The case of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and of Manmohan Singh

Some of my friends have asked me why I have not been writing anything about the arrest of YSR Congress President, Mr. YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.  My answer is simple, enough is being written about him in newspapers and enough is being shown on news channels.  I am not privy to any information about him which will be different from what everyone is getting to see and it is too early to start generating any perspectives about it.  The same would be true for the allegations that are being made against the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by Babu Rao Hazare.  Here of course, I will admit to my exasperation with Hazare and his two buddies and their politics. Calling the PM of a nation Shikhandi is a shameful act and hopefully someone will shut the trio up and persuade them to stop playing the fool.  But then they are not playing the fool and are just being themselves.  All said and done a tedious and unnecessary side show.

This is my shortest post. This must have gladdened some hearts.

Some more about cartoons in text books

The controversy regarding the usage of cartoons in text books refuses to die down with yet another academician with impeccable credentials joining issue with Prof. Prabhat Patnaik for his criticism of the use of cartoons and his comment that academicians are not accountable while parliamentarians are.  Prof. Neeladri Bhattacharya from the Centre for Historical Studies in the Jawaharlal Nehru University and also Chief Adviser to the NCERT for History textbooks has taken objection to the piece written by Prof. Patnaik a week ago by saying that Prof. Patnaik has shifted the focus from "creative pedagogy" to "political accountability" and that in doing so he (Prof. Patnaik) has painted a picture of academicians as irresponsible people since they are deemed to be unaccountable.  He has also questioned defence of parliament based in a liberal (ideology) based system while he, Prof. Patnaik is an avowed critique of liberalism.  There is a great deal of circumlocution in Prof. Bhattacharya's piece but one tangible point is that he has rightly questioned Prof. Patnaik's assumption that textbook writing is an activity that falls under the ambit of the State and the parliament and therefore members of parliament can legitimately seek the removal of content that they find objectionable.  Prof. Bhattacharya's contention is that the NCERT is a semi-autonomous body, akin to a university and is well within its right to choose those that it deems fit as advisers and writers and accountability lies in this process itself.

First let me say that Prof. Bhattacharya's position is far more realistic and logical than the one taken by Prof. Patnaik.  Let me explain the reason for this stance.  What I am saying is limited to the fact that bodies such as NCERT or universities have to remain autonomous and cannot be asked to kowtow the whims and fancies of parliamentarians. Prof. Bhattacharya has rightly questioned Prof. Patnaik when he has said that it is not just academicians who can carry prejudices that arise out of their social position but also parliamentarians. What Prof. Bhattacharya stopped short of saying was that politicians can, if given the power, rewrite certain things in social sciences in a manner that is convenient to them.  This is where I accuse Prof. Bhattacharya or circumlocution.  It is well known that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar have been advocating the rewriting of history textbooks (something that concerns Prof. Bhattacharya since he is a historian). The BJP's avowed agenda is to debunk what it calls the myth of the Aryans as invaders and has been arguing to rewrite history textbooks which show the Aryans as the sons of the soil, a claim that is being consistently contested by the likes of Prof. Romilla Thapar. I am quite sure that Prof. Bhattacharya also would side with Prof. Thapar rather than with the BJP.  He could easily have posed this question to Prof. Patnaik.  If a BJP dominated parliament comes into being and if it can then claim its accountability to the people card and ask that history textbooks be written depicting the Aryans as the sons of the soil, would that position be acceptable to Prof. Patnaik?  Instead of asking a question directly Prof. Bhattacharya beat around various bushes including the now mandatory defence of Dalit writings (which to me is akin to the affirmative action in the USA where there is always a token black playing positive role in a Hollywood film - in fact I would contend that Hollywood if forced to show God in an anthropomorphic form, would choose a black actor like Morgan Freeman), the value of creative pedagogy, the right to self expression etc.

This is the circumlocution that I am referring to.  Is it because that a newspaper demands a certain number of words in an article that academicians take recourse to writing about things which are extraneous to the issue under discussion? Prof. Bhattacharya has said that the politicians are objecting to not one but 150 cartoons in various disciplines.  So the question is why did this particular cartoon become a national issue while the existence while objections to 149 others has not even come into the limelight.  The answer is simple.  This particular cartoon involves a Dalit Icon in the form of Dr. Ambedkar being shown in poor light through a question raised by an upper caste icon Jawaharlal Nehru. So if this is the problem why are so many professors (Prof. Palshikar, Prof. Patnaik and now Prof. Bhattacharya) not addressing the problem directly and talking about creative pedagogy and the right to expression. It does not require someone with tremendous intellectual ability to realize that the cartoon offends Dalit sensibilities and that given the nature of Indian society and politics today, it is right to remove the cartoon from way back in 1949 from a textbook in the 21st Century.  Now what is happening is that Prof. Patnaik is arguing for this above position (and rightly so in my opinion) while Prof. Bhattacharya seems to fight a proxy war on behalf of the cartoonist to establish the point that Ambedkar is not beyond reproach. I would concur with anyone who would say that Ambedkar has made his share of mistakes, for he is human and I am yet to find one human who has been perfect and if such a being is if at all found, then that being is God and certainly not human. As an aside I would like to say here that today a mythology has been created where Gandhi (Mohandas) has successfully been shown as anti-dalit and pro-casteist and not one single academician has ever written anything about this wrong portrayal.  In fact, half baked writers such as Arundhati Roy who cannot differentiate between various orifices in the human body and their functions feels at ease and is completely comfortable taking pot shots at the great man while attacking Babu Rao Hazare, who is as much a Gandhian as Hitler is one.

But to come back to the question of creative pedagogy.  I have always been very uncomfortable with the use of the term creative.  This discomfort of mine arises from the fact that most people including myself have trouble defining what constitutes the creative and how much of anything that is usually considered creative legitimate as in being non-controversial.  Do we set out with the idea that we will do things differently so that we can be called creative or does creativity become an intuitive reaction and a different way of doing things when certain established ways or processes do not produce desired results or when they start producing results that are the opposite of the desired results?  I will leave that as a question and end with another

two with the assurance that you are completely capable of judging things for yourself. Does creativity have to self conscious and does it have to involve drama?  Is the introduction of cartoons into textbooks an act of creativity?  Like I said, you know the answers.

P.S: Not proof read. Errors of syntax etc maybe excused.

Are cartoons from the past necessary in the text books of the present?

Anyone who has been following the news in India will be familiar with the row that has been raised by the incorporation of a cartoon in a newspaper by Shankar from the year 1949 into a class XII NCERT text book of today.  The row led to the vandalizing of the offices of one of the members of the NCERT committee and resignation of the two people involved in the creating of the guidelines for the said textbook.  Both the persons are fairly well known academicians with reasonable credentials.  The politicians have a raised a ruckus over the cartoon since it depicts the impatience of Jawaharlal Nehru with the slow progress of the draft committee headed by B R Ambedkar. Since then there have been many articles and interviews with eminent academicians who have contended against the perceptions of politicians that young adults are incapable of understanding the true meaning of things and therefore can be misled into believing the wrong things and therefore the offending cartoon must go.  In retaliation the academia has said that young adults are fully capable of judging things for themselves and that it is necessary to inculcate a sense of humour in all concerned. Some have even said that a picture speaks more than a thousand words and therefore there is nothing wrong with cartoons in text books and in fact they were much required.

Of the two people who resigned over this issue, Prof. Suhas Palshikar (it was his office that was vandalized) wrote a piece in the Hindu a few days ago defending the insertion of the said cartoon into the lesson.  I read the article a couple of times and I was completely disappointed with the content of the article.  There was nothing in the article that read as a viable defence of the cartoon in the textbook.  In fact, Prof. Palshikar, circumlocuted around how Ambedkar was also a critic of Buddhism and how he cannot be reduced to only one thing which is the defence of the rights of the dalits alone.  In my opinion this had very little to do with the hue and cry that were talking about the denigration of a leader (by some) and of both leaders involved (by a few others).  This circumlocution did not add to any clarity of any kind about the issue.  Dr. Yogendra Yadav the other person who resigned has maintained a stoic silence. 

Today's Hindu carried a piece on the subject by Prof. Prabhat Patnaik a well known economist of the country.  Well I do not share the ideological vantage point that Prof. Patnaik uses for his understanding of things, I have always had great respect for his scholarship and learning.  In fact while studying at the JNU I made it a point to attend his classes whenever I could even though I was not a student of Economics.  His perspectives have always been crystal clear and they are reflected in his writing as well.  And today's article was no different.  The ability of Prof. Patnaik to separate the wheat from the chaff has laid bare some of the issues that actually constitute the noise around the issue.  Prof. Patnaik is very right in saying that things such as creativity, necessity of cartoons in textbooks, freedom of the academia are all issues that skirt the main issue. In his true and mature style Prof. Patnaik has asked the question of how freedom of academia (consisting of people not directly accountable to the people) can be prioritised over that of the Members of Parliament who are elected by the people on the basis one person/one vote (I mention this for a reason which will become evident in the subsequent lines of this post) and are therefore accountable to those who have voted for them. He also questioned, and very rightly, the objectivity of academicians who more often than not carry all the prejudices that their positions in society carry.  He also pointed out rather starkly but in an extremely dignified manner the fact that circa 1949 dalit voices in the country were not yet in a position to be made themselves heard and that in 2012 all that has changed.  This is the actual point.  Those supporting the academicians and those opposing them are all actually talking about B R Ambedkar's position as a dalit leader and Nehru as an upper caste politician criticising him and Shankar drawing a cartoon around this.  So circumlocution has been happening because nobody seems to be willing to take the bull by the horns.  

At this point I would like to say that by making Ambedkar an icon of the dalits his status has also become that of a holy cow that is beyond and above all criticism.  But that is not and need not be contended against. What is more important is why should this controversy become a part of education? What purpose do cartoons serve in textbooks?  I went to school and there never were any cartoons in books and I do not believe that my education is deficient in anyway.  And as very correctly pointed out by Prof. Patnaik what purpose does sense humour serve in education?  Is that an integral part of the curriculum or more importantly should it be a part of the curriculum and if so why?

But I do have a small bone to pick with Prof. Patnaik. And that concerns the issue of accountability.  In theory, elected representatives are accountable to their constituents, but in reality in India as in most parts of the world they are not.  So Prof. Patnaik's observations about a "political class" are not entirely accurate.  Whether he likes it or not, politicians cutting across all lines watch out for each other, irrespective of their public proclamations.  I would say Prof. Patnaik's observations pitting the ideal scenario against the actual situation and that for me is unsustainable.  In his glorifying the idea of one person/one vote Prof. Patnaik has conveniently ignored the problems of the simple majority system that is followed in India and in most democracies of the world. I do not need to tell you this but I will put up a simple example here.  The size of the constituency (imaginary) is 100 people and there are two candidates A and B contesting an election from this constituency.  Let us say candidate A gets 51 votes while B gets 49 votes.  In a simple majority system A represents the whole constituency despite being opposed by a number of people who almost equal those who supported him.  A look at the data available in India about elections shows that parties have come into power rarely with the support of even 50% of voters and sometimes the figure is as low as 34%.  Prof. Patnaik has by drawing the analogy of Babu Rao Hazare's movement and the support it garnered from the middle classes has indicted the middle classes as the cause behind the controversy.  I myself am against the movement of Hazare and his cronies and I believe that they are methodically undermining institutions.  But this situation is not analogous to Hazare's movement and its agenda.  I personally think Prof. Patnaik could have made his points without getting dragged into bigger issues that only confuse people more than clarify.

I believe that the middle class and the rich class in India have been most irresponsible towards the society in which they live and therefore have successfully undermined a solidarity that should be the backbone of the society in which we all live.  And however much we criticize this deliberate and wanton abandoning of their social responsibilities by the rich and middle classes it is not enough.  But the question here is not about the perceptions of the middle class and therefore I believe that while doing the right thing Prof. Patnaik has undermined his own argument by trying to support it with issues of class.  In India the middle class is not a monolith nor is it homogeneous.  In a country where caste matters more than anything it is not possible to talk about a class.  The membership to the middle class as an economic entity has been rising and there are people from the not so upper castes and some lower castes who do belong to the middle class in terms of their incomes and their aspirations.  They would not support the vilification of Ambedkar so this is not a category to be brought out at all.  I request you to read the piece written by Prof. Patnaik (despite my criticism about a couple of aspects) since it is an excellent a lucid piece of writing and make your opinions on it and the issue it addresses.  For the record, I believe that there is no need for cartoons in textbooks, especially at a time when caste identities have become important (sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly).

P.S: Not proof read, please excuse errors of syntax and spelling.

Education in India is not only illiberal but also completely meaningless

I hope to keep this post really short.  However, the key word there is hope and not promise.  My arguments about Indian society and its educational system becoming illiberal have been vindicated by some unbelievable developments concerning the publication in an NCERT text book of a cartoon from 1948 in which the cartoonist has depicted the movement towards creating a new constitution as the slow movement of a snail.  In that particular cartoon there are references to Ambedkar and Nehru. And now that Ambedkar has been elevated to the status of a God, there has been a furore about it and some of the members of the text book committee have resigned and have been attacked by various lumpen elements of Indian society.  Educational institutions and their functioning has been disrupted and academicians who normally lead non-descript lives have started making headlines of newspapers.  What kind of a society are we if we cannot poke a little fun at ourselves and have a good laugh?  The abhorrent caste system has now been inverted, with those at the bottom in the past now at the top and those at the top now at the bottom.  What kind of emancipation is this? Instead of doing away the terrible system that has stratified society and humiliated generations we have only succeeded in iterating a newer version of the same.  

Another development that I would like to comment on is that the topper of the Union Public Service Commission's recruitment is a woman, which is very good.  But she is a qualified MBBS doctor from no less an institution that AIIMS in New Delhi which is very bad.  For those of you still trying to understand what I am saying here is the explanation.  Education in India, especially higher education is very subsidized.  Every student who goes through the educational process for professional courses in higher education is subsidized to the tune of millions of rupees.  Now the top ranker of the said exam studied medicine in arguably the best medical education providing institution in India.  By quitting medicine and become a general administrator the lady in question apart from wasting the nation's money (which was used for subsidizing her education) has also made sure that there is one less qualified medical practitioner.  That means that someone who could have studied to become a doctor and may have become a good doctor probably was deprived of that medical education which would have been of use to the country. 

This yet again vindicates what I have been saying about the Indian education system.  It just trains students to crack entrance examinations without gaining any substantial knowledge.  So if you take the case of this AIIMS student who has spurned her medical education, you can see the story of a person who had no interest in medicine being forced to study it by her parents or whoever and when she gets an opportunity to dump it, she does so without too much of a problem (I assume).  If she was confident about her ability as a doctor and enjoyed being one, she would not have thought about the Civil Services examinations at all.  So now let us take this story one more step forward.  What if the said person is only good at cracking entrance exams?  She could very well have cracked the Civil Services exam but just as she did not have confidence or attitude towards practicing medicine she suddenly finds that she has no attitude for administration either.  Then what?  You take your own thoughts forward from there.

However, I would like all of you to ponder upon this question?  Do we need so many engineering graduates and people unfit for medicine becoming doctors?  Ultimately all of them are writing the civil services exams.  The third ranked person this year is an engineer.  And when some journalist asked him what his plan B was if he did not crack the civil services exams, he said he was focussed singularly on the civil services exams and therefore there was no plan B.  So what was this person doing studying engineering?  Professional courses attract greater subsidies from the government and at the end of them engineers, doctors, lawyers take the UPSC examination with Sociology, Public Administration, Anthropology as their subjects why did they study these professional courses at all?  Why could they not have done a BA which would have cost the tax payer less money to pay for subsidies and helped the government bring more deprived and needy children into the education system.  So I end by reiterating what I have always been saying.  The government should take over education from the Primary to the PhD level.  It should provide it free of cost to all citizens.  It should cut engineering seats by 90% and it should take undertakings from those who pursue professional courses that they will take up research and teaching in their professions.  Look at what happened to the IITs.  They have become graduate shops.  Where is research happening in engineering and medicine?  In the medical field sundry doctors are simply following the protocols laid down by the WHO which is controlled by medical research that is happening mainly in America and to an extent in Europe.  Most of the big contracts for engineering go to foreign companies because Indian companies do not have the knowledge base to take up challenging projects.  Our doctors and engineers are nothing but glorified technicians who are following protocols laid down in other countries and perpetrated across the world through world bodies.  Think about it, especially the young people among you who think the world would shut down without your services in call centres and BPOs. Those who think along those lines are suffering from a delusional and completely false sense of entitlement.

Time to reform the illiberal education system in India

Through the medium of this blog  I have been critiquing the education system that India follows many a time.  My main complaint has been that the system is primarily there now to serve commercial purposes and nothing more.  If some people are fortunate, they may get educated; but most are not and therefore all they get is a degree without the supporting knowledge.  I have been saying that India is producing a horde of graduates and post-graduates none of whom are ultimately employable.  And that is a sad thing since for all the claims that India is the second fastest growing economy in the world behind China and that India is one of the drivers of the global economy, one of the realities of India is that a vast majority of people are still untouched by any form of development and that even for the middle classes of the country, education is ultimately a tool for employment.  And today's education system by not providing any kind of education to the people who require it, is actually nothing more than a white elephant on the economy of the country.

It has been my consistent argument that education in India should have been the sole responsibility of the State right from the primary level to the highest level and that it should have been provided free of cost. I have argued that students should go to the same government run schools, wear uniform and grow up without elitism creeping in.  I have also been arguing that as long as private schools and colleges are allowed to run, they would concentrate on their primary motive which is to make profit and in order to do so they have been creating stupid agendas which do not pay any attention to the all round development of a child.  Schools and colleges that are run out of commercial complexes with no playgrounds and other spaces in which co-curricular activities can take place and widen the horizons of students, are creating students who are atrophied in their mental growth.  In the southern part of India and especially in the State of Andhra Pradesh, one sees that students are "oriented" into IIT or medicine and modus operandi of these schools that provide this orientation is to make a student a target of consistent and long hours of bombarding with questions and answers.  This process usually starts in the morning at 6 AM and goes on till 9 PM.  The student is not left with any time for any other activity so these students do not get to read any news and nor do they understand its importance, they do not play any games or participate in any sporting activity and are only used to robotic automaton conformity.  They are incapable of thinking on their own and have to be spoon fed information which they will re-produce in conditions that are pre-determined.  By pre-determined conditions I mean tests and the environment in which they are held.  You change the conditions and you will find the student is not really able cope up with the changed environment.

It is here that the illiberalism of Indian education comes into being and is perpetuated by three parties.  The disinterested State is the first, the private providers of education who tries to make their institutions look the most desirable for admission projecting to parents that they dedicate all their efforts for securing the future of the child (though in reality it is profitability of their own institution that is the only criterion) and the third is the parents themselves.  Most often parents thrust their ambitions onto their children without consideration for the children's aptitude, interest and inclination.  That there are hordes of engineers today who cannot find employment in anything other than information technology companies (if at all they can find employment that is) and medical doctors who if at all find employment, have to work as duty doctors in corporate hospitals for paltry salaries of Rs. 10,000 per month, is indication that all this brain washing of students does not work and therefore the aspirations of parents are not fulfilled.  Yet there is no change in the thinking of parents, all of whom operate on the assumption that failure of the child and the consequent dashing of the aspirations of the parents is a phenomenon that is reserved for others and not them. This idiotic belief is akin to the idea that death shall come only to others and not to me.  This lack of enlightenment among parents is what leads to this unfortunate illiberalism in education, one which is opportunistically used by the capitalist-educator who feeds of the parents' unenlightened system of beliefs.

One of the good points of the traditional Indian social system has been that it teaches the young to respect their elders.  This good point has now been converted by stupid parents to impose their views and aspirations on their offspring without considering the idea that they the offspring are also organic entities possessing certain qualities, which if allowed to come out would shine and if stifled would fail.  To see the child as an extension of the self is violation of the rights and entitlements of a person.  And that is illiberalism at its highest.  One of the most striking features of illiberalism can be found in the community of social science teachers.  In my own experience, with the exception of one or two social science teachers all others uniformly expect their children to become engineers or doctors just like every other parent.  In this part of the country there are certain teachers who are strong supporters of the idea that students should have a right to participate in democratic agitations and encourage students to participate in political movements.  But these very same teachers are keen to protect their students from such democracy, and look for colleges and universities outside of Andhra  Pradesh to educate their students so that they do not get disturbed by these democratic agitations.  This selective application of rules for us as against the others is to me the highest form of selfishness where people are selectively discriminated against.

Apart from this type of teacher there is also the other type; one who is so convinced about one's own enlightenment that he or she believes that he or she should decide what is good for the student.  This self-aggrandized teacher believes that the student will come up in life only if guidance is given to them.  So there are those who will decide what goes into curriculum and how it should be taught.  While I do not contest the right of the teachers to prepare curriculum, I certainly question things such as incorporation of mathematics and physical sciences into social sciences courses and drastic things such as a course should be taught only from one ideological point of view and not from any other since all other ideologies are wrong (according to the teacher).  This is nothing less than indoctrination and not giving the student to make an informed choice about the world view or the vantage from which they would choose to view the world.  There is nothing wrong in instructing students on the shortcomings of particular ideologies but to decide that they do not need to know anything about those ideologies is morally unsustainable.  The University Grants Commission of India, according to hearsay (and therefore this should not be taken as true) is considering the idea that there should be blurring of lines between social sciences, mathematics, physical sciences and biological sciences so that a student gets to learn all.  In my view, if this is indeed true, this will be stupidity of a monumental kind which will destroy education in India completely.

What I have in my own mind is something radically different from this.  I believe that schooling is the most important stage in the life of a person and if one finds education repugnant at this level then they will carry these memories with them for the rest of the life and therefore could become educationally challenged which in India means that a lack of fitness for employment.  My own experience with myself and with a lot of students has been that some kinds of minds are suited to some kinds of disciplines and these are obvious from the time that they get into their teens. I therefore believe that all early schooling should be devoid of specific curriculum and they should be allowed to experiment with various things pertaining to the various walks of life.  Specialized curriculum with syllabus made up of disciplinary content should come into being only at the junior college level.  This will spare the students the agony of learning things that they will never use in their life and forget that information the day after they take their examination.  I have in my life done simple equations, simultaneous equations, integral and differential calculus, I have studied the innards of frogs, earthworms and cockroaches and today none of that is useful to me in what I do.  So why make students agonize over something that they cannot do, if in the end, that is not going to impact on their lives in anyway?  To most people mathematics that includes additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions would be fine to live life.  Teach that maths to those who have no aptitude for engineering or the pursuit of mathematics at a higher level.  Similarly with the biological sciences and the social sciences.  An introduction to those aspects of social sciences and biological sciences that have some significance to daily lives would be adequate, for those students who do not have an aptitude for these courses.  Such education in my opinion would allow the student to concentrate upon things that they like and enjoy studying, and when people pursue what they enjoy, then they usually do well.  And here I rest my case.

Living in an illiberal Indian Society

There have been a number of reasons that have directed me into the line of thinking that is indicated by the title of the post.  Some of the most recent concerns have stemmed out of the fact that Indian society is increasingly showing two contradictory tendencies; indifference to others lives at one level and intrusion into the lives of others, unnecessarily, at another level.  It seems somehow that every individual is somehow trying to influence society into thinking in his/her way and this desire to influence is based in a delusional belief that the system of beliefs that he/she holds are universally and morally superior to those whose systems of belief may not correspond with his/hers.  Urban areas are concrete jungles, with open spaces and small houses that housed a handful of people being replaced by gargantuan apartment blocks that are not only an eyesore but also impediments to healthy and convenient living.  I shall not talk about this aspect in this post because that is not the concern of the post.  Nevertheless the reason why I invoke this category is that apartments are congested spaces where hundreds and in some instances thousands of people living in extremely close proximity without knowing who their neighbours are or caring for the problems that the other people in the building maybe facing and in the process requiring some help.  We have learnt to live by conveniently ignoring other people's problems and by dissolving social solidarity at the inter-personal and inter-family levels.

On the other hand however there is this phenomenon of moral posturing and policing where usually the lumpen elements of society make the most intimate of a person's concerns their own and interfere in ways which are not only embarrassing and irritating but criminally reprehensible as well.  This is a fascist tendency that has crept into Indian society with various self proclaimed individuals and groups taking up cudgels on behalf of a "perceived" culture and trying to protect it from its enemies.  The enemy is the cultural other who is defined by the religious community that s/he belongs to.  While I have consistently held the belief that in India there is no such thing as Hinduism (for me various cosmologies that have some points of intersection based in concurrence have been clubbed together to create a neologism called Hinduism) culturally speaking, political developments in the country have used this neologism to try and satisfy some political expediencies that relate to the capture and retention of power.  What is important is that here power is not a means to an end but an end in itself.  The attempt to create a fache out of a synecdoche has unleashed the illiberalism that has now become the norm of Indian society.  Despite there being many disadvantages with the cosmology based system of life which was manipulated by the Brahmins to their advantage there is still was a possibility of people living some aspects of their lives, mainly the intimate ones, by determining them the way they wanted to.  This is what Gandhi called individual autonomy in a system of social solidarity and the cosmologies that have been brought together to create a fache today have become monstrosities that destroy not only individual autonomy but social solidarity as well.

This neologism called Hinduism which manifests itself as this fache is always trying to control members of its own denomination by "protecting" them from the perceived other which is the other religious groupings.  Here in lies a tragedy of epic proportions.  While what have been designated as "Abrahamic Religions" have always tried to create a monolithic structure with an unambiguous and singular God and therefore qualify to be classified as religions because of this monotheistic aspect, what was caste cosmology did not have this feature of monotheism.  In fact, with good reason the Adi Shankaracharya has been called an atheist simply because for him there is no entity that is singular and different from the human spirit. One could argue that caste cosmologies if at all they are theistic, are either pan-theistic or poly theistic, an aspect of Indian society that has amused Westerners so much that they have lampooned the existence of so many Gods.  The ideal course of action would have been to ignore these illiterate comments and concentrated on reform in the caste system.  Instead of doing that, the neologism called Hinduism became a fache which became reactionary and revivalist and in doing so unleashed newer forms of discrimination and illiberalism while maintaining the other  traditional schisms that have been part of Indian society for centuries.  While more people from the discriminated sections fight to break the fache, the reactionary elements meet those attempts with bigotry that tries to strengthen the fache.  So reform and revival clash, not in the rational and deliberative phase, but in the actual physical realm.  This clash does not involve the majority of people, it is among the lumpen elements of that claim to side reform or revival that the clash takes place.

A reactionary and belligerent fache is kept alive despite the internal clash between reform and revival by always taking attentions to other easily available options of exclusion from the fache.  The other is members of other religions and to show the differences between religious practices is a fairly simple and straightforward process.  But the highlighting of differences in religious practices is not sufficient enough in strength to keep the fache tight and unified.  It is for that reason that religious practices spill out into the open, into the cultural space which at one level is a physical space that has people who are engaged in various forms of social transaction.  It is by disturbing this transaction by highlighting difference that what should otherwise be a matter of individual preference becomes the concern of many.  The best example of spilling over into real time cultural space is taking religious practices onto the street where they are bound to disturb normal life.  Bal Gangadhar Tilak may have created the now infamous Ganesh processions that dote Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad to bring together members from various castes onto one platform to unite against the British. His choice of Ganesh or Ganapati as the God had to do with the fact that this God figured in all the various pantheons of Gods that different castes had.  By making Ganesh Chaturthi a festival that would be celebrated in public over a period of nine days, Tilak was trying to bring some unity in the area that was under the hegemony of the very orthodox Chitpavan Brahmins. Nearly a century after the practice was begun by Tilak it is impossible for me to actually evaluate if this particular practice contributed to any nationalism and unity but it is very clear that this practice has now entered the space of social disharmony.  The festival is controlled by the politicians and their henchmen who ensure that even those who do not want to be a part of this process at best can spectate silently.

These attempts from one fache are countered by others by adopting similar tactics.  Since religion is sacred anything done in its name cannot be questioned.  So in cities like Hyderabad newer processions were created by those in charge of the Islamic fache and one of them is a "pankha juloos" or procession of fans.  Ceiling fans are used in this procession for reasons that are completely incomprehensible to me.  Now the Christians have started an Easter procession carrying flags saying "Run for Jesus" while they are actually riding motorcycles or driving cars.  Newer processions have come into being in the Hindu fache where people now celebrate Hanuman Jayanti, the birthday of God Hanuman.  Interestingly the choice of Hanuman has everything to do with the fact that he too figures in all the pantheons of Gods that exist among various caste groupings. Interestingly enough another procession that is now a regular phenomenon is the Dussehra procession involving the female deity Durga.  I say this is interesting because in all pantheons of Gods there are various female deities who are generically called "Amma" or "Ma" which simply means mother.  Durga is Ma Durga and therefore involving everyone.  Islam has countered this with various processions on Milad un Nabi the birthday of Prophet Mohammed, where Muslim youth drive around on motorcycles with green flags in hand.  

The contradiction here is that the sacred is invoked in order to perpetuate most unsacred and politically divisive agendas.  However, what concerns me here is the fact that this tendency of illiberalism is growing and restricting the freedoms and autonomy that various people are entitled to constitutionally and civilisationally.  An illiberal society that is tending to become fascist is also uncivil and unconstitutional apart from being an affront on the sensibilities of rational and sensible people. While it is not really possible to predict the exact consequences of this illiberalism, what can definitely be prognosticated is a society and nation that will be increasingly burdened with violence and lack of peace.

I will now conclude this piece by grinding one of my favourite axes. People who designate themselves as intellectuals and teaching professionals talk of the ills of Indian society as being a result of liberalism.  In doing so they are unwittingly strengthening the hands of the conservative fascists who use the idea of liberalism as being an enemy of the people.  I am not defending liberalism here, but the critique of society cannot just concentrate on the economic damages brought out by a liberalized economy, but should penetrate into those socio-cultural spaces that have started harbouring anti social elements who want to create religion based faches.  If intellectuals and teachers subscribe to the minimal doctrine of being "politically right" and therefore not engage in discourse about the illiberalism of Indian society, then their conversations are very much in the domain of the imaginary and they will be conversations that have no bearing on society and therefore just another drain on the country's resources.

The prognosis of India's democracy based on its electoral and social politics-II

What I intended to write yesterday had become too long and therefore I broke the piece into two.  This post is a continuation of the arguments that I had begun yesterday, the substance of which is that Indian democracy is definitely in a crisis thanks to the nature of politics which are prevalent in society and also due to the nature of leadership of political parties.  Indian society which has always been stratified is now witnessing a kind of politics that is very much akin to marketing where there are clearly defined target-market strategies and any agenda of development is now just for lip service while the real agenda is the perpetuation of personal gain by politicians who have primarily started using caste as the variable for targetting electorates.  With the absence of any viable party or politician who can see beyond immediate gains, Indian politics and along with Indian democracy have reached a precipice which in my opinion is already a point from which there is no turning back.  Since politics are more or less the exclusive prerogative of those who have the two Ms, meaning money and muscle it is absolutely impossible that anybody sensible can enter Indian politics and make a difference to the country. Therefore there are large scale systemic changes, Indian democracy could become the greatest enemy of its people.

It is for this reason that I have been advocating the idea of supplementing electoral democracy with discursive or deliberative democracy.  I would like to bring to your attention that it was not just writing that I was doing but also trying to create discussion groups in colonies where citizens from all walks of life would meet without their paying heed to their economic status and their professions.  I must confess that the upper caste and upper classes are completely against this idea saying indirectly that it would be an affront to their social position and perceived self image to give the same weightage to the arguments of someone who was a sweeper, janitor or a maid servant.  Most, actually all uniformly believed that the problem with Indian democracy or democracy for that matter is that it involves the illiterate, uneducated and senseless hoi polloi and that they are responsible for the kind of leaders that we have in India today.  It is therefore not very surprising that they believe that there can be no such thing as a deliberative democracy that aims for the common good of all through the use of what Immanuel Kant had called the Good Will.  Some of the upper caste groupings which have actually become upper castes (they like to refer to themselves as forward castes) through a process of Sanskritisation that the sociologist MN Srinivas talked about, like to believe that for Indian democracy to be meaningful there should be the presence of upper caste leaders who take token support from the backward and lower caste leaders (by co-opting the latter into the money making process) and rule the country.  Again to believe that all upper castes are unified is absolutely nonsensical so each upper caste wants to have its own members in the charmed ruling circles so that their caste groupings benefit the most.

It is pertinent to point out here that I was once at a seminar where two scholars from two different castes in the Scheduled Castes list fought over the necessity for categorizing scheduled castes differently and providing them reservations in accordance with the numbers.  While one professor argued that this kind of categorization would lead to the dispensation of social justice the other believed that this would lead to the scheduled castes being divided and dominated by OBCs and upper castes.  The argument went on for sometime when I intervened and said that it perhaps time for the SCs and OBCs to ask for reservations even for the upper castes depending upon their population percentage in the entire country and people should apply for seats in schools, colleges and also for jobs competing with members of their own castes, be they upper or lower.  This was anyway the agenda of Periyar and the Justice Party who argued that two percent of the population of the Madras Presidency comprised of Brahmins but they were taking 98% of the jobs.  Nearly a century later the country seems to be still stuck in the same morass that it was once stuck in.  And things will continue to the same if the agenda of creating vote banks on the basis of castes and religious communities is not somehow countered.  It is indeed very disheartening to see that castes have crept into Islam and Christianity.  I was shocked to see a classification among Muslims which says Ansari surname holders are weavers, Qureishis are butchers etc.  The real meaning of those terms is very different but now it is being argued that people who converted from Hinduism to Islam started using certain surnames that now identify them as a certain caste.  The same is true of Christianity with an increasing crescendo among Christians claiming to be dalit Christians.  It is therefore wrong to assume that caste stratification is only among the Hindus.

But to return to the point I am making, the politicians create vote banks along caste lines irrespective or religion and in some cases use religion itself and these vote banks will remain alive only if they are kept backward.  The nature of this realpolitik has seen cracks in Indian society widening into crevasses into which the people of this country will fall.  The exceedingly disheartening and sad aspect of Indian society today is that people irrespective of their social and economic status are uniformly unenlightened.  I have many times said that the rich and the middle classes in India which coincide with upper castes sometimes have been irresponsible towards their own society and therefore schisms are becoming chasms.  However, the upwardly mobile from the backward sections of society (I refuse to use the term caste here because in this context it is meaningless and if you read on you will understand why I say it is meaningless) do precious little for people of their own once their upward mobility starts.  It is like the Indians who go to the USA believing that they have left behind their useless brethren in filth and squalor so will try to identify with the white Anglo-Saxon protestant population of that country.  Those people who have taken benefits meant for the backward sections for two generations should voluntarily give up their using of those privileges so that the benefits that come with them should percolate to people who after 65 years of independence are living in conditions which are for them not at all different from the pre-independence days.  That is why I was aghast when I learnt the Indian government is also collecting caste data along with census data.  Needless to say this data will be used by politicians and political parties for further dividing the people of the country for their own purposes.

Education should be provided only by the State in schools that it runs.  Any kind of private players should be forbidden from entering the education sector at any level.  Every child in India should go to a school which makes uniform mandatory and does not recognize the social and economic status of parents.  Only such a beginning can change things in this country.  The honourable Supreme Court of India has upheld the Right to Education and has said that even private schools should reserve 25% of seats for the underprivileged sections of society.  Immediately private school managements have said that the government will not reimburse fees and therefore they will look at legal options to challenge the judgement.  As long as there are private players in the field they will work only for profit even though their schools are registered as non-profit making educational societies.  Private schools mirror the divisions in society and promote elitism and therefore education should be provided by the State alone without asking questions of caste, creed and religion.  The State must provide free education till the doctoral level because that is the only way in which the privileged will learn to live with the underprivileged and treat them as their equals. 

But this is something that can only happen in the long term.  In the short term electoral reforms must be enacted to ensure that the executive is free from the legislature.  One need not go the American way, there is also the French way where the President is directly elected by the people.  Coalition politics can make scoundrels out of gentlemen since the expediences of realpolitik make it mandatory to make moral compromises in order to continue in power.  From where I stand, and from what I wrote it will appear that I am despondent, which I am.  It may also appear that I have a sense of hopelessness, which I don't.  What is the reason for my optimism?  I believe that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and in that truth has a way of triumphing.  Ask yourselves how many people have successfully hidden lies from all for all the time.  You will see that there is not one such example.  Indian society has thrown up great human beings when it seemed that things were hopeless.  Mohandas Gandhi, Bheem Rao Ambedkar, Joti Rao Phule, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri et al have done good for the country when it was needed.  The future too will throw up equally great people and that is the root of my optimism. Truth cannot be suppressed and therefore it will triumph.  Jai Hind.