Election reform

It all started when one of my friends called Right to negative vote, i.e. Vote "None of the above" as a landmark Judgement that would make democracy true, fair and some other things that I can't recall. This allows common man the right to reject, he said. And someone else added that in a multi party democracy, whoever enjoys the confidence of the majority wins. If vote for none is the majority, we should have a re-election. Perhaps they misunderstood the whole election thing but it drives me nuts when people throw around words like confidence of majority. The candidate with the plurality of votes wins the election.

My opinion was that in a country with compulsory voting, it'd be interesting to cast a 'None of the above' vote. It makes absolutely no difference in India. Not even a symbolic one.

In my view it would be worthwhile to have a 2-tier election. First round everybody competes. The top 2 vote-getters go to the second round. Whoever gets 50% + 1 vote wins. This avoids someone with say 30% total vote winning the seat in a crowded electorate. Another promising option is Preferential voting. Where you don't just vote for one person, you list your preferences. So the truly abominable candidates can be filtered out. These are meaningful electoral reforms. And they have been tried in other countries with various levels of success. The right to negative vote is just theatre. Damn good theatre for sure but still theatre.

Zero

I recently came across this interesting article on the invention of zero. This is one of the things that I was told (as are most Indian children) as one of the hallmarks of Indian contribution to modern society and example of our greatness. But the story as it happens is more complex than "we invented zero and therefore we rock". From Babylonia to the Mayans, there have been independent discoveries of zero either as placeholders or as numerals. I discussed this article with a friend about how this was such an enlightening idea about different civilisations. My point was, and I don't think I made it well, that there were many ancient civilisations and they all made important contributions. I say that I don't think I made myself clear, because she took that to mean that I was demeaning India's contributions. To say that Mayans used zero too was by no means to discredit Indian civilisation as useless.

There are many biases and beliefs that we hold; one of the ones that I heard growing up was that Indian civilisation was so advanced compared to the rest of the world - to paraphrase something a family member used to say, Europeans were jumping around half-naked up and down trees when Indians were writing treatises on governance. This idea, however pleasant and awesome to hold, is far from truth. Exceptionalism is infantile. We recognise it in others; America for instance with their chest-thumping rhetoric of being the greatest nation in the history of the world and we rightly make fun of them for it. But it is harder to see it in ourselves. The Lascaux caves in France for example show evidence of paintings from the paleolithic period (about 17300 years before). Venus of Hohle Fels is about 35000 years to 40000 years old. The Cuneiform tablets displayed in the Louvre show some of earliest known written language from 4th century BC (Code of Hammurabi was around 1785 BC). Egyptian Dynastic period dates back to 4th century BC (this Duck and Swimmer spoon is one of those mindblowing artifacts from antiquity).

Again, my point was not that Indians suck but that other civilisations did some good things as well. And maybe, just maybe it is not so good to judge others as somehow less "civilised". As hard as it may be to accept, we are not special.

IMHO the part of growing up is to be able to challenge our dearly held beliefs and learning of our place in the history of mankind goes a long way to update our beliefs.

Paris impressions

Paris is like any other city - people are rude and always in a hurry to get somewhere, motorists can't drive and pedestrians can't stop talking on their phones while crossing roads, garbage bins are full, the streets are full, the metro is full, the cafes are full, you get the idea. There are homeless on the streets and police sirens pierce the air in frequent bursts.  Overworked fast-food workers struggle to mime the menu to the bazillion tourists who can't speak the language.There are tourists everywhere and when they are not taking pictures they are annoying the locals by asking directions to the place they are already at. People avoid eye contact with strangers on the metro, preferring instead to pretend to enjoy music. A common big-city stench seeps through the air. McDonalds or Starbucks are always just around the corner. On the plus side, you can find a restaurant from any region of the world. There is decent beer. You can also manage alright with whatever language. If you can read a map, you can get around with much difficulty. Blah blah blah.

What sets Paris apart are the little things. Like when I bumped into a guy reading Derrida in the metro. That too a book book... paper and ink kind. OK! I thought one person reading Margins of Philosophy does not a pattern make. Another day, another metro, this one completely different line and how do I meet but Mr. Heidegger and his Contributions to Philosophy. And so you meet Kafka and Rimbaud, Hemingway in French and Joyce on a graffiti. Maybe there are Kafkans everywhere but Paris to me will always be the city of Sartre to me.