Indian Revival vs. the West

R Jagannathan of FirstPost critiques Pankaj Mishra's recent article in New York Times. Well, I think I need to critique both!!!

First, Pankaj Mishra claims that there is a ressentiment within the Indian elites that is subterranean, which is potentially more dangerous than Taliban and ISIS etc. In reply, Jagannathan thinks that it is the West who is afraid of a revived liberal & democratic India who is about to find its Hindu-Buddhist-Jain cultural moorings, and that Mishra is just attending to pander to this fear.

Emergence of UPA-III

After all the codswallop, we have UPA-III, garnished with RSS-education. In a matter of four months, it is the Nth time that the current government choose to follow the earlier regime.

It's their prerogative, but it is a bit funny to see some of the blind followers still choke themselves out of admiration when they pronounce "The Name". There is a very recent successful politician who peddled HOPE & CHANGE to win two consecutive terms, but now having an approval rating so low that even George Bush found very difficult to stoop to.

I wonder if the Nobel committee mistook Kailash Satyarthi for someone else from India. Otherwise, it would have a perfect start for a possible repeat.

Or would not have been. Approval is hinged only slightly on performance, but largely on carefully crafted perception & even deeper cultural currents. So, who cares?

Nobel Peace Prize

A question on Quora: What has Malala Yousufzai done to deserve Nobel Peace Prize? My answer here.

Wannabe Ashoka?

Two recent statements from our PM has caught my eye. It is a pointless exercise to even try to understand your wife. So trying to figure out a person who appears to me on TV alone is as futile and stupid as anything else. But, hey, that's fun, isn't it? So, here I go, deconstructing the political ambition of Narendra Modi.

1. After the Mangalyaan success, he said in his Speech, "Let me conclude by saying that in contrast with the linear nature of Western philosophy; there is no absolute 'beginning' or 'end' in our Eastern understanding of the cosmos. There is only a continuous, unending cycle of dispassionate, detached perseverance. "

2. In the address to the UN assembly, he said "It (yoga) is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and the nature. Yoga embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well being.  By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help us deal with climate change".

Fleeting Euphoria

I sense a heightened sense of euphoria in the social & news media upon the recent verdict to send Jayalalitha to jail for corruption. It is emotionally justified because of a multitude of reasons. First of all, this is a rare event. In fact, as rare as the Mangalyaan mission. After all, it is the first time that we have reached Mars, and it is the first time that a sitting Chief Minister is disqualified for corruption. No wonder that the emotions are similar. Second, of all the talk and agitation about corruption, there hasn't been a perceivable change in the way things have been running in ground reality. Desperate are we, and this news is like the first drop of summer rain. We do not know if there is a second drop coming; but there is an anticipation filled with anxiety. There is plenty of thirst to quench and it has to show up somehow.

Prohibitory Naivety

What other topic to discuss other than the heady news coming our way? Kerala will be in a complete state of alcohol prohibition by 2023.



Disclaimers first. I do drink. I do keep a bottle or two at home for occasions. But, if Oommen Chandy wants me not to touch liquor going forward, my life will just as it is today. Perhaps I might save a few morning headaches, but nothing of significance whatsoever. So, I do think that I can approach the subject of alcohol consumption objectively, not through the prisms of an addict, a fanboy or a hater.

The arguments for prohibition is widely known, well-articulated and easy to understand. And they are readily visible. For a short period of my college life, I used to stay near to an institution for rehabilitation for drug & alcohol addicts (and used to watch TV there. An all-time favorite cricket match of mine where Javagal Srinath & Anil Kumble won a match batting for India against Australia- I watched it there) . Live examples of lives turned upside down & potentials destroyed. And such examples are available to us around us. The chances of you turning 30+ in Kerala without personally being aware of at least one case of alcoholic addiction is a strange occurrence. Stories of responsible men toying with lives of their own as well as their family's. Enough is talked about on this.

Hence the outcry for prohibition. It is not just a phenomenon confined to Kerala. Prohibition has always been the societal reaction everywhere upon observing the evils of alcohol. Nobody in a position that has an accountability towards social common good cannot resist advocating for it. The case is clear-cut for institutions, like religious bodies, that hold the social conscience. The onus is on them to pressurize for an ideal state of society that they envision.

I want to resist the temptation of going into the subtle and finer political play and balance of power equations that would have influenced the Government's decision. As much as these political factors play a far more deciding role in a decision such as this, bringing them into the discussion table would only muddy the waters. Let the focus remain on the subject of prohibition, rather than the political nuances surrounding a decision to take that move at a given point in the fascinating chess of politics.

What is absent in the current narrative of prohibition is the cons of it. Words like "impractical" or "unrealistic" creep up in the cacophony. But, such words are either not fully explained or plain obtuse. Eventually, they are subdued by louder words like "lobby" or "selfish interests". It is nobody's argument that there is no lobby who is set to profit from the evils of alcohol. But the mute question is not whether an alcohol-free society is good or not, rather, what is the best way to reach that state.

That is where I differ from the position of mainstream media, mainstream organizations and the Government. I see that as a short-cut route most probable to disappoint us in the longer run. Imagine that you embark on a journey towards an island that you see across the shore. You see a speed boat on one side and a small rowing boat on the other side. You eagerly jump into the speedboat. You fire it up and scream past an initial set of oncoming waves. Then you realize that there is no fuel. You are 100 meters out in the sea and you lose the power. You drift along in the waters, eventually pushed back by the waves onto the shore. You step out of the boat and then mutter to yourself in disappointment "that island is too far". While you walk away, the rowing boat is still waiting for you out there.

Why do I think that prohibition is a speedboat with no fuel? A number of reasons:

1) It is a historically failed experiment.

Not just once. Not just one place. It was tried out in Kerala earlier. It was tried out in many other states in India. It was tried out around the world. It failed almost everywhere to varying degrees. In some cases, it has failed spectacularly.

To quote some examples within India, let's look at Gujarat (which other state to quote as an example? Pun intended) . Bootlegging is an industry itself there. Prohibition is strictly only-official. Or, look at Mizoram that has admitted very recently about this failed experiment officially.

The only places where prohibition has worked reasonably are the Muslim countries. The reason is obvious - it is prohibited in Islam. There is a very strong religious foundation to the social success of the method of prohibition in those places. India is not definitely a country with that kind of a foundation. Especially Kerala. It has a strong historical tradition of maintaining sections of society that produce and sell alcohol. A strong presence of Christians, who has no religious taboos against alcohol, compounds the acceptance of alcohol. So, wishing that a prohibitory system , that has only worked within the societies that treat alcohol as a sin, would work in our culture is just that - a WISH. (I must note that even in the strongest of Islamic societies, prohibition has worked only to an extend. Read this article on Iran).

Now, history need not repeat, you could argue. I agree, but the burden of proof is on Oommen Chandy to tell me that why is he expecting prohibition to succeed in Kerala this time. I don't hear that. From anybody. If a system has failed everywhere, there has to be a solid reason for that failure. If you try to implement the same system without addressing that reason, you are setting yourself up for another failure. Closing down a few bars and the subsequent encouraging statistics does not in anyway challenge the reasons why prohibition has failed so many times in so many places. Prohibition is a very different topic as compared to closing down a few bars.

Alcohol consumption goes back to the very early beginnings of our societies. It is plain silliness to wish away that kind of a habit. Time and again, history has told us that if a sufficient number of people want to have something, they will have it, legally or otherwise. A very powerful personal deterrent is required for people to abstain from alcohol. It can be tradition, religion or a strong personal distaste. What it cannot be (as proven by past experiments) is a plain Government order. Without an overwhelming personal deterrent, the Government order becomes just another avenue for officials to take bribes, stamp personal vendettas selectively upon people and to trample the concept of law and order.

2) It leads to a consolidation of bad habits in a society, leading to criminal mafias.

This is a more subtle, yet more important aspect. When normal demand for anything is prohibited, the demand may diminish, but that in itself does not go away. But, normal everyday person does not have the wherewithal to produce the supply that will meet the demand. Thus, when the normal demand goes underground, the supply side is handled by those sections of society that handle the other underground activities, which are far more dangerous and illegal. These people will have political connections, liaisons with law enforcement agencies and muscle power to bring fear in a normal man's world. When a demand, as huge as the one for alcohol, is driven underground, the illegal vendors in the supply side get a huge fillip to their business. This results in a consolidation of criminal elements in a society, who grow in power according to the demand they receive in their underground activities. Instead of selling just drugs, prostitutes & quotation gangs (and everything from petty thefts to murders that come along with it), now they have a complete package of alcohol, drugs, prostitutes & quotation gangs. Even though that is just an addition on one item, the kind of demand & the number of people coming to underground with that single item is so huge. It is similar to having a Walmart-like demand in a mom-and-pop shop overnight.

It will take sometime for this consolidation to happen, because the underground market need to play out its course to mature. But, once complete, you are looking at the possibility of very powerful criminal mafias, aided by politicians and law enforcement officials to rule each and every aspect of the lives of local communities. The most spectacular story of all times is perhaps the prohibition in the USA. It just took a decade of prohibition for USA to be the home of the most powerful mafias, may be as powerful or even more, as the Columbian drug cartels of today.

The USA prohibition story may be a horror story, and hence we may be hoping that such kind of things would not happen here. But, you do not need to have crimes of that scale to disturb the peace of our society. Simpler cases of bootlegging and related crimes, hooch tragedies are frequent everywhere prohibition is enforced without sufficient reduction of demand.

Of late, we have been doing a commendable job in the fight against tobacco. Huge public awareness programs, slow-but-steady enforcement of reasonable laws that deter people from smoking in public places and the restrictions of the promotion of tobacco products have gathered a huge momentum in killing a habit that was a cultural norm in the previous generation. Instead of focusing of adopting similar tactics against alcohol and uprooting its cultural basis, jumping into a shortcut route that is more probable to lead us nowhere in the long term is not a wise move, in my opinion. It takes struggle to row a boat over a turbulent sea, but you don't have a choice if that is the only probable method to reach the island far out there.

I cannot miss the fact that Oommen Chandy did two wise things. One, he has planned the prohibition to be completely in effect after ten years. Thus, we have sometime to turn the public demand for alcohol down, thereby creating a cultural situation where prohibition may succeed. Two, he has rightly appealed for people's support. His words tend to reinforce my thoughts - he is not sure about the success of his programme unless there is a mass support from those who consume alcohol at present. He knows that he enjoys the support of those who doesn't drink. But, that is not sufficient for the success of prohibition. Unless the consumers of alcohol turn against it, there is no way that the Kerala experiment will go down in history as a successful experiment on prohibition. As of now, the situation is this: we have taken a lottery and are waiting with a wish to win the first prize. The odds are very clear. The only question is: are we lucky enough? Are we THAT lucky?

A small thought

No posts this week due to other constraints. Yet, let me leave this link here.

Not that it matters. Contrary to what everybody has been saying and projecting, I do not think that the primary reason for a large majority of people voting for Modi is his clean image or development agenda. The water runs much deeper than that. So, a few crores of corruption is not going to make any difference to those people who supported him.

Dhoti-controversy is not just about Dhoti

When the water tastes different only from one faucet in your house, you are justified to check only that faucet. But when it tastes different everywhere, you better check in the overhead tank.

The Dhoti-controversy is not just about clubs. After all, TNCA was following a dress-code that they saw fit (In fact, the explanation to adopt the same is actually reasonable in a comical manner- you do not definitely want to see dhoti-less drunkards wandering around in a prestigious institution).  Jayalalitha and Co. may find themselves in a slippery slope if they start to interfere in the norms around the dress code that every private institution should adhere to. While her reaction in this case is properly justified, stretching it to form an all-encompassing law would be a transgression on the higher principle of freedom that our constitution envisions for private entities. We just need to wait and see how the law will actually be worded, but my opinion is that these kind of practices with shades of colonial hangover has a deeper root that needs to be unearthed and exposed.

Scratching the Scab

Remember the last time when you tripped down and then got up with a few bruises on your knees? Remember the scabs that covered your knees after the bruises were healed? Remember what happened when you tried to scratch the scabby knees? It seems that the Modi government has been busy doing that: scratching the scabs. And they are getting to know exactly what happens if you do that. Pus. Blood. If you have any doubt, check this out.

Language is a very complicated thing in India. Not just in India, but all over the world. Wars were fought for it. Plenty of them. Unrest over language is not a very distant thing in the past in India. Anybody who has a common sense understanding of the situation of language in India would know that it is a delicate subject. It is a like a pyramid built using eggs. You have to be careful.And then, all of a sudden, barely after a month of taking power, Modi government wants to see what happens if you apply some pressure on top of this pile of eggs. Somebody wants to figure out what lies beneath the solid dry skin of the scab.

Why can't people let things be?

An Analysis of the Political Ideology behind Gadgil Reports

Everybody knows the purpose to which Gadgil Report is aimed at: prevent further man-made transformations to the natural landscape of Western Ghats. But, certainly, this purpose just sits within a larger context of political framework. My intention here is to try to unearth that political context and position it with respect to the key political ideologies in India and ,especially, Kerala.

Environmentalism as an ideology draws its lifeblood from the progressive ideals of the Western World. Eventhough man's affection to nature and his dependency on it has been a consistent theme all across the world in various civilizations, that disposition has not challenged his attempts to alter his landscape in any serious measure till very recently. The wide acceptance of the concept of Anthropogenic Global Climate Change can be considered as the fundamental cause of such a shift in the thought process of leadership across the globe.

But, why is it such a favorite political position of the progressives, and not the conservatives in the West? One can deduce two specific reasons. One, Conservatives generally tended to favor Industrialization, Privatization and Wealth Expansion. All of these are bound to the exploitation of available natural resources, which, in turn, will lead to various changes within the environmental landscape. Automatically, the progressive Socialists in the West who favor State control of Industry and Wealth distribution end up as the supporting pillar of environmentalism.

Of course, everybody from both camps argue for development with preservation. But, this is never an ideological position, but merely a compromising position so that they do not look extremists or fundamentalists politically. Given a single point of contention, conservatives are happy to compromise on environment, whereas progressives are happy to compromise on development.

It is, then, no wonder that similar attitudes prevail in India with respect to environmentalism. But, unlike the West where there are clear ideological camps, Indian situation is more much more cluttered with the presence of a number of other factors, like historical condition of a class of people, development needs of various sections of society and participation of people in multiple organizations with conflicting ideological positions and so on. Let me get into these various factors from the eyes of a number of actors considering the case of Gadgil report.

The curious case of Infant Congress

The protagonist of the movie "The curious case of Benjamin Button" ages in reverse and dies as an infant. While I do not claim that Congress is no more, or that Congress has been aging in reverse all these years, a careful reader would not fail to see the parallel.

A Political party, if you compare with a tree, would root itself in a core set of tenets (you can't bracket even AAP as an exception. The primary force of their formation, "Chaos", became their initial core idea, and manifests itself through a number of actions of the party as well as its members, but that's not the focus here) and gradually develop the branches of action plans that depend on its life the nourishment that the root supplies. The more nourishing the root is (to itself, need not be to the society as a whole) and the healthier the actions plans, then mightier the tree will be.

When 10 divided by 10 Equals 0

One of my very first thoughts after seeing today's election results were about what kind of votes consolidated to give this thumping victory to Narendra Modi (to Sushma Swaraj: it is indeed Modi's victory, howmuchever you try to convince yourself otherwise) and does it mean something fundamentally different to our politics.

1977 was something fundamentally different because it provided a first viable non-Congress option across the nation. Politics fundamentally changed since then.

1989-91 was something fundamentally different because the politics in the country where everybody else pitted against Congress ended. Congress was no longer the center-piece in the showcase.

1999 was something fundamentally different because there were two center pieces to which all other parties gravitated.

In that light, I again see something fundamentally different. There is only one center piece remaining and that is BJP.

Who was Modi trying to fool?

How many of you have asked for a Promotion, Salary Hike or Change of work (project, department, role) in your career and were denied? How many of you asked for a toy that your father cannot afford, for a bike that your father didn’t want to buy for you at that time or for joining a course or program that your parents considered unnecessary? Do you still remember the ingenious way your parents or manager or HR evaded the question? People resort to tricky words and clever replies when they can’t give an honest answer.

I was made to remember of such instances of my life by none other than our Prime Ministerial candidate Mr. Narendra Modi yesterday. I came late from office and my wife was watching his interview with Mr. Goswami in Times Now. I just joined her, and then happened to hear this cute little statement – that when BJP said in their manifesto that they welcome all Hindu refugees (and not Sikh or Jain or Muslim or Christian refugees), they meant Hinduism as a “way of life” and they were just following the definition of the Supreme Court of India.

Chooo Chweeet of him!!! Vasudaiva Kudumbakam. Vasudha Eva Kudumbakam. Earth indeed is a family.

He made me to do some research. Which is this Supreme Court judgement that he is talking about? What exactly is the statement from BJP’s manifesto?

Mr. Modi is referring to a Supreme Court judgement involving a case against Bal Thackeray. (http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=10197). Mr. Theckeray had made the below statement – “"We are fighting this election for the protection of Hinduism. Therefore, we do not care for the votes of the Muslims. This country belongs to Hindus and will remain so."

Following are some relevant passages from the Supreme Court judgement:

“Words `Hinduism' or `Hindutva' are not necessarily to be understood and construed narrowly, confined only to the strict Hindu religious practices unrelated to the culture and ethos of the people of India, depicting the way of life of the Indian people. Unless the context of a speech indicates a contrary meaning or use, in the abstract these terms are indicative more of a way of life of the Indian people and are not confined merely to describe persons practising the Hindu religion as a faith.”

“Misuse of these expressions to promote communalism cannot alter the true meaning of these terms. the mischief resulting from the misuse of the terms by anyone in his speech has to be checked and not its permissible use. It is indeed very unfortunate, if in spite of the liberal and tolerant features of `Hinduism' recognised in judicial decisions, these terms are misused by anyone during the elections to gain any unfair political advantage.”

“Our conclusion is that all the three speeches of Bal Thackeray amount to corrupt practice under sub-section (3), while the first speech is a corrupt practice also under sub- section (3A) of Section 123 of the R.P. Act. “

So, after all, Bal Thackeray was punished by Supreme Court for using that word for “misusing during the elections to gain any unfair political advantage”.

So, what Mr. Modi claims is that BJP was using the word Hinduism in the sense of “way of life of the Indian people”, not in the sense “persons practising the Hindu religion as a faith”.

Ok. Granted. I am deliberately forgetting the entire history or RSS, BJP and Mr. Modi. Now, let’s see what does the BJP manifesto says. The statement in question comes under the heading Foreign Relations. “India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here.” So, Modi’s claim is that the sentence is to be read as: India shall remain a natural home for persecuted people who follow way of life of Indian people.

Now, I suddenly see another statement in the same manifesto. The very immediately prior statement: “The NRIs, PIOs and professionals settled abroad are a vast reservoir to articulate the national

interests and affairs globally.”

Who is an NRI? Who is a PIO? Are they not “Hindus” in the abstract sense of the word? If yes, why are they not named called as “Hindus”? If not, what is the difference between NRI, PIO and Hindu?

Intrigued by this, I do a search for the term “Indians”. There are 41 places in which the word “Indian” is used in that manifesto. There is only one place where Hindu is used. Why only one reference to the word “Hindu”?  If the intellectually-challenged explanation that the word processor failed to do a Grammar check is set aside, you would have to say that the two terms "Indian" and "Hindu" are not synonymous in the context of this manifesto. Then, Mr. Modi is saying that there are Indians who are not "Hindus (abstract sense)". Who are those people? And how different are those people who are different from "persons who practicing Hindu religion"? (Arnab didn't ask any of these questions, unlike the aggro he showed against Rahul Gandhi. I guess that isn't a surprise for anybody).

In a document where a set of people are referred to as “Indians” 41 times, what if there was a 42^nd reference that says: “India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Indians and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here.”

OH, NO. THIS IS NOT GOING TO GET ANY VOTES. THIS IS NOT GOING TO PLEASE THE RSS CADRE.

Mr. Modi, who are you trying to fool here? In a general sense, everybody, of course. He can't say that he means what he really means and get away from possible constitutional repercussions. So, he just took the only way out. But that's not really fooling anybody. It is just an open trick. When a magician explains you a magic trick, you may appreciate the cleverness of the trick, but you are neither fooled by nor amazed at the trick itself anymore.

But, I am more intrigued by the question- are there anyone who will get really fooled by this?

Your party cadre? They already know that when you said Hindu, you meant exactly that “persons practicing the Hindu religion” (as opposed to the 41-time-reference to Indians), and they are happy to hear that. No need to fool them. Your detractors? Well, they are also already aware that you meant exactly the same. So, who else?

Ok. Now, I get it. There are a set of facebook-educated political activists that support you. They don’t want to see the obvious. Yet, they worship you. And you can’t let them down. They are like a 9-year old boy who saw a nice red-colored toy car in a shop (that his neighbor uncle owned) which his father cannot afford. He asked his father, and he said no. He cried. He cursed. He didn’t eat. Then the father said he will buy the toy for the boy the next day. Next day, they both went to the shop and the car wasn’t there. The uncle told that it was damaged and the entire pack was returned. Boy believed him. And was happy because he didn’t buy the car the day before. He didn’t know then that the car was still there, undamaged. He didn’t know then that his father asked the neighbor to hide it. He didn’t know then that he was fooled.

Mr. Modi knows that India is full of such people who can’t see the obvious, or don’t want to admit the obvious. He also knows that they are 9-year olds intellectually and can be fooled. He is playing a magic in which both the right and the left can see what the magician is doing. There are some kids at the center whom he is hoping to amaze. And, so far, he is doing a good job in the magic show.