirements of the present generation. The Bangalorean version of English will face as much flak from pompous purists of the English language as Bangalorean Kannada would face from Kannada purists. And yet, purists overrate their own importance because the version of the language that they consider "pure" would have been castigated as "impure" or "wrong" by older generations.

Anyone who understands these arguments will appreciate why I strongly object to draconian policies such as the ones recommended by the KDA. Promoting Kannada would necessarily entail promoting a specific brand of Kannada as "the correct" version of Kannada which in turn could lead to the stifling of a language's natural evolution. The Kannada that outsiders would be forced to learn (in order to pass that ridiculous exam) would probably have little in common with the everyday lingo being spoken on the streets. The promotion of Kannada software, whatever that may be, will have similar effects. So either our outsiders would discard the use of formal Kannada upon passing their exam (in which case, all we would have is a waste of time and money) or they will start speaking a brand of Kannada which would probably be at odds with local dialects. Finally, the perception that Kannada as a language is under threat (which forms the basis of all these policies) is not necessarily true. What may be at threat is a certain style, a certain vocabulary, which need not equate to the entire language itself.

As such, these are my arguments against the KDA's recommendations from a linguistic point of view. Other reasons, such as economic reasons, will be given in the next post.

Image Courtesy: http://www.ancientscripts.com/kannada.html

The Empty Shell of Governance

2011-06-06T14:45:00.005+05:30

So, it finally happened. All the news over the past ten months - starting with the Adarsh Housing Scandal and the Commonwealth Games fiasco, moving on to the A Raja debacle, the Nira Radia crisis, the Joint Probe conflict, the Jaitapur nuclear plant issue, the Anna Hazare campaign and now, the histrionics of Baba Ramdev - have all been crying out for a good, old-fashioned "masterji" response from the UPA government. Finally, after months and months, the government capitulated and brought out the policemen. This last move completes the image that the UPA has made for itself over the past year as a corrupt, inefficient, bumbling political outfit that maintains a hold over power through coercion, manipulation and outright brute force. Whatever sympathy or support was left for them after these days of scandal have finally vanished with the image of policemen at Ramlila grounds splashed across newspapers and TV channels yesterday.

However, the political drama being performed in Delhi is far from being a clear-cut issue where shamefaced ministers can be stained with black while protestors led by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev are hallowed with the golden light of pure nobility. As Sidin Vadukut drily observed on Twitter today, there is another UPA operating in Delhi at the moment - a United Pranayama & Anna. Anybody who has read my previous posts will know that I have little sympathy for this group of political actors or their demands (apart from the fact that I respect Anna Hazare's intention of addressing corruption). In fact, Baba Ramdev's list of demands are so ridiculously naive (death penalty for white-collar fraud? What next, death penalty for insider trading?) that I'm dismayed anyone took him seriously, much less four ministers of the Union Cabinet who went to personally meet him at Delhi airport. Such people ought to know better than to pander to idiotic demands. But I guess the Anna Hazare episode made them so jumpy that they did not want to dismiss anyone who decided to skip lunch for a cause. This is not only unfortunate but also dangerous. It has cast the UPA government as a genie that will grant wishes to anyone who obtains possession of its lamp. Such an image will only encourage further protests, hunger strikes and fasts for a variety of causes, many of which will have no political or economic credibility. It seems that someone in the government realized this at the last moment but decided to play the ruthless buffoon by sending riot police to Ramlila grounds.

These two sides of the same bad penny have caused such a whirlpool of news over the past few months that the bottom of the whole damn business is now completely invisible. When was the last time a real public or economic policy was discussed with fervour on news channels? When was the last time Parliament spent its sessions meaningfully debating the nuances of a proposed bill? Frankly, apart from a brief two days when oil companies raised petrol prices, there has been no real news about what's been happening in our economy or what new policies are being implemented for a long, long time. And yet, this is the time we should be employing in debates and discussions over many important issues. There is a new Food Security Bill being proposed, the Aadhar Identity Scheme is going to be implemented in Mysore and Hyderabad, the results of NREGA's effects upon rural economies (good and bad) are coming to light, the statistics of the Census have been published, the National Urban Renewal Mission needs to be revised and India's economic growth is showing signs of possible stagflation (a dangerous situation where high inflation is accompanied by slowing growth). What is the status on all these issues? What are the strategies being contemplated by Union and State governments? What are the positive and negative effects of these strategies? Are there any viable alternatives?

Nope. All these issues, which are far more important from a voter's perspective, have taken a backseat in light of all the fighting going on in the nation's political circles. News headlines have been completely dominated by men shouting slogans on stages or people holding press conferences in government offices. This is not to say that all this fighting is irrelevant. On the contrary, these events are throwing new questions to everyone in this country and the way we answer these questions will have a significant impact on India's future. Nevertheless, it is imperative to point out that all this slogan-shouting, police-beating and statement-making is being conducted over just one item - the power to make policies. However, it is not the power to make policy but what policy is implemented that will determine our future. At the moment, I am not even sure how much policy is being formulated or implemented by our government. The parliament's winter session was probably one of the most unproductive sessions in recent history thanks to all the drama over the Joint Probe into the Raja allegations. As a result, many bills which were up for approval in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha - important bills, where timing is significant - are now lying in a state of abeyance.

So much wastage could have been avoided if several political actors had just employed some common sense. The Congress could have quickly agreed to a JPC last winter and worked on distancing itself from A Raja. The BJP, instead of demanding resignations and parliamentary dissolutions every second day, could have instead worked on debating several bills thereby establishing an image for itself as a critical, concerned party, more interested in getting things done rather than coming into power (which is not a true image at all but this is what the BJP needs right now, to win the 2014 elections). The Congress could have simply taken a strong stand against Baba Ramdev by stating that his demands are unrealistic (and they were too - a well-publicized argument by the UPA could have garnered them some support) and let him continue his fast. Even the Anna Hazare camp was half-hearted about supporting Ramdev's movement until the police got involved on Saturday. Strong, sincere arguments by the government might have even resulted in them withdrawing support for Ramdev. The BJP would have done well to distance itself from Ramdev and start its own campaign against black money within parliament (a morally legitimate way for a political party to address the issue).

Unfortunately, none of these happened. I guess it just proves that our politicians are showing their true colours like never before. Both the UPA and the BJP are blatantly showcasing themselves as parties whose only goal is achievement of political power. They are not concerned that their current actions are resulting in the wastage of precious time and effort that could have been employed more productively. All we have is a party on one side resorting to anything to cling on to its last shreds of credibility and a party on another side trying to viciously hack away at those shreds while gaining no respect for itself. Surrounding these two is a mob of self-appointed activists intent on having their demands met, no matter what. Meanwhile the rest of the nation either looks on helplessly or does what it has done for decades now - pretend that all this is normal while hoping everything sorts itself out.

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PS - I wonder who decided to send in the police to break up Ramdev's campaign. Has Tahrir Square taught them nothing? This has only made Ramdev's movement stronger thanks to an outpouring of outrage at such extreme action. I foresee complications in the near future.

Image Courtesy: R.K. Laxman

What We Really Need to Be Campaigning For

2011-04-11T15:33:00.003+05:30

The basic problem with any mass movement is that large groups of people cannot make complicated decisions. As a result of this, the goals of any mass movement are usually quite simple, straightforward and can usually be expressed in one line. In Egypt, that one line was "Remove Hosni Mubarak!" and during the French Revolution it was "Down with aristocracy!" However, what is the one line that characterizes the Jan Lokpal Movement?

Most people would probably say it is "Remove Corruption" but I have to disagree. Removing corruption is not a simple goal nor is it straightforward in nature. It is not possible for a humungous group of people to descend upon Jantar Mantar, shout slogans over three days and eradicate corruption in the political system. No, the real slogan that characterized last week's protests was "Implement the Jan Lokpal Bill". True, this wasn't what Anna Hazare got in the end. What he did get was a 10-member committee to discuss the provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill which was fair enough. But I don't think this was what most of the people who enthusiastically supported the bill were looking for. I think that in their minds, they equated the implementation of the Jan Lokpal Bill with the eradication of corruption and therefore, what they were actually supporting was an outright implementation of the bill. The focus here is on the word Implement. Bring it into power. Convert it into law. This is yet another symptom of mass movement mentality – discussing the bill and its provisions would have been too difficult a goal. Huge protests cannot be centred around a discussion of the bill. Instead, most people chose to simply accept Anna Hazare's claim that the original Draft Bill's provisions were too diluted to be of any use and that his version of the bill was much better. Therefore, most of those who eagerly joined the movement ignored any attempts to examine the Jan Lokpal Bill and put their faith in one man's statement. Thankfully, Anna Hazare seems to be a committed patriotic man, unlikely to abuse the immense power that has been granted to him de facto. But there are two points to be noted here – firstly, just because Anna Hazare is a good man doesn't mean he won't make mistakes and secondly, aren't we as a people, essentially doing the same thing that we have been doing for decades now i.e. letting some symbolic leader do what we as citizens need to be doing on a constant basis?

For years now, the Great Indian Middle Class which dominates much of the media in this country has been content to stay out of politics. Educated, urbanized areas frequently report low voter turnouts during elections, most of us don't know the names of the local corporators and many probably have no idea about the functions of most government bodies. Additionally, we discourage people around us from involving themselves in governance and policy issues. Two years ago, when I got an opportunity to intern at the Ministry of Finance, many people – including people who I am extremely close to – were apprehensive, largely because I would be working with "corrupt, inefficient politicians". Apart from the fact they turned out to be wrong (I had quite a good experience but that's not the point of this article), such apprehensions are indicative of the middle class mentality towards politics or bureaucracy – avoid it by all costs otherwise you will die (or something similarly horrible will happen to you). This is NOT how a democracy is supposed to work. One of the reasons why western countries such as the United States have such vibrant democratic systems is because of local, grassroots-level involvement in politics. Many middle-class families involve themselves regularly in the local communities, often playing key roles in governance issues regarding their cities and neighbourhoods. The important point here is that this involvement is constant, not like in India where the most we do is turn up for elections once in five years (and even this doesn't happen often).

What has such involvement has got to with corruption, you may ask. My answer is – everything. While large-scale corruption such as the A. Raja Scandal are shocking and depressing, it is NOT the problem over which, we as common citizens should be too concerned (there should some concern but not as much as you think). The corruption that we as everyday residents in India should be addressing is the insidious corruption that haunts our daily lives. For instance, the guy at the local Police Station who refuses to sign our passport application unless we pay him a bribe. Or that dude at the RTO who wants us to slip him a little something before he hands us our driving license. Or the local corporator who agrees to sign a beloved public park over to a realty developer in return for a few bundles of bank notes. This is the sort of corruption that retards our existence in society and humiliates us on a regular basis. This is why local participation in governance is a must. These problems of corruption occur at a local level and needs to be tackled at the same place. The Lokpal doesn't deal with such cases of corruption. Even the state-level Lokayuktas will not be able to look into problems such as these and creating local-level anti-corruption bodies is a pointless waste of time and effort. The only solution is effective local governance which in turn, can only come about if there is enough participation from the public.

Local participation in governance suffers from two obstacles – public indifference and lack of institutions. But if the public, especially the self-involved middle class stops displaying indifference, the problem of institutions will begin to solve itself. For instance, enough public participation can create platforms that will allow us to engage with local corporators and bureaucrats on a daily basis. One well-discussed solution is the concept of an "Area Sabha", an urban equivalent to gram panchayats where the citizens can come together, discuss local issues and most importantly, exercise the power to govern themselves. Such a provision already exists in rural areas through the 73^rd Constitutional Amendment but it is urban areas that critically need such an institution. It is institutions like these that we need to be campaigning for, much more than the Lokpal. The Lokpal simply does what every political institution has been doing in this country for decades – transfer decision-making power to yet another "qualified person" while the general public can happily turn away from all the muck and pretend that everything is hunky-dory. Sooner or later, power-grabbers who feel stifled by the Lokpal's presence in the government will look for ways and means to infiltrate or destabilize that institution and believe me, they will succeed. After all, that is what they did to the CBI, the Vigilance Commissions and the state Lokayuktas. Why should the Lokpal be any different? Politicians go where the power lies. Therefore if you want them to come to you, ensure that you have the power.

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PS – Some people might be disturbed by my statement that scandals like the A. Raja Scam are not that important. Let me clarify. While such scandals are indeed shocking and should be addressed, I don't believe they act as an indicator of how corrupt our governance system is. Large scandals occur in every country, in practically every system of government simply because a concentration of power always has the ability to corrupt the one who wields it (much like the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings!). Also, public outrage is absolutely essential to addressing these scams when they come to light. Indeed, we have already seen evidence of this with the sacking of Raja, the forced resignation of Ashok Chavan and the arrests of Kalmadi's aides due to public pressure. But I don't think an additional organization like the Lokpal will be able to eradicate such large scale corruption any more effectively than existing bodies. We do have government agencies such as the Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) who do quite a good job in unearthing discrepancies and scams (for instance, the CAG played a crucial role in the 2G Telecom Affair). When such agencies do their job, the Government will take steps to address the issues, as long as there is public pressure upon them. This brings me back to my original point – we need effective platforms to engage with the Government.

PPS – As much as I admire Anna Hazare's commitment and dedication, I am quite surprised by the amount of power that has been granted to him within the 10-member committee. Not only does he get to choose half the members of this committee, he also made a statement today (as reported by the Times of India) stating that "there's no need for a special parliamentary session to introduce this bill". All this would have been fine except for the fact that I did not choose him as my representative. In fact, this is an illustration of what happens when law-makers aren't elected. People like me who have doubts about the bill lose their voice. There is no way I can show my support (or lack of support) for Anna Hazare except by writing blog posts. The power to vote may not be much but you can always hope to be a part of the process. Today, five people who are in no way accountable to either me or people elected by me are creating laws that affect me. That's a highly scary thought.

Image Courtesy: Salvatore Vuono
(freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=659)

A Hastily Written Piece on Anna Hazare and the Jan Lokpal Bill

2011-04-09T02:33:00.001+05:30

While I am in no way against the intentions of Anna Hazare and the Jan Lokpal Bill, I feel there are some serious questions that need to be asked with respect to this movement...while it is disheartening to see all the scams and controversies plaguing our central government, we must ask ourselves some things

(Please note: My reading of the Jan Lokpal Bill was based on this article on CNN IBN):

(1) Is it morally right to enforce the passing of a bill through a hunger strike? Even if the intentions are as appreciable as those of Anna Hazare?

Remember, this tactic can be later used by other parties to enforce the passing of less desirable bills into acts on the grounds that the Jan Lokpal Bill was enforced in the same way. Indeed, all of us have seen hunger strikes being used by all sorts of political and psuedo-political outfits to promote all sorts of causes. Can the government really discriminate between different protesters? I don't think they'll be allowed to.

(2) Are the provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill sound and effective?

I don't know how many supporters of the movement have actually read the bill but when I did so I found some provisions that I did not support. For instance, what is the rationale for Magsaysay Award winners, Nobel Laureates or Bharat Ratnas to be on the selection committee? Are we assuming all award winners to be free of corruption and incapable of being influenced by politicians? We're already seeing the Padma awards being granted to people who are of dubious merit. Aren't we creating incentives for politicians to corrupt the awarding of Bharat Ratnas as well? What other provisions are there that are capable of being manipulated or misused?

(3) There is another anti-corruption bill called the Lokayukta bill which calls for the formation of a similar body, the Lokayukta at the state level.

What will be the relationship between the Lokpal and the Lokayukta? Will there be conflicts of interest? How much independence will Lokayuktas have? Or should they amalgamated? Is that a good thing to do?

(4) Most importantly, who constitutes civil society which will be the foundation of the Lokpal agency?

NGOs? Activists? Anyone who is not a politician or a bureaucrat? Is the selection procedure effective? Is it wise to make the chairman of the Lokpal accountable only to the President? Are we or are we not concentrating too much power in the hands of one agency? Are the people who are selected institutionally rendered immune from political influence or bureaucratic hurdles?

Anna Hazare himself has emphasized the need to discuss the provisions of this bill but a large number of his supporters seem to think that any discussion will only lead to further bureaucratic delays.Therefore, they are pressing for a speedy implementation. While their argument has merit, I don't think we should simply enforce the implementation without a proper public debate. Yes, the bill has been pending for 42 years in Parliament but how many of us knew about it until now? Yes, politicians are going to create diluted versions of the bill but does that mean we shouldn't talk about it? At the very least, let concerns about the bill be transmitted to those people who will take part in the ultimate debate - people like Anna Hazare, the Members of Parliament and the Cabinet Ministers.

In order to do that, we must start talking (as distasteful as it sounds, talking is sometimes more effective than merely doing). A public debate is needed right now. Unfortunately, most people either don't care to debate or they don't want to debate. The real issue is that we, the so-called citizens, are the ones who have kept quiet for 42 years. No one asked us to agitate or start a protest. All that was required of us was to have informed opinions and make sure these opinions were heard. Create platforms where we can discuss these issues. Build forums where our opinions can be transmitted to at least some one who is in power - even if it is just a local corporator. But we have consistently refused to do so, preferring to let hooligans and criminals put words into our mouths, speak on our behalf and make our political decisions for us.

At least now, when politicians are being forced to listen to "the people" (I'm not sure who exactly constitute "the people" but let it be for now), let us not throw away the chance to put forth our own opinions about the matter at hand. Let discussions and debates about the bill take place in every public medium - from newspapers, television channels and facebook right down to simple conversations on the street. Don't simply push for the bill to be implemented. Allow for a consensus to emerge. Yes, it will lead to confusion and doubt. It may allow for politicians to manipulate our opinions. But we can't constantly ask people like Hazare to make dramatic gestures on our behalf. We need to think for ourselves. Not just about the Jan Lokpal Bill but about every major policy being implemented by governments at centre and state. And we need to find ways of communicating our opinions to those in charge. Right now, we have a way. Citizens today are waiting to hear what other citizens have to say about the Jan Lokpal Bill. Let us, at the very least, start with that.

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PS - I must emphasize again that I don't oppose Anna Hazare's goal of addressing the issue of corruption. I am glad someone has had the courage to take up this issue and I support him entirely in this regard. But that doesn't change the fact that I have reservations about the bill, its provisions and the manner in which it is being enforced.Therefore, until these reservations are sorted out, I will refrain from wholeheartedly supporting the campaign though I will continue to respect its intentions.

Two Myths About Quizzing

2011-04-07T04:00:00.002+05:30

There's a massive campaign going on facebook right now that is getting a certain sub-culture highly excited. I am talking of the facebook campaign to "Bring BQC Back". For those of you who were sad or loser enough to have not paid attention to your television screens in the 1990s, "BQC" refers to the Bournvita Quiz Contest which used to run every Sunday on Zee TV and was hugely popular with both kids and adults. Hosted by Derek O'Brien, it can credibly claim to have single-handedly spawned a successful quizzing movement in India and allowed for a slew of other quiz shows to be aired in the country including the more serious Mastermind India, The sports-centric ESPN School Quiz Olympiad, University Challenge India and of course, Kaun Banega Crorepati (which to me marks the demise of serious quizzing on television).

Now, the campaign to bring BQC back on TV has started to gather a lot of steam with more than 1.3 lakh supporters and a number of innovative advertisements (many of which feature Jay Leno style questions asked to clueless people on the street with the caption reading "They grew up without BQC"). Even Derek O'Brien & Associates sat up and expressed interest in reviving the show. Though it has been quite a few years since I took part in a proper quiz, I remain an enthusiastic supporter of the campaign and am looking forward to having something to do on sundays again. However, many of the people who are supporting this campaign seem to have certain perceptions about quizzing which I think are plain wrong. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course but after having seen these perceptions come to light again and again, I think I need to point out two myths that are quite prevalent among campaign supporters. Indeed, I find these myths to be prevalent even among laypersons which is probabably why quizzing is considered to be such a nerd sport and not much fun by many people.

The first myth is the perception that questions in a quiz are a test of how much you know. This is one of the biggest mistakes that quiz enthusiasts make and I have seen supporters of the BBQCB campaign do the same. A quiz (at least according to me), shouldn't be a test of merely how much you know. Do you know what that leads to? An activity that all students in this country are quite familiar with - rattafication (aka mugging aka blindly accumulating meaningless information). A good quiz question shouldn't really test the extent of your knowledge. Instead, it should allow you to utilize your exisiting knowledge to make a meaningful guesstimate of the answer.

For example, there was this brilliant question in Mastermind India (I forget which year) which went as follows

"Which war began on June 5th 1967 and ended on June 11th 1967?"

Now, unless you happen to be a serious enthusiast of modern middle eastern history, there's no way in hell you're going to get the answer by mugging up information from books (especially general knowledge books which don't provide such exquisitely specific information). But anyone with a brain can take one look at this question and guess the answer. The dates provided in the question are just six days apart. Wars aren't usually that short. And historically, wars with unusual time periods have been named after the time it took to get completed (The Hundred Years War for example - though of course, it officially lasted more than a hundred years...but never mind that). So it's a good bet that whatever war this is, it's quite likely to be named something like the "Six-Day War" which is exactly what it is.

The trick here is that the question is asked at a point when the participant is under stress, usually due to time constraints. This gives you very little time to think and that is why anyone who guesses the answer deserves to be applauded. Now isn't this a much better way of quizzing as compared to testing how much you remember from your mugging up of quiz books?

Here's another question which I was asked at a quiz in Delhi in 2006:

"What is the name of the music group that toured with Bob Dylan and served as his supporting band from September 1965 to May 1966 which was the time period when Dylan shifted from folk music to rock ?"

Now, this is a much tougher question than the one about the six day war and requires a bit of thinking (unless of course, you are really really into Bob Dylan and memorized his biography). No general mugging can help you here. There may be different ways of approaching the answer to this problem but here's how I figured it out.

I knew that this was an incredibly detailed question with an incredibly specific answer. So either the quizmaster expected me to know the history of 1960s rock n roll back-to-back or there is something about the answer that is painfully obvious - so obvious that it stares you in the face. This means that the band in question was either very well known or had some other peculiar quality that made it stand out. Which one was it? I ran the famous names of the 1960s through my mind - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks...none of these fit because I didn't think they would serve as Dylan's supporting band especially if the tour had started out with a folk music theme. So was it a band that became famous later? Not Led Zeppelin, they didn't exist in 1965. Pink Floyd's music didn't fit with Dylan's. Besides, it was much more likely to be an American band. The Doors? Perhaps but still didn't seem right.

That left me with the other possibility - the band in question had some peculiar quality that made it stand out. After making a number of guesses (thankfully, it was a timed round and not a single-answer round), I vaguely remembered this American group that I'd read about in an article years ago and I also remembered that Bob Dylan's name had cropped up in that article. And there was something peculiar about them - their name. They were simply called "The Band". I took a guess and...I was right. I still consider that my best quizzing moment ever. Mind you, answering this question would have been impossible if it hadn't been for the fact that I read a lot. Knowledge of a subject does matter but that's not the only requirement to be a good quizzer. You must be able to utilize the knowledge you have to connect the dots and figure it out. A person who merely memorizes facts will be unable to answer such questions and it is such questions that make quizzing fun.

The sad part is that a lot of people (I am not saying all) in the Bring BQC Back campaign don't get it. Some of the questions that have been put forth on their facebook page reflect this. For instance, one question went "What does CDMA stand for?".What exactly are you doing here? You're not really testing anything. You're not giving the participant an opportunity to excercise his or her intellect. And most importantly, you're creating a clear bias in favour of those participants who are involved with the telecom industry. Such biases always exist, but questions need to be designed in a way that reduces these biases. "What does CDMA stand for?" provides no such opportunity. Thankfully, the number of such questions in the Bring BQC Back page seem to be reducing and of late, some really good questions have been put up.

Another myth that seems to be prevalent is the idea that there can be only one answer to a question. This is simply not true. This misconception sometimes creates huge conflicts and allows quizmasters to get away with poorly designed questions. For instance, there was this question "Which is the top advertising agency in India?" put up on the BBQCB page. The person who asked this question was good enough to provide a clue ("They designed vodafone's zoozoo ads") but without the clue, the entire question becomes meaningless. What do you mean by "top" agency? Are you talking in terms of revenues, popularity, no of ads designed, no of clients or no of awards won for ad designing? Depending on the criterion, the answer may vary (The answer is Ogilvy & Mather by the way). I've seen this happen at many quiz competitions where the quizmaster has one answer, the participants have another and both answers happen to be right! A lot of organizers get away with this by claiming the quizmaster's decision as final but that doesn't really change facts does it? You need to get the design right and you're not going to do it by just bundling lines from the CIA World Factbook into interrogative sentences.

Another flawed question on the BBQCB page went "Which is the only city that is located across two continents?". Admittedly, I got this wrong - I thought it was Panama City but Panama City is apparently located firmly in South America. However, the correct answer (Istanbul) is not the only one! A little bit of digging on my part (I was determined to prove Panama City as a valid answer) showed me that Cannakkale in Turkey (famous for being near the site of Ancient Troy) is also spread across European and Asian soil. True, Cannakkale is not as famous as Istanbul but it is technically a valid answer. It would have probably been simpler to frame the question without the word 'only'. This way, you will at least avoid the embarrassment of having framed a bad question

What I am essentially trying to say is that quizzing in India still doesn't seem to pay much attention to the manner in which questions are designed. The BBQCB Campaign is an amazing one, promising to become the first successful large-scale campaign in India conducted solely through facebook and the quizzing culture in India remains hugely popular in schools and colleges across the country. However, myths about quizzing being essentially a dweeby excercise in mugging facts continues to prevail both amongst quizzers and laypeople. A large part of the blame can be attached to the manner in which quizzes are conducted and questions are asked. If questions can be only be designed in a better manner, quizzing can be a lot of fun for both participants and audience. Here's me wishing the BBQCB Campaign all the very best. Next stop, bring back Mastermind India!

Dear Government...

2011-03-10T00:11:00.002+05:30

Dear Government*,

It has come to my notice that you recently decided to modify the Indian IT Act and redefine the position of "intermediaries" (those who provide web-hosting services). However, I am highly puzzled as to why you have chosen to include blogs under t his category.

Mind you, the Economic Times article where I obtained my information from doesn't specify whether the term "blogs" refer to hosting services such as Blogger or Wordpress or the actual blogs themselves (like Check This Out). If your policy deals with the former, let me politely point out that hosting services ought not to be treated like newspapers or TV Channels but like telephone companies. The managers of such services cannot be held responsible for the content of the blogs they host just as telephone companies cannot be held responsible for the content of all telephone conversations that take place within their networks - there is just too much information to monitor.

If, however, by "blogs" you refer to the individual blogs themselves, I must protest even more. There is simply no logic or rationale to this because these blogs are personal accounts by individual people or at the most, a group of people who informally collaborate with each other. If you choose to classify them as "intermediaries", you are placing them under the same category as cyber cafes and internet service providers. I hope you see the complete and utter redundancy of such a step. If you do not, I will be forced to conclude that you simply lack the legal expertise to initiate such policies. In other words, step down.

Legalities aside, I must also ask you a simple question - why do you wish to regulate blogs in the first place? The ET article mentions a long list of appellations starting with 'harmful' and ending with 'related to money-laundering or gambling' that you do not wish to see associated with information on blogs. Additionally, the article seems to imply that the government will take an active role in removing any such information. Apart from the sheer waste of time, money and effort that such an exercise will demand, I must respectfully point out that the Government has really no role in such activities. If someone is insulted or offended by online articles, I am sure such people are smart enough to sue bloggers in court on their own. Heaven knows, we've seen enough plaints already and I am certain we do not need the Government interfering in such matters as an active third party.

Where we do need the Government is in situations which go out of hand. For example, when a local thug gets 'insulted' by some comment on a blog and decides to avenge himself by indulging in violence against the blogger. Or if a political outfit decides to take umbrage at some online criticism and reacts by breaking windows of office buildings. Government intervention is needed to ensure that people stick to legal channels to sort out differences, not to ensure that such differences are never brought to light. Freedom of Speech may have reasonable restrictions in India but I hardly consider your vague statements in the IT Act reasonable. I hope you appreciate that.

This country has far more pressing problems than the regulation of one corner of the internet. One of your officials has stated that the Government is open to suggestions to improve the Act and I thank you for that. I hope you take note of the points I have made and act accordingly. The blogosphere is an area which has allowed individuals such as myself to state our views openly without resorting to middlemen such as newspapers. In a country which aims to be a Republic "of the people", this is an important activity (regardless of how many redundant blogs there are out there). Please preserve it.

Sincerely,

PS - You have mentioned that you are open to suggestions. Exactly where do we send these suggestions?

*By which I mean whoever is in charge...everything is so confusing right now that I have no clue who I am supposed to be addressing this to.

Do You Agree or Disagree?

2011-02-10T00:11:00.000+05:30

[A good friend of mine recently told me to look this document up and I did. I am not sure if I agree or disagree with the arguments made in it or even if I understand it completely at all. But I believe it gives you plenty of food for thought, if you're the sort who is into these things. Take a look.]

THE WELTANSCHAUUNG DOCUMENT

We need a redefinition of every concept. After all it is all so subjective. —and all in history, the powerful and the victor has suppressed truth to their ability and suiting to their purpose—. Over the years there is a lot of concept which has been handed down - which are in all its fundamental reality not true, but has been regarded right by the masses due to the imposition of the idea; though false; by the power and supreme. But Human Evolution has reached a stage where we need to redefine every concept to its core. We have reached if you take human evolution as a whole, — in its time and space — the third stage in evolution in its over all analysis of human evolution; the stage of ‘synthesis’; in the dialectical terminology —. The ‘thesis’ — ‘antithesis’ — ‘synthesis’-.

The space of human evolutionary concept is now at the overture of the synthesis, to replace the relatively technical phase of evolution of the last 10,000 to 5,000 years of Human progression; and the relatively subjective phase of evolution – till the ice age —. Therefore we have reached the last stage of human evolution towards optimalism — and modern music (and Generative sciences) is a prelude to the last stage. But the last stage does not mean the end of human evolution — for optimalism in itself need a complete redefinition and evolution after the stage is reached, in the point of its merger with time and space. Moreover the last stage or the last chapter could be as long as the other two chapters combined. We therefore need in the prelude to transcend or more rightly in its relative meaning; redefine the metaphysical term and ideas of the conventional, language oriented concept of the eternal ideas of time and space; — and the relative idea of reality, and reshape reality in all its essence —. And look at the redefinition of culture, for culture is the spoken and written alphabetical language in its manifested form. That culture, or in other words language was the tool of Human progression in its second stage.

That each thing in its relative time and space is valuable and essential and indispensable. But no longer holds true after the span of its existence is exhausted. That culture or language should no longer be the ultimate force of Human existence and this needs to be replaced in the final and greatest entirety through the existence; through and in; the time and space. That modern music and (generative sciences) is simply this; an integral idea that culture itself has given rise to in order to serve as the inevitable intermezzo towards the progression through the last chapter. That the only feasible way to replace an existing thought or movement is given rise by itself; which has its foundation in the existing movement. That culture is a great thing which has outlived its time and space; and hence the continuation of it would be illogical and would lead towards its being hypocritical. Or in other words the prolonging of language as the most essential tool of existence is no longer necessary and the further prolongation of whose capability outside its given time would lead to its non existence in the negative sense.

That truth is so relative and broad so as to not to be able to be inscribed with the tool of language. Because we need to develop new forms of modes of expression to express new or modern ideas, and give old forms of communication its respective place to communicate old ideas. Or else it would lead to a problem less problem.

And that the modes of expression or communication or the grammar set thousands of years ago to communicate the then radical ideas can no longer be used as the modes of expression to express the new fundamentally radical thoughts. That morality no longer holds true; not for not being relatively true, but because it is over the ages become a product, no longer right to its prescription; but in its decadence, a code in all; — biased —. That the realization of every individual being free and having right to live and love in liberty is shrouded by the pro bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie by the skillful use of the alphabetical language. That individual rights no longer lives, and the state of the right of the fundamental right of the fundamental being, ‘the child’, is, in all jeopardy. That, there can be no free thinking, without the realization, of the emotions and ideas, of a child and its rights.

------------

A. C. Robin J

A Lesson from Egypt?

2011-02-03T01:37:00.009+05:30

Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, has been engulfed in mass protests over the last month. The intensity of these riots has been so great that it has finally brought the regime of President Hosni Mubarak (who ruled the country for almost thirty years) to a probable end (I say probable because it's quite possible for him to make some sort of comeback). Yesterday, he announced that he would not run for re-election and would leave his office by September.

There may be a lesson in the Egyptian protests for countries across the globe, India included. Admittedly, the political scenario in Egypt seems very different from that of India. The people of Egypt are protesting against a military dictator who has ruled the nation for almost three decades whereas India has a working (albeit arthritic) democracy. The political circles of Egypt are dominated heavily by the military while civilian rule continues to remain paramount in India. Nevertheless, the first emotion I felt upon seeing those protestors in the streets of Cairo was empathy. Regardless of whether I approve or disapprove of what they are doing (I remain extremely sceptical about street protests as a means of change), I do believe I understand, to some extent, the emotion that is driving these protests. This is because we Indians have encountered the same emotion here on innumerable occasions. It is the feeling of frustration. There is no denying the fact that frustration – with the system, the administration and above all, the politicians – is something that practically every Indian citizen is familiar with and it seems to be a similar frustration that is sending men and women out of their houses in Egypt.

There are many who are rejoicing at this show of gallantry against military oppression and I don't blame them. While the looting and carnage is dismaying, it is certainly refreshing to see a mass movement that sprung up more or less on its own without the catalyst of prominent leaders. It gives us hope that "the voice of the people" is something more than just a celluloid dream. Even if this movement somehow dies down or is suppressed in the near future, it is a story worth recounting and many dissidents across the globe will probably hope to emulate it successfully. Nevertheless, I feel I must ask a question that has been nagging me for some time – do we want this to be emulated?

This is no hypothetical question. As I mentioned above, even in India, the feeling of frustration with the establishment is very real and it is quite conceivable that such protests may one day erupt here too. Perhaps not today, perhaps not this year, maybe not even this decade, but if something is not done to ameliorate this discontent, our political leaders, just like Mubarak, may one day have their hands full of protests. Indeed, one can argue that this process has already been going on for a long time in many parts of the country. The Maoist insurgency in the Red Corridor, the stone-pelting incidents in Kashmir, the numerous protests in the North-East can all be counted as examples of such protests. However, a large proportion of Indian citizens still continue to oppose these movements or at the very least, treat them with disapproval and this has allowed the political establishment some leeway in dealing with these movements. But imagine what would happen if one day, the middle-class citizens of this country, the so-called 'aam aadmi' decides to vent its frustration by pouring out onto the streets of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

A laughable idea perhaps but given what is happening in Egypt, not entirely impossible. We even saw traces of such an event during the 26/11 attacks when public anger was directed not so much at the terrorists as it was against the politicians. If our easy-going citizenry with their "chalta hai" and "swalpa adjust maadi" attitudes ever decide that enough is enough, our politicians can say bye-bye to any hopes of staying in office. But what would be really disturbing is if public anger is directed not at a politician or a party but at the system itself. Indeed, it is easy enough for someone in say, Bangalore, to feel disillusioned with the current political system which, in the past seven years, yielded three state governments that were more useless than useful. Similar predicaments exist in many other states and even the centre is not free from public ire after the forty billion scams that were unearthed in the past few months. However, if one tries to take on the current system through mass protests and outpourings of anger, all that might happen is the creation of a vacuum where nothing seems to work. This is the basic problem with any sort of revolution, peaceful or otherwise. Indeed, if the Egyptians do succeed in removing Hosni Mubarak permanently, they will have to soon ask themselves "What now?" The answer to that question might not be comforting for it might very well be "We don't know."

Fortunately, we don't seem to be at that stage yet. Our democratic system, for all its dysfunctionalities, still seems to move...a bit. We still have people in governments who at the very least, project an image of conscientiousness even if their objectives are not altogether benign. And thankfully, there are still many truly dedicated and committed people who work in our governments to keep our country going. However, it is really (I mean, really!) time they sat up and took note of what is happening in Egypt. Indeed, they can simply take an example from our own history – the Quit India Movement – and understand that there is a tipping point to public indifference. While I support the removal of oppression in any form, I continue to believe that permanent change can only be brought about through the system and any change created by mass protest is temporary in nature. But most people will not agree with me and with good reason. If our politicians and bureaucrats want to prevent a repetition of Egypt here in India, they may want to start making changes to the system that will allow for greater freedom, better justice and more opportunities for citizens to improve their lives. An obvious statement perhaps, but then, is any one paying attention?

Masterjis in Disguise

2010-07-05T20:41:00.002+05:30

I know reading for fun is considered to be a despicable habit these days but I am sure most people in this country who went to school have been exposed to the novels of R.K. Narayan. There is a particular scene is his first book Swami and Friends where the protagonist, W.S.Swaminathan, is faced with the prospect of being caned by the Principal of his school - his second school, after having been kicked out of Albert Mission.

The Principal of his new school is, according to me, the most perfect caricature of all that was bad with those quintessential "masterjis". He seemed to have no sympathy for his students, had a highly inflated opinion of himself and really enjoyed the prospect of caning or punishing an offender. (What Swami did to deserve the punishment is not the point, I'm talking about the headmaster's character). I have also had personal experiences with some teachers (only some, mind you) who seem to exhibit similar traits albeit in a less flamboyant manner. These are the teachers who seem to think that they alone know what's best for the student, who talk down to their pupils in an overbearing, lordly manner and force them into doing things which they (the pupils) certainly don't enjoy (such as taking part in a ridiculous Independence Day march) - all, mind you, in the name of the student's well-being.

Given what happened today, on the 5th of July 2010, it's not too difficult for me to conclude that most of our politicians (all right, fine, all of them) are such "masterjis" in disguise. Our netas can be classified into two types - the rabid old-style masterjis who will beat and cane their pupils into submission without sympathy or the nouveau self-opinionated masterjis (or madamjis) who will tell their students that pupils have no right to question their judgments and whatever they propose is to be followed to the letter, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. What makes this worse is that, unlike real teachers, these dudes don't even give us anything useful in life.

Let me illustrate how a normal lesson is imparted in the classroom we call The Indian Political System. Since these are progressive times, the chief positions in government are occupied by the new-school masterjis. Of course, this is a rule of thumb for there will always be exceptions, but generally speaking, one may safely assume that the new-school enjoys ultimate power. Whether it is the Central Government or the State, one may find new-school masterjis in the Home, Finance, Defence and other important ministries (not to mention the Prime or Chief Ministerial positions). These are ones who talk down to us. Now, I'm not a person who believes that the public is intelligent but I do believe that it deserves a voice. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism by which these illustrious teachers can be put in their place with a simple gaali from the last bench and as a result, the general populace finds itself struggling underneath policies they do not approve of and laws they cannot oppose. Meanwhile, our new-school savants will don bigger and bigger auras of knowledge and wisdom, secure in the illusion that they alone know everything about managing a country and any student who questions them must be seriously demented.

Now, the new-school guys don't occupy just cabinet positions but also key posts in the opposition. Since new-school teachers everywhere are conceited asses, the opposition believes that whatever the government is doing is wrong. Because of this, you and I are made to watch these two parties fight it out with each other in that mother of all staff-rooms, The Parliament. Discussions range from whether "the child is like a plant that needs to be watered constantly" to whether "the child is like a dog that needs to be petted". No one seems to realize that the child is a kid (a snotty, irritating brat; but a kid nonetheless) who is probably growing up pretty fast and might even reach the dangerous teenage phase in some time.

Sooner or later, the discussions break down and both sides decide that it's time to revert to time-tested tactics...in other words, bring back the old-school masterjis. With howls of delight, these old-school wallahs rush into our classrooms, brandishing canes and rulers, ready to smite us wherever possible. They don't care about discussions or debates for they've long ago decided to leave those to the new-school men. Instead, they're just happy to mouth whatever their favourite new-school teacher wants them to mouth as long as they get to cane students left and right. They want total obedience from their pupils, nothing less will do. As a result, whenever the new-school opposition declares a school-wide bandh, the old-school masterjis will make sure that students adhere to it. Any student found wandering on the corridors or playing cricket on the school ground will be made to face the cane. No exceptions.

As for the syllabus...it never gets completed.

(Note 1: The above caricatures are not meant to be an insult to the teaching profession. There are good teachers and bad teachers. Unfortunately, the good ones - the ones who give us sweets for no reason and let us play football during a free period - are few and far between when it comes to politics)

(Note 2: No politicians were harmed in the making of this post. The same cannot be said of the public - though the author can safely say that he wasn't the one inflicting harm)

How market societies are inherently unstable

2010-05-24T11:19:00.016+05:30

This particular post is a summary of my views regarding an article published in the Views section of today's edition of Mint (Page 23) by Sauvik Chakraverti (Catallaxy, key to an Open Society). Sauvik Chakraverti happens to be, along with Amit Verma and Rohan D'Sa, one of my favourite bloggers though I don't often agree with his views (that said, I don't often agree with anyone when it comes to ideology).

Sauvik's article in Mint talks about the role played by communities in the functioning of society and how such closeted communities have bogus value and ought to be replaced by "Catallaxies" that is, open trading arenas. Chakraverti defines "community" as "a common recognition of the same rules". By "Bogus Value", I'm assuming that Chakraverti is referring to an exaggerated or overrated sense of importance that is given to such communities. He goes on to describe the characteristics of a catallaxy. He says that the current decline of Western economies and fall of Socialist India is largely due to their misplaced faith in community. He extols the cosmopolitan nature of Indian cities and calls it our country's inherent strength. He goes on to say that in order to get ahead in the competition, we ought to discard the political value of community and aim for a nation of self-governing cities and towns; create catallaxies that are inherently open in nature. The only primary rule in a catallaxy ought to be private property.

First of all, let me assert right at the beginning that in essence, I don't disagree with what Chakraverti has opined in his article. I too believe that the overall welfare of a society is greatly increased when openness is promoted and archaic conventions of tradition are done away with. However, my concerns are not so much with the theories of catallaxies as much as they are with the practicalities of enforcing such rules.

The Initial Assumptions

Let me assume for the moment that a miracle occurs over the next few years. Countries all around the world begin to elect governments who completely support the installation and strengthening of catallaxies and the abolition of old community-centric concepts. Politicians who come into power begin to focus on withdrawing government interests in all spheres of society save one: The definition of private property. In fact, the government will not even attempt to assign property in case of a dispute but merely define the party who has a right to that property. The actual allocation will be left to individuals involved who will work out the transactions on their own. Economies will be opened up, full-scale migration allowed and the concept of communities are no longer legally recognized.

It seems like a dream come true. But as much I would like to believe that such an open, fair society can exist in reality, I must confess that I am not convinced. Even if we do manage to drag such a society out of the platonic universe and into the real one, such a society would be inherently unstable and quite likely to collapse.

How the government comes in

Why do I believe so? Let me start with the role of the government. Ideally in a market society, the government should not even exist. Every social and economic interaction in such a society should be governed by an implicit rule of contract. Every individual possesses some property and this property is used to measure the value of any contract offered by that individual. However, regardless of what anyone else believes, I assert that such a system is realistically volatile. Let me give an example. If an individual sets up a chemical factory on the banks of a river and releases effluents into the river, the people who live downstream risk being struck with health complications. Now, how will these people avoid such a risk? This is a very standard example of what economists call "externality generation" or the creation of unintentional side-effects.

In a market society, the solution to the problem based above is quite simple (in theory). A clear definition of property rights will lead to an effective solution where the party that does not possess property rights pays the possessor some amount as compensation. This compensation is paid to ensure that the possessor will not exercise his right to property. In more practical terms, let us assume that the people who live downstream possess the Right to Not Be Subject to Pollution. In such a case, the polluter pays the would-be victims some compensatory amount to put up with the pollution. Conversely, if it is the polluter who possesses a Right to Pollute, the victims can pay him some amount to refrain from polluting.

The flaw in the above argument lies in the small detail of defining these rights. Who decides upon granting the Right to Pollute to the industrialist or the Right to Not Be Subject to Pollution to the downstream residents? Some might argue that the value of these rights can be decided by the value of property owned by each party. Perhaps, but consider this: in most real-life cases, it is usually the industrialist who possesses more property. Thus, if we go by a pure contract system, the Right to Pollute is usually always more valuable than the Right to Not Be Subject to Pollution. Consequently, the downstream residents almost always end up becoming victims of pollution because they will not be able to afford compensation. If this seems to be a fair system simply because the theoretical reasoning is fair, then please stop reading. You and I do not see eye to eye.

This brings in the need for a third party or an arbiter who will specify the nature of the property rights and thus ensure clarity in contract. Of course, there is no guarantee that the government will be right or fair. The government too will experience the same problem: How will you define the rights in question? My own opinion is that the government defines property rights by taking into account those costs that are not considered while drawing up a free market contract. In the river pollution case mentioned above, the costs imposed upon health due to pollution will be taken by a third party as weight in favour of the Right to Not Be Subject to Pollution.

But naturally, one may wonder why the government would do such a thing but the answer is quite straightforward. The value of the property that is owned by the government is dependent upon the value contributed by all members of society. In other words, we pay their taxes. Therefore if a large number of members feel that a certain contract is unfair (even though theoretically, it is fair), they can influence the value of their contributions to reduce government property value. Or (more realistically) since the government's existence depends upon the support from members of society, members can always choose to vote against them during elections. This gives the government a valid incentive to define property rights in a fair manner.

Distortion

All right. Let's retrace our steps a bit. We started off with a perfect market society with no government and everything being defined by property rights. However, the existence of certain factors (such as externalities and the real-life fact that some people are better off than others) began to result in the creation of unfair or biased contracts. To counter-balance this trend, we introduced the role of a third-party arbiter in the form of a democratic government. As of now, the role of this government is strictly to just define property rights in a fair manner and let the actual contracts be worked out by the parties involved.

But our problems are not yet over. In fact, they're about to worsen. Remember that the government is dependent upon the goodwill of the people in order to exist. This goodwill is not just in the form of taxes but also in terms of political support. A democratic government can always be voted out of power if a large enough section of society feels that it is not doing its job. This introduces a non-economic factor that distorts a pure market society and acts as a catalyst to further distortion.

If we go back to river pollution example, we can extend the story by having the government, say, defining property rights in favour of the downstream residents and then asking both parties to draw up a mutually beneficial contract. Now, according to our definitions, the job of the government is over. It has defined the relevant property rights in a fair manner and strictly speaking, it has no further responsibility. But let us assume something else. Let us assume the downstream residents, jubiliant with victory, now demand an extremely high rate of compensation from the industrialist. The industrialist is not able to afford such compensation and will therefore plead for a lesser contract. The residents refuse and stick to their higher demand. Unable to pay such high rates, the industrialist refuses to commit himself to any agreement. In the absence of any contract, the industrialist has two choices - either pack up and leave or approach the government once more.

Community's comeback

This is a stage where that horrid old institution, community, has a chance to make a comeback. As always, incentives play a big role. Individuals will adhere to market society contracts if and only if the value of such contracts exceed the value of other social contracts. If the value of a market contract falls, the value of community contracts increase. This is once again a very obvious rule. Additionally, community contracts have another added benefit: historical value. Community-based contracts have played an important role in the shaping of societies for centuries and the notion of "if it has worked before, it'll work now" is always appealing. In the river pollution example above, the market society contract has failed. This, combined with the historical appeal of community contracts, can potentially deal a huge blow to the stability of market society.

Both the industrialist and the downstream residents now have incentives to indulge in community contracts. Both of them can try to influence people in the government, say people who belong to the same community, appealing to the notions of brotherhood or solidarity. Alternatively, the residents may use their social goodwill to force the government (which as we can recall is dependent on such goodwill) to strengthen their Right to Not Be Subject to Pollution, say, by turning it into a Right to Own All Land on the Riverbanks(This is not so far-fetched as you may think - recall how tribal communities in various parts of India are asking for the right to own forest land). Once again, the industrialist may form a conglomerate or a cartel with other people to increase the value of their own social goodwill and influence government decisions. All these in turn will lead to demands for the government to increase its checks and balances. This in turn will lead to an increase in powers of the government. And before you know it, voila! Welcome to now.

Conclusion

Thus, we can see that having started out with an idealistic catallaxic society, we ended up with the same old drab society that we know today. This is not a voluntary process. It is the accumulation of tiny steps, taken one at a time, often unknowingly, that over time snowballed into chaos. One may ask that if the deterioration began with the introduction of a third-party arbiter, why don't we just discard that step? The answer is that such a decision may be impossible thanks once again to incentives. If enough people start feeling that contracts are unfair, the incentive to create a government or a government-like body becomes too strong. Again, someone may ask me why I feel that contracts may turn out to be unfair. The answer is that we don't live in a perfect world. Some people start out better off than others. Human beings are not purely rational beings; their rationality is subject to limits. Sooner or later, in a market society, some better-off human being will give in to his animal instincts and use the superior value of his property to enforce an unfair contract. Or, some worse-off human being will give up his common sense and clamour for government intervention. You can see why some people call me cynical but this is truly how I feel things work out. The world sucks. We have to live with that.

However, while the idea of a catallaxy may not be realistically viable, there is no denying that it's a great idea in theory. The problems that may come up with its implementation non-withstanding, it makes sense to aim for at least an approximation of this idea. In a way, the concept of a catallaxy can become like the concept of perfectly competitive markets (in fact, I do believe a catallaxy is an extended version of the same concept). Economists always aim to design models that bring real world economies closer to the idea of perfect competition. However, this idealistic vision is tempered with the sobering thought that reality brings its own complications.

Tiger, Tiger...

2010-02-21T22:03:00.002+05:30

The young cub eagerly awaits its mother's arrival so that it can satiate its pangs of hunger and snuggle up safely under its parent's protection. But a gunshot echoes through the forest, leaving the viewer with a hollow feeling about the mother's return and the cub's future. The new advertisement by Aircel and WWF is beautifully made, portraying the helplessness and vulnerability of one of India's greatest animals. Its effectiveness is there for all to see; Stripey the Cub is the now the topic of discussion in most public forums and the figure 1,411 is probably being repeated by half the schoolchildren in the country. At a time when news channels and papers are being flooded with nauseating items such as the Tiger Woods scandal, India's test cricket ranking or worse, controversies over movies, the Aircel ad reminds us that there are issues worth taking up which do not involve the narcissist public and their petty prejudices. However, I can't help but feel a little depressed because the issue of tiger extinction is what got me interested in topics such as nature conservation for the first time and things don't seem to have improved much since then.

I was first introduced to the story of the tiger's slow death exactly ten years ago at school when I was in Class Six. A number of conservationists had teamed up with Sanctuary magazine and Britannia industries to bring the issue of tiger conservation to classrooms. We were shown a number of short films and documentaries about the Royal Bengal followed by a signature campaign. Britannia then introduced this programme called "Little Champs" where the best student in each class was given a "Little Champs Star" and a free pass to a Tiger Conservation Rally at the end of the year. The best student of my class backed out because she wanted to concentrate on her exams and I found myself volunteering to go to the rally in her place (anything to avoid studies, I thought). The rally was a huge event with celebrities like Robin Singh and conservationists like Bittu Sehgal giving us all inspirational speeches about how the tiger plays an important role in our lives (I will not discuss the reasons here as I wish to talk about other concerns). Somehow, then, I truly believed that the tiger could be saved within a decade and its population raised (the number was "Below 2000" then).

And then all of a sudden, I see Stripey the Cub on television and I get this eerie sense of déjà vu. It's just that Britannia has been replaced by Aircel, Robin Singh by M.S. Dhoni, Sanctuary by WWF and "Below 2000" by "1,411". Otherwise, the pleas are the same, the issues are the same, the feeling of apprehension is the same. People remain as indifferent as ever, the media makes sympathetic noises as usual and politicians...well, the less said about them, the better. Our environment minister is more concerned about Bt Brinjal and global warming (not that they aren't important issues...they are) and the rest of the political class prefer jackasses to tigers. It seems to me that within public circles, tiger conservation is going the same way as 26/11...every now and then, we will have a surge of interest, perhaps followed by demonstrations and protests and before you know it, life goes on. A similar thing happened with the global recession – the moment it became apparent that India had survived the worst largely unscathed, our financial companies were back with their guaranteed returns and Croma started talking about selling laptops to your kid. The after-effects of the recession are hardly discussed these days, at least, in the media.

Given this disheartening scenario, it's hard to feel optimistic about Stripey and his fellow tigers. The reason I am publishing this post so long after Aircel started airing these ads is because I was wondering whether it was worth it. Blogging, writing and discussing these issues are all fine (I'll get to that in a minute) but on the ground, tiger conservation is still a very very tricky business. There are numerous reasons, several factors that contribute to the predicament. I personally feel that one major reason why tiger conservation is becoming so difficult is the extreme pressures that are placed on land in India thanks to our burgeoning population. Our growing numbers are demanding more and more from our natural resources and as a consequence, the desire to utilize (or if you want, exploit) forest land is increasing all the time. Now, honestly, who would you support: the man on the street who needs his daily bread (provided by the wheat grown on deforested land) or Stripey the Cub? For people like me, it's a difficult choice but for the man on the street who commands the vote-banks, the answer is obvious. Another important concern is the displacement of tribal people from their ancestral land in order to make room for sanctuaries. Remember, it is similar displacement that is partly feeding the Maoist insurgency in the east leading to violence and wanton destruction. Again, who would you root for: the tribal villager thrown out of his ancestors' homeland by the "brutal state" or Stripey the Cub? Educated, aware people will find this choice particularly tough; and the matter is further complicated by suspicions that such evictions may have other ulterior motives such as illegal mining or tree-felling conducted by pernicious businessmen in cahoots with the state.

These are not easy choices to make and what complicates the matter most of all is a deeper, more subtle malaise that has been plaguing this country for decades upon decades – the lack of holistic economic development. After all, one must ask this question: Why are there still tribal villagers living in these forests, leading an existence that has remained unchanged for centuries? Is it because they want to remain that way or have they just been unexposed to our country's economic boom? Why don't they move to our cities, take up well-paying jobs, put their children in good schools and live in cosy apartments? The answer is that they cannot, even if they want to. They have no access to regular education or high-class technology. They have too much to lose if they give up what they already have. Some people talk of increasing awareness among villagers about the importance of tiger conservation but I am more than a little sceptical about that. If I were eking out a living off my land, the protection and expansion of my land and livestock will be my first priority. The underlying issue here is not about increasing local peoples' awareness about tiger conservation but increasing their awareness about everything – in other words, providing a holistic education that frees them from dependence on land and allows them to earn their living in whatever way they wish. But such education again needs to be a part of a much bigger development programme that provides people with opportunities to utilize such acquired skills. Such a development programme again causes problems because it puts additional burdens upon forests and other such natural resources. In short, we have a nice big paradoxical dilemma on our hands and sooner or later, we have to start making some hard choices. My biggest fear is that while villagers can vote, tigers cannot and therefore, it is quite likely that populist politicians will ignore calls to conserve the national animal, no matter what the benefits.

However, hard reality apart, the good news is that there are still a large number of optimistic people who support the cause. Though many of them might be the 26/11-type chatterati prone to proposing inane solutions, it is good to know that tiger conservation can at least provoke this much interest. Who knows, perhaps some real out-of-the-box solution might actually evolve out of such debates and discussions. After all, if millions can be spent on flying 200 political leaders to Copenhagen in order to come up with less than nothing, no one ought to say that blogging or chatting about tiger conservation is worthless. Hope may be the only thing that can save Stripey.

The Senselessness of Party Loyalty

2009-11-08T01:34:00.002+05:30

The last few months have seen my daily life undergo a series of changes which have resulted in me shifting my lodgings from South Mumbai to Santa Cruz, with several trips to and from Thane thrown in as a bonus. Admittedly, travelling long distances by local train has been rather annoying after almost two years of being spoilt in the cosy confines of Fort. Things have become easier in the past three or four weeks though, allowing me to avoid train travelling as much as possible. Nevertheless, exactly a week ago, after a rather pleasant afternoon with a bunch of friends in Colaba, I had to catch a train at CST for Thane. I usually feel a little thrill while travelling this route in full since the CST-Thane line happens to be the oldest railway line in Asia and my rather over-imaginative mind finds commuting on this route irrationally exciting. However, this time, all I felt was dismay. The compartment was over-flowing with angry, irritable people, packed together like sardines and as we approached Thane, pandemonium erupted with people pushing, shoving, squeezing and even punching around at random strangers. You know, the usual. I was berated by a completely unknown character for breaking his glasses (I had never seen the fellow in my life, much less his glasses) and another stranger scolded him for breaking his glasses. Somebody lost a bag, I nearly ended up tearing my own and one chap ended up with an elbow in his face. We got out, yelled at each other, stood on the platform, glared around and then proceeded towards the exit. One chap wasn't able to alight in time and the train unceremoniously carried him off in the direction of Kalyan as he looked on, helplessly. All in all, it was a normal evening on the Central Line.

In the middle of all that though, there was one abnormal creature who bore his burden with stoicism that reminded me of the Britons in the Asterix comics. Keeping an upper lip so stiff that you could mistake it for cardboard, his five-foot-five frame silently waded through the viscous mass of humans that enveloped him and he alighted from the train in a manner dignified enough to be worthy of royalty, utterly oblivious to the chaos that swirled around him. Catching my eye, his serious demeanour vanished and his face broke into a smile.

"Happens all the time!" he yelled, pointing at the battlefield behind him (for some reason, people on the train always assume I'm new – maybe it's just the way I look). "But don't worry...Congress has won. They will fix it this time!"

It was a completely random statement, coming out of the blue and I seriously doubted it, considering how pathetic the Congress-NCP coalition's track record was. I decided to just smile, nod and carry on. However, there was a bit of distance left to cover and my new friend accompanied me until the exit.

"Don't worry, don't worry..." he kept saying. "I have always voted for the Congress and they will do wonders, don't worry. NCP is weaker now, so Congress will be able to do more! I'm attending an Indira Gandhi memorial service tomorrow. Great woman, great woman. I have always been a Congress supporter and they have always done good. You just wait and see!"

With these grandiose words, the man once again stiffened his upper lip and vanished into the crowd outside the station. Too tired to think of anything else, I trudged towards the spot where private buses were lined up to take me to my final destination for the day. Thane, being a separate town in a separate district, is not covered by Mumbai's BEST bus services and the local TMT buses are so infrequent that I have always found it better to travel by these private vehicles. On the way, I found myself dwelling on the man's words. I found it interesting, perhaps even amusing, that someone can be so loyal to a particular party that they refuse to find fault with it. The man had easily laid all blame for bad governance on the NCP. The thing is that such people aren't exactly rare. There are thousands and thousands of such people who, for all their education and experience, continue to blindly put all their faith in one political outfit and castigate all others throughout their lives. In my own family, one will easily be able to find several BJP enthusiasts who have supported the party ever since it was formed and through all its ups and downs, regardless of all its bad points.

I have refused to do the same. The state of politics in this country is so rotten that is difficult for me to find any great differences between one party and another. Sure, each political outfit claims to represent a particular group of people and each has, in theory, a basic ideology that determines its activities. But at the most realistic level, every party is full of just two types of politicians. The first type is the corrupt opportunist whose only objective is to obtain as much wealth as possible, regardless of the means and the second type is the fiery zealot who takes his ideology so seriously that he becomes blinded by it and refuses to acknowledge any other set of values as valid. Neither type appeals to me and since there is no party that is not characterized by such individuals, I simply refuse to consistently support one party over another. Instead, I tend to play the Machiavellian card, considering different candidates during different elections and choosing to support the party that appears to be the least horrendous of the lot. Admittedly, in a political scene such as India's, this methodology doesn't seem to have any more impact than the method of blindly supporting a particular party or group. However, I feel a lot less uncertain about my choice at the end of it. Also, it's a lot more fun!

Political loyalty is stupid. There is absolutely no reason why one should become attached to a particular party or leader, even if their ideology agrees with one's own ideology. The only reason why one should support a particular party in a particular election is if that party seems to be capable of delivering the goods. Unfortunately, most people tend to look at the leaders rather than the party itself while making a choice. The reality is that leaders in a democracy are usually constrained by their party personnel. A perfect example would be B S Yediyurappa, the Chief Minister of Karnataka, who is at the moment, facing the prospect of being booted out of office simply because of two of his junior ministers. Similarly, we have the case of Rosaiah, the CM of Andhra Pradesh, whose every action is being questioned and criticized by the supporters of Jaganmohan Reddy. It is very rare to find leaders who are able to control their parties effectively though there are certain prominent examples such as Sonia Gandhi, Deve Gowda, Karunanidhi and Sharad Pawar. However most of these examples tend to exhibit the other extreme – the leaders have so much control that the rest of the party is forced to resort of sycophancy and flattering to get their way (the most obvious example of this is the Congress Party). It is easy to see why such leaders attract blind loyalty – the public feel that someone who has such control will always be able to get their way within the party and will therefore be more effective in power. What they fail to overlook is that such leaders may have their own plans to execute once they come into power. To be fair, these leaders may have done a bit but it cannot be denied that they have personal agendas to fulfil and these take precedence over objectives such as development and welfare. Therefore, once again, I cannot really expect them to deliver on their promises, at least, not completely.

Political loyalty is also blinding. Someone who becomes attached to one particular party for a long time is likely to become so devoted to it that he or she will consistently refuse to recognize any major fault with it. Any criticism directed towards that party's functioning will be labelled as "anti-(insert party's name) propaganda". Anyone who even dares to disapprove of the party leaders is an enemy. The party's ideology will seem flawless (no ideology ever is). And it would seem to such people that anyone who belongs to such a party is incapable of wrong-doing. I remember how after the Karnataka Assembly Elections last year, I had spotted some BJP supporters dancing and yelling slogans in the streets, disrupting all traffic. When I mentioned this to a pro-BJP relative the next day, he frowned at me and said "BJP workers don't do such things. Don't make such statements." The same relative had no trouble believing that Congress supporters were causing mayhem after the national elections this year (and they were). Such faith in a party's sanctity is not only unfortunate but also unnerving. It makes one wonder as to how we consider ourselves to be a true democracy where informed voters make rational choices. But then again, such loyalty doesn't seem to be restricted to India. Anecdotal evidence from countries such as the United States show how ridiculously rigid some people can be when it comes to elections. There are people around the world who seem to take pride in the fact that they have voted for one and only one party throughout their lives.

At the end of the day, political loyalty on a massive scale makes a mockery of democracy. It enables political parties to create rigid vote-banks and essentially "freezes" votes. Elections will then be determined by the votes of a very small percentage of the population and no such election can be considered part of a rational democracy. On a more general level, it tells us a lot about ourselves. It shows us that we are a people who are too reluctant to think, too lazy to participate and too narrow-minded to make a change.

Kapil Sibal and His Proposals

2009-07-03T18:30:00.006+05:30

Kapil Sibal recently brought out some extremely radical proposals to reform the education system in this country. While his proposals have attracted both praise and criticism, they surprisingly haven't undergone as much analysis as I had hoped they would.

The truth is that I am always suspicious of grand, sweeping reforms. They promise a lot but always deliver below expectations and sometimes, such overhyped claims have disastrous consequences (just recall Mao Tse-Tung's "Great Leap Forward" or closer home, the glorious dream of Nehruvian planned economy). That is why it is all the more surprising as to why such a vast shakeup of the education system isn't being subject to greater scrutiny. This of course, doesn't mean that I am in any way, against educational reforms. I have personally suffered due to this groaning arthritic dinosaur that we call an education system and I definitely feel it is time to bring in some change. The question is whether Kapil Sibal is bringing in the right kind of change.

There are some proposals put forward by Sibal that I am pondering over right now. For instance, his decision to replace the current system where a student is judged by his or her percentage in the exams with a percentile or a graded system. Grades seem fine to me but percentiles don't. If a student is being evaluated, he or she ought to be judged according to certain absolute and fixed parameters which do not depend upon the relative performance of a student's peers. Some might argue that some of the most renowned institutions in the country (such as the IIMs) depend upon percentiles but my position is that at Class 10 (or 12), you ought not to judge someone's capability to be in a particular institution. Rather, you should be judging certain basic and essential skills that every person requires in order to survive in life. This is why grades are better than percentiles at the Class 10 or 12 level.

Grades are also better than percentages because that way, they do not reduce the admission process to an unholy lottery. Tell me, what is the difference between a student who scores, say, 94% and another who scores 95%? Nothing but pure luck. Yet, if a college's cut-off is 95%, the second student gets in while the first does not. Grades are not wholly devoid of such flaws (for instance, it does seem unfair to bring someone with 90% and 80% under the same category) but they are infinitely better in the sense that they will force colleges to stop relying on worthless cut-off percentages and make them examine other aspects of a student's character such as his or her acumen in sports or cultural activities. So please, Mr Sibal, if you are planning to replace the percentage system, bring in grades, not percentiles.

Another proposal by Kapil Sibal is something that I am totally against and this is the introduction of a common education board across the country. India is a country with a variety of people belonging to all sorts of economic, social and cultural classes and to bring them all under one board is really ridiculous. By doing so, you are condemning every student to be subject to a syllabus that caters to the lowest common denominator and in a country like India, that common denominator is very very low indeed. The lowest and most downtrodden classes of the country need an education system that is vastly different from a system that caters to the upper classes and for this, the presence of multiple education boards is a must. Sure, it creates elitism and all that, but these are side-effects whose influences must be borne and reduced as much as possible. Perhaps, the best solution would be to treat all students coming from every board as equal (in other words, banning separate requirements for students of different boards). Perhaps not. These are issues that still need to be tackled but a common nation-wide board of education is definitely not the solution.

Finally, there is Kapil Sibal's proposal to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India and private universities to operate as well. The move to introduce foreign universities is a welcome one. Such a move will create competition and hopefully, force Indian universities to ramp up their programmes in retaliation. Anyone who is afraid that Indian students will be 'corrupted' by these universities should remember that hundreds of Indians go abroad every year and many of them come back. Additionally, I'm sure the government will make some efforts to monitor these universities.

With regard to private Indian universities, my views are mixed. I do believe that the whole concept of not allowing private funding for universities should be done away with. At the same time, I am a little concerned about the prospect of 'shareholder universities'. I have doubts about this concept regarding the extent of influence that shareholders might exert upon university boards and whether this may result in some negative pay-off. However, it is time we acknowledged that our present state of funding educational institutions is pathetic.

All in all though, none of this really matters to me right now. Hopefully, I will be done with education in a few years and won't have to worry about nonsense such as entrance exams and cut-off percentages anymore. However, I am still concerned about such matters simply because I have seen my share of misfortunes due to an unsympathetic and inefficient educational system and am eager that no one else experiences it.

The People of the Street

2009-03-24T23:35:00.001+05:30

Just about half an hour ago, I had stepped out to have dinner at a nearby restaurant and was on my way back to the hostel when I decided to walk towards VT Station so that I could buy some peanuts. In my opinion, peanuts are probably the most enjoyable stuff to buy off the streets near VT – they are warm, satisfyingly tasty and quite light on the pocket. Therefore, I strolled down the road towards the station and then, on that road – Mahapalika Marg – that I saw the banana vendor. He was seated a little distance away from entrance to Cama Hospital (which, by the way, is now heavily – and quite belatedly – guarded by about half-a-dozen policemen) on the footpath, hopefully trying to sell his last bunch of plantains. He had a cheerful expression on his face that matched the tone of his voice as he called to the passersby. As I walked past him, I realized that it was nearly ten o clock and the few people on the footpath were some of the last stragglers who were running to catch the train home. Why was this man still here? Obviously, he wasn't leaving until he sold his final bunch of fruit.

It then struck me (after nearly two years of living in this area) how hard-working the people of the street actually are. This notion had always been at the back of my head, a sort of subliminal admiration for the dedication that these men put into their work but this was the first time I actually thought about it clearly. As I made my way back from the peanut vendor (another worker who put in late hours at work), I decided to buy some bananas from this guy. After all, it had been quite some time since I had eaten any fruit. I made my way to him and it was then that I realized that he was disabled – his right arm was only a stump. But what really caught my attention was the way he shrugged off his disability. He briskly cut a dozen bananas for me and deftly placed them in the packet that I was holding open for him. He wasn't there to showcase his plight but to conduct business. He pocketed my ten rupee note with a nod of thanks and the transaction was completed. I made my way back in a rather pensive mood.

I am the sort of person who detests beggars (of any sort). I dislike begging and during the few times I have been forced to beg or plead for something, I have always ended up with a bad taste in my mouth. Therefore, I tend to look down upon most beggars, including those of the street. But men like the one I mentioned above are not beggars, they are something else altogether. They are extremely remarkable people who, over the past two or three years, have earned my immense admiration. Their occupations are rather humble, such as selling panipuri or driving a taxi but they go about their work with a sense of pride that I haven't seen in most of the few top-notch executives I have met. These are the men and women who brave all sorts of odds to do what they do. They have to face the ire of policemen and civic officials for clogging up the footpaths; they have to put up with the rudeness and condescension inflicted upon them by their customers; even the weather doesn't spare them with monsoon showers frequently depriving them of much-needed livelihood. Yet, they carry on because they have no choice. Giving up their occupations means descending back into the chaos from which they are struggling to rise and therefore, they are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to keep their businesses functioning.

They are at their spots the moment the day begins. Time is indeed money for them and they refuse to compromise on it. They stay at their spots until they sell every little item that they had brought with them, for to waste any is to waste money. Money is important to everyone in this world but for these people, it is crucial to gather as much as possible. One may never know when the next bribe-seeking cop might turn up or when the BMC might confiscate their wares. More importantly, for these people, the money is a sign that all their effort isn't going to waste – that it was worth it to refuse the guild of beggars and strive for a more dignified way of life. A sign that one day, they might be able to move further up the social ladder and ensure a better future for their families. It is this hope of moving from mere survival to a more leisurely life that keeps them going. Personally, they have provided me with confidence more than once. Sometime last year, I was travelling in a taxi when the driver burst into conversation. Happily ignoring my complete ineptitude at speaking Hindi, he told me how he had arrived in Mumbai six years previously and had started off as a milk delivery boy in Dadar. Now, several years later, he drives a taxi on weekdays and an ambulance for a hospital on weekends, earning far more than he ever did in his village near Nagpur. "Mehnat se kuchh bhi ho sakta hai saab!" he told me with a grin on his face. Whenever I feel like complaining about how life is tough for me, I now remind myself of him. If I have it bad, he's had it much worse. People like him can teach people like me a thing or two about determination to succeed and dedication to one's work.

This is why I often feel angry or uncomfortable when I see such people eking out a living on the streets. I don't feel sorry for them but I do feel that they deserve better. The recession may be making a lot of upper class and middle class families uncomfortable but it is particularly overbearing on these people. Educated professionals will at worst, have to compromise on their pride and make do with low-paying clerical jobs until the tide turns in their favour but for the workers of the street, there is no such fallback. If they are forced to shut down their businesses, they often find it extremely difficult to get going again. The fact that many of them actually do get back to work in one way or the other is quite remarkable. I feel that these people deserve better simply because their work and their effort make them worthy of such reward. The problem is how exactly does one help them? I personally feel that the best way to help them is not provide them with sops or subsidies or financial aid (as useless politicians tend to do) but with tools and technology that can make their work easier. Prosthetic limbs for the disabled workers, for example, can be highly useful. Education and awareness can again greatly help these workers. Micro financing (not grants) can also be constructive. However, since these workers function in the informal economy, it is difficult to design a functioning system for the provision of such services. As unappealing as it may be, the government should probably be roped in to some extent. Government interference in the informal economy almost always ends in disaster but its presence may turn out to be vital.

The road ahead for such systems to increase the welfare of these street workers is quite long and clearly winding and it will be quite a while before any sort of meaningful assistance trickles down to them. However, I only hope that their determination to rise above their given status does not falter and that they inspire others from low-income backgrounds to rise along with them. These are people who turn away from the appealing paths of begging and crime to establish an identity of dignity for themselves. I hope that people like me understand that and appreciate the part they play in society and in our lives.

Festivals and Related Complaints

2009-03-12T00:03:00.002+05:30

Ah Holi...that great festival of colours where everyone seems to go mad...I absolutely hate it.

Now I hope no one gets me wrong. Just because I happen to be an anglicized snob doesn't mean that I grudge the average Indian his bit of fun. In fact, I quite enjoyed watching (that's the limit of my participation – watching) my friends leave their rooms wearing white t-shirts and return wearing pink. They had fun and I'm quite happy about that. What I can't stand, though, is how people in this country seem to think that celebrations are special occasions to do whatever one feels like, regardless of rules, law or a sense of propriety. Time and again, I have witnessed people lose their senses and do absolutely ridiculous (often downright illegal) things. What I can't comprehend is how and why they get away with it.

Take, for example, the numerous small celebrations that occur around the locality of Malleswaram in Bangalore (where, incidentally, my home happens to be located). Malleswaram is one of the comparatively older areas of the city and it has quite a few temples including the famous Kaad Malleshwara temple after which, the area is named. Now, atheist as I am, I have no problem with these places of worship. In fact, the undying presence of these temples has been a source of some comfort to me since they are some of last structures from my childhood that continue to exist in a rapidly modernizing neighbourhood. However, in recent years, these places have become rather upbeat, going in for grandiose celebrations and extravagant revelry whenever a festival comes along. As a result, I am often forced to stay up as late into the night, fervently hoping that the loudspeakers go bust. Horrifying songs dug up from some absolutely unknown bollywood and sandalwood movies blare defiantly until around half past one after which, I assume, the loudspeakers do go bust. The irony is that this is Bangalore, a city which, according to law, should shut down by eleven thirty. However, the cops are mysteriously missing and as I try and stuff my head into the pillow, I catch myself wondering if they are taking part in the celebrations themselves.

Things are just as bad here in Mumbai. The Ganesha festival is witness to mobs (yes, mobs) roaming around on trucks, reminding me of World War II photos of tanks rumbling through Paris. Nothing wrong with that, of course, until one takes into account the behaviour of these crowds. They yell obscenities at people on the streets, ogle openly at any unfortunate woman on the footpath and sometimes (I actually saw this) throw things at her to get her attention. The situation is made worse when political parties decide to use these festivals as a platform to promote themselves. Kannada Rajyotsava (the anniversary of the founding of Karnataka) has, of late, become horrendous, with raucous masses, supported by several parties, dancing away in the narrow streets and blocking the flow of traffic in a city which is already notorious for road problems. But the worst offender when it comes to festivals is Holi. On this day, people just lose it, be they in Bangalore or Mumbai. Some crowds of celebrators throw almost every rule out of the window and try and drag others into it as well. I am quite glad that my friends who celebrated Holi today were rather understanding and just let me be. Too often, in the past, people who I barely know have dragged out into the streets and doused me in colour, completely disregarding my (loud) squawks of protest. Colour gets splattered everywhere, rubber tyres are burnt (I have no idea why) and bhang flows down the streets like rainwater. The last is something I just can't comprehend. How, in the name of all that is great, is marijunana so openly circulated and distributed without one single person raising the slightest voice of concern, anger or outrage?

Hypocrisy. At least, that's how it looks to me. On one hand, we have (yes, here I go again) righteous moralistic ultra-activists making deprecating statements about nightclubs and rock concerts and on the other hand, we have those same people doing nothing when people indulge in what is arguably far more shameful behaviour during festivals. Do they consider such behaviour a part of Indian culture? If yes, then to hell with their definition of Indian culture. I want no part in it. More importantly, we have cops eagerly raiding and arresting hundreds at rave parties (there was one in Bangalore a few days ago – about a hundred were arrested) for circulating drugs but doing a disappearing act when it comes to cracking down on the highly prominent weed addicts during Holi. By all means, please do your duty and crack down on drugs but for heaven's sake, don't be two-faced about it. If you have no compunctions arresting one group of people, you should have no qualms about arresting another. Perhaps, I is the thinkings, one is wee bit scared of upsetting the political bosses? I can't think of any other explanation. Otherwise, why oh why, Mr. Policeman, are you so eager to hang around clubs and concert venues, ready to rush in at 11:30 and so reluctant to do the same during other noisy events?

It isn't just religious celebrations either. When we won the Twenty20 World Cup, a huge parade was organized in Mumbai for our team. Perfectly fine, nothing wrong in that. But that day, some girls from Jai Hind College who happened to be near Wankhede Stadium were openly molested by bystanders (click here for the related news report). Apparently, people think they can do anything they want as long as they are in a crowd. And I don't think I even need to mention occasions like New Year's Eve when all hell seems to break loose. What is it about these occasions that make people think that they can break every law and disregard every principle of decency or propriety? I am afraid that is a rather difficult question to answer. But I do know this – whatever may be the reason, law breaking is not acceptable in any situation. Festivals are times for us to feel good about ourselves and our place in society but that doesn't mean we do it at the cost of other peoples' peace of mind.

P.S. I just realized that this post has way too many commas. My apologies. I will try and control myself next time.

The Stupidity of the Moral Police

2009-01-30T13:23:00.004+05:30

News this week has been dominated by two events. The first was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suddenly being admitted to hospital to undergo a heart surgery. Thankfully, that went off pretty well and the man is now on the road to recovery while newspapers and television channels discuss whether Sonia Gandhi has something against Pranab Mukherjee. The other incident, a more distasteful one, is what I will be discussing in this blog post. You guessed it, it is the Mangalore pub brawl where a bunch of 'activists' attacked a pub claiming that such establishments go against Indian culture.

Anyone who has read my earlier blog posts will know whose side I will be taking. In fact, I don't see why anyone would want to take the side of the Sri Ram Sene and its leader Muthalik. Unfortunately, people are taking their side and that is why I am writing about this issue. Moral policing, as a term, is a complete misnomer for it is neither moral nor does it involve policing, in its strictest sense of the term. It is, instead, a euphemism for goondagiri. These so-called 'Moral Police' and 'Social Activists' are no more than ruffians, scoundrels and hooligans of the worst type. The worst, because they justify their loutish, sub-animal behaviour with twisted reason and inane logic.

I'm personally not too fond of nightclubs. I go to them occasionally with a group of friends and far from them being exotic places of intrigue and passion, I find them quite pedestrian. I can have the same fun and enjoyment at any other place provided I am with a bunch of good friends. On the whole, I would much rather go to a restaurant or a cafe with those friends and chill with a couple of beers while classic rock plays in the background. Of course, to Muthalik and his gang, such things are one and the same. Anything 'western' is taboo and that includes beer, classic rock and quite possibly restaurants as well. What I would recommend for such idiots is the essay One Hundred Percent American by A.G. Gardiner. While Muthalik might balk at the title of the essay, let me describe some of the issues that Gardiner points out in his essay. Gardiner talks about how, the so-called One Hundred Percent American gets up in the morning wearing pyjamas that were invented in India; to an alarm clock first designed in Europe; washes his face using a piped water system conceived in the Indus Valley and ancient Rome; uses a toothbrush once again invented in Europe; drinks milk which was first used as a food by Eurasian hunter-gatherers; reads a newspaper which was invented in Britain and thanks god for being One Hundred Percent American.

Let me commandeer this concept for the benefit of moral policemen in India. Muthalik, members of the Sri Rama Sene and any other fool calling himself a moral policeman, let me ask you this. If you are against everything western then why do you travel by roads, trains or aeroplanes? They are all western inventions, ban them. Why do you drive around in cars? They were invented by Daimler and promoted by Ford. One is a German and the other, American. In other words, they are western and must be banned. Why do you watch television? Why do you listen to the radio? Why do you read newspapers? Ban them. Or do you strictly restrict yourself to 'culture'? In that case, let us ban the violin from Carnatic music. It is western influence, after all. Let us ban...I know! Let us ban Zubin Mehta from practicing his profession. After all, he is promoting western music, isn't he? Let us ban the works of B.V. Karanth and Vijay Tendulkar. Both of them worked indoors while Indian theatre is traditionally an open-air phenomenon. Let us prohibit the thousands of musical collaborations that occur between Indian and western artists every year. Pandit Ravi Shankar is a criminal because he worked with George Harrison, isn't he? Let us ban English novels. Let us ban English! Let us tear down all those heritage buildings in South Mumbai. Let us demolish Rashtrapathi Bhawan, Parliament House, India Gate, Gateway of India, the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Lutyens Bungalows because they are all examples of western architecture. In short, let us ban ourselves because all of us have been influenced by western cultures in one way or the other.

The sheer hypocrisy of these moral policemen is so blatant that I am constantly surprised as to why people even consider supporting them. The truth of the matter is that pubs, nightclubs and other such establishments are unfortunately seen as the haunt of the elite and this irritates the people who cannot gain access to them. This notion is hyped even more by media such as films which offer these people a so-called glimpse into these places but in reality presents a rather glamorized and distorted picture of them. This divides the (for the lack of a better word and not in a derogatory sense) 'have-nots' into two groups. There are those who promise themselves that they will work hard to earn enough money in order to lead such lives and there are those who distance themselves from such lifestyles, claiming that they find it immoral and unethical (and there is nothing wrong in that). Things do start going wrong however, when the latter group starts taking an active stance on this issue. It is one thing to have a personal opinion and quite another to force everyone to accept your opinion as well. When you are propagating your ideas as right and others' as wrong, you risk crossing a very fine line that distinguishes between healthy activism and domineering subjugation. As far as Muthalik is concerned, he went way beyond this line, as did several other activists in recent years.

What angers me the most is the attitude of Chief Minister Yediyurappa. Far from condemning the incident, he pompously declared today that he will 'not allow pub culture to flourish'. Mr. Yediyurappa, let me remind you that as an individual, you have the right to your own opinion regarding pubs and the environment they foster but in your capacity as the Chief Minister of Karnataka, you have absolutely no right to decide what sort of culture the citizens of your state wish to follow. You can go against the crimes and illegal activities that may flourish in such a culture such as date rape or drug dealing but you cannot decide whether dancing at a nightclub or having a drink with your friends is right or wrong because as much as you may hate it, there is nothing illegal about such activities. Let me also remind you that you weren't made Chief Minister by divine right and that you were elected by the people of Karnataka for certain reasons. I personally voted for the BJP in the state elections last year. Why? I voted for you because I thought that out of all the useless parties that were thronging the elections, the BJP seemed to be the least useless of the lot. You were talking about development then, about how to improve Bangalore's broken infrastructure, how to attract more industries to the state, how to increase literacy levels and provide for economic growth. I voted for you when I heard you saying such things because I thought that, like Narendra Modi in Gujarat, you will move away from communalism or moral policing and concentrate on development.

Clearly, I was wrong. You ended up forgetting all about development. Instead, you always seem to be in the news for reasons I didn't elect you. First, you support goons who vandalize churches in Mangalore. Next, you indulge in beating up people in Belgaum (an issue where I feel both the Shiv Sena and the Yediyurappa government overreached themselves). Now, you come out in favour of more thugs who advocate an environment of intolerance instead of supporting those who were victimized by them. Don't forget, Mr. Yediyurappa that the only reason I did not vote for the Congress was because they clearly didn't want to field S M Krishna as their Chief Ministerial candidate. Krishna has his vices and bad points, but he certainly has a better record than you as far as development is concerned. So, if like Mayawati, you want to make statements like "We had a landslide victory...therefore the people support us" remember that I, for one, did not vote for this. I don't really like dancing at nightclubs but I do like going for a beer with my friends in the evenings. Neither activity makes me immoral. I am still against drunken driving, drugs, rape or any other such activity. I am still concerned about my country and the way it is managed by politicians like you. I still want to work towards creating a society where people can live in an environment of freedom and justice. And that is more than I can say for your goonda friends at the Sri Rama Sene.

Myths?

2009-01-04T23:28:00.001+05:30

The article Modern India's Myths by columnist Tavleen Singh in the January 4^th edition of the Indian Express makes for an interesting read. In that article, Tavleen Singh attacks what she calls "Myths about India" by which she is referring to several arguments that are purportedly made by "Self-Loathing Writers, Historians, Hacks and Politicians who became such a noisy chorus in the international media after the attack on Mumbai". These arguments include the notion that India as a unified entity did not exist before 1947, there was no such thing as a "Hindu India" in the past and India herself should be blamed for terror attacks upon its soil. I would like to make some points that I feel are germane to the content in the article.

Firstly, let me consider the argument over whether India as a unified territory existed before 1947. There is a ring of truth in the refutations made by Singh. For instance, she asserts that long before the creation of the Indian state, there was a country called Bharat, whose boundaries were perfectly understood by ordinary Indians across India. To prove her point, she notes that people from various communities and regions across the subcontinent have been attending the Kumbh Mela centuries before the Indian State was created. This is a fair point, but only to a certain extent. The idea of India is significantly different from that of the country, Bharat, which existed before it. No doubt, there are fundamental similarities between the two since one was born out of another, but they are as different as mother and daughter. This difference is brought about by two political factors – democracy and secularism. Bharat or Hindustan or Old India or whatever one wishes to call it was neither democratic nor secular. Modern India is both (at least in principle). Thus, though I agree with Tavleen Singh about the sociological congruence between Bharat and India, I must point out that, politically, there is a vast difference between the two.

Secondly, Singh makes a very good point about the idea of a 'Hindu' India before the advent of Islamic rulers from the Central Asia. Hindu India, as far my knowledge of history goes, did exist. The Gupta Empire that spanned the subcontinent was ruled by a number of Hindu kings and many historians have dubbed this era as the 'Golden Age' of Ancient India. Besides, for several hundred years, large parts of India were Hindu kingdoms and these kingdoms continued to exist right up to even British times. However, Tavleen Singh does not specify which part of ancient Indian history she was referring to when she mentioned 'Hindu' India. It would be fallacious to assume that India was Hindu-dominated for the whole of the ancient period. In fact, after Ashoka became the emperor of the Mauryan dynasty, Buddhism began to flourish as a major religion in the country and continued to do so until the rise of the Guptas. I like to believe that the idea of a unified subcontinent began with the Mauryas. In other words, as far as I am concerned, neither the Aryan nations nor the Indus Valley Civilization can be considered as true Bharat. But this is just a personal opinion and I do not wish to push this view upon others.

The third so-called myth that Tavleen Singh attacks is the most contentious of the three. She feels that it is ridiculous to blame actions of the Indian state for jihadist attacks upon its soil. I don't fully agree. While I concur that some liberals have taken this point to foolish levels by linking every terror act to an atrocity committed by Indians, I must affirm that Indians have committed crimes in the past that have a direct link to the Islamic terrorism being practiced against the country at present. The riots in Gujarat, though maybe not as horrific as the Rwanda genocide or the Somalian atrocities, were heinous nevertheless and probably fostered a sense of persecution in many Muslims. Fundamentalists based abroad most probably capitalized on this sense of horror to create support bases for themselves in India. In fact, the rise of organizations such as the Indian Mujahedeen may have been the direct result of such persecution mania. Therefore, while we Indians should not feel squeamish while dealing with terrorists, we must take care to avoid collateral damage. This does not mean we should forsake a strong fist for a weak finger but rather ensure that the fist punches only those who deserve it.

I would like to conclude by saying that Tavleen Singh makes some very good points but she ignores some ramifications of the issues she criticizes. These issues are not myths as much as they are misunderstandings and generalizations. I myself don't have much sympathy for liberals who advocate giving up Kashmir or blindly support a particular group of people calling them victims of 'Indian imperialism'. However, I accede that sometimes, what they say needs to be heard.

Interrelations

2008-12-10T23:17:00.001+05:30

It really amazes me how so many subjects we study in schools and colleges are so interconnected. The clear-cut precise borders that were demarcated for us by our teachers become extremely blurred and sometimes even get decimated as one studies higher and higher levels. I do believe someone once made a comment about how knowledge is essentially a bunch of different rivers emptying into a single ocean. I couldn't agree more. Science may be the Ganga and humanities the Brahmaputra but they both end up reaching the Bay of Bengal. Taken in another sense, people may try and classify the world's waters into four or five different oceans (to say nothing of several hundred seas) but one just needs to glance at an atlas to realize that all the oceans are essentially just one big body of water. The same can be said of knowledge.

Those who don't agree can sample the following argument. What's the connection between a pair of birds with ticks on their heads and the scene in The Dark Knight where the Joker threatens to blow up two boats (one carrying immured criminals and the other ferrying common citizens)? Moreover, how does one connect both of these, somehow, to the oil crisis that nearly crippled America in the 1970s? The answer can be summed up in two words – Prisoner's Dilemma. Prisoner's Dilemma is a concept in Game Theory (a statistical subject with applications in various fields) which I think was conceived in the 1950s (not too sure) and later substantially improved by Robert Axelrod, a political scientist. The basic premise of the concept is fairly simple. Assume that you're a prisoner about to be incarcerated by the police for a crime that you committed in collaboration with another person. Now, let us suppose the police have enough evidence to immure both of you but in order to strengthen their case in court, they need an open confession from one of you. They come up with a clever strategy where they place you in one room and your partner in another. Then both of you are offered the same deal: If one of you confesses the crime (and in the process, implicating both collaborators), the informer will be let off, free, while the other will be given an extremely heavy punishment. However, if both decide to squeal, both will be heavily sentenced. If neither lets out any information, the police still have enough evidence to convict both of you but the sentence will be much lighter compared to the earlier scenarios. The ultimate decision will, however, be left to the prisoners themselves. Finally both of you are told that the other prisoner is being offered exactly the same deal at the same time.

The 'dilemma' comes from the fact that you, being cut off from you partner, have no opportunity to communicate with him and come to a joint decision. Therefore, your sentence depends not just on your decision but also on how your partner behaves. The best option, rationally speaking, would be to keep your mouth shut, hoping that your partner would do the same. If your ruse succeeds, the police will not be able to get a confession and therefore will have comparatively lesser evidence in court, thereby forcing the court to award a light sentence. But what if you don't trust your partner that much? What if you expect him to squeal? In such a case, the apposite move would be to confess as well since you will have no wish to languish in prison while your partner roams around free. Your partner, not trusting you either, will come to the same rational conclusion. As a result, both of you end up confessing – which means that both of you end up in jail for a long long time! In real life, the outcome of this dilemma depends very much on how your partner behaves as well as how you expect him to behave.

All this is very well but how does it relate to birds suffering from the itch or Hollywood movies? I got the bird example from a book by biologist Richard Dawkins called the Selfish Gene (Chapter 12 - "Nice Guys Finish First"). This book, by the way, happens to be one of my favourites. Do read it if you can. Coming back to the bird example, Dawkins explains that these birds end up helping themselves by picking the ticks from each others' heads (should be a funny sight, I must say). Through this symbiotic agreement, all birds put in little bits of individual effort to get rid of a common anathema. But problems arise when some birds become 'cheats' that is, they get ticks picked off their own heads while not performing the same tasks for others. In such cases, the birds face a Prisoner's Dilemma – will the other bird co-operate or cheat? What should be my decision? Whether birds get rid of their itch or not may seem to be a prosaic subject to the layperson but such examples often form the basis of evolutionary theory as Dawkins illustrates in his book.

The Dark Knight example must now seem fairly easy. The Joker planted explosives on both boats and placed the trigger for each boat's explosives on the other boat. He then told the people on both boats that unless one of them pressed their trigger first (and in the process, exploding the other boat), he would destroy all of them. The people on both boats faced a Prisoner's Dilemma (incidentally, with real prisoners). How would the people on the other boat act? Can they trust the others to not blow them up?

What about the oil crisis? The oil crisis of the 1970s was brought about largely due to the actions of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) which is often cited as the quintessence of cartelization. Cartels, by their economic definition, are collaborative groups of players in a market who come together for mutual benefit. A standard strategy that most producer cartels follow is to collectively raise prices of the product that they are selling (in OPEC's case, the product was oil). This allows all the players to get better revenues since they are now charging higher prices for their products – something that would have been impossible in perfect markets since competition drives prices down. However, cartels, in normal circumstances, are fundamentally unstable because they always face a Prisoner's Dilemma, especially when demand for the product is less. When demand is low, the producer always has an incentive to cut prices to attract more customers. Therefore, in a cartel, the partners are constantly watching each other. Will the other dude cut prices and attract more customers? More importantly, should I cut mine first and gain a larger market share? Cartels usually fall apart because of questions such as these. It's only in special cases (oil, diamonds, uranium) that cartels usually have a good chance of surviving (OPEC, De Beers and the Nuclear Suppliers Group).

Prisoner's Dilemma and similar game theory concepts are not the only things which connect several varied subjects. There are more connections being found every day between what were often considered fundamentally disparate subjects. Recent years have seen the development of interdisciplinary sciences such as Econophysics, an offbeat area where formulae and concepts used in physics are incorporated into economic theories (though I have no clue how effective this has been). School students who take up biology hoping to escape the influence of mathematics may be horrified to know how calculus has become an important part of higher biology. Again, in economics, more and more researchers are realizing the need to understand human psychology in order to formulate theories better (something which, in my opinion, ought to have been done a long time ago). I hope this trend continues. For a geek like me, the more knowledge one acquires, the more satisfied one feels.

Who Should We Blame?

2008-11-29T11:44:00.002+05:30

I think the title of my post says it all. Who should be blamed for the fiasco that occurred one and a half days ago that allowed several gun-wielding goons to run berserk in the most posh part of the biggest city in India? Do we blame intelligence for failing to gather information about this event? Do we blame the Coast Guard or the Navy for not stopping the boat carrying the terrorists at sea? Do we blame the police for not responding quickly to the situation? Do we blame Shivraj Patil for candidly announcing the details of Operation Black Tornado without any concern for secrecy? Or do we blame the system for not training our forces, for not giving them adequate equipment, not installing enough warning systems or not instilling a need for decisiveness? The answer is pretty complicated.

First, let me deal with the immediate reasons for the inefficient manner in which the counter-strike was conducted. Yes, the police ought to be blamed for not responding quickly and decisively. Why weren't the perpetrators at V.T. stopped at the station itself? How were they allowed to get out of the station and reach Cama Hospital and Metro Cinema? Pictures show them swaggering down the street, clearly confident that they wouldn't be challenged. This was on Mahapalika Marg where the both the High Court and the BMC Headquarters are situated. Azad Maidan Police Station is just over there. The Police Commissioner's headquarters is not far off either. And yet, those maniacs walked down the road as if they were taking a stroll. What about the shootout at Leopold Cafe? Colaba Police Station is barely five minutes away – by foot. Why wasn't the response quicker than what it was?

What about intelligence? Unfortunately, Indian intelligence leaves a lot to be desired. Over the last one year, we have failed to predict attacks at several places including big cities like Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. Why bother to even mention small towns like Malegaon? Moreover, how good is our counter-terrorism technology? Why did we fail to pick up the boat carrying those terrorists when it approached Mumbai? Surely, all the boats and ships entering Mumbai are registered with the authorities or are they? Even if there is a registration process, why weren't any checks conducted on the boat in question as it landed at Mumbai? Again, what was the Coast Guard doing when this boat appeared in Indian waters? Were they challenged? A week ago, the entire nation was boasting about the prowess of the Indian Navy as the INS Tabar sunk a pirate ship off the Somalian coast. Will we do so now?

Our politicians are an easy lot to blame. Not only, like Shivraj Patil, do they bungle up counter-terrorist operations, they also retard ongoing investigations. The whole month was punctuated with the Sangh Parivar and the Shiv Sena angrily attacking the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for arresting Sadhvi Pragya Thakur. The previous month had had the ruling government poking its nose into the Jamia Milia Islamia encounter in Delhi. Far more disgusting is the fact that after making statements like "presenting a United Front", the Congress and the BJP waited for barely 24 hours before launching verbal assaults upon each other for being against the cause of counter-terrorism.

It is with the politicians that I, personally, nurse the biggest grudge. We have always known how corrupt, inefficient and heartless they all are but the past few days have seen them reach new depths in callousness. The NSG Commandos who were dispatched from Delhi were delayed thanks to a VIP who wanted to escort them. I couldn't help feeling angry when I saw Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi arrive in a limousine at JJ Hospital to "meet the victims". Whoever asked them to come here at all? Operations were still being carried out at the Taj at that time and surely the security provided to these two VVIPs could have been diverted there had they decided not to fly in. Have they no such concerns? Narendra Modi did a slightly better job by immediately convening a meeting to discuss the weaknesses in security around the Gujarat coast but then he too stooped to milk the issue for political gain by coming down to Mumbai and making impressive statements. The BJP splattered advertisements all over the place mocking the Congress for not doing enough to tackle terrorism and asking people to vote for the saffron party instead. Do we really need electoral statements when the country is trying to get back on its feet? The Shiv Sena and the MNS, thankfully, haven't featured themselves much in the media during this issue (at least, in the media that I have access to). I only hope they are not biding their time, waiting for the right moment to come out and blow their own trumpets. That will be just as disgusting as what the Congress and the BJP are doing right now.

On an even angrier note, these politicians who make hugely sympathizing statements when we are under attack do nothing when the nation is at peace. The last three days have seen numerous reports about how badly trained and poorly equipped our policemen are to handle attacks such as these. People make excuses saying that India is a developing country and it cannot afford extensive training and sophisticated equipment. Please. By that argument, India ought not to have nuclear weapons. India ought not to have superb warships such as the INS Tabar and the INS Mysore. India should not be in possession of indigenously developed missiles such as the Agni III. A friend of mine rightly remarked that India has more than enough money; it's just that it's not being channelled into the right areas. It's all going into the pockets of our beloved politicians. You can blame our police forces for shoddy responses but the root of the problem is that they are not effectively trained or equipped. And the reason for poor training is the fat khadi-clad politician hogging away our public funds.

There is however, one group of people who have not been blamed for this gory spectacle, largely because they are seen as victims. In reality though, a portion of the blame ought to be attached to them. I'm talking about the common people. Average citizens like you and me do share the responsibility for scale of damage that this attack has caused simply because, like the political class, we did nothing when all was peaceful. Did any of us bother to find out how secure we are against terrorism? We didn't. Did any of us demand to know how much money was being provided for upgrading and training of urban security forces? I don't think anyone did. CNN-IBN had conducted a sting operation more than two years ago, smuggling 'contraband' by boat from the Arabian Sea, landing upon the Maharashtra coast and carrying the crate of 'contraband' right up to the Gateway of India. Did anyone raise a voice then, asking our netas what was going to be done to prevent such incidents? Nope. As a result, the Gateway of India (or rather the hotel in front of it) is burning today. I didn't do anything either and today I'm paying for it.

Over the past few months, I have become more and more convinced that being a citizen of a country is not very different from having a majority stake in a company. When you invest a large amount of money to purchase a major shareholding in a company, you don't sit back and do nothing, do you? Even if you don't take part in active management, you nevertheless keep a track of what your company is doing, what activities it is pursuing and how beneficial or detrimental these activities are for you. If you have a problem with what the company is doing, you say so. If there are no effective channels by which you can communicate with your management, you demand for such channels. You don't just pump in money and ignore what the management is doing with that money. Yet, that is what people do with their most important stock – the government. They pump in almost a third of their annual income into the coffers of this company and then don't give a damn about what the management does with it. Citizens will ultimately pay the price for not taking an active interest in their dividends from the government. South Bombay, assuming that it will always be safe from calamity, never took an active interest in voting or elections. That assumption was shattered this week. Even a fortress cannot defend its residents by itself. It needs good soldiers to man the ramparts. South Bombay didn't bother to look for these soldiers.

In summary, everyone has some blame to shoulder. Policemen for inadequate responses, intelligence for poor and shoddy work and the public for choosing to remain detached from it all. However, in the end, the biggest culprits remain the politicians. I feel no guilt when I declare them the scum of the earth, parasites that pollute our communities and try to bleed out the prosperity hard-working citizens create. It is a sad state of affairs in a country that hopes to become a superpower in the next quarter-century. I frankly don't care about such things. Just give me a respectable source of income, a comfortable home, a loving family and a safe community to live in. As long as we concentrate on that, I don't give a damn about how much of a superpower we are.

In the Middle of it All...

2008-11-28T11:21:00.003+05:30

I suppose everyone in Mumbai remembers where they were the night before last (26^th November). It is not likely that they are going to forget it soon. The events of that evening are very much going to be embedded in every Mumbaikar's memory for quite some time. The city is no stranger to terrorist attacks but this was extremely different from either 1993 or 2006. Some people are calling it 'India's 9/11'. It may very well be so but even if it wasn't called that, it was still an attack that I will recount for quite a few years with apprehension.

I had gone to meet someone in Prabhadevi that day and returned to the hostel around a quarter to nine. My hostel is located at the rear end of the St. Xavier's College campus which shares a boundary with Cama Hospital on one side. A small lane leading towards the Times of India office separates the campus from Rang Bhavan and G.T. Hospital on the other side. Walk down the road from the campus and you will reach the BMC Headquarters and V.T. Station. Walk in the opposite direction and you will come up to the Metro Cinema junction.

My roommate was supposed to leave Mumbai that night by a train from Dadar. Around a quarter past ten, he had just finished packing up everything and I was doing some insignificant work on my laptop when we suddenly heard a staccato of explosions in the direction of V.T. Station. Presuming them to be fireworks, I nonchalantly continued with my work when the explosions happened again. This time, I heard people screaming in the distance, prompting me to look out of the window. My window looks out towards V.T. but the view of the station is blocked by several buildings in between and all I could see was the dome of the station's heritage building. The explosions occurred again and this time, the tube-light in my brain flickered and I began to wonder if it was gunfire. My roommate looked worried but he was determined to leave and carried his luggage out, promising to give me a call once he reached Dadar station. As he left, I heard the gunfire once more and this time, the screams were all too clear.

Meanwhile, the sound of the shots had brought many of the hostelites into the corridor but there was no panic. On the contrary, most of us imagined that the perpetrators would be stopped quickly and there would be no way they would leave V.T. Within a few minutes however, one of the hostelites came out of his room and told us that this was a major operation and other places in South Bombay had been targeted as well. He had just received information that both the Taj and the Oberoi hotels had been attacked.

Puzzled and more than a little worried, I went to one of my friends' rooms and there I learnt that three of my friends had gone out and were known to be somewhere near Metro Cinema. Suddenly the gunfire occurred again. This time, it sounded a lot closer. All of us were getting quite excitable now and there were people running up and down the staircase and bursting into rooms trying to find out if everyone was in the hostel. A couple of bigger explosions suddenly took place and our building vibrated slightly from the impact. Some of us rushed to the terrace to see what was happening in spite of admonishments from the rest of us. My roommate called me and told me that he was coming back. A policeman had intercepted him and ordered him back into the hostel. Leaving his luggage with the security at the entrance, he came back to our room. The shots were loud and clear now and seemed to be coming from Cama Hospital. Another fairly big explosion shook the building again. We decided to switch off the lights and abandon all rooms at the back which faced Cama Hospital (including mine). Meanwhile there was no news from the three who had been stuck outside. We later learned that they had had a horrifying time trying to find shelter. The management at Metro Cinema were not letting them in while the police were trying to drive them away. They somehow managed to contact someone who had an apartment nearby and arrange for shelter there. Before they could leave however, the terrorists managed to reach Metro Cinema and an exchange took place between them and the police. Luckily, the three managed to escape unharmed and made their way to the apartment.

Back in the hostel, a few of us had gathered together in one room and were trying to find out what was happening. Our conversations were punctuated with explosion and sporadic gunfire. Those who had gone to the roof came back with a grisly tale of being witness to explosions tearing people apart in Cama Hospital next door. Then, one of the terrorists on the ground saw them and made as if to shoot them. The hostelites quickly abandoned the terrace and came down again to the relative safety of their rooms. Those of us who had gathered together kept looking out of our window, hoping not to see any terrorists on the campus. We kept getting calls from people frantic with terror, checking on us and asking us if we were safe. The hostel's General Secretary was busy trying to find out how many hostelites were outdoors. Meanwhile the terrorists had reached the narrow lane between the campus and GT Hospital and an altercation took place over there. Now the battle was truly happening all around us. Strangely none of us in the room were actually panicking. We were scared, no doubt, but not driven mindless. We kept our cool, continued talking in low voices and waited.

At last, around one in the morning, the gunfire ceased. We waited for another half-hour before concluding that whatever happened had ended, at least for now. We didn't know of course, that the Taj and Oberoi were still under attack (our hostel doesn't have cable tv and therefore, we couldn't check any news reports). Finally, around a quarter to two, I went back to my room and somehow drifted to sleep. I woke up again at around a quarter to six in the morning. The sky was turning a pale blue and dawn was not far off. I cautiously looked out of the window and I could make out several policemen on the roof of one of the buildings outside. I don't like giving in to dramatics a lot but as I munched an apple and watched the sun rise behind the dome of V.T. Station, I couldn't help feeling that it was an extremely unreal dawn. It was clearly going to be a long long day.

(Image: The view from the window of my room taken at approximately 6 AM on the day after the attack at VT Station. Please DO NOT reproduce this image anywhere without my prior permission)

Terrorism, Religion and Perceptions

2008-10-21T01:12:00.003+05:30

Exams ended this afternoon and in celebration, a bunch of us decided to go and watch a movie. We ended up watching Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies (Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe) at Sterling Cinema. I wasn’t too sure if I was in the mood for a violent, grisly movie after the pain of exams (especially since the Indian Express had trashed it the previous day) but I changed my mind once it began. The movie was fantastic. It had all the usual Hollywood paraphernalia and quite a bit of hyperbole but it wasn’t the typical American-cowboy-turns-spy-and-saves-the-world-with-fancy-gadgets sort of movie. On the contrary, it portrayed a rather critical picture of the America’s so-called war on terror and the way American agencies operate while combating terrorists. The best part was that it ended the way I wanted it to end, leaving me rather pleased with the whole result.

Of course, one cannot rely upon Hollywood to provide accurate information on the inside working of the CIA, but I think it pretty much sums up how I view the issue of the war on terror – that terrorism is indeed the bigger threat but the Americans aren’t all that admirable either. While I do believe that American military intervention has given the world a few benefits – the removal of the Taliban from Afghani government for example – I also feel it has caused massive collateral damage. Americans are hated a lot more across the world and even generally tolerant nations now regard them with suspicion. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people are celebrating the financial crisis that is plaguing the American economy at the moment.

Having said that, I have to assert that fundamentalist terrorism is, any day, far worse than the Americans. The issue of fundamentalism is something I feel very strongly about. The absolute fanaticism with which these people (are they people?) embrace violence is ridiculous but at the same time, frightening. That men with minds of their own can twist and be twisted into murderous machines of destruction is a reality that is all too grim and unsettling.

Let’s consider the case of that brilliant young engineer who was arrested for being a member of the Indian Mujahedeen. I have forgotten his name at the moment, but I do remember news reports that said he used to get more than 95% in his exams and he was working for Yahoo! for a salary of almost 20 lakh rupees a year. Let’s also not forget those two equally brilliant professionals from Bangalore who a couple of years back, tried to set a British airport on fire. What prompted these intelligent young men to throw away everything that they had acquired through years of hard work and end up working against the very mechanisms that gave them such status?

I remember one passionate blogger (who said he was a Muslim) angrily call these men ‘dumbfucks’ because not only did they throw away their own careers and lives but also deepened the resentment of society against Muslims in general. I agree that these men are dumbfucks but why did they go down that violent path? A report (once again, in the Express) reported the Indian Mujahedeen member saying that he was attracted to religion because he had started to feel alienated after reaching the higher levels of society. Excuse me? If you feel alienated, does that mean you go and help those people who tear up innocent lives and cast them into oblivion? Do you consider that to be an act of religion?

Religion, country, community...what are all these concepts? They are just perceptions. They are just ways in which you look at society and society looks at you. Religion is not a bunch of laws in ancient books that have handed down from century to century. It is the way in which these laws are perceived. Tradition is not about what your ancestors used to do. It is about how you think you can best emulate your forefathers. Heritage is not some ancient relic that has stood the test of time. It is the emotion that this relic invokes in us. If one examines these concepts carefully, one will realize that all of them are...concepts. Emotions. Perceptions.

Human beings find it convenient and comfortable to classify the world around them into tiny little boxes so that everything becomes nice and organized. They then select a box that they have carved out for themselves and wage a war against all the other boxes. Hindus against Muslims, Christians against Jews, Maharashtrians against North Indians, Insiders against Outsiders, Us against Them...the list goes on. But they don’t just conduct a war on their own. They are always trying to acquire sympathizers and supporters from the other little boxes when they attack one particular box. To do this, they justify their actions with twisted logic. They quote verses from old books, they talk about culture, they rant and rave about outsiders. So what’s the worst part about all this? It works.

What the individual doesn’t realize is that the ultimate authority on any such matter is the individual himself. Every person ultimately ends up interpreting religion or culture in his or her own way. They try and associate these concepts with what they believe is happening around them. Religious authorities are just catalysts. The main reaction takes place within the individual’s own head. This is why a sentence like ‘Thou shalt preserve thy culture’ can interpreted by one person to mean living a traditional lifestyle and by another person to mean militaristic evangelism. Different people tend to view such statements differently.

The implications of this are enormous. When an individual realizes that the ultimate interpretation is made by her alone, she will be forced to use her own judgement and conviction during the process. One will no longer need to depend upon a religious person or authority for spiritual guidance. This ultimately means that religious authority will have lesser control over the minds of men, thus reducing the chances of manipulation. Religion will then become what you interpret religion to be, and not what somebody else considers it to be. One’s belief (or even disbelief) in God will become one’s own choice as will be the way in which they lead their lives.

My own religious beliefs have gone through a considerable amount of transformation over the last one year and some of my earlier posts in which I have written about my belief in God and religion are now no longer relevant in my life. But this is the way I believe it should be. One’s perception always changes with experience and it is important to gain as much experience as you can. This is why I believe that sticking fanatically to any concept will only retard your spiritual and mental growth in the long run.

Experimental Issues

2008-09-12T01:35:00.001+05:30

A few days ago, the scientists at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) commenced what is being touted as the largest and most expensive scientific experiment in history. They have activated a device known as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometre long (yes, 27 kilometres) tube super-cooled to 271 degrees below zero (that’s colder than much of outer space) which circulates sub-atomic particles within itself at extremely high speeds (approximately 99.999% the speed of light) and smashes them together in the hope of constructing a working model of the universe as it existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. These statistics alone are mind-boggling. What is even more amazing is that colliding two sub-atomic particles together in such a fashion is similar to (in CERN’s own words) “firing two needles, ten kilometres apart, at each other so that they meet halfway”.

In my opinion, this is truly one of those great times in scientific history that very few people have the privilege of witnessing, with other such moments including the 1919 solar eclipse experiment that proved Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to be correct and the legendary incident of an apple falling on Newton’s head (if it ever happened, that is). To me, this experiment is a symbol of how far man can go to satisfy his urge to seek and discover. There is a raw, intense craving that I can feel within these scientists. It is a desire so passionate and so furious, that my own self is humbled in front of it. I feel that the need to know the nature of things is the only thing that distinguishes man from animal and no set of human beings can exemplify this characteristic better than the scientific community.

Therefore, it really infuriated me when I realized how little most people in society knew about this experiment. Even if they did know anything about it, there was a lot of negativity regarding the whole issue. There were some superstitious fools who were convinced that it was the end of the world either because they thought the experiment would go wrong or (far worse), some mysterious omnipotent being (read God) will send down lightning and thunder to wipe out the human race as a punishment for their impunity. The worst (and most saddening) example was the one where a woman in Madhya Pradesh killed herself because she saw something about the experiment on the news and decided that the planet was doomed.

Many others I talked to were critical of the whole idea. Why go through so much trouble? They asked. Why spend so much money and time and effort for so little return? I have a bee in my bonnet with such people. I just hate it when they look at everything from the financial point of view. There are even some who try and convince me that it is criminal to waste so much money on something so trivial when there are millions who are starving. I was fairly outraged at their attitude because I have always supported scientific research and consider statements such as those above as personal attacks upon my beliefs.

However, childish outrage apart, when I introspected on matters again, I realized that some of these points need to be addressed. Most of those who made these arguments were genuinely concerned about what they considered to be an absolute wastage of resources and were demanding answers to their questions. I will get back to addressing the problem of superstition at the end of this article but let me concentrate on the other arguments for now.

So, let’s start the fight. Why should so much money and funding be pumped to answer a trivial question like “Why did the Big Bang occur”? Let me answer that question by saying that ‘trivial’ is a relative term. What one person considers trifling might be the world to another person. Twenty rupees may not mean much to a multi-millionaire but it can mean the difference between life and death to a starving man on the street. Issues such as the Big Bang, the chemistry of stars and ultimately the origin of the universe are not just scientific areas of interest. They are deeply philosophical issues as well and for these scientists (and others like me), gaining a deeper insight into the structure of the universe is another step towards gaining a deeper perspective about one’s own self. It’s about realizing the nature of one’s relationship with the environment in which one exists. Every member of society has the right to use society in a positive way to achieve personal satisfaction. In fact, that is the reason society exists – to provide a mechanism where every individual can maximize his or her own satisfaction as much as possible. For the scientific community, gaining more knowledge leads to such satisfaction.

Of course, society demands something in return. Naturally, it should. Nothing in world is free of cost and if one desires satisfaction, one must pay for it. So what returns does society get from supporting extensive scientific research? Well, firstly, society gets the knowledge acquired from such research. Most of us today do not realize it but almost everything that is a part of our daily life is a result of extensive, often expensive and time-consuming scientific research. Sometimes, the benefits of such research aren’t immediately acquired. When Michael Faraday demonstrated his findings about electricity in front of the King of England, the King chided him for investing in such unnecessary research. Faraday replied that one day, the King would be able to tax people for electricity consumption. It wasn’t until a hundred years later though, that Thomas Edison, Joseph Swan and Tesla pioneered the electrical revolution. Today, Faraday’s prediction has come true. And where would we be without electricity?

Secondly, there are a number of positive side-effects from scientific research. A large number of items that are used in daily life are the spin-offs from scientific research directed elsewhere. The best example of that is CERN’s most famous development – the World Wide Web. The internet started off as a communications network that eased co-ordination between various groups of scientists at the CERN Centre in Switzerland. CERN’s various devices have also been adapted by other organizations for entirely different purposes. For instance, CERN claims that the same method used in their CMS electro-calorimeter to study high energy physics and to search for new sub-atomic particles is used for medical imaging in positron emission tomography (PET) to study body functions and search for cancer.

And thirdly, there’s the educational aspect. Scientific research provides an opportunity for hundreds of bright minds to put their skills to the cutting edge. Scientific research is a challenge that a lot of people relish taking up. It opens up their minds, expands their horizon and provides fresh new perspectives of the world. Scientists have often remarked on how no feeling on earth beats the thrill of discovering some new, something rare and something that no one else has discovered before.

These then are a few arguments on why I feel scientific research should be given a lot of rope. The matter is, to a large amount, a philosophical one, no matter how much one tries to rationalize it and opinion on support for research eventually boils down to the basic ideology of the individual in question. However, though I can understand the scepticism of those who question the rationale behind supporting the cause of science, I refuse to accept their logic. Innovation is what stops any field from turning into a drab, mechanical affair. Such research-driven innovation is what keeps fields like engineering and medicine alive, influencing society directly. Scientific research might even help alleviate the very problems it seems to ignore – poverty, suffering and deprivation.

Before I conclude though, let me just add one last point. The one aspect of this affair that really disheartens me is how ignorant most of us are of scientific research and even science in general. There are news channels that promote experiments like the LHC Collision as ‘the end of the world’. There are films like Love Story 2050 which promote the notion that astrology and astronomy are the same. There are people who commit suicide on such issues. I really think we ought to make ourselves more aware of what is happening around us. Otherwise, you might be the next person considering suicide to be a good option.

A Long Rant on Democracy

2008-08-13T23:14:00.003+05:30

Recent events in the Indian political scenario have made me quite sick and I am sure that it is making other people just as sick too. It is quite a painful process to open the newspaper in the morning and force yourself to read about the latest atrocities committed by our dear governments (be it the Central, the State or the Local governments). Some of these incidents are outrageously comical while others are downright sinister. It seems to me as if the quality of governance in this country has gone from the dogs to parasitic bacteria. And parasites they are, these politicians, playing subtle (and not-so-subtle) mind games to acquire as much power as they can.

Some events, such as the recent Amarnath land transfer issue has been positively scary. Though Kashmir had always been a hotspot for trouble in my lifetime, never have I felt such a strong current of separatism washing out of the state. For the probably the first time in years, I am really frightened of the consequences and repurcussions that may arise from a single incident such as this. But do the politicians care? I doubt it. They seem to be hardly concerned about the fact that Jammu & Kashmir might get embroiled in a dangerous inter-community clash. During normal times, this may be bad enough but coming at a time when there are other worries plaguing the nation - a slowing economy, rising prices, terrorism and political turmoil in neighbouring Pakistan - the Jammu & Kashmir row might just be the spark that will ignite the oil spill of destruction across the country. But though both the government and the opposition seem to be very interested in the development of affairs in Kashmir, they don't seem to display either caution or tact while handling this highly sensitive issue.

Why have we ended up like this? Why have ended up with gerontocrats whose only aim and ambition in life is to gather as much power before dying? Does one really want to know? Not really, because the answer is a rather discomforting thought. It is we who took matters out of our hands and placed both the power and responsibility on some one else. Most Indians seem to be proud of the fact that they are citizens of the world's largest democracy. I am not. I am not proud of that fact because it is not a fact at all. India, I recently concluded, is not a democracy.

Of Democracy

If India is not a democracy then what is it? In order to answer that question, one must review the very definition of democracy. Abraham Lincoln gave a very simple definition "A government of the people, by the people, for the people". Nothing really, can describe a democracy more lucidly. But for the sake of technicality, I quote the Oxford Dictionary meaning "A form of government in which people have a voice in the exercise of power, typically through elected representatives"

What do both these definitions have in common? Any fool can see that both definitions lay emphasis on people. Or more precisely, on power being a tool of the people. In other words, a democracy tries to contain the power of decision-making to the citizens of the democracy. But how? Oxford provides the answer: Through elected representatives. So what's new about that? India does have elected respresentatives. Ah, but that's the point - elected representatives are meant to ensure that power to make decisions lies with the citizens. In India, elected representatives don't do that - they keep the power with themselves.

Do the people have a voice?

Does the common citizen have any say in how the matters of the country are run? Yes, they can vote for or against a party once in five years. Let me repeat that - the only time the common citizen gets a chance to demonstrate political power is once in five years. Five years. In five years, a lot of things can happen - both good and bad. The government in power claims credit for the good times and lays blame on others for the bad. So, in almost ninety nine out of a hundred times, a government at the end of five years usually has a mixed report. This confuses the ordinary voter and ultimately, he or she either votes for a party because of some illogical loyalty or he or she will simply give up and not vote at all.

Let me come back to why India is not a proper democracy again. Examine the Lincoln definition of a democracy once more. A government of the people. The Indian political scene is not of the people at all. At least, not of common people like you and me. They consist of seasoned politicians who have either trained themselves or have been trained by someone else to retain as much political power as possible with themselves. Common people really have no voice in the Indian political system.

Take some government project as simple as say, tarring the roads in your neighbourhood. Firstly, the local government rarely listens to your complaints. Secondly, neither you nor your neighbours can decide which contracter is going to be responsible for the tarring of the roads. Thirdly, the duration and deadline of the project is decided by the government, not by you. And finally, the government has no obligation to complete the project and can abandon it whenever it feels like doing so. Strangely, all this is being done, for you.

The Reason for the Madness

Why is the situation so bad, even at a local level? The answer is simple. The situation is horrifying because, we as citizens take no interest in decision-making. We hardly ever bother about taking an active participation in the democratic process. A democracy doesn't function like that. If a government of the people, has no people in the first place then how can it be for the people? We citizens are happy to come to election booths once in five years, vote for someone and then sit back, expecting our representatives to work miracles.

Democracy is not the same as elections. As Ramesh Ramanathan, the founder of the NPO Janaagraha (where I volunteered this summer) put it "Don't move from E to F (Elect to Forget). Start with E and stay on E (Elect and Empower).". Citizens cannot just sit back and complain about the political system. They have to take an active part in it. That is what a democracy is all about. The process doesn't end with voting, it begins with it. After having voted for a candidate, it is the job of the citizens to make sure that their elected representative is doing a good job. Doesn't one do the same thing while hiring a new recruit for a company?

The Whys and Hows

But why should the citizens go through so much bother? Well, if you don't, you end with a scenario like today. When we vote for someone, we give them both power and responsibility. If there is no careful scrutiny to make sure that the powers are being used responsibly, the incentive to shirk responsibility is too high. There are few idealistic people in the world today, with even fewer being in politics.

All right, let's say one wants to be actively involved. How does one go about it? Unfortunately, there is no real concrete platform from where people can voice their concerns, especially on national issues. Urban areas, surprisingly, are much more at a disadvantage, legally, than rural areas because unlike rural areas, there is no equivalent of a panchayati system in cities.

So what does one do? For starters, one should get down from one's ivory tower. Secondly, one should start organizing oneself with others to form collective bodies to represent common concerns. Bureaucracy tends to listen more to organization than to individual. Thirdly, one should take a greater interest in what is happening around one's immediate locality and try to correct any faults within that locality. Only after this, can one try and work their way up to try and influence higher-level decisions.

Efforts are already underway in this direction. Organizations like Janaagraha and Lok Satta are pioneering a concept known as the 'Area Sabha' which may turn out to be the platform that urban citizens desperately need to address their concerns. Local welfare groups have been formed in many cities and many areas to interact with the government over matters regarding their interest. Efforts are on to mobilize rural areas as well. What is required right now is greater awareness followed by greater participation.

Through out this post, I have referred to the government as if it was an entity separate and distinct from the rest of society. The truth is far from it. The government at the end of the day, is an extension of our own selves. Ignoring it is not going to make it go away because contrary to whatever anarchism might say, the government is still the most viable form of self-rule. Remember that term. Self-rule.

Note: I wrote this piece in one long sitting around 1 AM in the morning. Therefore this piece may not have been all that great a read - both grammatically and argumentatively. My sincere apologies for that. Still, it's nice to rant and rave for a while!

Complaints of an Economics Student

2008-06-16T23:03:00.005+05:30

The very first post on this blog was about how people in this country are obsessed with engineering. Looking back, I feel I was rather harsh in my criticisms. It's all very well to say that most people who take up engineering are doing so because they lack a sense of direction but let me be honest with myself...even if many of these people wanted to pursue any other stream, does the Indian system give them any honourable or respectable opportunities to do so?

A recent happening prompted me to consider this matter. Having just started my final year of undergraduation, I, along with most of my classmates, am feeling extremely apprehensive about my future and my career prospects. What job opportunities does a Bachelor of Arts scholar get in this country anyway, even if he is specializing in a practical field like economics? A Master of Arts in economics obtained from an Indian institution (apart from a rare Delhi or Madras School of Economics) is about as useful as a BMTC Bus Pass in Bombay. The only option for most of us is to either attempt to get into an MBA institute or try to gain admission into a good post-graduate programme abroad.

It was while weighing the pros and cons of the latter option that I came upon this interesting piece of news. A lot of good universities in the UK actually prefer to admit mathematics, engineering or statistics students from India into their economics programmes rather than economics graduates. In other words, if two Indian students - one a mathematics major and the other an economics major - from the same college or university applied to an economics course in the UK, the mathematics major has a better chance of getting admission to the programme as compared to the economics major.

Does this make any sense? Why should the specialist be shunted aside in favour of the non-specialist? The answer is that the specialist is not really a specialist at all. Economics today is one of the most dynamic fields to study in. The position of the consumer, the producer and the government change every moment from economy to economy and time to time. Modern economics is no longer merely a Keynes vs Friedman debate revolving around conflicting ideologies of capitalism or socialism...it is now extremely result-oriented and is the nearest humanities subject to an exact science. All this revolves around intricate quantitative and analytical tools that are used daily to solve major and minor economic problems. Therefore, the knowledge of quantitative subjects such as mathematics and statisitics is vital to an economics graduate today.

And yet, to me, it seems as if this transition of economics from dismal to dynamic has been barely noted by Indian universities. To give an example, the University of Mumbai's syllabus for B.A. programme (assuming the student chooses economics) is as follows:

I Year: One Economics paper (Micro-economic theory) along with one paper each of two other humanities subjects plus two language papers

II Year: Two economics papers (Macro-economic theory and Indian Economy) along with two papers each of the same two humanities subjects plus one additional component

III Year: Advanced Economic Theory, Growth and Development and Industrial Relations along with a choice between History of Economic Thought & Econometrics, Mathematics & Research Methodology and Financial Economics and Export Management

As one can see, the average student starts learning economics deeply only when he or she reaches the final year. He or she is introduced to mathematics and econometrics only in the final year. Other special subjects are also introduced only in the final year. Does the student care? Of course not, it's final year, all that he or she is bothered about is getting enough marks in the university exams. No one wants to learn anything apart from strategies on how to do well in exams.

Net result? The student who comes out as a graduate is (unless so talented that it shows) hardly considered employable by most organizations. Far worse, foreign universities are aware of how outdated most of the syllabii in Indian universities are. This is why they prefer a mathematics major to an economics major for their economics programme - atleast they know that a top-ranking mathematics student is good at quantative subjects whereas they cannot be sure with a top-ranking economics student. Can you blame them?

The bottom line of the whole business is that most students really have no choice. There is a sort of vicious cycle going on in the Indian education system today. Most courses are badly-designed, leaving their students with inadequate skills. This prompts most people to opt for courses like engineering which offer a compartively safer prospect. This creates a huge demand for such courses, leading to their development while a social stigma develops about streams like humanities. This in turn leads to further neglect of such courses bringing in another cycle of misery for everyone.

Any chance of change? Perhaps. There are some places where humanities courses are in great demand (like Delhi). Increasing fees for engineering and medical courses are making students and their parents consider options like commerce (a classic case of demand vs supply by the way!). Chartered Accountancy and Law are both gathering immense popularity among a small group of students thanks to a number of good institutes and their reputations. All this will hopefully put the attention on the woeful condition of syllabii and course structures in unconventional fields. But there is still a long way to go.

Two Views, Two Stands

2008-05-31T22:39:00.002+05:30

There were two extremely interesting articles completely unrelated to business and economics in recent editions of Mint. The first one, 'A Battle About History' was written by T R Ramaswami who according to Mint is a "former commercial and investment banker" on the 23rd of May. Ramaswami examines one of the most debated phases in Ancient Indian History - the arrival of the Aryans and the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization. This is an issue that has puzzled historians and archaeologists to a great extent. Why did the Indus Valley Civilization die out? Who were the Aryans? Where did they come from? Were they involved in the decline of the Indus Valley cultures? These are questions that have either no answers or hotly debated ones. Opinions abound on who the Aryans were and where they originated from.

Ramaswami is undoubtedly an 'Invasion Theory' supporter. The entire theme of his article can be summed up in his last few lines "Was Ram a Cossack, the most famed of all horse-people? Doesn’t “Valmiki” sound Russian, perhaps a corruption of Vladmikhailovich, who lived in the present Russian town named Sverdlovsk, formerly perhaps Swargalok?". He goes on to say that even if the Invasion Theory is incorrect, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata occurred outside India (possibly in Russia) and were then carried to India by the 'horse-people' where they became a part of folklore.

I may sound elitist over here, but I do believe there is a certain way in which articles ought to be written, especially those that deal with ambiguous issues such as this. Unfortunately, Mr. Ramaswami has not followed this path. There is an inherently I-know-everything attitude to the whole article that tends to sharply divide the readers into either enthusiastic supporters or angry rejectors. Sentences like "Here's what happened..." immediately invokes a "How does he know?" reaction from lots of readers including me. It's no small wonder that a brief glance at the comments section shows one a number of angry replies including some who advise Ramaswami to stick to being an investment banker and not venture into areas beyond his expertise.

The following week, there was a reply by a certain Jaykrishnan Nair who, according to Mint, maintains a history blog and "hosts the Indian History Carnival at Desipundit.com". The article is called 'Genetic Data Refutes Theory'. The difference between Nair's article and that of Ramaswami is starkly apparent. While Ramaswami's article was loud and declarative, Nair maintains a more subdued tone, being more analytical and technical in nature. Nair doesn't support the Invasion Theory and unlike Ramaswami, most of his statements don't appear to be speculative but rather backed by scientific data (more specifically DNA testing). To sum up the differences between the two, Ramaswami, seems to be shouting into a microphone while standing on a stage while Nair seems to be giving a quiet lecture in a small room. And I have noticed, that it is usually these personalized lectures that connect more easily with the audience than a massive congregation.

I am an Invasion Theory supporter myself (though not as over-the-top as Ramaswami) for a number of reasons but Nair's article has certainly made me re-examine my beliefs about history. It will take more than one newspaper article to change a fundamental part of my theories about Indian history but if confronted with enough convincing evidence, I may change my theories in the future.

Which brings me to another small point. It's all very well to criticize Ramaswami for inadequate research, tall claims and (in my case) bad writing but one thing I was offended about was how some comments on his article were directed at his occupation and why he "ought not to meddle in areas beyond his expertise". Please, for the sake of humanity, don't disbelieve someone's theory just because he's not an expert on them. Experts are not always correct and amateurs are not always wrong. And sometimes, it's good to bring in amateur theories because it cleans out years of clutter accumulated through experience. On that note, I'm signing off.

Different Puddles on One Pot-Holed Road

2008-04-29T00:47:00.004+05:30

A few months ago, Mumbai ended up becoming a victim to politics yet again. Raj Thackeray and the MNS lauched an offensive against all north Indians in the city claiming that they took away the jobs of the local Marathi population. A thousand kilometres down south, a long-time resident of Bangalore verbally abused four men from Lucknow calling them "bloody northie outsiders who don't respect the law" (criticizing them for breaking the law is understandable, abusing their place of origin is not). Meanwhile the water wars between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu got worse...leading to even bigger kannadiga-tamilian clashes on both sides of the state border.

I often wonder, where exactly did we go wrong? Was it the demarcation of borders based upon language? Was it (in Bangalore's case) the sudden boom of the IT Industry and all its side-effects leaving local kannadigas desperate for some kannadiga-ness? Was it just apathy and casual neglect of politicians who capitalized on this sloth? Or was it a combination of all these factors? Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing is certain. This tendency to divide ourselves on the basis of origin has grown remarkably in recent years and shows no sign of stopping.

This tendency obviously existed in the past. The 1947 partition would not have happened without it. On a lighter note, the (in)famous north-south divide was brought about as a result of it. But there was something else that counterbalanced this tendency in those days, at least according to me. In the previous generations, there seem to have been a greater prevalance of an opposite tendency. The tendency to inculcate whatever culture one experiences without compromising on one's own native culture. Does it sound weird? It's not really as difficult as one might suppose it to be. Having never gone abroad, I do not know whether this counter-tendency is unique to Indians. If it is, it becomes all the more important to popularise it. After all, it was this ability of inculcation that has made India the amazing melting pot of cultures that it is today.

For instance, take the example of Sir.M.Visvesvarayya. This man, who has been labelled as the architect of modern Karnataka was born in the village of Muddenahalli in the Kolar district of present-day Karnataka. He studied at Bangalore, Madras and Pune. He then worked for the Public Works Deparment in Bombay, designed a flood protection system for Hyderabad, invented a method to prevent Vishakapatnam Port from soil erosion and was appointed Dewan (administrator) of the Mysore Princely State. As one can see, both his studies and his work took him places. This was in the 1900s. Way before high-speed boeings and airbuses allowed travel from one end of the country to another in a day. Cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad were not the urban metropolises (or nightmares) that they are today and culture shock was probably far more common. But Sir M.V. did not let these things affect him. Unlike so many people today, he did not believe that his entire value system had collapsed whenever he ended up in a new city or region. Instead he just concentrated on getting his work done. Language, culture and food were meant to be taken in stride. He was never caught trumpeting his own culture and trashing anyone else's.

Whenever I hear patriotic activists demanding the abolition of certain languages in schools or attacking other communities, I remember Maasti Venkatesh Iyengar. In these days of kannadiga-tamilian clashes, it should be noted that Maasti's mother tongue was tamil and though he was born in Kolar, he was of a tamilian family. And yet, Maasti is today renowned as one of the greatest poets of 20th Century kannada literature. In fact, most students of kannada would probably know that people called him "Maasti, kannada da aasti" (Maasti - Kannada's asset). Another famous kannada writer V.K. Gokak was a professor of English. Girish Karnad's mother tongue was konkani. Yet both these writers are famous for producing works in kannada. All this seems extremely ironical in today's circumstances but I don't think it mattered much at the time. But just imagine - by politicising certain issues and elevating it to the level of a clash of cultures (as in the case of the kaveri issue) how many writers and poets are we antagonizing and preventing from contributing to our language? Or for that matter, since the issue goes both ways, how many kannadiga writers are being antagonized into rejecting other languages and never adding more to their literature? For me, what matters is that both sides are losing out in this so-called, mountain-out-of-a-molehill clash of languages. By all means, the Kaveri issue must be sorted out. But can it not be done without both sides yelling insults on the other side's language and culture? But I guess people are too stupid to stop listening to politicians.

I can think of several other examples where people have learnt to accomodate new cultures into their lives. I don't even need to mention famous people. My own great-grandfather, a kannadiga by birth, used to deal with the manufacturing of sugar. He first started in Mandya, Karnataka before shifting to the northen sugar belt in modern-day Uttar Pradesh. Based in the town of Mansurpur (near Muzzafarnagar), he was miles away from anywhere near his place of birth or his community. His mother used to visit him occassionally. She could not speak any language other than kannada. But that did not prevent her from sitting with her son's neighbours and somehow attempt to converse. No one knew how she managed it but she always somehow got around the language barrier and converse with her neighbours. She didn't need Abhishek Bacchan and his watt-an ideeyaah cellphone. Similarly, I have either personally known or heard of several people who had biographies such as being born in Mysore, educated at Pune, sent to work at Vizag and retiring to Chennai. They all managed to assimilate all these cultures perfectly well while speaking excellent kannada simply because it's their mother tongue.

There are still people today who are as multi-cultural as shown above but their population is dwindling. This is one community I'm desperate to join but I've still got a long way to go (improving my hindi for a start). Unfortunately, other people do not seem to be interested. On one side we have anglicized wannabe-americans (a group which I was once a part of) who wish to have nothing to do with Indian culture and on the other side, we have narrow minded cultural fanatics who seem to love bashing up other communities (a group I don't want to have anything to do with). If I have to choose between the two, I'd prefer the wannabe americans, but on the whole, I yearn for a greater number of multi-cultural people in society. The interaction of cultures is neither a clash nor a zero-sum game where one culture has to win over the other. India is a splendid place to experience a spectrum of customs, languages, literature and food (the last one being the most important). This isn't an opportunity to be missed.

What shapes you up...

2007-09-16T20:34:00.000+05:30

If I think about it carefully, my own character doesn't seem to have been inspired by those great and magnificent people we learned about in school. Gandhi, for example, featured prominently in all my moral science classes but all I could make out was that he was someone who ate meat, felt guilty about it, confessed to his mother and never ate meat again. As a vegetarian myself, I felt slightly proud that a man who my teacher apparently admired (believe me, those were pretty rare from my point of view) ate meat only once in his life. But apart from that, I got nothing out of the story.

And then there was Ambedkar. The people who set our syllabus seemed pretty obsessed with him and at the beginning of every new year, it became a practice for all of us to go through all our textbooks and find the Ambedkar chapter first. Never fear, he was always there in at least one textbook. Every year, the story was the same. Ambedkar was stripped in class, made to stand in a corner, away from all upper-caste students and was not allowed to touch the water jug. Now before some self-righteous squirt jumps upon me to defend Ambedkar, let me state that I have the highest respect for him but when I was an eight year old kid, this story made no sense to me at all. From what I could make out (at THAT AGE mark you) was that Ambedkar later became a very famous man who abolished such practices. So if such practices are banned now, shouldn't our teachers just tell us not to treat people in that way and leave it at that? Why should we bother learning about the same incident year after year until we got sick of it? In fact, I had gotten so sick of it by Class Eight, I had actually begun to resent him and his annoying habit of popping up year after year in our textbooks and us being forced to write about him in exams. I tell you, if you ever want people to grow up resenting some one, put him in their school textbooks.

No, the repeated drilling of someone's childhood story into my brain didn't teach me anything. Instead, what really got me interested in the concept of untouchability and the social stigma attached to it was a touching story by a man called Shankar in a picture book called Life with Grandfather. Having grown up with my grandparents myself, I could easily identify with the story's protagonist, a small boy called Raja. In one of the chapters of this book, Raja started making friends with a housemaid (whose name I've forgotten) who is an untouchable. The maid starts treating Raja like her own child but she does this behind his grandfather's back since she's extremely frightened of "Big Master". However, grandfather does find out and he is so furious that he banishes the maid from the house and takes Raja for a "purification" ritual.

What really made me wonder is how somebody like grandfather who doted upon his only grandson (as my own grandfather doted upon me) could be so cruel when it comes to untouchables. I think that the story made me realize that most upper-caste people who discriminated against untouchables didn't do so because they were inherently cruel or were natural sadists who sought pleasure by stamping down upon lower castes. These otherwise kind and generous persons (the grandfather in the story was respected widely for his benevolence) had been misled or programmed by some stupid social norm into hating lower caste people. This story taught me that naively hating or retaliating at people who commit such atrocities is not really the answer. A few years later, I figured (again with the help of the same story) that to get rid of something like untouchability, one must remove the mindset, not just merely punish the perpetrators. I came to this conclusion when I was twelve. No moral science textbook had ever taught me such an important lesson. Another important thing that this story taught me was that few characters are purely black or white. Like grandfather, most of us are shades of grey.

However, nothing really challenged my beliefs as much as that amazing comic strip Calvin & Hobbes. Here was this six-year old terrorist and his feline companion who had absolutely no time for social norms or etiquette. They lived for themselves and they lived to challenge the world. I, a boy who was (and to some extent, still is) a wimp who righteously detested any sort of anarchy found Calvin somewhat weird. But at the same time, Calvin often displayed emotions that strongly mirrored my own, only Calvin was more vocal about his opinions. More importantly, this aggressive philosopher made me think. For instance, check out the raccoon story at the beginning of the post. That particular story has been a greater comfort to me than any religious text or philosophy textbook. "What a Stupid World" :D sums it up pretty well.

Here's another one.

I had always been a pro-animal supporter to some extent (by which I mean I don't go to the fanatical level of some PETA activists and at the same time hate senseless killings) but I had always been trounced by need-to-curb-excessive-population reason for hunting. This strip gave me the answer to that argument.

This one however, is my favourite.

An only child like Calvin, I was more or less alone during my childhood and was forced to resort to imagination to keep myself company. I would often get lost in huge expansive landscapes like the one above created exclusively for me by my brain. As I get set to enter my twenties however, I have more or less ceased these activities. My family members no longer need to be converted into aliens or superheroes because I see them doing superhero stuff as they live life everyday. And I'm positively scared of blasting off into space and exploring other planets because I don't want to come back and find out that too much has happened and I have lost a lot of time which I could have spent with my family at home. Still, an occasional flight to Epsilon Eridani or the Andromeda galaxy does help tide over the monotony of life.

So you see, school never really shaped my opinions about life and society. It gave me knowledge but didn't tell me how to use it. In junior college, we were all forced to attend classes where we learned about "the superiority of Indian culture and the beauty of integrating the best of the east and west". After that, I didn't stop hating Indian culture until I went to classical music concerts out of my own free will and learned to appreciate the subtlety of Indian music on my own. I guess it shows that if you try and force something down my throat, I'll won't be able to enjoy it.

A Warm and Prosperous Future?

2007-09-14T23:55:00.000+05:30

I have often wondered a lot about speeches made by politicians during elections and after them. I have never ever heard a single speech that ended with me rooting for the speaker. Sometimes, I wish I could hear a speech like what follows. The problem is that these politicians are so snake-tongued that I can never trust a politician's speech. What matters is his or her work. And you can never know anything about a politico's work until he or she's in power. Sheesh. Anyway, here's a speech I would like to hear.

---

My fellow Indians, tomorrow is going to be a very special day for you and for me. Tomorrow will be the first day of polling. This evening, I will make before you my final speech before the results are declared. I do not deny that I am nervous. One is always nervous when confronting so big for the first time in his life. But I do my best to keep my nervousness down because I know that no matter what, the future is going to be hectic for me and being nervous is not going to help.

During canvassing, I have visited many places, met many people and promised many things. My party has promised you many things. I have talked about our country and its rich history. I have talked about the incredible diversity and sheer potential of its people. It has only been in the past few months that I have realized how vast, how glorious and how magnificent our country is. I have also realized, my friends, that taking charge of the administration of a nation such as this is a huge, incredible responsibility. To protect what is precious in our land is not easy. Neither is making sure that the nation innovates as much as possible at the same time in order to keep ourselves growing.

If indeed i am elected to the post I aspire for, I have an amazing team of people, skilled in various fields and talented at various levels to help me. To help you. To help our nation. But over the past few months, I have realized that this is not enough. No matter how educated or how talented a cabinet of ministers is, no matter how dedicated and conscious the government can be, it is not possible to solve each and every problem that occurs in a country as huge and diverse as ours. I'd like to share something with you, my fellow Indians. No government, on its own, can ever do enough.

Politicians in this country have time and again promised you millions of things over the last sixty or seventy years. Have you ever wondered why so few of these promises have ever been fulfilled? I will tell you. Our goals and aspirations have never been achieved because every government that ever came to power thought too much of itself. Every government, every minister, every politician believed that to be in power is to literally be in power. They believed that to be a part of the government was to control each and every thing that happened within our borders (and sometimes outside our borders as well). Even in these days of liberalisation, the government still believes that it is capable of doing anything it wants, whenever it wants. Which, of course, is not true. A country so huge and incredible like India can never be bound completely by the whims and fancies of the government.

But do you want to know something else, my fellow Indians? My travels in India have taught me another sad fact. The people of India have over the years, come to believe the same thing. Indians today, have this mindset, that the government is behind everything. A number of people believe that the government alone and no one else can save them from their problems. Ironically, the other section of the population believes that the government is the cause of every problem in this country because only the government has the power to cause such problems! Whatever you may believe, my fellow Indians, a lot of you seem to believe that the only body responsible for anything is the government and its affiliated bodies. The sad truth today is that most Indians prefer to sit back and wait for the government to do something for them. Others prefer to stand up and oppose the government on whatever it does.

The fact, my people, is that the government is helpless without you. This brings me back to my original point. No government can ever achieve much on its own. The responsibility is too great. Every government needs help. We will need help, if we get elected. During these last months, you have seen political parties go crazy, promising you unlimited water, free electricity, reservations for various castes, a solution to the Kashmir problem, elimination of terrorism...in short everything under the sun, including the moon. My party however, will offer you only one thing. We offer you a partnership. We can offer you nothing else because we cannot do without you. And you cannot do without us.

A politician in another country, decades ago said "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country". I would like to say something similar. Ask not what your government can do for you, but what you can do with your government. We want you to be a part of what we do. Not just once every five years during elections but everyday and every hour. Our government, people of India, will neither be a benefactor nor an enemy. It will be a friend and a partner whose greatest wish is to help you realize your true potential. We want you to use the government to uplift yourselves.

How will we go about this? If we get elected, my people, I will want you to stand with us every single minute for the next five years. Everyday, I will want you to look around you and see what is happening. Has the neighbourhood school been opened? No? Why not? Find out. Don't just rely on the media though the media is a powerful tool and is well worth using. Find out on your own. Have the roads been completed within the deadline? No? Why haven't the contractors been penalized? Find out.

More importantly, people of India, I want you to keep yourselves informed. In the next two years, I hope to see lots of libraries and resource centres within every citizen's reach. I want you to use them. Learn. Don't just rely on the syllabus taught at school and college. Go out and learn about policies. Get onto the internet and read about economic theories and history. Develop your own views about what happens in the world and in society around you. Do not mindlessly follow the views of others. Ask for proof and evidence to validate their views as well as your own. My party hopes to increase the literacy rate in this country to as high a level that can be humanly possible in five years. But the real journey begins afterwards. I want to see every literate citizen become a responsible citizen and within a couple of decades I hope to see every citizen a literate citizen.

But that is not enough. I will warn you right now, that there might be pain. Some policies that we frame might seem harmful and against the people who voted for us. In fact, there will be some pain. I cannot deny that. But during those times, I hope that you will not abandon us but trust us, as a friend trusts a friend. Believe me when I say that this pain will be temporary. To achieve some gain, there always will be some pain. Please stick with us during those times and do not lose faith in us. Again, keep yourselves informed and try to understand why we will frame our policies in such a way. We will not try and stop you from knowing these reasons. Believe me, these will be for the good of the nation.

I am speaking as if we have already won the elections but of course, the choice to elect us still lies with you. Remember that as friends and partners, you have as much responsibility in administrating this country as any government. So tomorrow, I hope to see each and every eligible Indian come out and vote. Whether you vote for us or not, show us that you take your responsibilities seriously and care for what happens around you and to you as much as we do. That alone will give our party the strength to carry on...whether we win the elections or lose. After all, if you think about it, neither your responsibility nor ours will change due to the elections. All that'll change is our perspective.

So, here's wishing you, people of India, a very good night and a warm and prosperous future

----

What do you think? Reckon you'd vote for this politician?

Life and Death

2007-08-26T09:21:00.000+05:30

Until recently, I used to be a guy who was extremely afraid of death. Most of us choose to ignore it and get on with our lives. Death always seems to happen to someone else and we pretend that that is the way things are. We refuse to accept that one day it will be our eyes that will close for ever and it will be around our limp bodies that loving relatives (if we were loved enough) will gather and grieve. That, to me, was a frightening prospect. The thought of dying one day terrified me.

What was most frightening about death was the uncertainty that surrounded it. No one knows when and where they are going to die. No one knows how they will die. Until it’s too late, that is. Death is the last threshold, the final frontier to cross in one’s life. The greatest uncertainty of all is whether there is something after death. If there isn’t anything, what then? What use are all my accomplishments and achievements if in the end what I get in return is a permanent blackness that will never go away? That used to be my attitude. Until recently.

What happened to me a couple of days ago was nothing short of miraculous. The thing that was so incredible about it was that it all happened in my head. There were no external factors to influence this thought process (unless I counted all those nerdy, scientific books I’ve been reading – and these couldn’t have been more than a distant, subtle influence). It was as if the answer to all my fears was within my head and it just came out by itself.

The key to the answer was to think rationally. Rather than asking why we die, why don’t I ask why we live? Life is a sort of contradiction. Why should life exist at all in this universe? Billions of years ago, for some reason, in the middle of a frothing, seething soup that covered the planet, a few molecules got together and began interacting in a funny way. Billions of years later, those molecules have multiplied and reside within each and every one of us. Why? What are the chances of such a phenomenon occurring? The fact that life came into existence is so thunderously phenomenal that it ought not to have happened.

So you see, the fact that we live is weirder than the fact that we die. The old cliché that “death is natural” takes on a whole new meaning. Death is natural. In fact, it is far more natural than life. The whole universe is in a process of stabilization. Heavy elements like Uranium break down to become lighter, more stable elements. Volatile elements like potassium combine almost immediately with other elements to form more stable compounds. Unstable lava solidifies to become stable rock. Life on the other hand is not about stabilization. It’s about the reactions that take place during the stabilization process. Life thrives upon reactions. Our bodies, no matter how stable they are, are hosts to hundreds of reactions that keep us moving. Therefore, in a stabilizing universe, a bunch of reactions that fuel our bodies cannot be expected to last for ever. The fact that they took place at all is incredible. That is why death, which is the final stabilization in our lives, has to occur. It is natural.

That is when I realized that life is a greater mystery than death. Why did life occur? And why do we exist? Do you know that when two genetic units combine to form a new strand of DNA, the number of permutations and combinations that can occur to shape the characteristics of the new gene runs into millions? And yet, for some reason, not yet known to us, when an egg is fertilized by a sperm, only one set of characteristics emerge and it is this set that makes up the baby which will later be born. Why that particular set? How and why did nature decide what the colour of my eyes and how deep my voice will be? You, who is reading this blog, could have easily been of the opposite sex or have your mother’s smile instead of your father’s but you don’t. Why?

Some people will say “It’s all a part of god’s great plan” Fine. But, assuming that god exists, why should he or she plan it this way? Why did god choose you to be born before your little sister and not the other way around? But I’m digressing from the topic. The point I’m trying to make here is that the phenomenon of life is far more mysterious than the phenomenon of death. And I used to brood too much on what was far less mysterious.

Like I’ve said before, my biggest fear about death used to be the uncertainty that surrounded it and (im) possibility of life after death. But thinking rationally again, our belief in life after death depends upon our definition of life. How can we define life? Is life a situation where a piece of matter can sense what goes around it, reacts to these happenings and (in the case of intelligent life) contemplates about them? In that case, life is nothing more than collection of information, processing it to obtain results and acting upon that information.

If life is such, then our views about life after death become very easy to frame. If life is collection of, processing of and reacting to information, then there can be no life after death because once your sense organs stop functioning, there can be no collection of information. If there’s no collection, there can be no processing and if there is no processing, there can be no reaction. Life ends with death and nothing goes on.

But a lot of us (I say ‘us’ because I include myself in this group) have a ‘gut feeling’ that there is more to life than just a flow of information. There is something greater, higher and more supreme than just simple information when we think of the concept of life. But if this is true, then as of now, we have no clue about what this greater, higher part of life is. We have to try and find out what this is but as of now, we have no idea. But if our gut feeling is true, then this higher, greater thing should be able to survive the death of flow of information. In that case, there is nothing to worry about because something will survive after death.

And should we worry if the answer is otherwise and nothing survives after death? No, simply because there is nothing we can do about it. As I have already pointed out, life is a far more interesting and incredible concept than death. It will do everyone good if we stop worrying about death and start wondering about life and living it properly.

On the Subject of God

2007-08-26T09:20:00.001+05:30

A friend of mine recently passed me this book called The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, a scientist whose name I am familiar with thanks to his previous work The Selfish Gene. When showing me the book, my friend commented “It’s a highly controversial book…but extremely thought-provoking.” Now that I have started reading it, I feel that no other description is more apt.

The God Delusion, in one sentence, is an argument against the existence of god. Now you can see why my friend considered it controversial. In these days, when fanatics from every religion are ready to jump down your throat and claw their way out, even thinking about the non-existence of god is blasphemy. Indeed, ‘blasphemy’ is the term that is used by most English-speaking evangelists (of any religion) while referring to such atheistic beliefs. I have to admire Dawkins’ guts. Not only does he have to contend with hot-headed religious crusaders who will be ready to throw him down the nearest available volcano but also with aghast academic theologians, mortified television evangelists, affronted ritualistic priests, hurt spiritual gurus and last but definitely not the least, a largely god-believing public who think he’s either joking or eccentric (or both). I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s physically attacked by some zealot in the near future.

Why does God make us so emotional? Let’s face it, most of us do not involve god in our daily lives apart from a morning prayer. Whether or not, God grants us success in our lives, most of us do not have any objection to labelling these successes as our own. A lot of us tend to remember god only during dark and difficult times. I do it myself. There’s this popular e-mail that keeps coming back to my account about god and man walking on a beach, leaving two sets of footprints except at more rough places where there is only one set. Man accuses god of abandoning him during hard times but god replies that the one set of footprints belongs to god and he was carrying man in his arms during those times. A rather warm fuzzy story but one which is also truthful. Far from god abandoning man during difficult times, it is man who abandons god during good times. Neale Donald Walsh in his book Conversations with God describes a scene where god tells him “When disease doesn’t exist, people don’t need doctors; when legalities don’t exist, people don’t need lawyers; when conflict doesn’t exist, people don’t need armies; therefore when problems don’t exist, people don’t need God!” Though I’ve taken this sentence slightly out of context, I don’t think people will disagree with the views I’ve put forth over here.

There are millions, especially in India; however who will disagree with me. They’ll claim that god is an integral part of their daily lives. I can just imagine those indignant replies that will be directed at me right now
“How dare you say that, I say? I pray to god at least twice a day. I go to temple once every week. I perform seven pujas a year! If this is not devotion, then what is?”
“I am a devout follower. I perform namaaz every day. I go to the mosque every Friday. I have already gone on Haj once and will go at least two more times. Allah is forever guiding my life.”
“I call myself religious. I go to church every Sunday. I say prayers every night. I’m the one who says grace before every meal, thanking god for what he has provided us. And I am not the only one. There are hundreds like me who involve themselves with god everyday.”

But is this really devotion? Is one’s extent of devotion really measured by how many pujas you perform, how many times you go on Haj or whether you say grace before meals or not? This is the biggest mistake that most religious people make. How many self-declared religious people actually contemplate their nature of existence, on the structure of this universe, on the beauty of this world that we live in or even dwell on the existence and nature of god? Do they ever seek to question why certain things happen in their lives? No. Most people will simply say “It’s god’s will.” But why? Why should god do what he (or she) is doing to you? Why should god grant some people extreme success while punishing others with failure even if the respective parties worked equally hard at achieving their objectives?

To some, that might be blasphemy. But to me, there is no greater objective in any spiritual or religious quest. When a mother tells her daughter that the latter should not consume drugs, the daughter doesn’t blindly obey. She’ll want to know why. If the mother exerts her authority and says “I’m your mother and I’m saying so. That’s why!”, the daughter will go on and try drugs anyway because she wasn’t satisfied with the given answer.. Yet when the gods apparently told us “People of lower castes are polluting.”, nobody wanted to know why. They just blindly obeyed what was written in the Manusmriti and as a result our country is fiercely divided today. Why don’t more people question what is written in our ancient texts? By this I don’t mean just Hindu texts or Muslim works or Christian writings but every religious document in the world that orders society to follow some path in life or the other. I’m not saying that one should blindly rebel against these teachings. By questioning, one should ascertain what principles and laws that are listed in these writings are beneficial to one’s life as well one’s society and what are not. Then, one should incorporate the beneficial parts into one’s life and expel the irrelevant or dangerous parts. That’s the way a society progresses.

What are my personal beliefs? I don’t agree with Dawkins’ view that god doesn’t exist. I guess according to him, I would be labelled a deist. I find it hard to believe that this perfectly structured universe with a number of amazing natural laws was not created by some superior intelligence. I like to think of this universe as a computer programme, ordered to evolve by itself from a few basic laws and constraints which have been fed into the programme by some super-intelligent programmer. The programmer then sits back and watches his world develop gradually. He or she does not intervene, he or she does not interfere. He or she just watches. He or she is neither cruel nor benevolent. He or she just is.

Richard Dawkins classified believers and non-believers into seven different categories ranging from blind devotion to blind atheism and including everything in between (to know more about this classification, read the book – page 73). I personally feel I am a mixture of category 2 and category 6 – I strongly believe in the existence of god but I live my life as if god doesn’t exist. Of course, there are dire circumstances where I abandon all my theories and just pray, hoping to attract the attention of that great programmer and force him or her to intervene. But this is only when I have exhausted all my other options and is more for my own personal comfort and hope than for anything else. And if the dreaded event does pass, I attribute it to god if no other reason can be found.

Meanwhile, I’m hoping to finish The God Delusion before I’m declared a heretic.

Musing on Movies

2007-08-05T13:01:00.000+05:30

Indian cinema is often classified into two categories. Firstly, there is the so-called commercial type. Films belonging to this category are the most recognizable films made in India and the characteristics of these films, I heard, are now considered to be the hallmarks of a typical bollywood film everywhere. These movies often showcase an escape from the reality - exotic locations, expensive cars that never seem to lose their pearl-glow finish (unless they are doomed to be utterly destroyed in a chase sequence), dance numbers that are a riot of colour and noise, gravity-defying action and a happy ending that leaves everyone feeling good about themselves.

P.G. Wodehouse once remarked that there are two types of comedy - one is the romantic type of the sort he writes ignoring reality in general and just having fun and the other type goes deep into life and doesn't give a damn about anything else (a good example of this is J.K. Jerome's Three Men in A Boat). The same can be said for Indian cinema. If the commercial cinema in India is analogous to the romantic type of comedy, the 'parellel' cinema of India can be considered to be the other type that examines life in detail. Often, this genre goes ignored by the public in general but these are the films that usually win awards at international film festivals. Refusing to be driven by glitz or glamour, they focus on the 'reality' of Indian society and the problems that bog it down.

But what depresses me the most is that there are very few films that can actually take the best of both genres and produce a good film that can actually be watched. A pretty good example of this type is Being Cyrus starring Saif Ali Khan, Boman Irani, Naseeruddin Shah and Dimple Kapadia. I don't really feel that Being Cyrus can be classified as either parellel cinema or commercial cinema. But it has borrowed a lot of elements from both genres. The cinematography and the setting of the film reminded me of movies that are normally classified as parellel cinema but the storyline and the casting were clearly developed with a hopeful eye on the mainstream audience.

There are also a lot of commercially-oriented movies that have a certain aura about them that other films of the same category don't. The year 2001 had four major blockbusters - Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai, Gadar and Kabhi Khushi Khabie Gham. Six years later, most people have forgotten Gadar and remember K3G only when Karan Johar appears in their lives or when they're required to give an example of a movie with a superstar cast. Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai however are still recalled with fervour. Of course, Lagaan's nomination for the Oscars and the recent DVD release might have helped, but there's no denying that Lagaan had class in spite of a rather incredulous storyline. I still consider DCH to be a turning point in Indian cinema, a film that abandoned tried and tested formulae and yet managed to pull it off.

But what's with the scene nowadays? Every friday, I'm bombarded with atleast a dozen films of various shapes and sizes all vying for my eyeballs. Yet how many of these films have even a remote chance of being remembered a few years from now? How many people would eagerly turn on their televisions in another five years to watch these films again? Yeah sure, a lot of these films are basically money-spinners, not classic hopefuls but still, there has to be a limit on how many of these movies we are confronted with. And so many of these films are so similar that I often find it difficult to distinguish one movie from another.

Well, I just hope the trend changes.

Be Careful With Those Scissors

2007-07-14T19:49:00.000+05:30

I've really had it with these politicians. What in the name of god's heaven do we elect them for? To take care of our needs, right? To ensure that every one gets food, clothing, shelter, education and a good standard of living, no? Did we elect politicians to yell insults at each other? Did we elect them to get offended at anything and everything that happens within 7000 kilometres of the Parliament? Did we elect them so that they can go and fill up our already overburdened courtrooms with stupid Public Interest Litigations on how their honour and integrity has been insulted?

Yeah, you read that right. I've just read a news article about some Congress Party worker in Tamil Nadu filed a case against Rajnikant and Adlabs. What for? He claims that the recent Rajnikant blockbuster Sivaji (produced by Adlabs) insults Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. I had recently seen Sivaji myself and had thoroughly enjoyed watching Rajni being the Bachelor of Social Service (The BOSS) and beating up goons twice his size in abandoned godowns. Neither Sonia Gandhi nor Manmohan Singh made a surprise guest appearance. In fact, the Congress's haath was never seen waving a hello in this movie for the aam aadmi.

OR DID IT? This Congress Worker who I was talking about claims that both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi could be seen in the film. I was astonished. "Where? Where?" I yelled, frantically digging into my memory for a glimpse of this exalted pair. There cried the agonized social servant, pushing his Congress ka Haath out of the newspaper and pointing at the scene in the villian's office. Ah, yes, there they were, standing next to the villian himself in teeniest of desk photographs on the villian's desk that appeared in the film for about seven seconds.

Blast them. They file a case in court for seven seconds of film? And that too, because of an insignificant photograph that I would have never remembered if it hadn't been for this Congress Worker? Let me see. The villian's office was in a hospital called Adi Hospital but which was clearly recognisable (to me at least) as M S Ramaiah Medical College in Bangalore. Did any student of this college file a case saying Rajnikant and Adlabs were insulting his college and his own college board should be pulled up for portraying M S Ramaiah as a criminal's establishment? Should the people who built that table in his office file a case because the film makers portrayed their product as a villian's table? Should cleanliness inspectors file a case saying that the film is making a mockery of their job because the villian's office looked clean?

I actually did notice that photograph but completely forgot about it later. I wonder what the congress worker will think if I tell him that the first impression I got was that that the villian had just doctored that photo so that he can portray himself as a good guy. In other words, the first thing that occurred to me was that the photograph was fake and I was applauding the director for his attention to such detail. But obviously I was wrong. I'm not supposed to think like that. Shame on me.

I think these self-styled censors and activists are the worst thing that is happening to society. They find fault with anything. The Shiv Sena did just that when they demanded a ban on Orkut. They claimed that all Orkut had was 'I Hate India' groups that were 'dangerous to the nation'. Firstly, making cheap remarks about India on an online forum isn't dangerous, it's just cheap. And secondly, for god's sake, there are plenty of 'I Love India' and 'Jai Maharashtra!' groups as well. There are even some pro-Shiv Sena groups on Orkut. Why must they only look at the 'I hate India' groups? Some claimed that Orkut corrupts young people. On the contrary, I've never seen a better platform for people residing in different parts of the country to come together and discuss relevant issues like reservation and communalism - topics that need to be discussed. Of course, there are some sad, twisted individuals who seem to get a sadistic pleasure out of misusing Orkut. But for every one of these sorry people, there are two others who use Orkut positively. Should you deny the latter a chance to interact with people like themselves?

As far as I'm concerned, such demands for banning or litigations against a few seconds of film isn't social activism. These so-called activists claim to represent the wishes of Indian society and the Indian public. They don't. All they represent are their own wishes and their own feelings. And I think it's time they admit it. It's time they realized that not everyone in society agrees with them on what constitutes insult and slander. Face it, there are people who don't like Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. There are people who are both sadistic and bored, so they make caustic comments on whatever they want. Banning them won't get rid of their attitude. Besides, you can't deny Indian citizens the right to insult who they want to insult because it's a free country and they have a right to express their feelings about something or somebody. If you really want them to go, engage in a discussion with them and make them see your point of view. Don't take the easy way out, you'll only end up tripping yourself.

Of Presidents, Elections and Woman's Rights

2007-07-14T17:46:00.000+05:30

I have made my views clear about how much I loathe the current presidential elections. There is only one word for it - fiasco. I don't know (and I don't care) who's comparatively better but I do know (and care) that whether it's Shekhawat or Patil, this country is doomed. Neither of them seem to fit in Rashtrapathi Bhavan. Do we want a president who claims to channel spirits? A president who seems to have scammed several account holders in her co-operative bank? Or do we want a president who's so cheap that the first image that comes to your mind is that of some sort of political lackey, looking adoringly at fellow politicians while taking the vilest potshots at his rivals?

But what infuriated me the most is how everyone went agog about the fact that Patil might be the first female President of the country. What of it? Are people really such fools to believe Woman's Rights are going to be uplifted the moment Patil assumes office (if she does get elected that is)? Please. When Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister (which is a realistically more powerful office than that of the President), Woman's Rights hardly went anywhere. On the contrary, the much broader concept of Human Rights went down the drain with the imposition of the Emergency. At the risk of sounding misogynist, we don't necessarily need a woman to improve the quality of life for women. We need concerned people who are conscientious about what they do, regardless of their gender. Frankly speaking, I cannot see Patil in that position.

Feminism has always been a hotly debated topic. While it is generally agreed that discrimination against women exists in many societies in the world, a lot of people in a particular society often disagree as to what constitutes discrimination. For instance, when voting rights to women was granted in western countries during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most opponents to this act did not consider Denial of Voting Rights as a form of discrimination.

Similarly, in India, subtler forms of discrimination still exist. The concept of a Woman Staying At Home was so firmly embedded in social consciousness that when women first started working at offices, most people, including other women, labelled them as impertinent, ultra-rebellious or even unfaithful to their husbands. That image of a working woman thankfully no longer exists in most urban areas of India today but it seems to be still rooted in rural and semi-urban parts of the country.

Apart from this particular idea, there seems to be a lot of opinion on what a Good Indian Woman should be like. Good Indian Women are often expected to be submissive, to never disobey their husbands or parents and to keep a low profile. Relatively backward areas of the country still practice that outrageous act of Sati, forcing unwilling wives to join their husbands on the funeral pyre. And of course, a lot of times, women are considered a burden to the family. Many couples still curse their luck when the wife gives birth to a girl and the dowry system is exploited very badly in India.

Comparatively liberal workplaces and a recognition of gender equality in urban areas has helped. But a lot of credit goes to Woman's Rights Organizations and other NGOs for improving the status of women in this country. It takes courage to stand up and speak about any social issue but Woman's Rights (along with Caste Rights and health issues like AIDS) is probably one of the toughest challenges to face due to the strong stereotypical mindsets of most members of society, including women themselves.

Having said that, I think it's important to point out that just because you take a woman out of her home and put her in office, you don't necessarily 'liberate' her. If society can accused of stereotyping women one way, many Woman's Rights Activists can be accused of stereotyping women another way and failing to recognize the fact that every woman is different (indeed every individual is different). If some women feel great being independent and not being confined at home, there are others who'd love nothing more than being a good housewife and taking care of their husbands. It's like remembering that all people who wear skimpy clothes probably have a liberal outlook but not all those who are liberal wear skimpy clothes.

I have quite often witnessed both men and women make statements like "Oh, when all women go to work, society is truly liberated". I have also read reports of how Woman's Rights Activists go on what are called 'liberation drives' where they claim to have freed several women from the clutches of conservative husbands. These reports often make me wonder if among every fifty such freed women, there are at least one or two who stayed at home not because they were forced to, but because they chose to. Does this mean I support Sati if the woman goes willingly to a pyre and isn't forced into it? No, because of the simple fact that death is irreversible and you're denying the woman a chance to change her mind. That chance should always be there.

I'm all in favour of gender equality and I'd love to be in a society where equality is so obvious that there is no debate about the matter. But I also wish and hope that activists are careful enough to ascertain what each woman wants. By all means, please make sure that every woman is aware of the opportunities she has and the rights she deserves. But at the same time, leave the ultimate decision to her.

Meanwhile, I'm getting ready for four years of torture under either Patil or Shekhawat.

We, The Great Indians

2007-07-09T11:09:00.000+05:30

The Great Indian. Now I'm normally against stereotyping of any sort but I just couldn't resist this. As a member of the breed that I'm about to condemn, what better group of people to criticize than my own, the Great Indians themselves?

Firstly, most of the Great Indians always think that they are the best. In my earlier posts, I have often commented on how these Great Indians tend to divide themselves as much as possible - regionally, communally, linguistically, racially, on the basis of caste and of course, on the basis of which house your great-grandfather's mother's brother used to occupy in a native place that you have never visited. And after the Great Indian Divide has been created, the Great Indians then claim that their group is the best. ("What you saying, I say? My great-grandfather's mother's brother lived in a house twice as big as your great-grandfather's mother's brother's."). Russell Peters put it nicely "Americans have got to understand the difference between terrorists and Indians, WE ARE NOT THE SAME!!......terrorists hate Americans,Indians hate EACH OTHER!!" *

If a student from Haryana and a student from Tamil Nadu ended up in the same class in a school in Bombay, be assured that both their families will tell their sons "Don't mix with him! He's from the North/South!". If a mallu ends up doing something wrong, north Indian observers would probably say "Madrassi hain na...isliye..." (This in spite of the fact that Madras or Chennai is hundreds of kilometres from Kerala). Of course, the same thing happens, only in reverse, if some guy from Delhi lands up in Bangalore ("These Northies are invading us!").

Secondly, no matter what people say, the phrase "Unity in Diversity" is still going strong today. Indians may hate each other a lot, but when it comes to disliking foreigners, they forget all their differences and stand together. Those damn Pakis! Those useless Bangladeshis! Those filthy goras! Those bloody chinks! The only foreign breed that isn't commonly insulted in India is the South American. But that's probably because Indians haven't had much contact with them. South Americans are too far off and relatively unimportant to insult.

But a weird fact is that no matter how much Indians hate foreigners, they love to be recognized and appreciated by them. Indians went super-mad when news went around that that Taj Mahal might not make it to the new list of the Wonders of the World. How can this be? How can the world not recognize our greatness? Vote for Taj! Vote for Taj! Show your patriotism! Great Indians also go crazy if an Indian does the teeniest, most insignificant thing abroad. Mallika Sherawat was given a guest role which lasted about ten minutes in Jackie Chan's The Myth but the hype that it generated lasted for ten months. She herself was surprisingly sensible about it ("You have to start small if you're aiming for the big") but the Indian media couldn't stop raving about how Indians are finally going places. Sania Mirza, admittedly, was promising in the beginning but not so much that every government body in the country from Parliament to Gram Panchayat felt justified in "recognizing her" in some way. Sunita Williams is only half-Indian in origin but that didn't stop her samosas from becoming Great Indian celebrities.

Thirdly, the Great Indian doesn't like being deprived of his or her Great Indian Character. The Great Indian Family always sticks together while going on a Great Indian Trip abroad. They play Great Indian Games, do Great Indian Shopping, gape at things in a Great Indian Way, give Great Indian Comments and show the world our Great Indian Pride - the Great Indian Rudeness and the Great Indian Sloppiness. I have personally never been abroad but I have heard from a lot of Great Indian Trusted Sources about the Great Indian Stories abroad. The story of how a kid who wants to take a leak on a plane is told "Yahi kar do beta". The story of how an angry American who complained about 20 year old Indians running up and down hotel corridors was given a "Bacche hain...how can you stop children from playing?" statement from a hurt mother. Oh yeah, Bharat Mata ki jai.

But once again, a weird contradiction somehow makes Great Indians imitate everything they see abroad. If an Indian city has 25 malls in one road then hell yeah, we're cosmopolitan. If software companies in Silicon Valley work from plastic and glass buildings, then hell yeah, Bangalorean companies must do the same (No one cares about how much energy is being wasted with such buildings in an equatorial climate - after all, one must be progressive). Mumbai wants to be like Shanghai and Bangalore like Singapore. What about vada pav and bisi bele baath? Get rid of them, they're traditional and old - they have no place in a modern society.

Ah, the Great Indian is such a bunch of contradictions. But does this mean we should change? Should we pull up our socks and button up our shirts? Should we be careful and politically correct whenever we refer to someone other than ourselves? No. Atleast, not to such a drastic extent that the Great Indian loses his greatness. Half the fun of being an Indian is leading such a moronic lifestyle. But we can try and change a bit. Maybe we can stop attributing every defect in a person to his or her ancestral lineage. Perhaps we can be a little cleaner both at home and abroad. Maybe we can be a little prouder of our roots but at the same time be sensible enough to acknowledge our inabilities.

But knowing the Great Indian, I doubt it.

* However, with the recent Glasgow attack, the difference between Indians and terrorists seems to be dissolving. Indians now hate the west AND each other.

The Government And The Free Market

2007-07-01T17:40:00.000+05:30

Free market theories are full of explanations and reasons for their pushing forward the statement that direct government involvement in the economy retards development. One of their biggest arguments is actually a reply that is given to economists who fear the emergence of monopolies in a free market. Free Market Theorists argue that governments are monopolies themselves and an economy controlled by the state is just a politically veiled monopoly. So ultimately, one has to choose between the chance emergence of a monopoly from the private sector or a certain presence of a monopoly in the form of the government. Obviously, the better choice is the private sector where a monopoly need not occur.

A counter-argument by socialists in reply to this statement was that since the private sector is uncontrolled, a monopoly firm can rise unchecked and will be perhaps unstoppable. On the other hand, if consumers are not satisfied with a State monopoly, they can always vote the ruling government out of power and install somebody else at the head instead (this was an argument that I heard at a debate last year). But of course, history shows us different results. When the public sector started to fail in India, no new government could save it. Instead, it was the private sector that came to India's rescue with liberalisation in the 1990's.

More importantly, the private sector is not really uncontrolled. In a free market, consumers have the power to show who's boss. If they don't like the products of one particular company, they'll simply switch over to another, causing losses to the offending company and forcing it to either improve its products or face closure. Therefore, the argument that public sector companies are actually safer does not hold much water and the risks of a strong private sector don't seem to be any greater than the risks of a strong public sector.

But does this make the government redundant? Should economies do away with governments completely? Perhaps, the government should be thrown out of any economic enterprise altogether and let the more reliable private sector handle everything. But I'd like to disagree. No economy can do away with the government completely. The fact that most government enterprises are usually inefficient does not make any difference. The government cannot be wished away simply because the government does not want to be wished away.

A basic rule that most economists follow is "eliminate what is inefficient". The Public Sector with its sick industries and bloated labour just reeks of inefficiency and therefore must be eliminated according to this rule. But something that a lot of economists overlook is who the Public Sector is providing for. Public Sector Units (PSUs) are theoretically set up to provide services and products to those people who are, for some reason, unable to access such products and services from the private sector.

Admittedly, this wasn't really the norm in India. Most Indian PSUs were set up to fulfill grand agendas of nationalistic governments whose eyes were so set on the future that they ignored the demands of the present. But this is not always the rule. A lot of African economies depend heavily upon their Public Enterprises because the governments are the only bodies that are organised well enough to provide such services.

Joseph Stiglitz, in his book Globalisation and its Discontents gives one such example. A certain African country approached the IMF for funds. As is normal with IMF policy, the country received a number of conditions that it must fulfill before it could receive any aid. That particular African government was in the practice of assisting the country's poultry farmers by providing transportation services through which eggs and chickens could be sent to markets across the country, thereby reducing costs for the farmer. The IMF demanded that the government stop these services and let the private sector take over. Desperate for funds, the government complied and everyone waited for the private sector to magnificently sweep in and reorganize the entire transportation industry. It never happened. Why? Because there was no private sector at all. No one but the government had the resources and organization to conduct such services. And no private party had the initiative to start such a business because of lack of funding. The IMF funds didn't count since the government had never planned to use them for the transportation industry in the first place. They had borrowed those funds for an entirely different area of development. The result? The poultry industry started to collapse. Poor farmers were forced to pay steep prices to get their produce somehow to the markets. Those who could not do so, were forced to go out of business.

The government service provided to those farmers was nothing great. The trucks were old, the drivers corrupt and the roads extremely bad. But there was no alternative. It was government or nothing. Free Market Theorists would probably say that the Private Sector was weak because the government did not encourage investment. But tell me, which investor would want to pour his money into a poor Sub-Saharan African country with no prospects of development in the first place? Which domestic investor would have the means to do so? The way the government so willingly stopped operations proves that it wasn't really interested in providing these services anyway. It wasn't as if they were clutching the transportation industry with a tight fist and refusing to let any one else near them.

Such conditions exist even in India, in spite of a booming private sector. A lot of villages still depend upon the local Community Health Centre for its health care services because these areas don't attract private medical institutions. Most village children who do get an education do so because of a nearby government school. Most private schools do not find such areas economically viable to operate in (not that it is any fault of theirs).

What I believe is that the Private Sector should supply goods and services wherever there is an economic demand (i.e. demand backed with adequate purchasing power) for such goods and the Public Sector should provide the same to those who wish for such but are unable to afford the price. This is not easy of course. There are always rich consumers who try and get the product for a lesser price. But as I have noted before, PSU products are usually (usually!) of lesser quality than those provided by the Private Sector and if the quality gap is sufficiently large, it's highly unlikely that those who can pay for better quality will not do so. Such a quality gap will also motivate poorer sections of society to rise above their current income levels so that they can afford the same quality.

Of course, another point to note is that the government doesn't like being out of the spotlight! I have often noticed Free Market Theorists give an impression (probably unintentional) that one should ignore the government completely - a dangerous thing to do. If a vibrant economy ignores the government altogether, then an impoverished government with a bloated bureaucracy will sometime in the future, try and interfere in the working of this economy. Politicians and bureaucrats are usually attracted to money like moths to a candle flame. We have already seen politicians targeting IT firms in Bangalore, bureaucrats clamping down projects in Gurgaon and netas interfering in private projects in Mumbai and many of these people are obviously looking for some monetary gain. This means that the economy can never ignore the government altogether. Its presence in the economy is assured and if an economy hopes to thrive, it must ensure that a reasonably responsible government is in charge of the administration of the country, regardless of how strong the private sector is.

Some Stupid Statements

2007-07-01T13:54:00.000+05:30

Here are some things said by people, both famous and not-so-famous, that when looked at in retrospect, seem extremely stupid.

1. "Peace for our time"

Neville Chamberlain , Prime Minister of England, 1938, made this extremely ironic statement in defence of the Munich Agreement that was designed to pacify Hitler's European ambitions. A year later, Hitler invaded Poland and started World War II.

2. "It is my opinion that guitar groups are on their way out"

An employee of Dacca Records said this to the manager of a four-member band at an audition as an excuse for not signing the group on. A few years later, The Beatles became a household name in the west.

3. "It will be over before Christmas"

A popular statement that circulated in 1914 regarding the new war that had just begun. Instead, World War I would drag on for four long years resulting in thousands of deaths.

4. "You will never understand mathematics. You're hopeless."

A German schoolmaster made this caustic comment to a young boy in his class. In 1905, that same young boy would formulate the Special Theory of Relativity (along with other pioneering works) under the name of Albert Einstein.

5. "You're addled."

The Reverend Engle said this to another young boy. This boy would go on to become one of history's greatest inventors. His name was Thomas Alva Edison.

6. "64 KB of RAM is enough for everyone."

Bill Gates made this statement. In a world where computers are quickly exceeding this limit and people still want more.

7. "Spam will be gone in two years."

Bill Gates again, in 2004. Spam only seems to have increased in the last three years.

8. "Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai"

A statement that went around after the signing of the Panchsheel between India and China in the late 1950's. A few years later, the countries were at war with each other and Nehru died a disillusioned man. The statement instead became "Hindi-Chini Bye Bye"

9. "The English are a nation of shopkeepers."

Though it's not certain if Napolean Bonaparte ever made this statement, it certainly reflected his attitude towards England. A shopkeeper named Nelson however defeated his forces at sea while another shopkeeper addressed as the Duke of Wellington saw him fall at Waterloo. Never underestimate market forces.

10. "The Second Five Year Plan will be a Great Leap Forward"

Chairman Mao of the People's Republic of China advocating massive industrialization in 1958 in order to convert China into an industrial powerhouse. The Great Leap Forward (as the plan came to be known) is now acknowledged by many as an economic disaster. China's current industrial dominance came into being only decades later due to different economic plans.

There are several other statements that escape my memory. However, these ten statements show how careful one must be while making predictions about the future. Often, we underestimate an opponent's greed (as Chamberlain did with Hitler) or have too much confidence in our own evaluations (as the German schoolmaster regarding Einstein). Often, we would just be victims of fate but many times, we have the opportunity to set things right.

Miracles happen

2007-06-18T17:15:00.000+05:30

Ever heard of a short story called The Next Voice You Hear...? I don't remember who the author of this piece of literature was but one can find it in the Reader's Digest Collection of Great Short Stories. There was also a movie based upon this work. The plot basically explores the question "What would God do to change the world as it is today?" In the story, God suddenly invades all radio stations across the world and starts communicating directly to humans.

Weird and freaky. But at the same time thought-provoking. There was one line in the tale that really got me "Everything you see around you is a miracle...but you have lived amongst these miracles for so long that you no longer recognise them as such" It is a brilliant statement and I can actually believe that God would say that if he ever got in touch with us.

For instance, consider food. You know, the stuff that goes into your mouth everyday? Yeah, yeah, that stuff. Ever thought about exactly what you shovel into your stomach day after day for your entire life? No, I'm not trying to be a healthcare evangelist over here. What I am actually talking about is the variety of food there is in this world.

If you look at most animals in the wild, they usually have a fixed diet. The deer eat plants and the tigers eat deer. Big fish eats small fish and grizzly bear eats big fish. But humans are different. Humans, quite literally, are capable of eating practically anything and everything in the world. Think about it...which other living creature in this planet eats things so completely different as smoked salmon and masala dosa? If you are a little adventurous, you'd probably be eating smoked salmon with masala dosa. There's a small miracle for you.

And cooking! I have to declare that the greatest human invention is neither the wheel nor the bloody nuclear bomb. Humanity's greatest invention is the art of throwing something into fire, adding some other materials and extracting something completely different from what you'd originally chucked in - the art of cooking. Just think about it - how in the name of god did someone figure out that if you grind rice with water, let the paste ferment and then spread it over a flat pan on a flame, you'd end up with a delicious food item called the dosa? How many mistakes did the inventor of bhelpuri make before he or she came up with something that would be sold to millions of people in the future? Human ingenuity is so amazing.

The natural world is full of miracles too. An oft-quoted example is how light emitted by a firefly is about fifty times as efficient as the best man-made light. Richard Feynman, the physicist, once noted that "The concept of humanity suspended on a tiny sphere hurtling through vaccum with eight other spheres around a ball of light is is much more incredible than the concept of a flat world suspended on the back of a turtle" Absolutely. Who can dispute that? Nature has an imagination greater than anybody else's.

Okay, now consider the amount of water that you use everyday for a shower. Now multiply that amount of water by the number of members in your family (let's say there are four people in your house). But don't forget that water is used not only for bathing but also for drinking, washing plates, cars, floors, dogs, cycles, machines and god knows what else. Add all these up to get the total amount of water used in your house everyday. Now assume that every household with a good house in your city has around four or five members and that each member will have a bath everyday. Multiply the amount of water that is used by your household by the total number of households in the city. Huge amount, huh? But that's not all. Industries, shops and other commercial establishments often use much more water than any single household. Take the amount of water used by these establishments into consideration. Now that's a massive figure. But let's go a little further. Multiply this result with every major city in the world. And before you stop, let me quickly ask you to account for the water that's used for every town, village and community based upon these figures.

Now you've got an approximate figure for all the water that is used by humans everywhere. I've never bothered to get the exact figure myself but I don't need a calculator to tell me that it is one mind-boggling result. When I first thought about it myself I was blown away by the immensity of it all. It was colossal. But here's the real punch - all that water which is used by humans across the globe is around ONE PERCENT of the total amount of water there is on this planet. Of the remaining 99%, about seven percent is trapped in ice around the polar regions and the rest are in the salty oceans, unfit for human use. And yet everyday, we hear complaints about water shortages - human needs are even more monstrous than the quantity of resources that is supplied by nature.

But the real humbling experience comes with this simple fact - so far earth is the only known planet in the universe that contains liquid water on its surface. A miracle so great that people ought be falling flat with wonder. And yet, not many do.

Progress and Morality

2007-06-16T19:13:00.000+05:30

I came upon this during my timepass hours yesterday. Stuff like that always makes me think. What really do we mean by moral values? How do we define morality? What level of morality should a society expect from its citizens and what level should the citizens expect from society?

As a rule of thumb, the more prosperous an economy, the less traditional or "socially moral" it will be. It does not really matter if economic development is skewed or not, moral values seem to decline. This is not really surprising because an economically forward society is usually money-oriented and in a quest for material wealth and a high standard of living, people tend to disregard the details of living a moralistic lifestyle. There are different degrees of this, of course (Japan for example, still seems to preserve a vast reservoir of value-based culture in spite of being economically developed). But nevertheless, this trend is visible in almost every First World country today.

Is this trend desirable? Thomas Friedman put it perfectly when he coined the phrase "The Lexus and the Olive Tree". "The Lexus" supporters would say yes. Does it really matter if family bonds are broken if in the end the estranged members end up leading independent lives, free to pursue their own goals and ideals? After all, a society is made up of individuals. What is the point of having a society if its citizens aren't able to pursue their goals? Shouldn't a woman be free to divorce her husband if the end result is her becoming an independent woman, fully capable of managing her own life? Shouldn't a son or daughter break away (if only a little) from his or her parents in order to stand on his or her own two feet in a growing economy, full of opportunities that the parents are unable to see?

Then there is the other side of the spectrum. The people of the Olive Tree. These people are the ones who still have faith in the old system of values and tradition. A deep love for their culture and a firm belief in the laws of their ancestors prompt them to attack the trend of declining moral values. The love of money is the root of all evil, isn't it? What is the point of seizing the family business and all its profits if it results in you being estranged from your family, the people who brought you up? What purpose would it serve in going out on your own and making your own pile if you are never able to reconcile with your father and mother again? How will you ever understand or enjoy the delights of love and committment if you marry someone for a few years and then divorce her as if she was a use-and-throw toothbrush?

What do I feel? I feel that both sides give good arguments. I love the feeling of being independent and leading life the way I want to but at the same time, I do not want to involve myself in family quarrels or broken relationships. Basically I am one of those people who drive the Lexus and eat olives at the same time. I think, ultimately, it comes down to a matter of choice. People who want to break free from what they feel are shackles bogging them down should be allowed to do so. At the same time, people who need the feeling of comfort that comes with traditional values should be free to do so.

In the end, other members of society have no say in what an individual wants to do with his or her life. That is why I am against right-wing moral policemen who attack couples on Valentine's Day because they have no right to decide how people should exhibit affection. But more importantly, that is why I am also against the more subtle discrimination that occurs in schools and colleges (where someone is labelled as a dork for wearing vibhuti on the forehead or for performing sandhyavandana in the mornings) because others have absolutely no right to mock someone for being traditionalistic.

When such events stop, society will truly be developed.

They force you a lot

2007-06-06T14:52:00.000+05:30

One of my friends recently told me about some programmes that have been started by these IIT-JEE coaching centres. One of them, I remember was a programme for Class 9 students. Holy smoke, a JEE training programme at Class 9? What the blazes? It was then that I remembered that a phenomenon like this is nothing new. Even when I tried to enter a JEE training programme in Class 11 (which I lost interest in, since I had shifted to commerce), I remember seeing the prospectus (yes, they had a prospectus) which boldly proclaimed a "Foundation Course for young IIT aspirants of Class 9 and 10".

What is this world coming to? A JEE training course for people who'll not attend an IIT lecture for at least half a decade. We have nursery schools conducting interviews for admission. I remember reading articles about how in the US, they have special kindergarten programmes that "ensures" a child gets into Harvard. And closer home, the number of students committing suicide because they couldn't get into an IIT are steadily rising. I remember when a girl committed suicide a couple of years back even though she got 91% because her parents were expecting her to get above 95.

I really don't know how to express myself over this matter. Have people today gone mad? What in the name of heaven is wrong with 91%? What sort of pressure was put on that girl to force her to such an extreme step inspite of getting such good marks?

Many parents today expect too much of their children and that's a fact. I've met parents who enroll their children in about twenty dozen personality development camps when they're barely six or seven years old so that the children, in their own words "don't miss out on anything". I'm no child psychologist but I can tell you that within one year, they would have forgotten most of what they learned in these camps. When I remember my own lazy childhood (not more than one major activity per vacation and lots of sleeping and pottering around), I thank god that I have a family that understands. In fact, my mother today grumbles about how I was idiotic enough to miss out on the real pleasures of childhood like playing cricket on the streets, stealing fruit from the neighbour's garden and loafing around on rooftops. I wonder how many career-focussed parents today would agree with her.

And schools are no better. I'm absolutely disgusted with the way schools advertise themselves these days (99% pass rate! 99% pass rate! 15 state toppers! 15 state toppers! Pick me! Pick me!). And in order to make sure they don't disappoint parents, they pile immense loads of work upon their students. They cut out sports and extra-curricular activities since parents think they're expendable. Learning is no longer about understanding and appreciating the subject. It's about how exactly you should frame your answers in exams. They then hold hour-long sessions where they programme their machines to write answers to exam questions in a 'proper' manner instead of trying to make sure if the student actually gets what is being taught. History is not about the mad story of humanity, it's a list of dates to be mugged up. Physics is no longer about the fascinating world we live in but a bunch of formulae to be memorized. Schools are not centres of learning, they're factories of success.

Oh I know, people are going to say that the scene today is very different from what it used to be during my childhood (I'm an aging, senile 18 year old) and demands much more. Children have to be prepared for that. That is why, they claim, that by putting pressure on children at an early age, we toughen them up (like leather) to face adversity later. I agree that the scenario today is much more pressurizing but that is precisely why I feel you must leave children alone. By ensuring that their childhood is free from pressures and turmoil of adolescence and adulthood, you allow them to retain that one small bit of sanity that'll prevent them from turning into mere success-generating machines and live a little. What's more important than money and fame? A bit of life.

Bruce Lee Mani, one of the members of the band Thermal and a Quarter once commented in an interview that children today have lost that sense of wonder that he used to have as a kid. I couldn't agree more. Why else do you think more and more people today care less about the world they live in? It's because they are never taught to notice how smooth a riverside pebble is, how magnificently a lotus opens it's petals and how cool a monsoon breeze can be. And that, my friends, is how you appreciate life.

The World of Truth

2007-06-03T17:18:00.000+05:30

Nursing a painful neck after the Aerosmith concert here in Bangalore, I spent a rather interesting, contemplative morning just pondering about life. One interesting topic that came to my mind today was the concept of the World of Truth. Tim Hardford mentions this concept in his book The Undercover Economist (which, along with Stephen Levitt's Freakanomics, has sparked quite an interest in economics among the general public).

Just imagine if we were actually living in such a world...a world where everybody speaks the truth. It'll be outstandingly amazing. Here are some scenarios that happen in the world of truth:

1. Hari: Hello, may I be speaking to Mr. Sunil Madhora please?
Sunil: Malhotra?
Hari (pausing): Is that Mr.Madhora?
Sunil: There is no Madhora here. Only a Sunil Malhotra
Hari: Okay, Mr. Malhotra, anyway I would like to speak to you. I'm calling on behalf of Blah Blah Bank and would like to inform you that we are offering loans at 4% interest rate...
Hari: Why exactly are you calling me up? Tell me the truth!

(The word TRUTH echoes...Truth...truth...truth...truth...)

Hari: Umm...sir, the truth is that Blah Blah has formulated this loan in such a way that that
the actual interest payable goes upto 10% so that they can make more money. We called you up because we have your profile over here and you seem to be exactly the kind of sucker who'll fall for this crap. That is why...

2. Devesh: Hello, is that the Yak-yak Internet Customer Service?
Kumar: No, it's your millionaire godfather's house! What else did you expect it to be?
Devesh: Look here, all I want to know is why my broadband connection keeps crashing every evening at 5 pm and not coming back until the next morning...
Kumar: Why? Do you want it to crash at 2pm and not come back until next morning? That can be easily arranged...
Devesh: No, I want it to be repaired, you goddamn fool!
Kumar: Not possible!
Devesh: Why not?
Kumar: Because I say so that's why!
Devesh: Tell me the truth!

(Truth...truth...truth...truth)

Kumar: Well, isn't the truth obvious to you, moron? It's a trick. We discovered it by accident, I admit, but the truth is that we want everybody to adopt Broadband Plan A (the most expensive one obviously). So we make sure that all customers who use Plans B,C and D use equipment with slight technical defects. Then once they get tired of constant failures, we offer them Plan A and they'll be willing to pay more...and what's more, a lot of people are reluctant to switch from one service to another because it will changing e-mail ids and transferring all information stored in their accounts...big hassle...so this is...

3. Reporter:...and Mr. Superstar, one last question...your resurgence as an icon after a lapse of 7 years has been quite phenomenal...and you're always known as a people's man...do you try and live upto that title?
Superstar: Of course...where will I be without my fans? I owe everything to them...I always am a servant to the wishes of the public...
Reporter: Do you really mean that? Is that the truth?

(Truth...truth...truth...truth)

Superstar: Of course not, you dim-witted fool. Do you think I really care about my fans? I'm only concerned about my welfare...mine, do you hear, MINE! All these gimmicks that I do...maintain a grave dignified image, donate to temples and be seen at charity events...they're just PR! And those poor people...they swallow anything I do and consider me god...they literally worship me! Grateful? Maybe I was in the beginning, but now...worshipping me should be made compulsory! I am the superstar! Do you get it? THE SUPERSTAR!

4. Neta (to reporter): How can one allow this? Obscene dancing? Bah! It's against Indian culture! How can you even think of allowing them? They should be banned! Our youth must be saved from corruption of the minds...
Reporter: Do you really believe in that? Is that the truth?

(Truth...truth...truth...truth)

Neta: Nah! I would be the first one to ogle at all those women dancing! Isn't it obvious that I'm doing this for votes? I want to create the impression that I'm very concerned about society that's all!

5. Reporter: And there you go...some shocking truths for you...brought to you by the News Channel for the People...we present stories that matter because we care for you...the public!

Bystander: Do you really care for the public? Tell me the truth!

(Truth...truth...truth..truth)
Reporter: No way! Anything to earn TRPs that's all!

Yep, the pleasant world of truth...