Wittgenstein

A photograph is a frozen moment, outside time. It is ‘a probability’, not ‘all probabilities’, what one sees in the blink of an eye. But if you keep your eyes open you will see things move and change, nature as a dynamic event, and it is this constant changing that creates fuzziness on one hand but clarity on the other, because if you only glimpse then you exclude all other aspects, you have no greater clarity, you are blinkered. 
Source

Musings on solar power

I think I was reading Ramachandra Guha or someone when it struck me that of the many possible ways of doing things, two were the Gandhian way or the Nehruvian way. Gandhian way was bottom-up approach. The focus is on villages and communities. Small changes, small projects but several of them. Nehru on the other hand had a very top-down approach. Big vision... dams, hydroelectric power plants, public sector industry that built huge things. He genuinely believed that massive investment in grand infrastructure projects were the way to govern India and bring her into modernity. The problem of course was that while cities and urban centres enjoyed the fruits of these mega-projects, it didn't reach a substantial proportion of the population. One Bhakra Nangal

project could have funded a million smaller projects which collectively could have been more effective. Or so was the argument. It is a complex system and I don't know enough to tilt one way or the other. I suppose both had their pros and cons.

But what I do see, in the modern context is the repetition of similar dilemma. Take power for instance, India has a massive supply-demand gap. An increasing number of her citizens are able to afford electrical gadgets like airconditioners and refrigerators. Even in a state like Tamilnadu which used to be energy surplus, the demand has grown exponentially that there are now compulsory power cuts. The semi-urban and rural areas have scheduled load shedding between  6 and 8 hours and unscheduled power cuts of another 2 or 3 hours a day. Even in Chennai, there are 2 hours of compulsory power cuts everyday.

This is the problem.

Now, we could either go all Nehru and invest in a multimillion dollar coal plant or billion dollar nuclear plant. (I am confused if Nuclear power is good... so we won't go into it). There are several problems. One, it'd take a long time for these projects to start producing power. And two, demand may grow even further that the gap will still exist when the new plant comes into use. There is a separate problem of pollution and availability of fuels (for coal and diesel plants) and waste disposal (for nuclear plants). There is also an investment issue... we just can't afford it. Or if we did spend most of our money in power plants, there is less to go around for other equally important issues (like water, food and education).

So, what would Gandhi do?

I suppose that he would recommend that small communities become self-sufficient. which means not relying on the national grid for power. We know that while centralised electrical generation has its advantages of scale, electrical distribution causes major losses. What if communities can generate their own power or at least a major part of their power requirements locally? They'd become independent. Technology exists in renewable energy like solar and wind which can provide substantial power for small communities. Instead of thinking of massive power plants that will supply an entire state, we look to hundreds of smaller scale projects that will work for each town and village. Imagine, solar plants in each village supplying electricity to its residents. I understand that solar power cannot fully replace existing power plants, but they can narrow the gap between
supply and demand and use clean renewable technology doing it.
For me it is not about the technology. I think research is ongoing and remarkable advances are imminent. it is about reducing the time gap between invention of technology and adoption of it. We have seen with mobile phones that adoption of technology can be rapid. In less than 10 years, mobile phones have become ubiquitous. It has penetrated markets unimaginable a decade ago. So technology can, when it reaches a tipping point, be adopted rapidly over large populations. And this accelerated adoption also accelerates innovation and growth in the field. A future in which instead of each town and village, each house generates most of its own electricity needs may not be too far away. 


There you have it... incomplete thought. 

On caste system

Had a discussion with a friend about caste system in India and she was trying to convince me that the caste system was not meant to be an hierarchy and it was an organizational principle without value judgement. According to her, as soon as one stopped believing that people are born into a caste, the caste system almost entirely redeems itself. The idea of the caste system, she said, and it's original fluidity makes understanding life much easier. 


I wonder if there is any historic text that proves the existence of an utopian no-judgement caste system or a time when one was not born into a caste. Even in Mahabharatha, Karna is repeatedly humiliated for his caste (son of a charioteer). Ekalavya is denied education bcoz he is a hunter. Drona is humiliated by Drupada. Even earlier, in the Ramayana period, Vishwamitra becomes Vishwamitra because of being humiliated by a mere brahman, Vashista. The number of instances where people are treated badly for their caste is astounding. The very fact that Vyasa and Valmiki are extolled for breaking the barriers of caste would suggest that it was not a routine affair and they were the exceptions to the norm. According to Manusmriti, the Sudras were forbidden to participate in the Brahmin rituals and were subjected to severe punishments whereas the Brahmins were exempted from any kind of reprimand for crimes. So I don't think there is a historic instance where a sudra was happy to be a sudra. Even the sudra kings invented lineages that converted their sub-caste into kshatriyas.


I disagree with this notion that the caste system was a good and necessary system that lost its way. But more importantly, was there ever this "fluidity in the system"?  It would appear that social mobility was a myth. It is like the modern myth of America as a class-less society where even the poorest person can pull himself by his bootstraps and become the richest man. Economists have repeatedly shown that there may be a few individuals in a generation who have broken through but for the most part your economic and social standing depends almost entirely on your parents status. If you are born poor, you die poor (and middle class remains middle class).

The caste system was not nor was it ever intended to be a mere classification of tendencies.  It was about racial/ethnic purity. And therefore marriage and reproduction of "genetically pure" offsprings were the most controlled. Being born into a caste was a feature, not a bug. Anthropologically even in cultures that did not have a rigid caste system they had proxy-systems that controlled reproduction and inheritance of property - restricted who could marry whom. Caste system, then is seen as an extension of tribalism. 


Of course, like Marx would say, all conflict is class based. that is, it was based on economic exploitation. It is always about power and money. And there was always an hierarchy in which there was a pecking order and someone at the bottom of the floor. Even before a formalized caste system was in existence there were rich and poor, exploiters and the exploited. Caste system just made it a lot easier for the rich to screw the poor.


I suspect that caste system as a no-judgement system that turned rigid is entirely an invention of modern upper caste folk who wanted to rationalise the existence of caste system. And why did they have to rationalise? Because according to these distinguished people, Hindu way of life and the Vedas were the bestest thing ever. And it could do no wrong. So the caste system was a splendid spectacular thing which was tarnished by some bad apples. Somehow, I very much doubt it.