Ramdev, Gandhi and who has done what for India

This is a conversation between my good friend Suman Kalyan and me about things such as Dharma, Satyagraha, Gandhi and now  Baba Ramdev.  I have posted it here because I thought this conversation could have an appeal to a greater number of people and also because I firmly believe that my blog should carry comments made on it by others so as to maintain a dialogical process of conversation which will help me and all others concerned at better perspectives about things.

Read some of your blog articles. Its still not clear to me what do u stand for ? Whatever may be Anna's motives, could he have done better, why did he pick politicians like Modi and Nitish ..c'Mon give him a break..he may not b perfect..did touch a chord somewhere in common folks !

April 23Suman Kalyan

Another thought about Modi. Why is everyone so eager to deliver justice in this regard but not show the same enthusiasm doing justice to those unfortunate Sikhs in the riots post madame gandhis's assassination? I can easily understand media blowing up Anna's comment on Modi but why you ?

April 23A. V. Satish Chandra

Suman,

I do not condone what happened with HKL Bhagat and co in the 1984 riots post the assassination of Indira Gandhi. I do not think Anna Hazare even intended to touch any chord in anyone. His target was clear. He wanted to work within the existing framework using the same politicians for reform. That is his choice. My commentary is about the futility of the exercise if one chose to work with the same bunch of crooks. The Narendra Modi comment is not my desire to blow things up like the media does. I am only questioning the media itself when it says Hazare is a Gandhian. A Gandhian is not one who just takes up a fast. He has to live by certain principles that have been repeatedly violated in this country by all politicians. I am not saying that anyone has to be Gandhian at all. But if the tag is attached then it needs to be justified.I was only saying in his scheme of things there was no necessity for him to give certificates of conduct to anyone. I would question him if he did the same with any politician in the country. The common folks you are referring to are the ones that help corruption grow and please remember that these things are not done under compulsion but simply out of choice.

April 24Suman Kalyan

A couple of comments:

I agree with you on the futility of Anna's efforts. However for a different reason - corruption is very closely linked to the cost of fighting elections and the current system will always create crooks out of any new individuals in the system however well meaning they may be..Some will be less greedy than the others and not accumulate personal wealth, whilst the majority will fill their pockets and and also generate funds for political party sustenance. The stakes are too high and moral compass will change ! I do not believe the answers lie in getting honest individuals into political governance. The changes need to be more fundamental..

April 24Suman Kalyan

I'm not sure what really a Gandhian means...What principles are we talking about besides fasts ? Frankly in my opinion fasts are really rubbish. Traditional wisdom has always recommended periodic fasts as a means of improving one's health, but any other reason is "blackmail"

April 24Suman Kalyan

The politicians in this country have violated many principles - but Gandhianism is the last one i would worry about..It's about time that we as a nation laid the ideals of Gandhianism to eternal rest..Most of it never made sense to me..Gandhi was a great social reformer whose contribution to Hindu society to tackle social causes was definitely outstanding and everyone should follow his example in this regard.. His political ideology and political actions are eminently forgettable. Principles like non violence are dangerous ! forgive the oxymoron ! It goes against our fundamental ethos. Dharma is not only to protect the righteous, weak but also to vanquish evil. In other words an act of violence or non violence by itself cannot be judged without the context of a Dharma..So applying a principle of non violence indiscriminately for all situations is rank foolishness and unfortunately Gandhi is a best example for this. Not to take away any of his stellar contributions to the nation for fighting social evils like untouchability. The point I'm trying to make is, it is time to bury Gandhianism.

April 24A. V. Satish Chandra

Suman,

It will take up a lot of time and space if I were to start talking about Gandhian principles that go way beyond fasting. In fact, in the Gandhian scheme of things even fasting has some philosophical insights and therefore it is not just blackmail. I will not extend the commentary simply because as I said in the previous reply of mine, there is no necessity to be Gandhian to fight anything including corruption. There are other equally ethical ways of doing things and should be explored. You are right about Dharma and applying non-violence to all situations. Burying Gandhianism is a choice that people who fight for various things should make. By that I do not mean people like KCR.

April 24Suman Kalyan

Satish, if you have time to write a separate note on some of the philosophical aspects of fasting, request you to do so..I'm interested in knowing about these..I have had so much of disdain for things like fasting being the glutton I'm would love to know a bit more about it..

I would like to add a comment in the concept of fighting evils like corruption, I think the best example that should be imbibed in our country is the example of Chanakya which in my opinion is more relevant than Gandhianism.. To fight evils and uphold Dharma, any means is fair game..So some of the means employed may not thrill your ethical senses..prostitutes, poisons, elaborate system of spies, etc anything that upholds Dharma...

April 24Suman Kalyan

In fact some of these means should not even give rise to ethical dilemmas - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is very clear in stating that Truthful action is one that establishes Dharma and goes ahead to state that Dharma and Truth are synonymous with each other..

To me this has a staggering implication - Truth does not imply a record of facts and truthful action does not necessary imply trying to be a saint !

April 24Suman Kalyan

Three people in Indian History understood this very well - Krishna, Chanakya and Samarth Ramdas and their contributions speak for themselves..

and of course everyone of had an impact at a civilizational level !

I do not see how true change will be ushered in our country without someone providing leadership of the stature of Chanakya !

45 minutes agoSuman Kalyan

I think making comments on Ramdev's physical afflictions with the eye is in poor taste..

Ramdev made his intent to enter the political arena very clear when he announced his political party. If street thugs, hooligans, convicted criminals can enter the politics why not Yoga gurus !

I agree with your observations on Satya Sai Baba..Another individual who should be added to the list of tricksters is Gandhi himself who caused more harm that Sai Baba to the country with his bizarre religious tolerance where it was okay for one community to get killed peacefully without retaliating but the parity ended there...I don;t need to get into the details, but history bears this out...Sai Baba made lot of money tricked lot of people, but never made a civilization impotent..

Your comments on "Spiritualism" are without any basis and reflects an immature understanding. Spiritual empowerment goes hand in hand with political and economic empowerment of society. The essence of all Vedas, Upanishads from the perspective of spirituality is all about transcending "I" and ways and means to achieve that. claims about Spirituality - everything falling into place when things are cleansed at the spirit level is incorrect. 

You seem to have a problem with spirituality and politics. I see an intimate connection between the two. Two great examples - Krishna and Chanakya. They gave a very correct and holistic meaning to spirituality and hence their impact on society at a civilizational level.

Ramdev may not be the best example of a warrior saint in the league of Swami Vivekananda, but I see nothing wrong with his strategy. You can fault the methods he uses, question his personal motives, but I see spiritualization of a society with political and economic empowerment as a great strategy.

The comparison to Madrasas again doesn't make sense. The things that you casually mention as "people are told to do things for the society" has created a worldwide Islamic terrorism problem. I don;t want to get into a debate on why should terrorism be labeled as Islamic - the same standard debate points terrorism has no religion, this is actually a religion of peace but there are some misguided individuals who are giving the religion a bad name etc etc...

Hazare is in idiot who thought he could pull a rabbit out of a hand and corruption would magically go away. The political class is too smart for him and as expected they out maneuvered him. I didn't keep awake on any night with a remote hope that Hazare would succeed....RSS, BJP, Bajrang Dal may have their own problems as with any organization, but not supporting Hazare was a smart move in not wasting political capital on a losing proposition. Hazare at least is a harmless guy, but can;t the same for Gandhi who was dangerous...So I think the comparison with Gandhi is actually a disrespect for Hazare and the best thing is he actually wears a Gandhian cap ! This is ridiculous..

Once again your comparison of Satya Sai Bab and rammed is again inexplicable. Ramdev for all this flaws, played a significant role in resurgence Yoga in India - a land that was slowly losing the Yoga tradition. I 'm a Yoga practitioner for a long time and he definitely wasn't teaching BS. I do have a problem with him charging a huge sum of money (10,000 - 50,000 Rs), but I do not question his capabilities in Yoga. Sai Baba was a poor magician at best and duped lot of people..Of course he was a master of financial management and psychology for sure..I don;t see the basis for this comparison..

I do agree with you that some of his suggestions like capital punishment may not be sound...

As far as a monster that will consume us all, Gandhi created the monster called Congress 50 years back... I'm not sure if he created it, but he certainly nurtured it for sure according to his whims and fancies. Congress ruined our country over the last 50 years and you think Ramdev has enough talent to create more damage than this !

What the country needs is another Chanakya. Some one who has the right vision for the Rashtra, fierce sense of nationalism as his core philosophy, astute political skills, unite everyone through a common thread of spiritualistic ideals, do what it takes to eliminate evil elements in society..Is there such an individual or will someone step up ? If there is none, I don;t need to be a soothsayer to predict the demise of this nation in the next 50 years...

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What I have posted are comments made on what I have written yesterday and some a few weeks ago.  As you may have gleaned these are by Suman Kalyan a good friend of mine with whom I share a love for the same kind of music but apparently not for same kind of politics:-).  In the in interest of equity and fairness I have put all his comments here from Facebook and it is up to you now to decide on things.  I will respond to a couple of things about his comments on my post of yesterday and also I had promised to write about the philosophical underpinnings of Gandhi's Satyagraha sometime ago and did not due to preoccupations with all things useless; and so I will write that bit out too.  What can be a personal debate, I have made public so that I can perhaps benefit from perspectives that I may be wrong about or failing to see.  It will be nice if more people can contribute to this.

First let me agree with Suman that my remarks about Ramdev's physical affliction (his eye) are in poor taste. Now let us get down to a few disagreements.

1. The Congress is not the creation of MK Gandhi.  Gandhi also did not want the party to continue post independence by anticipating precisely the things that Suman has pointed out about the Congress party and the damage that it has done and continues to do to this nation.

2. The Satya Sai Baba and the Ramdev comparison is explicable.  Both have organized their popularity among the masses through the overt and covert support of finances of the rich and also of the politicians.  Though it is said that they also helped in storing the corrupt money of businesses and politics, I will not comment on that because there is no concrete evidence to support the same.  Satya Sai Baba was a facilitator of political deals and Ramdev could end up the same if he does not end up becoming a full time politician.  Also I have pointed out the differences between the two of them and why I was writing about them in that piece in the first place.

3. I do not see a place for Chanakya in the present scheme of things.  The reasons are straightforward, it is like saying Niccolo Machiavelli can solve the problems of present day Italy.  Chanakya is about as spiritual as Osama Bin Laden and to complicate it all, despite the popular perception of who Chanakya was, historically there is very little to connect three names-Chanakya, Kautilya and Vishnu Gupta; all of whom are presumed to be one person but in reality may not be.  The relevance of the Arthashastra is purely confined to its times, present day politics being far more different, complicated and bigger for the Arthashastra to be of any consequence.  If you are referring to the fact that he created a "pragmatic" system of governance, even that will be beset by the same problems that I have referred to in the previous sentence.  Cunning and astute political strategies are already leading the nation to its demise.  You give it 50 years, I give it 10 if things continue like this.

4. Ramdev may be a Yoga practitioner of great repute but that does not entitle him to get into politics.  You are right when you say that there are goons and thugs in politics already so why can't Ramdev get in.  I am bemoaning the fact that politics in India is becoming an exclusive prerogative of the unenlightened; be they goons, thugs, yoga gurus, pahelwans or communally minded people. Often this has left me with a feeling of disgust for democracy but then I prefer the evils of democracy to what may be if it is other forms of government.  So while I criticize Ramdev and his ilk I prefer them in a democratic system than having someone lording over everyone in a dictatorship.

5. My understanding of spiritualism you aver is immature and ill thought out.  I seek to disagree.  The whole idea of spiritualism is the apprehension and cognition of  picture larger than the one that is perceived of by the senses.  The spiritualist can make Cosmic connections and arrive at what is good and what is bad and what is morally sustainable and what is not.  What you have done is to delink the connection between spiritualism based in moral understanding from politics.  Politics are what they are today precisely due to their disconnect with all things spiritual. Be it Ramdev or Swami Agnivesh or the RSS; they have all failed here.  In fact the brand of Hinduthva that is being pedalled today by the RSS, the Sangh Parivar for me is the Islamization and Christianization of a cosmology that was far superior than the proselytizing religions that I have mentioned.  The intervention of the Arya Samaj actually transformed what was a brilliant cosmology into just another proselytizing religion.  I also say that by the time the Arya Samaj had intervened there were several other interventions that sublated the cosmology and turned it into a monstrous social schema.  I am referring to the intervention of Brahminical religion and its unwarranted intrusion into the Ancient Indian wisdom and cosmology reducing in the process the whole thing to dos and don'ts based in the utterly ridiculous.  I stand by my idea that what we have as spiritualism is nothing but a made easy text of dos and don'ts and therefore I will say that any comparisons between the notions of dharma as practiced in the Mahabharatha and what we have today will only strengthen efforts at genocide and launching of pogroms against specific sections of populations.

6. About the philosophical basis of Satyagraha and the answer to the question of what more is it than fasting as a tactic of blackmail.  The fasts taken up by anyone and everyone today and the birth of the system of relay fasts has detracted from the philosophical underpinnings of Satyagraha and fasting.  A good beginning to a better understanding of what Satyagraha is the dissection of the term itself.  Satyagraha is righteous anger or the anger born out of a moral conviction that what the other is doing to you is wrong and unsustainable by any system of morality.  A Satyagrahi should first be convinced of the Truth of what he believes after due logical cogitation along the lines of morality and only then should take up an action on behalf of that truth which is universal.  So when Mahatma Gandhi undertook a fast it was not to blackmail people.  It was to impress upon them the idea that his was so convinced of the Truth of his thought and actions that for the perpetuation of that Truth he was willing to even give up his life.  Gandhi was actually challenging the theory of Yuga Dharma, one that changed with every passing Yuga and went into the decline mode.  Gandhi believed not in Yuga Dharma but in Sanatana Dharma, a Dharma which will not succumb to a degenerative cycle but remain constant even in the face of great adversity.  Gandhi distinguished between Sanatana Dharma and religion. For him all religions are governed by the same Dharma and the tragedy was that people who had forgotten the basic morals of their religion (any religion) had strayed from the path of Sanatana Dharma.  For him war, conquest and colonialism were a result of people's alienation from their religion and by extension from Sanatana Dharma.

7. I feel sad that Gandhi is so vociferously disowned in his own country, by the very people he fought for.  It was his appeal for religious tolerance and fighting for it through fasts that led to whatever harmony we have in this country.  For me the belligerence of the Hinduthva forces will destroy the country not build it.  It is indeed a great pity that today the Godses of the country are becoming heroes and the Gandhis (the Mahatma type and not Indira, Sonia, Rajiv, Sanjay, Rahul and Priyanka types) are becoming villains.

And now let us welcome another great dimension to the already murky world of Indian Politics. This one goes by the name of Baba Ramdev

It has only just been a few weeks since the death of one of the most powerful Babas that independent India produced, Satya Sai Baba.  The man (God to his followers) managed to do what no one else could do; organize the rich and the famous around himself and do charity.  He sat on a throne (later a wheel chair also) and let his benevolent gaze fall on the humble and the miserable.  The latter drew great solace from his generosity (which was not to individuals but to entire regions) and his kindness and also from his message of love all (no that is not the tennis score at the French Open).  Great cricketers such as Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar worshipped his lotus feet while (former) Prime Ministers such as P.V. Narasimha Rao prostrated to him in obeisance in full public view.  The Baba was a know all.  He even claimed that he was Krishna in the Mahabharatha and of course, Shirdi Sai Baba as well.  So when this divine cosmic being left earth one day, it was the end of an era.  However, the world cannot be without great people, especially in India.  So in the land of many Suns when one sets, another rises.  Now all hail the New Baba, Baba Ramdev.

Strictly speaking Baba Ramdev is not new.  He has been around a while.  As is usually the case with people of his ilk he was at many a times at the centre of various unsavoury controversies.  At one time it was reported that what he sold as herbal medicine actually contained extracts from animal proteins and later the Baba courted controversy by advising his followers to give up Western medicine.  He started with the idea that Statins such as Atoverstatin should not be used every day and that they did not help in anyway (he may have been right there).  He then started Christian evangelist type camps that would have made faith healers such as Billy Graham feel small.  The Baba preached the merits of yoga and of Pranayama and while he was listening to his pious devotees he kept performing Pranayama in public.  People stood up and narrated how his methods had led to weight loss, cure for hypertension and diabetes.  The Baba benevolently thanked the narrators for sharing the stories and exhorted the other people in the camp or those watching the proceeding on Aastha TV channel to follow those examples.  To some Baba Ramdev was just an eccentric figure, to some others he was a facile fraud but to most he was manna from heaven.  

This manna from heaven has been behind the revivification of the spiritual realm among the Hindus in India, with ever greater numbers flocking to his side in order to discover or re-discover their own spiritual side.  You had a problem, Baba Ramdev had a solution.  You are overweight, go to Baba Ramdev; you are asthmatic, go to Baba Ramdev; you are hypertensive/diabetic, go to Baba Ramdev; you have aches and pains in your body, go to Baba Ramdev; you are confused by your existence and are a restless soul, just go to Baba Ramdev.  So whatever Baba Ramdev may otherwise be, he is a larger than life figure, one who has the panacea for all bodily and spiritual problems.  Now however, this larger than life figure is not only providing solutions to problems pertaining to the body and the soul but for problems pertaining to society and politics as well.  A quantum leap into a new thing as far as some people are concerned, but just a logical extension of what he has been doing thus far, to most of his followers, who are in crores.  You see that is the beauty of spiritualism.  Spiritualism claims that cleanse things at the level of spirit and automatically you can see the cleansing of other things as well.  Even though to his followers what Ramdev is doing is just an extension of spiritual cleansing, it is in effect a move away from the spiritual realm and straight into the heart of the temporal realm.  This gives us the right to drop the Baba prefix and from now on address him as Ramdev simply.

Before moving further ahead, we need to clarify one thing.  Ramdev's Babathva (like in Hinduthva) is significantly different from the Babathva of Satya Sai Baba.  While latter claimed divinity and the ability to effortless navigate the entire Cosmos whenever he felt like, the former tied himself to Yoga.  Ideally he should have been called Yogi Ramdev but for some reason he preferred Baba.  Ramdev's appearance which is lean but strong and his confident demeanour have made people believe that he is one who practices what he preaches.  The mythical Greek character Achilles had a heel which was his weak point and Ramdev has an eye that opens and closes at its own bidding.  So he has the Ramdev eye which is his weakness.  The eye weakness is metaphorical and not literal.  What is undeniable is that Ramdev has started enjoying the spotlight or the limelight or whatever light.  Apparently with this growing enjoyment is also a growing ambition and to move into newer areas of fame, fortune and glory.  Though he claims he is a saint he loves all the three things that have been just mentioned.  So this saint owns an island in Scotland, has thousands of crores of rupees and many other temporal entitlement.  But the saint is no longer content with his saintliness and has decided to become a warrior.  So Ramdev has transformed into a Warrior-Saint (an oxymoron but people don't see that) and has launched himself into politics.

The whole process began a bit like what one finds in Madrasas  or in Friday prayers in Masjids when people are told to do things for society.  This practice was once common even in Christian Churches where the members of the congregation were advised to act in a particular way when confronted with certain types of situations.  The daring and open corruption followed by the UPA Government (Raja and the 2G Telecom Scam, Arjun Singh's deemed universities, Suresh Kalmadi's Common Wealth Games scam, the Adarsh Housing Society scam to name a few) provided Ramdev with the ideal opportunity to pontificate during his Yoga meetings.  Slowly the Yoga content in this meetings came down and the political content increased exponentially.  Ramdev used his meetings to carry out his variety of political propaganda first by asking people to fight corruption and then joining the fight himself.  The opportunity to actively join the fight was presented to Ramdev by Anna Hazare who launched his fast unto death at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi fighting for the Lok Pal (Ombudsman) Bill to be introduced in the Indian Parliament.  Among many of the people who pledged support to Hazare was Ramdev.  I guess it was no coincidence that a number of the supporters were from the right wing politics and Hazare whose credentials are unknown has now been pushed into the back and Ramdev has come right to the forefront of things.  So apart from the legion of followers that he has, who is supporting him?

The RSS, the BJP, the Bajrang Dal, the Shiv Sena and all such right wing Hinduthva parties are supporting him.  In fact, it is claimed by some that he is actually fronting for them.  The right wingers have been wise in their choice of front man if that particular claim is true.  Hazare claimed he was a Gandhian and Gandhi has never been a favourite of the right wingers since he preached religious tolerance.  So Hazare could not be the figure to rally around unless he gave up his public posture of Gandhianism.  Anyway he is also an old man.  Not so Ramdev.  Young and dynamic, forceful and with a large following of people already is the right figure. It also helps that the middle class of the country feels cheated of its wealth (that much is evident from the debates on Facebook) and are looking for a figure around whom they can rally.  It also helps that many from the middle class are Hindus and therefore do not really find his call for traditionalism very disturbing.  

Other politicians are savvy and have already started throwing their weight behind Ramdev and his much publicized fast at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi.  This is an ideal setting; this is the ground on which Ravana the arch enemy of Rama is burnt on the Vijaya Dasami Day, a day when good triumphed over evil.  Ramdev the good will now have to triumph over the first of the evils, corruption.  Ramdev has placed a list of demands in front of the Government; demands that range from the silly through the bizarre to the obnoxious.  I am sure all of you have seen them so I shall spare you of the details.  But I shall discuss one or two things which are of some significance.  The first of these is the idea of Capital Punishment for the corrupt.  Ramdev is getting ready to unleash a Goebbels and also inaugurate an era of McCarthyism in India.  Just imagine how much burden there will be on ombudsman bodies when everybody points a finger at the other.  It could even lead to the "guilty until proven innocent" system of justice delivery.  The other deals with his demand for technical education in vernacular (here I request you to read that as technical education in Hindi).  The reason behind the demand is very clear.  Ramdev is articulating a demand that will warm the cockles of the Hindi heartland where he chooses to become a leader first.  In various posts of mine, I have already talked of how in India this kind of jingoism led to the emergence of rubbish in the form of social sciences and humanities.  Now Ramdev wants to do the same thing to technical education.

This myopic vision of his (no doubt influenced at least in part by his uncontrolled eye lash) can not only doom education in this country and make it completely inefficient.  Vernacular education will mean that two people in the same discipline cannot converse anymore since they speak different languages (I would like to point out here that translating relevant bodies of knowledge into vernacular is a task that even Hercules and Atlas will not be able to accomplish).  This is in addition to the pitfalls of traditionalism.  We could have the legitimation of Khap Panchayats that will dole out punishments the way they like without any concern for the law of the land, of likes of Pramod Muthalik and his followers who will ask that girls stay indoors and cover themselves in ghoonghat, of month long Ganesh and Durga navratris, communal intolerance and righteousness of one culture over others and finally disintegration of nationalism.  In all this there will be increase of corruption; designated custodians of morality will police the streets and take their mamools apart from the regular police; extortion will widen and deepen so that traditional festivals can be celebrated with vigour and those who oppose the extortion will face instant punishment.  Ramdev knowingly or unknowingly has an agenda that can unleash a reign of terror that may embarrass Robespierre and the Jacobins.  Ramdev is what this country does not need at this juncture or any other.  I hope and pray that my countrymen and women can see through him and nip his aspirations in the bud, otherwise we could end up creating a monster that will consume us all.

P.S: Please bear with mistakes since I have not proof read the piece.

The unbearable heaviness of Being.

I know that I haven't been writing this blog for sometime now.  It is not as if there is nothing to say.  Very much to the contrary there are too many things playing on my mind and sometimes the whole thing is so depressing that one feels that exercises such as making blog posts are futile.  I have realized that my blog is essentially a rant, perhaps nothing wrong with that in itself.  But somewhere down the line I have been feeling that as a person I have done precious little constructively and therefore I have taken up an initiative called socialsciences.in on the web.  This is meant to be a resource for students and perhaps even teachers and I have successfully roped in some academicians of repute to contribute to the site, even if it meant that they will send me only their old articles.  The website is up and running and what has been heartening is that a few people are actually reading up things put on that site.  I would request readers of this blog also to have a look at that site and come up with suggestions and if you are academicians yourself please send material that can be put up on the site, for that would immensely benefit students of universities such as mine (Osmania University) where teaching is a rarity owing mainly to the incompetence of the faculty.  As I have repeated ad nauseum there are many such universities in this country and I am sure the students of those universities will benefit as well (though I have no idea exactly how, I am just going by the idea that good researched material or well written lessons will somehow benefit students).  However, even doing something "constructive" like this and planning for more such initiatives has not in anyway lifted the unbearable weight that I feel on my shoulders.  There are reasons for that.

When I go to my university what I see is just rot and the smell that I get is that of academic putridness.  Let me substantiate this point.  It really hurts to see that the Government of Andhra Pradesh treats education as the last of its priorities.  Universities have been around without full time Vice-Chancellors and therefore people within the universities are doing what they please.  Universities in Andhra Pradesh have become drift wood in the cesspool of dirty politics.  I read of the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor of the Central University of Hyderabad and was quite happy to see his qualifications and what he did in terms of research.  I was a student of that university in the days when I was doing M.Phil and initially registered there for my Ph.D as well.  What was impressive about the place was that Vice-Chancellors were people of stature, those who were internationally renowned in their disciplines.  They were also committed to excellence.  Some of the Vice-Chancellors of that University also continued publishing research papers even though they were fully caught up in the administering of the University. The same is true even of the Jawaharlal Nehru University of which I am an alumnus, having done my M.A. there.  When I compare the calibre of people who have been Vice-Chancellors of these universities and other Central Universities with that of the Vice-Chancellors of the state universities what I see is the difference between heaven and hell.  While the former might not exactly be heaven, the latter is most definitely hell, a veritable nightmare for anyone wanting to do something useful for society.

I have always lamented the amount of dead wood in my university which goes in the name of teaching staff.  Like the Vice-Chancellors (there have been some exceptions to this, I request you to note), the teachers of the university have no business even administering or teaching students in kindergarten.  I say this because they will teach young minds how to look at another person as entity belonging to a certain caste or religion or region and will make them divide themselves on those lines.  The casteism that one sees in university campuses of Andhra Pradesh will shock even those who think they have seen the worst.  One university puts up not only the names of faculty members but also appends the names with castes.  When I asked why this was done, I was told that this would facilitate people of one caste inviting other people of the same caste to selection committees and such things in other universities.  But all this is old hat, so why do I fee this unbearable burden on my shoulders?

To understand that you will have to pay attention to this anecdote that I will now narrate.  I crave your indulgence in this matter.  Under severe pressure from bodies such as the NAAC and the UGC, the Osmania University last year, finally introduced the now universal academic credit system which makes it easier for students to be evaluated by other universities in different parts of the world and also provides possibilities of not having to repeat certain courses.  The then Vice-Chancellor for reasons best known to him projected this as his own innovation.  Osmania University has been inbreeding for decades now.  So most of the teachers believed him and arraigned themselves into two groups; one supporting him and the other opposing him.  The opposition or the support had nothing to do with the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS from now on).  It had everything to do with the personal likes or dislikes towards the Vice-Chancellor, of people in the teaching community of university.  The teachers union President once a lackey of the former Vice-Chancellor has been fighting for the removal of the CBCS system without even knowing that the system is now mandatory and the university has little choice about its implementation.

The acting Vice-Chancellor of the university called for a meeting a couple of day ago, of the Heads of Department and some other faculty members to iron out the issue.  I was deputed by my Head of the Dept to attend the meeting on his behalf.  And I wish I never accepted doing that.  The meeting was just a political meeting with everyone talking about all things except the CBCS system and when the system was discussed it inevitably led to flared tempers and name calling.  Another issue was admissions to PhD courses.  Just a couple of months ago the university completed admissions into the PhD courses and gave admissions to more than 1700 students!!!!This is over and above those who are already registered for the same in the university.  This number could be reached due to successfully bringing down qualifying mark for eligibility to 15 out of hundred.  And one Dean was saying that we have to give more admissions.  Already the PhDs from Osmania University have become cut and paste jobs thanks to the internet and now the process will gain impetus.  I don't want to continue in this system but if I quit I lose my livelihood.  And now under the stewardship of an academician from my department the political joint action committee is planning agitations again from the end of June.  This means the continuation of the no work situation.  But we take salaries and that makes me feel guilty as hell, for I know there are people who work twelve hours a day and don't earn as much as I do and there those who are laid off even when they are willing to work.  Everyday when I see vegetable vendors, street side hawkers, construction workers and such others braving the summer sun and taking a pittance home, my very being cringes with guilt.  I think I am due for some severe punishment in my next life and that punishment will be well deserved.

P.S:  Have not proof read so please excuse me.

Lessons on how to loot a university and other such things

Twenty years ago when I joined the teaching profession as a Lecturer at the Osmania University, I thought education was a sacred cow, one that could not be violated.  I knew full well that the University was not in the best of shapes academically speaking.  In fact, if one were to look at the history of the University it is abundantly clear that it was never too strong in the social sciences area with hardly any scholarship among the teachers who taught the various disciplines of the social science faculty.  But even this knowing did not help when I actually joined the University and found people whose scholarship was so pathetic that it was gob smacking.  I do not think that professors in the University are capable of teaching middle school lessons properly.  Most of them are only just literate, capable of signing and small things like that.  To my utter dismay I have now found out that even the science faculty is no better.  The amazing thing is that the University teachers are firmly divided on class lines at one level but are united by the fact that irrespective of being upper caste or lower caste, all are singularly incapable of any teaching, writing or research.  It is for this reason that classes are hardly ever held and students who do not know anything are passed in flying colours.  The reasons behind this pathetic teaching staff I have already written in other posts of the blog where I have said that people were chosen not on the basis of academic ability but on the basis of other considerations and since I have already written about them, I shall not repeat them here.

I must say that the twenty years in the University have been most exciting.  Every time I think things cannot get any worse, I find that something new happens and demonstrates that there are still rungs that the University can go down to.  The Vice-Chancellors of the University have been getting worse successively and corruption is rampant in the University in various forms.  I have heard of rumours claiming that 1 crore of rupees is the fee to become a Vice-Chancellor apart from the now mandatory political connections.  However what is most surprising is how corrupt the UGC is.  Even now there are relics who are above the age of 80 years who are involved in the various committees of the UGC and they have been doling out monies and Centres for Advanced Studies to departments in the University where there is not even adequate number of teachers leave alone good ones and good researchers.  Old connections, socializing, booze binges in the evenings whenever "academic" relics from all over the country meet decide on who gets what.  I would like to say that this malady is present in all universities in this country without exception.

Some of the good teachers and researchers of social sciences who are now found only in Delhi or Calcutta have such swollen heads that they find it difficult to stand upright.  They are so consumed with themselves that they have no time for anyone or anything else.  These people too have learnt the art of making connections and using intimidation to get projects from the UGC.  What they do benefits them immensely and peripherally benefits the academic community at large if they bring out a book, otherwise their contribution too is zero and that is the case in a majority of cases.  Once the money reaches the universities, (thanks only to the largess of the benefactors at the UGC who themselves have educational institutions which benefit from their generosity), it is then a question of how to distribute that money without having to make the person accountable for it.  Usually projects are taken up and nothing done about it and if there is insistence on settlements of accounts and submission of reports, things are concocted it and submitted.  If equipment such as PCs, printers and scanners have to be surrendered post the project completion, the faculty members find something which is condemned and give it off to the university. The monies earmarked for books and equipment are used for personal gain.  Now there is a new way of getting money.  If a foreign research scholar joins the University his fees is split up and a big percentage of that is being given to the scholar's supervisor as his/her "share".  The supervisor's "share" is bigger than the department's share.  This in universities where funds are severely lacking and developmental activity stalled.  I have already said too much and I could get into trouble just like that whistle blower professor at the IIT Kharagpur.

What does YS Jaganmohan Reddy's victory mean?

As is now expected of me, I shall begin this post with an apology.  I said, in my previous post that I will continue with the them of the International System and the Peace of Westphalia.  However, I have suddenly realized that I did not write about something that I wanted to and fortuitously I have found a computer with an internet connection and a little bit of spare time.  So I will write that piece out.  I hope to keep it short and simple.  Let us see how it ends up though.

A few years ago I was watching a programme about British Indians on the Star World Channel.  This was a sit-com designed to generate a few laughs and also had guests actually participating in it.  I think the programme was called Kumars at something.... I cannot remember what it was.  It was one of those stupid comedy programmes.  In one of the episodes the featured guest was a lady (whose name I cannot remember, sorry, old age) who apparently scored the highest in an IQ test in the UK (or was it the world, oops, memory going bad again).  She was asked as to what scoring the highest in an IQ test meant and she said it meant just that, which is she is capable of scoring very high in IQ tests.  Nothing more.  In yesterday's The Hindu newspaper (dated:15-4-2011) there was an article written by one Prof. Hegde (hope I have got the name right) on the whole idea of the "World Heart Day".  The author while saying that this whole world heart day thing was bunkum, also said that if a person is capable of running a marathon, it means just that, that the person is capable of running a marathon.  This did not indicate anything like the person being in a fit, healthy and wellness state.  In fact, he even said that marathon runners were prone to fibrosis (hope this too is right) of the heart, a condition that could be classified as heart disease.

Now let us take this analogy to the victory that YS Jaganmohan Reddy secured in the Lok Sabha by polls at Kadapa.  The same analogy can be extended to the victory that his mother Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Reddy secured for her dead husband's assembly seat.  Both have scored huge victories with record margins.  So what does that mean.  It means just that.  It simply means that YS Jaganmohan Reddy and his mother Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Reddy won the elections with record margins.  Ideally this story should have ended here.  But not so with our friendly neighbourhood journalists.  They have been raising a whole lot of brouhaha about this.  Why? Well if you are a newspaper there are pages to be filled and god forbid if you are a news channel on TV then you have to fill a hell of a lot of time and for that you need stories.  YS Jaganmohan Reddy's victory has spawned out all kinds of stories.  It is a shot in the arm for the separate Telangana movement (how may I ask? Especially since the man himself went to the well of the Lok Sabha to declare support for leaving Andhra Pradesh as it is); it is an indication that all is not well in the Congress (was there a doubt about this before the election was held and was his leaving the party itself indication that all is not well in the party); it portends to Kiran Kumar Reddy's failure as Chief Minister (did someone actually think that the Congress could make the YS Rajashekar Reddy legacy its own and that the voters will leave Jagan and his mother stranded?); S. Jaipal Reddy lost an opportunity to become Chief Minister and to contain Jagan (this dumbfounded me so I will say nothing of this); the Congress could lose the next election (is there a doubt about that? I think the question is more about who will replace the Congress).

My point is do we need this colossal waste of time to state things which are either obvious or simply in the figment of one's imagination?  Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the politics of Andhra Pradesh will know that the late YS Rajashekar Reddy's rule has brought the state to the threshold of bankruptcy.  YSR took populism to new heights (or should that be depths) by promising schemes that nobody asked for.  The revival of the Rs. 2 per kilogram of rice in 2008 was something that nobody can condone.  The scheme was first introduced by the late NT Rama Rao in 1983!!!!! Even then it was a drain on the state's resources and to revive in 2008, I cannot find words to describe it.  The Arogyasri scheme and the fee reimbursement scheme were good in intent but horribly executed.  Giving free education is indeed very noble, but before the introduction of the scheme planning was necessary and that did not happen.  Now the whole education system is on the precipice of disaster.  The Arogyasri scheme was again excellent in intent.  Poor people who are condemned to die without access to health care found access to it.  But the flip side is that private hospitals reaped money at the expense of the state.  I can go on but there is no point.  Even if YSR himself was alive, it is likely that the Congress party would have been humbled in the next round at the hustings

In this background and with the unresolved issue of Telangana still breathing fire, is it necessary to devote so much attention to a politician who as yet is a small timer.  If with time he grows in stature then it makes sense to devote some time to him.  Till then let us take things for what they are without reading all kinds of stupid things into them.

P.S:  Not proof read.  Please excuse all mistakes.

Have we entered a definitive phase in International Relations which can be called "Post Peace of Westphalia"?

This is a post that I have delayed for far too long and may therefore have lost its relevance.  But then I realized that the process that I wish to talk about around the events are older than the events and are still continuing. Therefore I am going ahead with the post.  For those who are not familiar with the system of International Relations let me briefly explain what the Westphalia System is.  International Relations, as is contained within that phrase are relations among Nation-States.  The origin of the Nation-System can be traced back to Europe in the Modern period of European history and to the advent of capitalism (the great scholar Eric Hobsbawm will agree with this).  Nation States were created due to the necessities of capitalism which worked on the principle of expand markets but also at the same time restrict competition.  This system is still in vogue and the number of Nation-States increased exponentially in the twentieth century with many countries throwing off the yoke of colonialism and becoming independent.  When they became independent the Nation-State was the default model.

A good understanding of the Nation-System will also need the understanding of the "Peace of Westphalia" that inaugurated the phase of Sovereignty among Nation-States.  It is not my intention to make this an exercise in pedagogy and therefore I will not go into the various meanings of sovereignty and the debates around it.  What will suffice for our present purposes here is that in Europe before the birth of the concept of sovereignty, there was a tendency on the part of one State to get involved in the affairs of another State, even if there was no reason to do so.  This mutual interference made peace, tranquility and more importantly for capitalism stability, very difficult to achieve.  The realization that this was to the detriment of all was what culminated in the Peace of Westphalia.  All European States signed this Peace by which every State recognized the internal sovereignty of not just itself but also of the other as well.This means that sovereignty gave States the power to resolve issues that concerned their internal matters.  So sovereignty became that supreme power that independence and freedom, characteristics of democracy and self rule.  

This is the system that we have today, or do we?  Ever since there has been an increase in post colonial Nation-States, there has also been increase in the interference of the affairs of the newly independent States.  The end of the Second World War saw the United States of America and Western Europe raise the bogey of communism while the erstwhile Soviet Union and Eastern Europe raised the bogey of capitalist expansion and this led to the formation of blocks.  But that is not all.  Both blocks, one to spread communism and the other to save the world from communism, entered into the affairs of the newly independent States by trying to lure them on to their side.  The USA and the USSR competed with each other to convince the new States about the evilness of the other's intent.  It also is the phase where power in International Relations came to the fore demonstrating that while all Nation-States were sovereign  they were all not equal.  To borrow a phrase from George Orwell "some were more equal than the others".

However, all this was done while furthering a pretense that there was recognition of the lesser Nation-State's internal sovereignty. Most Nation-States in Africa were actually formed by the bigger powers and handed over to puppet regimes.  The African people who were still in the state of tribalism and did not understand the politics of the Europeans found themselves gifted with an institution whose functioning they simply did not understand.  Their lives were either based in tribal cosmologies or in religious systems that were taken to them by Arab Islamists (to coin a phrase) or the Christian missionaries.  The puppet regimes did not have any kind of support from within and survived only because of the support of the erstwhile colonizers.  Though colonialism was gone nothing changed in the lives of the people.  This is also the case of countries in the South American continent (at least here nations were formed on the basis of football) and in the West Asian or the Middle Eastern Gulf which is where most of the world's oil reserves are.

Since oil is such a key to development of the industrial/technological variety, it was but natural that countries such as the USA tried to establish full control over the region.  This they did by installing regimes in the countries of the Gulf and these regimes sought to legitimate themselves by invoking religious sentiments as well as the Divine principle (the right bit has been deliberately omitted since most of the rulers claim that they are only perpetuating the rule of God).  This process has yielded the desired results but it was in the nineties that certain rulers like Saddam Hussain decided to do to small West Asian States what the USA was doing.  So Saddam goes to Kuwait and occupies it.  America realizing his intentions go to war and drive him out of there. However, the Americans are not quite satisfied with the extent to which they thwarted Saddam Hussain.  They wanted the full Monty, that is eliminate Saddam since he is potential threat.  In September of 2011 al-Qaeda gave Americans what they wanted, an opportunity to intervene in the region.  I do not have to tell the now famous 9/11 story.

The Americans were "righteously" indignant that someone decided to interfere in their internal affairs and promptly waged a "War on Terror" and the then President George Bush constructed an "Axis of Evil" that went all the way from Iraq to North Korea.  Even God was not spared in this war.  The Bushes Sr. and Jr. said that God was on their side as did the Taliban and the al-Qaeda.  This became a re-enactment of the Crusades vs Jihad while undermining the whole notion of sovereignty.  George Bush Jr. wanted to finish what his father started and went into not just Afghanistan but also into Iraq to finish what his father started.  He succeeded in ousting Saddam Hussain,capturing him and also getting him hanged to death because of the atrocities he committed on his own people.  The Americans were liberators both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan was liberated from the Taliban, a creation of the Americans when they were trying to get rid of the Soviets from Afghanistan. Most recently the Americans entered Pakistan "without the knowledge" of the Pakistani authorities and carried an operation which led to the killing of America's enemy number one, Osama Bin Laden.

At the same time America has also started bombing Libya to liberate the country from its oppressive dictator Col. Muammar Qaddhafi.  However America has supported the Bahrain Emir family in quelling a popular uprising for democracy.  What is significant in all these instances is the fact that America supported mainly by the UK and to a certain extent France, interferes in matters that are actually internal to the countries where it has been intervening in the name of protection of the people and liberating them.  This is a violation of the principle of internal sovereignty that is based in the Peace of Westphalia.  From this it is clear that in the aftermath of the third wave of globalization that started with the collapse of the Eastern Block and in the context of the emergence of Geo-economics in the place of Geo-politics, direct interventions from bigger powers have become inevitable.  In the era of Geo-politics which existed till the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, ideology served as a veneer and made interventions look less stark than they actually were. With the world becoming unipolar and the USA assuming the role of the global policeman that veneer is gone and only the starkness of things is evident.  So have we entered a new post Westphalia phase?  The answer to that cannot be straight forward.  It maybe a yes, the indefiniteness being due to the fact that there are many countries still that have retained their internal sovereignty on the face of it.  But even that could be under threat from things such as global commons.  That is the subject of the next post, which I hope to make soon, very soon.

P.S:  Have not proof read this piece due to paucity of time. Please excuse all errors.  Thank you.

What is this secrecy of the Chapter Eight of the Sri Krishna Committee report

I had actually decided sometime ago that I will not be talking about the Sri Krishna Committee report since all debates around it have been much washed and ironed and nobody has anything new to say.  Ditto the separate Telangana agitation.  There is, as of now, not much to say that can be construed as specifically new.  While there is nothing new to say about the separate Telangana movement since its main protagonist K. Chandrashekar Rao himself is still saying the same things, there is reason to talk about the Sri Krishna Committee Report.  I have delayed making this post because I do not know if I will be in contempt of some court by saying what I have to say.  In the absence of any clear indication of whether it is right or wrong, I have finally decided to go ahead with this post.  This post of mine has nothing to do with the contents of the Chapter Eight, the infamous chapter which is supposed to give directions to the Union Government on how to manage the situation that has arisen out of the demand for a separate Telangana state.  This post concerns itself with some events that may make the whole judicial process look ridiculous.  Let us briefly recapitulate a few things so that we can talk about the judicial process.  

The Chapter Eight is supposedly a confidential matter meant only for the consumption of the Union Government. But the fact that such a chapter exists was made public and this lead to a petition in the Andhra Pradesh High Court seeking that the chapter be made public since it concerns all people.  In response to this petition a single judge bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court asked for the said chapter and it was duly brought by the Solicitor General of India in a sealed envelope.  The Judge saw the chapter and gave his opinion, which was that its contents be made public while also giving the Union Government the opportunity to contest his judgement which the Union Government did.  The matter went to a two judge bench and this bench stayed the previous judgement and asked the Union Government to once again produce the document in a sealed cover and bring it to them for perusal and further judgement.  This is all fine, nothing wrong.  However, certain other events caught me entirely by surprise.

There was a case filed in the City courts of Hyderabad saying that the Chapter Eight was slanderous and a Judge directed the city police that they register a case on Justice Sri Krishna and the other members.  I am a layman and I do not understand these things too well, but how can a case by filed on someone when the document is still a secret?  I am sure there is a legal mechanism that makes this possible.  Maybe the basis for filing the case is the judgement of the single Judge.  But I don't know.  What took me by even greater surprise is the fact that the Osmania University Teachers Association organized a seminar on Chapter Eight and how atrocious it is.  During the seminar (which was held over one day and had many speakers) it was said that the contents of the report are available.  I was even told that the chapter itself is available.  If and I say if, this is true isn't this a mockery of the judicial system?  Are people just wasting time doing seminars on things which are imagined (and that is quite possible) or is there really a leak of some sort?  Whatever the case I am confounded completely.  

If it is a leak and the whole thing is public knowledge then isn't the judiciary wasting its time and money deciding if something should be shown to the public when it is already in the public domain.  Since there is no confirmation that the debates are on things which the said chapter speaks about, I can only hope that these things are not from the report.  But if they are, then somebody should be made accountable for the leak, whoever that person maybe.   And here I stop since anything more may not be appropriate.