Incompatibility

One of my cousins wrote this on Facebook:

When any black kid is beaten the racist police in USA,
When a colored Argentinian was shot by UK police,
when a cranky preacher planted bombs in Tokyo subway,
When the Russian military ran over innocent women and kids in Hungary,
When the Chinese tanks crushed students.......
No one talked and linked such barbaric incidents with their science and technology efforts ...
I don't know how digital India gets clubbed with the inhuman act at UP. The buffoons who link it either have hidden agenda or have their brains stapled to their posterior.

Notwithstanding the danger of being considered a buffoon, my reply to his post:

I agree that some politicians are making hay but it is not right to dismiss this as an invalid argument. During the height of the Apollo missions, civil rights activists rightfully argued that there was a fundamental incompatibility between a society in the brink of putting a man on the moon and a society where some of its inhabitants were second class citizens. So it is not something altogether unheard of. Pointing out this mismatch is a narrative platform while not giving the entire picture presents an important link of the jigsaw puzzle. That a government that is proud of its progressive agenda, atleast when it comes to technology, still subscribes to an outdated and inhuman system is cause for concern. And commentary. It is the same unease one feels when immense poverty coexists in otherwise rich countries.

The link between technological accomplishments and societal malaise is the people. Why shouldn't someone who takes great pride on Sundar Pitchai becoming a CEO because he was born in your region not feel shame for some guy from your country doing a heinous act? Why is he the outlier, a lone nut, a bad apple? Where is the ownership? Sundar's success is a reminder of how awesome Indians are but this guy's lynching is just this guy lynching? Where is taking good with the bad? Indian society, particularly the Hindu right cannot insulate itself from criticism. Oh btw, to claim that other countries don't have enough self-awareness, while factually true, does nothing more than proffer a weak excuse. I am sorry, but the sign of a culture in decline is the reluctance for self-examination.

Black lives matter -Explained

Over at the intertubes, one redditer had a wonderful way of explaining racial inequality and the need for a 'Black lives matter' movement. I quote the full text (with minor edits), so you don't have to visit Reddit and spend the better part of 6 hours jumping from one sub-reddit to another.

Imagine that you're sitting down to dinner with your family, and while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don't get any. So you say "I should get my fair share." And as a direct response to this, your dad corrects you, saying, "everyone should get their fair share." Now, that's a wonderful sentiment -- indeed, everyone should, and that was kinda your point in the first place: that you should be a part of everyone, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad's smart-ass comment just dismissed you and didn't solve the problem that you still haven't gotten any!The problem is that the statement "I should get my fair share" had an implicit "too" at the end: "I should get my fair share, too, just like everyone else." But your dad's response treated your statement as though you meant "only I should get my fair share", which clearly was not your intention. As a result, his statement that "everyone should get their fair share," while true, only served to ignore the problem you were trying to point out. That's the situation of the "black lives matter" movement. Culture, laws, the arts, religion, and everyone else repeatedly suggest that all lives should matter. Clearly, that message already abounds in our society. The problem is that, in practice, the world doesn't work the way... Societally, we don't pay as much attention to certain people's deaths as we do to others. So, currently, we don't treat all lives as though they matter equally.
Just like asking dad for your fair share, the phrase "black lives matter" also has an implicit "too" at the end: it's saying that black lives should also matter. But responding to this by saying "all lives matter" is willfully going back to ignoring the problem. It's a way of dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means "only black lives matter," when that is obviously not the case.

In summary, saying "all lives matter" as a direct response to "black lives matter" is essentially saying that we should just go back to ignoring the problem.

Holiday fatigue - Politics edition

As anyone who has spent a month-long holiday with their parents knows, they sure do drive you nuts. It is not just their waking up at god-awful hours and pottering about (which they do) but every thing. EVERY THING. Take for instance, my father's views on Modi, the rockstar prime minister of India:

1. He is the first guy to really talk 'Change' and he is/will be a transformational figure.
2. People should not criticise him because you have to give the guy a chance.
3. And really, even if he doesn't manage to change anything, it is not his fault because a. he is just one man and he has to deal with a party of old-timers and b. the system is broken.

This "true believer" logic is unbreakable. He will change everything. But even if he doesn't, it is not him but others. And shut up.

What annoys me the most about this fanboy-ness (which everyone is entitled to - refer: John Green / I am giddy as a school girl) is the sort of I-am-above-this-ness that comes with it. Instead of admitting that yes, I fell for Modi hook line and sinker and think that he is the second coming of our Lord and Saviour, one poses as someone who doesn't have any skin in the game. I am just an objective observer and ye shall bow before my pronouncements.

The response and I have to admit that I hardly had the patience to be so clear is:

1. There have always been and will always be politicians campaigning on hope and change. Refer Kevin Rudd, Barack Obama for two of the most recent examples. This is because people want change and they want hope that things will change. And it is not cynical to suggest that politicians want to sell them exactly that. If people want puppy sized elephants, you can bet your ass that the politician will campaign on how he always supported puppy sized elephants and free puppy sized elephants for all.

2. Just as it is valid that people do not criticise Modi before he has had a chance to do anything, it is perfectly acceptable, why, even necessary, that he be not praised for something that he has not achieved. To be fair to the guy, the higher the pedestal, the further he falls.

And we don't need people shushing the naysayers. Firstly there are too few of them compared to the vocal and loud supporters. Secondly, some of the naysayers are not actually naysayers but just wait-a-minuters, who are merely asking a question about some tall claim or talking about actual policy positions. We need more people to criticise and question the government to have any sort of balance with the unbirdled euphoria of the yesmen.

3. I have some sympathy for the politician who promises the sky and can't deliver. Obama peddled hope and change and he turned out to be a big nothing. His meagre achievements are only partially due to the corrupt system or intransigent opposition. There is a lot of inertia built into the political process such that no one person can either do great harm or great good. But there is no fun in campaigning that I will be better than average president. But it is important that one has the ability to call out the emperor when he has no clothes. The "true believer" is a problem because he sees everything through the prism of his hero-worship; my leader is pure and unimpeachable but it is the others. We also saw the Democrats switch their positions from "Bush is an evil war-criminal to wiretap on citizens" to "Sometimes it is necessary to kill our own citizens because Obama says so".

Well! at the end of the day, Meh!

Also this

Perils of flying while brown

Salon has a beautifully written article on the Perils of flying while brown. I have nothing much to add except that I too was a victim to this widespread phenomenon. 

It is all Mitchell Johnson's fault. It so happened that Mitch had a glorious summer with the ball and wiped the floor with the Poms. His mutton chops were credited for his Ashes glory and I in a MoM1 decided that I would grow one as well. And it just happened to be that I got my new passport in that period and the photo on my passport has me sporting a menacing looking "Mitch Mo". The Mo that terrorised the English (and later the Saffers) made me a terrorist suspect. Quelle horreur.

I have travelled widely and no one has made airtravel more painful than the US. Despite being a brown man (clean shaven brown man if I may add), I have an Australian passport. But that counts for little for the TSA. Also to note, I am not Muslim. I still got pulled aside for multiple checks; twice in Sydney and again when I landed in LA. Random, they called it but the odds of me getting the number three times in a row is as remote as a treeful of Monkeys with the finished version of Hamlet that they have typed out one key at a time. 

As courteous as the TSA agents were to me, and they were really friendly, way beyond the call of duty, chatting to me about wine in Napa valley when I spoke of my time in Bordeaux, talking about the differences between NYC and LA (side note: LA, apparently rocks), etc. I simply cannot accept the "better safe than sorry" excuse that is often touted to support this profiling. I travelled to London not that long before and I wasn't frisked and prodded to get into the country. Long live the Queen. The US as a nation is like a paranoid schizophrenic; seeing enemies everywhere and danger in everything. I have much to say about their foreign policies and the Military Industrial Complex but suffice to say that other countries that have been victims of terrorist attacks too, as London has been and Madrid and Mumbai, and those cities and those nations do not possess the same amount of crazy. 

It is not about the inconvenience of a five minute delay but the humiliation of being a suspect for nothing more than the amount of melanin in my skin. The "Othering". The making you fear for your safety. The silencing in the name of freedom. (I almost didn't write this a month after my trip to US, coz the NSA may be (definitely) reading it). 

Anywayz, read the article from Salon. And NSA, please please don't spy on me. I am just a geek who once had a mutton chop tache.

1  Moment of Madness

Regulation

The Abbott government is releasing a Guide to Regulation. I had a sneak peak and this is breaking news people. Inside it was scrawled in red crayons "relugation = bad" and "bisness = good". Also a stick figure with giant blue penis. True story.

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.

Character assassination, Times style

Are you the kind of person who wonders what would a "hit-piece" on someone a.k.a "hatchet-job" look like? Well! wonder no more. I present to you the best of the best - the equivalent of a Gayle century and Mishra hat-trick and Dhoni captaincy (gratuitous cricket reference) rolled in to a single 1084 word article. Really read it and savour the subtle flavours of the Merlot and the scents of peach and plum with its earthy texture and hint of vanilla.

First some background. Glenn Greenwald is a Guardian columnist who broke the story on massive NSA surveillance of electronic communications of American citizens. The surveillance is more or less completely illegal, except that the government has its interpretations of some laws (like Patriot act and FISA amendments act) that allow it to circumvent pesky limits on its powers. The Obama administration claims a. That it is legal, limited and has sufficient congressional oversight and b. It is necessary to keep Americans safe. Because 9/11. There is also c. This program is classified and how did you find out about it and I am going to put you in prison, but that part is classified.

Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have been warning for some time that there has not been significant congressional oversight and that the program is not a targeted-surveillance (and the head of NSA testified in front of the Intelligence subcommittee that they have not wittingly collected data on millions of American citizens, as if one could slip on a banana and end up with a database of all phone and electronic communications of millions).  Notwithstanding that and the fact that President Bush got into a lot of trouble for a similar warrantless wiretapping program way back when that was evil and even assuming that this program is necessary and the only thing standing between terrorists and Americans, one would suppose that it is still not out of line for journalists to shed some light on government policies that impacts the lives of so many citizens. How can democracy be democracy without an informed citizenry?

This, in summary is the playground in which the match will be played. Greenwald is a lawyer and writer on civil liberty issues. He is an author of several books including 'How would a Patriot act?'. He has been a columnist for The Guardian for almost a year and before that, he was a columnist with Salon.com. He is involved with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and has been a supporter of both Wikileaks and Bradley Manning. Like him or not, there was a national conversation about the power of government agencies to data-mine the shit out of everything after he broke the news on NSA surveillance. Also about how maybe, just maybe it was a bad thing to live in an Orwellian dystopia (Yes, the usage of 'Orwellian' went over the roof and search for 'Big brother' hit the biggest comeback since the infamous nipslip in Season 3).

And enter, NewYork Times. Noam Cohen and Leslie Kaufman wrote the brilliantest blatantest hit-piece since Pete Clemenza took care of Paulie. First, the Hors d'oeuvre. The title of the article is "Blogger, With Focus on Surveillance, Is at Center of a Debate" which appears to be an edit since the link to the article is the more spicy, "anti-surveillance-activist-is-at-center-of-new-leak". Remember it is not "Guardian columnist blows the lid on surveillance". No sire. That would make it a legitimate act of you-know scare quotes journalism. Activist sounds bad but it seems to be the flavour of the season. Better to call him "blogger". Doesn't the term immediately conjure the image of a Cheetos-eating slacker who lives in his mother's basement? You can almost visualise it, can't you? That is how good writing works. So, Thomas Friedman who can charitably be described a clown is a NYTimes columnist but Greenwald is a blogger. His work with The Guardian is for the fine-print, an afterthought. And that ladies and gentlemen, is how one discredits a person. As if painting GG as an un-serious blogger wasn't enough, the writers would like to help you with a ladle of  'He obsesses over government surveillance' in the very first line. Now, GG is a Cheetos-eating basement dwelling nutcase with a tinfoil hat.

Don't fill yourself on the appetizers. There is more. The main course include, 'He is gay', 'He lives in Brazil', 'He is a diva - didn't have an editor', 'He supports Manning' and finally for dessert 'He is an apologist for anti-Americanism', 'He is naive and couldn't run the country'. Muuuuah! That is some serious Crème brûlée of anti-Americanism. And because this is the liberal rag (allegedly), throw in 'worked for corporate clients' in the list of Greenwald's yuckiness. Call it the salad siding for that one vegan person who crashed your party.

To anyone who claims that the article was balanced, contrast this. The person quoted as calling him an apologist for anti-Americanism is Gabriel Schoenfeld. We are assured that this guy knows what it is all about. He is a national security expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The person speaking for Greenwald is Ms. Jennifer Bailey. She shared a tiny apartment with him when they were students. Who are you going to believe - national security expert or Will and Grace.

The only thing missing from the article is that that he is a leper with AIDS and a plague-ridden rat for a pet and he smells funny and did you see the shoes he was wearing. NewYork Times, you have done it again. Plumbed depths deeper than James Cameron's submersible. 

Hunger strike

There are days when I despair that no matter what one does, nothing is going to change. Manning and Wikileaks threw light on some serious wrongdoing. It got nowhere. Occupy happened. And then was promptly forgotten. Children got mown by gunfire. Did nothing to move the lawmakers. It is so easy to be cynical. What a hopelessly doomed world we live in!

And then hopelessly doomed prisoners remind me that perhaps all is lost but one must still act. Hunger strike by the Guantanamo prisoners brings the most powerful man on earth, the President of the United States to admit that Guantanamo was a "lingering problem that is not going to get better" and "we need to close it".

Now I know, words come cheap. Pres. Obama  hasn't said or done anything about it for 4 years instead choosing to "look forward". Nobody expects him to succeed in closing Guantanamo. Hell! he couldn't pass gun control after New Town.

Still, it moves my heart that these 100 people, held without trial (most of them cleared for release years ago), forgotten by the world, left to die in a no man's land have shown such bravery.They deserve to be heard, to be remembered. We have failed them and we should be sorry. I know I am.

Update: Andrew O'Hehir has a brilliant piece about it in Salon.  As he puts it, "(the hunger strike) has shamed Obama and forced America and the world to face “one of his most glaring failures."

Vishwaroopam - the controversy

There has been considerable drama surrounding the release of "Vishwaroopam" that it piqued my curiosity. I watched the film and while I wouldn't wish to impose another review on the inter-tubes, I wish to talk about the widespread criticism of the film, with regard to its depiction of Muslims.

Right at the outset, let me reiterate that I am not in favour of censorship and the movie should be allowed to be screened. And if the screening engenders an engaged and reasonable debate about the portrayal of race and religion in Indian cinema, it is to be welcomed. However, the protests against the film should not be brushed aside as irrelevant. There is some validity to the argument of the muslim protesters that the film portrayed the entire community as blood thirsty jihadis. One cannot point to other innumerable films that also deal with terrorism, for instance Gaptain Vijaykanth hunting down Bakistan terrorists as an excuse. The difference is between the cartoon violence of Tom and Jerry and the real horror of 6 year old children killed by gunfire on the evening news. The point being that no one takes seriously the comical portrayals of terrorists in a Vijaykanth movie even if the villains are Muslims. The problem with Kamal's portrayal is the "plausibility" of the Muslim terrorists. The viewer is led to believe that the people shown in the movie are not caricatures, this is how it really is.  This poignant hyper-realism, even if it is an cinematic artifice is the main reason that critics of the film like Charu Niveditha object to the 95 crore boondoggle.

The problem is perhaps of Kamal's own making. He has continually portrayed himself as a serious thinker and film-maker, neither of which is in evidence in this film. If one did not expect anything better from the actor, if we went to watch a film that was exactly in the same category as other Batriotic Bakistan Bashing films, then I am certain we wouldn't have any problems with Jerry taking a shotgun to Tom's face.

So, I suppose it is our fault that we wanted an entertaining action film with tact and nuance; something that didn't treat us like we were three year olds being scared in to eating another mouthful.

Civil disobedience

Dear Mr. Sammut,

I read your comment regarding Civil disobedience at CIS and wished to respond.

For starters, what Assange did was not civil disobedience at all... it was an act of journalism. Perhaps you have heard of it. If Assange is culpable of revealing classified information, should the editors of New York Times and Guardian join him in the cell. Reasonable people can argue that not all classified information is ripe to be released to the public or in public interest to be revealed. But to believe that the mere act of classifying some piece of paper as top secret makes it sacrosanct, I am sure you would agree antithetical to a functioning democracy. The onus is on the government to explain why some information should not be publicly disclosed.

I find your dismissive and taunting tone particularly vulgar. Engage in a reasoned argument if you will but this is weak tea mate.

Yes, Gandhi's civil disobedience was about being willing to get arrested for breaking the law. But remember that his method worked only because the English were concerned enough about the rule of law and an appearance of fairness. And don't forget the many times they released Gandhi because of popular uprising caused by the arrest.

It is not fair to claim that the activists now lack the courage of their convictions. They are rightly afraid that they will not get a fair trial. My point being that Gandhi's civil disobedience in a different setting would have been completely toothless. I am confident that if you lived in his time you would write an impassioned column saying that he did break the law and should spend a lifetime incarcerated. If Gandhi tried satyagraha today, he will be arrested sure but there will be a parallel operation spearheaded by the Murdochs of the world to discredit him as a pedophile. They might stick a bag of heroin in his salt bag too just to make sure.

And this is not hyperbole.... Assange may be the public face of this discussion but there are countless others who did not "steal" classified information from Pentagon who are still harassed and persecuted for opposing the establishment. Laura Poitras for instance. Activists are not a bunch of spoilt-brats who are throwing a tantrum and then want a get out of jail card. How dare you! The same week that Aaron Swartz passed away.

I have a simple question for you - how many martyrs would it take for you to accept as legitimate a cause.

You sit in your plush office and demagogue about civil disobedience. I'll eat my words if you have spent one day in jail.

And don't drag Gandhi for your defence again. You don't own his legacy. And you sound like a damn fool

Best regards,
Ram

Tribalism

If a modern Republican President started raising taxes, disarming nuclear weapons, disbanding regiments, legalising gay marriage and introducing universal healthcare the Republican base would desert him in droves. They might actually burn him in effigy.

Whereas a Democrat President can continue black-sites, embrace drone warfare and expand the war on terror to multiple countries, kill an American citizen without due process, invade the airspace of an ally and assassinate an unarmed man instead of arresting him, give the banks a free pass, actively silence whistleblowers, deport illegal immigrants, block sane drug laws, not close Guantanamo, essentially  be as dodgily right wing as he wants and "liberals" will not only vote for him but ecstatically endorse him.

And these "liberals" will look down their nose at the bible-thumping conservatives and call them IRRATIONAL and TRIBALISTIC.

Because Sarah Palin. Michelle Bachmann. That's why.

Shut up

Imagine all the people

Is the looming fiscal cliff giving you nightmares? I have a simple proposal for taxing the rich in the US. Forget the Buffet rule. Don't propose increasing the rate for the uber-wealthy and be called class warrior. Btw, not for nothing but ending tax cuts is not the same as increasing tax rates. Tax cuts were by definition a temporary respite from taxing that was possible due to Clinton-era budget surpluses (and because of the remarkable mythical power of tax cuts to stimulate the economy). And given the budget situation now, it is only natural to say that the tax cuts are no longer affordable.

My proposal is this: add a 3% war surcharge on income over 500k. The nation is waging one official war and countless unofficial ones. Ok, let's just call it one effing big global war on terror. This war is, as one would be led to believe, is a righteous one, worth fighting. The poor are sending their sons and daughters and paying for the war with blood, the rich can pay for the war with a small fraction of their wealth. None of the 3% will be used for anything other than Department of Defense, Veterans affairs, Veterans health and paying down the deficit (only that part of  that is caused by the unfunded wars). Supporting the troops will no longer be about lip-service. Let's call it Best America Freedom-loving patriotic surcharge in wartime to support the troops American Apple Pie Founding fathers If you vote against it you are a puppy-killing terrorist Act (BAFLPSWSTAAAFFIYVAIYAAPKT ACT) of 2013 (The acronym needs some work).

There is bipartisan agreement that war is good and national defence is sacred. So clearly no one except peace-loving hippies can have any problems with a war-time tax and we all know that these peaceniks have no jobs, they just sit in their mother's basements in their pyjamas, smoking pot. With this surcharge, there will be guaranteed no military cuts, no slashing of Pentagon budget. The neo-conservatives can stop complaining that it is the weakest navy since 1914. The Republicans can add amendments that no money will be spent on death panels or FEMA camps or UN helicopters or whatever it is they are afraid of these days. The Democrats can concede that the money from the 3% surcharge will not be put in the same bucket as the big government basket along with Medicare, Medicaid and Social security. The 1% can continue to feel patriotic and can go on Sunday morning shows and write Editorials about how they are so American and chant USA! USA! if that will make them feel better.  Everybody wins. There isn't a draft lottery for the rich to dodge, there aren't bread lines, there isn't shortage of caviar. So the war-time surcharge is the only thing that brings it home to people that America is a nation at war. This 3% surcharge is strictly temporary; only until the war is over... in other words, forever.

I know I am a dreamer, but maybe this will act as a small incentive to stop waging endless wars around the world.

Orwellian

    All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage - torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians - which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side. . . . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

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.

Occupy Everything

Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.

- Charles Peguy

Occupy History

We are the 99% is one of the most prominent messages of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It is true that the top 1% of the population have inordinate power and wealth when compared to the rest. It is beyond evident that this inequality exists and one has to be delusional to not see it. However, the notion that this is a new phenomenon or that there is a sudden increase in wealth inequality because of Bush's policies or Cheney's evil grin is not based on historic facts. In People's History, Howard Zinn writes that in 1687 the top 1% owned 25% of all wealth and the number went up to 44% in 1770. History shows that the wealthy have always been wealthy. The system has been rigged from the beginning.

Maslow

I have always wondered why it was in the interest of politicians to keep the 99%, also known as dirty fucking hippies, poor? Because they are evil doesn't quite cut it for me.

And it stuck me... and maybe it is just too obvious and everybody else already knew it. But atleast I arrived to this party.

It is simply Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. Keep the unwashed masses worried about their survival and they have no interest in other higher needs like dignity and compassion. Right and wrong. All of this is 'misdirection'. So we don't care what they do. we are too busy running the rat race. keeping our eyes on the ball. Fill in your favourite cliche here.

OMG! I am so stupid to not see it before.

Bhagwati is not wrong

Jagdish Bhagwati is incredibly credentialled. He is the Professor of Economics at Columbia. If I remember right, he was in contention for the Nobel prize a couple of years ago. So when he wrote 'The Outsourcing Bogeyman' , a lament that so few understand that everyone wins from outsourcing, I was more than a little bit shocked. I expected better from Prof. Bhagwati. That Republicans are pro-business and democrats pick on defenceless businesses by calling them names and demonizing them in the media is a narrative congealed in popular discourse (Cry me a river, won't you). Forget that the Clinton administration initiated a lot of the current outsourcing policies and the Obama administration has been steadfastly loyal to big money except for the occasional posturing.

Politics aside, I understand that there is no room for protectionism in the free market system. I understand that liberalizing trade with developing countries opens new markets to sell American wares. In turn the developing countries gain jobs because of their competitiveness (read cheap labour). The good professor is right. Everybody wins.

Except.

The trade surplus that America gains in this transaction goes to the wealthy banks and businesses while the jobs that are lost are from the middle class and the poor.

Yes, free market is free market. But what can be done about the jobless. What good does Prof. Bhagwati's assertion that everybody wins do to a family of four whose breadwinner has been laid off as his job has been shipped to India or China. What fault was it of his that he was born in the United States and not in India? He can't meet Michael Dell over cocktails at Davos and ask him for his job back, can he?

And Prof. Bhagwati, you want fallacy, I give you fallacy. The businesses that are outsourcing are not doing so only because it is uneconomic to maintain in the west (as you so delicately put it), they are doing it because they can boost their profits and give more to their shareholders. It is not the role of the business to care for anything other than their bottomline. I dig that. This is where the government can step in and play a role. Not as a force of protectionism but as the defender of its citizens' ability to pursue life, liberty and happiness. The government for instance, can say that while it cannot stop the businesses from outsourcing its operations, it can impose a tax on the profits that corporations make by reducing its operating cost. But since imposing a tax on corporations is equivalent to class warfare, killing your children and siding with devil, it is politically untenable, economically populist or not. A reasonable alternative is presented wherein no new taxes are imposed but merely the suspension of tax incentives given to businesses. Not all tax incentives, for I am no commie. Just the tax credit received for outsourcing; a Clinton-era initiative that encouraged businesses to outsource before it became the 'in-thing'. That is not the same as railing against evil corporations, is it? That doesn't make the world any less flat, does it? (Yo! Friedman, ever heard of Copernicus). Maybe that money can be used to, I don't know, re-train the unemployed, invest in infrastructure or create jobs that aren't outsource-able.

On a side note, Carly Fiorina got shellacked in the elections not because she was an evil person who outsourced jobs. She was not elected because her background as a businesswoman does not add any credibility to her as a person capable of protecting the interests of her constituents. That was the position that she was contesting for; a lobbyist for the common man in her state. HP has enough lobbyists, thank you very much. Who will speak for the voiceless if the members of Congress and Senate are also lobbyists for the interests of big business?

As hard as it maybe for you to believe Professor, I don't want to lynch businessmen. I want an equal contest between the aspirations of the poor and the needs of the business, even if the arena in which this bout takes place is the 'free market'. Is that too much to ask?

***Alert*** Political rant ahead

A friend shared this article by Kanchan Gupta on FB. I was totally going to applaud Mr. Gupta... if only he had said Soviet style a few more times, used the word 'Orwellian' in case we mistook Big Brother to be a vapid TV show and thrown in a nazi or brownshirt reference or two into the mix.

Obviously, I have a few issues with his punditry. Kanchan writes

Everybody knows that the route to a corruption-free India lies through radical reforms that will ensure minimum government, maximum governance

Isn't it like saying "Everybody knows that the secret to long life is healthy living". Maybe I have been missing insightful articles that he may have written in other places, but what exactly is his trillion dollar idea that will ensure minimum government and maximum governance. All of us wish nothing more than to have the biggest bang for buck. Pray do tell, Mr. Gupta. What does this radical reform that everyone knows about and doesn't fatten government look like? I am asking because if there is a bill or policy that would do it but is not being adopted because of lack of political will, political rookie that I am, I'd like to know what it is. Is there any country that has done these magical reforms that you talk about?

Kanchan helpfully hints

But that’s a tedious process which will also mark the end of entitlements

which begs the question: what entitlements? We have no working concept of social security. There is no unemployment insurance. There is hardly anything that you will call medicare. The only entitlements we have are PDS which gives subsidized rice, wheat and such and without which starvation would reach Somalia levels (FAO puts our undernourished at 21% which is about the same as it was 20 years ago) and government hospitals and primary health care system which is the closest thing to affordable access to medical facilities that more than a third of the country is ever going to see (according to World Bank, the number of people below poverty line is 455 million). Public education has worked miracles, bringing our literacy levels from humiliating to about average.

I am all ears... explain how private enterprise is going to make India a better place. I'd like to ask Kanchan what govt programs does he want to shrink. What programs does he want to axe? What entitlements are holding us back. I hope Kanchan is not suggesting that the best way to get rid of corruption in government, is to get rid of government. I mean, if we didn't have a police force at all, then we wouldn't have to bribe the constable in the street corner. If there was no Dept of motor vehicles, then we wouldn't have to bribe to get a licence. Some reports suggest that only 42% of PDS reaches target population. If we perhaps abolished PDS (and not replace it with something similar), then we'll control corruption?

That is not to say the Lokpal bill is the silver bullet that will change everything. That is not even to say that corruption is the only thing that stands between India and greatness. Yes, populism can be bad. It can be misguided. Look at the Teaparty. But does Kanchan not think that more transparency and a watchdog body has the potential to deter government officials from taking bribes? Isn't it worth trying?

Or put another way, is there a non-governmental player that could possibly act as an effective overseer of government?

As for the bilge about Checkpoint Charlie, the socialist official scowled as he checked his passport and didn't smile or say good morning because he wasn't paid for it. I wonder if on the way back to American sector of West Germany, did the freedom-loving capitalist official give him a coca-cola and a blowjob? Are we still selling copy by scaring the world of the red menace? I thought we hated them terrorists these days.