The Localised Dilution of Resources: A look at Paul Romer's 'Charter City' Concept

This is a TED Talk by Paul Romer, a professor who left his job at Stanford to pursue his very revolutionary idea of the ‘Charter City’. In this talk, he emphasises on the power of rules, and how they guide the technology which it needs to actualise ideas. This he conveys with the following image.

Ideas

Now, rules are the little builders that erect walls within a system, the walls that will bring to life guiding paths for data to move in and out. They specify what can happen and what can’t. With the right technology, what rules can do is not only bring to life ideas – which they make possible because they bring to life the goals that the idea has in mind – but also behave as administrative interfaces between the intelligence that has put them in place and the machinery that will do the manufacturing. For example, in a car, the gearbox behaves like a rule that creates smaller rules. The engine of the car produces power which is conveyed to the wheels by means of a crankshaft. By bringing in the gearbox, I am able to enforce a set of rules in the system. If I now set the gear to ‘R’, the system will deliver outputs of a different kind by moving the car backwards.

CAR = ENGINE + GEARBOX + WHEELS

Similarly,

RULES = BEHAVIOR + INTERFACE

In essence, they govern systems by enabling the incorporation of ideas in the working machinery.

When Romer talks about the good rules and the bad rules, I believe that he is talking about the behavior of any rule in general. A good rule is that which makes the car move backwards when the gear is set to ‘R’ and forward when set to anything else. A bad rule can either be a car that doesn’t move when a gear is changed or that which behaves in opposing manners.

That being said, I was thinking of my ocuntry, India, and how these good rules and bad rules can be identified within its administrative cogs, and how those Charter Cities can be brought to life. Because, just as much as Romer points out to the examples of North and South Korea, and Cuba and Canada, he is essentially pointing to regions in the world where neighboring populations have access to disproportionate amounts of resources because of a change in leadership.

Let me establish the analogy to India here. In India, the nation is divided into little states (on a linguistic basis) each of which has its own little government and a Chief Minister at the helms. Therefore, different states have different policies of governance. This means that they have different rules. This disparity, to note, is lessened by the fact that the central government is usually a coalition of these smaller state parties. But that doesn’t change the fact that when I cross the border from Tamil Nadu into Kerala, I’m exposed to (possibly) the same resources but in different amounts because of a change in leadership.

Let me question myself at this stage.

1. What are the problems I see? To answer this, imagine a vector field that illustrates the policies of the different states. Extrapolated on the India map, they would be a set of arrows pointing in different directions, some similar, representing their individual goals. If two arrows point in opposite directions, they don’t necessarily different goals, but different target groups. For example, Gujarat may target the farmer more than Rajasthan, which will eye the urban crowd. Although they do aid the nation from different directions, this fragmented governing as I see it has one pro and one con.
   1. Pro: With leaders governing smaller and smaller pieces of land, they are able to manage resources better than just one person and one party at the top.
   2. Con: Sometimes, resources are spread across borders and it may be beneficial for a region in particular to be governed in a specific way.
2. What are the bad rules? The bad rules I choose to see are with respect to this fragmented government policy of the nation.
3. What are the outcomes of these bad rules? As Romer says in his talk, villages are too small to experience the benefits of a good business and nations are too big. What is of just the right size is the city. In the Indian political context, when a state assumes the administrative parenthood of a city, it gives rise to a mismanagement of resources. Let me elucidate thorugh some points.
   1. Imagine a state that has a political capital and a commercial capital. Now, suppose that the state is so large that close to 95% of its population resides in small villages.
   2. A party gets elected to govern the state by a mostly rural turnout. Therefore, it is possible that the party that has come to power would have promised benefits for the farmer more than the software engineer.
   3. Now, the state can either be aligned with the central government’s interests or opposed to it.
      1. If aligned, then a nationalised subsidy for the farmer will be compounded by the state’s interests.
      2. If opposed, then the state will turn down the nationalised subsidy and bring into picture its own. Result? The state is wasting its resources.
   4. This localised policy shift will have two outcomes of its own.
      1. If aligned, the farmer will be receiving twice as many benefits as the software engineer.
      2. If opposed, the software engineer in the state will be moving at a pace different from a software engineer elsewhere in the nation.
   5. This particular scenario is quite relevant I would say to the current Indian sociopolitical scenario. Therefore, what the fragmented governance is giving rise to is an uneven utilisation of resources that in a region throughout which the resources are spread out – a localised resource concentration/dilution.
   6. The ultimate loser is the city. Since it is a collection of humans, the value of the city itself is derived from the capabilities of these people. When Romer says that the land value increases because the city’s inhabitants are earning more, it actually means that the city – through its location and other properties – has enabled its people to be like that. In the scenario I detailed out, the urban population is either exposed to a disparate quantity and quality of resources or does not avail them at all.
4. What is my solution? The set of bad rules that I attributed this problem to was the usage of a fragmented governing system. My solution is to fragment the already existing pieces into even smaller ones. And before you think I’m an idiot, let me tell you why that solve some problems.

Even though close to 64% of the Indian population is engaged in agrarian activities most of which falls into the rural category, it is the cities that make a difference. With the amount of data that is sent in and out of them, a city makes itself relevant by making sure the data comes from and reaches the right group of people. For starters, think of the two technologies that have substantially increased the nation’s crop output over the last 10 years.

The first was the launch of the INSAT weather satellite. A look at the following table will give you an idea of the benefits of the launch – which was a very important outcome of the utilisation of urban solutions.

Economic Benefits		Rs. Millions
	Program	Nature of Benefit	Estimate from Case Studies	Potential Benefit to the country in the Long-run
1.	National Drinking Water Technology Mission	Cost saving due to increase in success rate	2,560 (5 States)	5,000 – 8,000
2.	Urban Area Perspective / Development / Zonal / Amenities Plan for Cities / Towns	Cost saving in mapping	50.4 (6 Cities)	16,000 – 20,000
3.	Forest Working Plan	Cost saving in mapping	2,000 (200 Divisions)	11,860
4.	Potential Fishing Zone Advisories	Cost saving due to avoidance of trips in non-PFZ advisories	5,450	16,350
5.	Wasteland Mapping: Solid Land Reclamation	Productivity gain	990 (UP)	24,690
6.	Integrated Mission for Sustainable Development: Horticultural Development in Land With and Without Shrub	Gross income	Rs.0.20 to 0.40 (per hectare)	13,000 – 26,000
7.	Bio-prospecting for Medicinal Herbs	Value of Indian life saving drugs		800

(From http://epress.anu.edu.au/narayanan/mobile_devices/ch10s06.html)

The second technology that came to the aid of the farmer was the combined harvester-thresher, which reduced the duration of labor that was required to harvest and thresh a piece of land by substantial amounts.

In this fragmentation process, the nation could be divided down to form clearly discernible urban and rural regions. As I said earlier, it is important for the cities to be governed similar so that all cities in a particular region are availed similar qualities of the similar quantities of resources. Does this look like Communism on a broader scale? Perhaps. But what it ensures is that, with the democratization of information exchange through urban areas, there can be greater coordination towards acheiving common goals. At the same time, rural areas, specifically the agrarian ones, will receive greater and greater concentrations of useful information instead of what just the state has decided to give them.

In this fragmentation, which I call the second-degree fragmentation (SDF), the danger of there arising a difference in policies as a result of the installation of different state governments is eliminated. Secondly, the Charter Cities that Paul Romer suggested could be translated into this SDF picture in that all cities work as one super-city in terms of resource management and policy establishment.

I have two concerns at the end of this post.

1. With the current system set so firmly in its ways, bring in such a massive change is quite impossible. Therefore, if anyone has any such comments to put forth, please don’t do so. Instead, what I’d like to hear about is its theoretical validity.
2. I have not studied this subject (yet). There’s still a long time to go for me to be there. But before then, if you have anything to suggest or criticise (constructively), let me know.

Inaction & Iran

Suu Kyi, HH 13th Dalai Lama, Tank Man, Neda

Of the many ways in which one can succeed in harming oneself, inaction is the deadliest. The human consciousness dwells on the various activities one takes responsibility for, and who we are and what we are capable of doing is determined by what we are prepared to do and what we are prepared to resist. To be gifted with the resources one requires in order to execute an act and then to be deprived of the opportunity to do so is simply not freedom at all; in fact, under such circumstances, freedom is meaningless. Just as power comes only with responsibility, freedom to think must come with freedom to act. When the elections culminated in Iran with the declaration of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as being the continued president of the nation, Mir Hossein Moussavi, one of his opponents, alleged that the results were rigged. The tumult that soon followed completely overshadowed the debate as to whether Mr. Moussavi’s claims were true or false and, today, the tumult has shown no signs of abating. As I write this, I read on Twitter that an Iranian woman told CNN News that “it was Hitler” after she reportedly witnessed local security forces quell a protest in Tehran by throwing protestors off a bridge. And now, when I realise my inaction, my heart bleeds.

Democracy has always taken its toll in history. The people’s power has never been easy to establish, especially when it comes in after a monarchy or even an oligarchy. It has never been a question of trusting people with the votes – they are yet still purchased in many countries in large numbers – but only of sharing the power that comes with being the one man who leads a whole nation. As Jimi Hendrix summed it up, “when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” Leaders seem to require a constant dose of reminders. Symbols need to be dug out of the monotony of one’s daily life. There was Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, the 13th Dalai Lama in Tibet, the Tank Man during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacres. And now, Neda Agha Soltan, a young student in Iran who was shot in her heart (June 20) by security personnel. Her dying moments were captured by at least two bystanders, subsequently plummetting her into posthumous stardom and also a “much needed” symbol depicting the need for democracy. For the people in Iran, for the people in Tibet, for the people in Chechnya, for the people in Myanmar, for the people in need of that freedom that permits them to think and act freely, the symbol of democracy is indeed much needed. I only hope they hold on to the emotions her martyrdom has spurred.

A free media is a true democracy

There has been a surge in media reports detailing the emergence of social media as a powerful tool when it comes to updates on events. Recently, in the wake of the Iranian elections and opposition leader Mousavi claiming them to be the results of widespread rigging, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets in protest as well as support. Once the local administration banned the internation media from reporting on their streets, quick developments on the issues raging therein were hidden behind a fog.

Enter Twitter. The social media tool kickstarted as an enterprise by Jack Dorsey in 2006 soon proved to be handy when it came to posting quick updates that could be followed by millions. Iranians tweeting from their homes began to send in minute-by-minute updates which seemed like what more than anyone could ask for. News now came not from middlemen who had to carry cameras and mikes, but from those who were experiencing the issues at a very personal and emotional level. In other words, the tumult on the streets of Teheran were being transcribed onto the reader’s browser, surrendering the freedom of interpretation to ourselves. Instead of being hailed as just a political crisis, to many the issue now has assumed the stark form of a humanitarian crisis as well.

In the process, a trend has emerged indicating a shift amongst the people in favour of a reporting service that does not concern information that comes at a price. At a higher level, what social media has done is downplayed the importance of a third party when it comes to locating sources of trouble and highlighting them in the media while encouraging the outcome that is being able to access information that is firsthand and mostly untouched. Now, for example, with Google opening up the source code for its Reader API, programmers can now easily develop software that enables the user to efficiently filter through tons of such pure information. If only more and more people by the day had access to the internet, the right to information in most nations could be a redundant statement of the freedom that technology is capable of delivering as well as how simple ideas can be magnified through it to change thousands of lives.

'Interview' with a fundamentalist

The Ayodhya debate has been raging in India for hundreds of years, and with the December 6, 1992, demolition of the Babri mosque, the issue emerged with greater focus turned on it with many thanks to the politicisation of the debate. India is a secular nation, and before beginning any such debate involving religious fanatics and politicians, the secularity of the core subject must be stressed. Religion and politics must not be mixed until secularism is to be discarded. A nation founded in the name of God must be run by a religious congress and none else. This is to ensure that the interests of the citizens of the state are always foremost in the minds of those who make decisions pertaining to the future of the state. The same principle extends to a nation founded on a secular basis: the only decisions made by those in power should concern the development of the state as a whole, while also keeping in mind that all men are equal. After 1992, with the steady emergence of groups such as the Shiv Sena, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and anti-secular fundamentalist leaders such as Narenda Modi, the moderation of the oft-baseless hatred amongst the Hindus for Muslims and the Muslims for Hindus has become a momentous task. 

I had the good fortune of meeting up with one such person in my college; let’s just call him BT for now. I don’t know how the topic came up, but eventually, the both of us and Vohra finally managed to steer things into Indian politics and religious fanaticism. When BT finally opened up, the two of us were in for a sumptuous treat consisting exquisitely of brazen moronism. Let me just tell you that before the evening concluded, one of the worst lines I’d ever heard from a guy older than me was when an engineering gradute told me a few minutes prior to his job interview, “I’m not worried about the interview, yaar! Which ever way it goes, I’ll just take a few lakhs from dad, play poker (a double-or-nothing quip thrown in for good measure) and settle down in life!” Perhaps I’ve not met my fair share of such people, or perhaps I’m yet to fully understand the harmless nature of the doggie that barks, but such ‘decisions’ always manage to give me a kick. I’m only left asking “how” and “why” to the walls.

So yeah, BT began with what seemed like a step by step disintegration of the political scenario of India as seen through the eyes of a reasonable man. The Indian National Congress is in command for a second consecutive term, with Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi at the helm. The Bharatiya Janata Party, with a decisive defeat in the 2009 General Elections, has been forced to being a blunt opposition in the face of mindless capitalist drives by those in power. Money is making its way into all forms of life and living with no regard for traditional and cultural values. This could have gone on for as long BT was pissed off with the setup, which he was, so I began to question him as to why he felt that way. In a snap, he replied, “I hate all Muslims in India. The Hindus are a much superior race and must be dealth with so.“

I hadn’t known BT much before that particular evening. He was just a fourth year student here and a happy-go-lucky sort of guy. There were hundreds of people like him here, and that doesn’t have to mean anything, at least first. But seeing an educated individual hailing from an affluent family speaking like that is sure to give anyone a jolt. Although I may not be in a position to question with all authority here, I would like to do it to his reply for the sake of it. And I did. I’m sure BT mistook me for someone who was not very well informed about Indian history, and so, he took me (with him, I think) into the recesses of our past.

Lessons on how to demolish a mosque

The Mughal Empire, which ruled over a vast swath of India from 1526 to 1857, is apparently the root cause of everything. On an unfounded assumption* that Mir Baqi, the chief commanding officer of the Mughal army under Babur, tore down a temple at the sacred site of Ayodhya, which is considered the birthplace of Lord Ram (an avatar of Lord Vishnu), in order to construct the now non-existent Babri Masjid. Furthermore, Babur, followed by Akbar, also commenced the forced mass conversion of Hindus to Islam. “In the process, millions of Hindus became Muslims through what constitutes a needless process of reformation whose sole goal was the sustenance of the Islamic Persianate.” I am only willing to concede that point. Yes, the Mughals wronged severely in doing that. They could very well have chosen to uniformatise the opportunities available to all their subjects instead of ensuring that opportunities would be available only to those who adhered to the views of the controlled-state. All the same, that was around 500 years ago, and let it rest. No?! Why not? Fast forward to the India-Pakistan War of 1965, where Pakistan attempted to infiltrate Kashmir with insurgents in order to precipitate an opposition to Indian rule in the region. “The Muslims, all of them, their whole community, were responsible for this.” If you don’t mind, jump another 6 years to 1971, with the third India-Pakistan war in only 24 years of independence. “India dealt blow after to those bastards.“

All that sufficed to be a good introduction for BT. Now came the issues “that mattered”. By now, he had deciphered the look on my face to be disbelief, and accordingly proceeded to resolve things for me. First in line was the forced conversion issue. “So many devout Hindus were lost to the faith and forced to become people they were not. That is just not done! Today, it is up to us to ensure that what was rightfully ours be returned to us. All the Hindus lost hundreds of years ago must now be reborn. The only solution is to massacre all Muslim men in India (yes, you read that just right) and take the Muslim women into Hindu households through wedlock. That way, the Muslim women will be converted to Hinduism and the babies born therefrom will also be Hindu babies.” I opened my mouth just then, but he cut me short. “See, if Vohra here marries a Muslim woman, his child will be a Vohra. The male gene factor will be carried forth into the baby; I’m sure the child will not be called some ‘Mulla’ or ‘Khan’ or ‘Tikka’ or whatever.” I could say nothing after that. How could I? This little guy sitting next to me was talking absolute logic, and any logical and reasonable man would agree with it!

Issue #2: the Indian National Congress. “What’s wrong with the Indian National Congress?” (In my mind, there was a voice: “How can you ask that question?!”) “Arre, starting from Gandhi and Nehru, all of them were [expletives]s. This Gandhi [expletive] let all the Muslims stay in India. How could he do that? He has no sense of our griefs or what?! And then there was the [expletive] Nehru. You know one thing?“ “What?” “Nehru slept with Mountbatten’s wife! You don’t know that? And then, after Nehru came Indira Gandhi. She was another [expletive]! When the Sikhs of Punjab wanted a separate state, she imposed an emergency on the whole country and got her way with it! These mindless [expletive]s don’t know how to rule the nation! The people who voted for them to come into power should all be killed.“

“Tell me, if you were to vote to decide the future of your country, who would you vote for?” “I’d vote for anyone who I think is fit to rule the nation.” “Arre, that is wrong! You must be proud to be a Hindu, and this is Hindustan. You know what Hindustan means? It means ‘the [home] of Hindus’, and that is the way it should be. The INC came to power only through the votes of the Muslim people. Why do you think that is?” “Why?” “Because no sane Hindu would vote for them. By letting loose their grip on Kashmir and allowing Muslims to consturct the PoK [Pakistan-occupied Kashmir], and by allowing for unfair Muslim quotas in a Hindu nation, the INC has pocketed all of those bastards! They are no different from the Mughals!“

At this point, Vohra, who was till then engrossed in a futile RA2 skirmish, chipped in. “What’s wrong with quotas?” “What’s wrong with quotas! Arre, for example, if I have scored 70% in an examination and if a Muslim fellow gets 60%, he will get the preference in a university which has that quota. Isn’t that a disgrace to my education? I am losing a seat for nothing! The government is giving aids to everyone in the nation, all the farmers and even the poor… they are giving books and the opportunity to attend a school. Why do you think the ranking system exists? If I have ranked more than some other guy, it means I have scored more marks than him. If a university admits students on the basis of the rank, then how is it feasible to have quotas?!” Vohra: “Than don’t you think you should also be crying out against the state quotas? Like how institutions have a specific number of seats set apart for people from their own state?” No response. Vohra: “Ok, let me give you another example. In this college, haven’t you noticed how the Tamilians stick with the Tamilians, how the Punjabis stick with the Punjabis, how the Telugu people stick to other Telugu people? It’s because everyone in this world feels better when in the company of their own kind. When such quotas can exist, it only makes sense to have the other quotas as well.”

“Ok, but that doesn’t explain quotas for SC/STs! These slum dwelling people, they are doing quite well these days. If they think they are deserving enough to receive higher education, why not make use of the money the government gives them? Every year, the government is setting apart hundreds of crores for them, and those people are only wasting the money on black activities. When the time comes, what sense does it make for me to lose my seat for people like them?!“

Vohra: “Listen! It is easy for you to sit here on my bed and lift a finger, but have you ever tried washing your own clothes? Have you ever tried sitting down for four hours by a pool of dirty water and removing the stains from your own underwear? You spend two dirhams once every two weekends to grumble about a washing machine that does not do YOUR job too well! Have you ever had to come back from college on a hot day and then immediately leave for work in a garage just because your father and mother aren’t able to sweat enough for your dinner? Then you’ll know [expletive]!” No response. “I’m sure that when your father was your age, he didn’t go to his friend’s room, sit on his bed and sing his tale of woes. I’m sure that when he was 21, he would have begun earning, whether it be in tens or crores, just so you, his son, could have a good life and a good education. What you’re saying is simply not what I would expect from an educated fellow!”

There was a dense lull in the room after this. I had succesfully managed to divert my attention to the laptop screen, where Vohra had resumed his campaign, while BT sat in silent self-contemplation. However, this truce did not last long. Soon, BT looked as though he had warmed up enough to provoke and elicit a response from either one of us with this: “You, my friends, are not getting the gist of what I am trying to say here. We are a Hindu country, and Muslims have no place in it. You are a Tamil fellow-” [to me] “-and you can never fully understand the extent to which the people near the Indian border during the partition were harassed. Do you know that Atari train incident, in Punjab, near the Wagah border? That train was full of peaceful Hindu devotees. All the Muslims in the region mercilessly halted and encircled it, and set it on fire. I will remember that incident because it is burnt in my heart. They wrote on the train, ‘Pakistan’s gift to India’. When we reciprocated later, I felt so happy, you know that! We wrote ‘India’s gift to Pakistan’ – I still have the image saved on my laptop. It was the perfect response.“

Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray

After that, BT had to leave. He had one last thing to say before he exit the room, though. “At this point, we must decide to give the reins of the nations to more capable people. Some years back, we made Abdul Kalam our President. Alright, he made some nukes for us, but is that a reason to empower him with complete command of our armed forces? We could have satisfied him very much by just doubling his salary. This nation has no sense of purpose. Who knows, he might have even sold a few nuclear missiles to Pakistan as a side business. Can you refute me on that?” I could not. “We should make Narendra Modi our President, Bal Thackeray our Prime Minister, and Lal Krishna Advani our Chief Justice. Then, the nation will know.“

What will it know, I wonder.

—-

While we continued to play the game after that, BT returned later in the evening. This time, he seemed hell-bent on making me ‘admit’ that I was proud to be a Hindu, which would have been in line with BT’s belief that he was more proud to be a Hindu than he was proud to be Punjabi or Indian. At that time, I simply refused to say it not because it would appease him, but because I hadn’t really given the idea any thought ever. Now, I just think why importance must lie at all in being the follower of a certain faith. In my honest opinion, that is the mistake. When one confuses one’s faith to be the guiding rule for one’s decisions in a secular state, turbulence is sure to follow. Even in a non-secular state, due importance must be given to the individual and his or her choices, greater than to the wishes of the state. The state exists only if its people do. Individual actions being generalised to the extent of blaming his or her whole community for it is plainly inexcusable. One must be taught to teach oneself, willingly learn from his or her mistakes, than be given the luxury of blaming a collective. That is childish mob behaviour, and such people have no place in a society built on reason. They must either change as tomorrow demands or stay one with the past. As for religion: what every religion preaches is not just the belief in a God, but certain values that a devotee must be imbued with in order to attain deliverance from one’s sins if there be any. Screaming “I am proud to be a Hindu!” and “Kill everyone who has wronged us!” is absolute shit when you don’t follow one of Hinduism’s foremost values, that of tolerance.

One hungry nation

On my twitter timeline, while I was scrounging for the IPL results (because CricInfo refused to open quickly enough), I saw a tweet by a person I was following: “9 million rand for children’s education. 18 million rand for the fireworks. #ipl” I wouldn’t like to mention the person by name here because I don’t think he knows I’m writing this; anyway, I find something fundamentally wrong with his statement. 

Everyone knows it’s easier to question than to answer. Anything can be questioned – from motives to massacres. But answering to them and correctly requires information, knowledge and wisdom. Not every question has a right answer, but wrong answers will always exist. Questions are free from that constraint. A question can never be wrong unless it is a waste of time, and in this case, that’s what it seems to be to me. Mr. K here has obviously referred to the South African government’s decision to spend R 18m ($2.2m) while its national expenditure on education is half of that. 

I now ask Mr. K to step into the shoes of the government’s head and answer a few questions from me, the first one being “Would you rather make sure that all that you spend in every other sector of development in your country is always less than or equal what you spend on eradicating hunger or educating your children?” If Mr. K answers in the affirmitive, then that is agreeably a bad decision. 

All dollars are dollars. The money spent on education is no different than the money spent on tourism. The money spent in trying to make rich people happy does not have to bow down to the dollar spent in getting a little kid his first story book. It is a fact, and people have to learn to make peace with it. Eventually, it is the rich man’s dollar that will be paying for the little kid’s lunch. As soon as a nation is erected from the mind of a leader and the soil of the earth, it will be like every other nation that has been born so. Hunger and illiteracy will attempt to strike it down. What will you then do? Pour all your money into alleviating the suffering of the victimized or divide it between the people who need it and the people who are capable of giving you more? 

India: A cultural coalition

The famous philosopher and post-modernist Michael Foucault said “language is oppression”. This may be partially true, since it allows only those who do know the language to communicate, shunning all those who don’t to a section of the society that gradually and inevitably disintegrates. Communication is a very central aspect of who we are, and our ability to communicate ‘in harmony’ reflects our togetherness, or rather, integrity, as a people and our capability of being able to establish a nation that stands strong. Although a national language would be hard to establish as such, an official language should do. A national language has far more severe consequences as opposed to official ones. This is because the official languages serve only to formalise business communication; the national language would attempt to unify the people of the nation. For a predominantly English-speaking nation, this is easy. For a nation like India, this is not. We have official languages in double digits, fine, but since all of her 30 or so states have been formed on a lingual basis, the inclusion of a provision for a national language in the constitution would invoke chaos within the nation. India is a coalition of different cultures: having a national language would be having a bias. It is not easy in India to conflict the values of the peoples of one culture while you try to side with another. It is a delicate balance, and the best solution would be to just stick to officialising business communication. The south Indians, especially the Tamilians and the Malayalis, don’t take as easily to Hindi as do the Telugu and the Kannadigas. On the other hand, the Hindi-speaking peoples are exposed to a different kind of lingual characterisation than the southern languages, and adaptation is again difficult. There are, of course, many more problems beside these, but I think you get the point.

However, my point in this post is that how only your mother tongue seems to be able to deliver the style of communication you need. No other language you could learn will come to serve you as finely as your mother tongue. If everyone observed this, a possibility of a nation language in the offing would seem even more bleak. Your mother tongue is your native language, it is something you have been listening to being spoken since birth, and it is something you have been speaking yourself. Many of the necessary habits of life taught to children are during their younger ages, when they learn without questioning and also follow it blindly. Even thought they may come to realise the purpose of it all later on, that time period when their mind is ripe is a rarity. And when you the child learns a language in this period, it is difficult to forget it wholly, and later on, it is also difficult to let go of it. It is as if the language has been mixed into your blood. This nativity  in language is present among all the peoples of India, and those asking for the establishment of a national language should take into consideration these factors also. Apart from the commercial aspect of it all, India’s existence as a cultural coalition is a very important factor in the determination of such matters. No other nation is like India, and we can’t come to a conclusion derived from a comparative study. If we can’t have a national language, then we don’t need a national language. That’s all.

Lessons from a disaster: Relief responses

This is a mail I received from one of my father’s friends. Have a read, it’s quite informative.

Telephones started ringing across China midday on May 12^, 2008. The speakers were puzzled. Something was amiss.  The earth had trembled. Had it buckled under the immense weight of the Chinese Civilization? Or the stupendous achievements of its current generation?

At around 2 pm a tremor had leveled the largely agricultural Wenchuan County in China’s bread basket Sichuan Province. The official death count stands at 70,000 – a significant number of them children trapped in the debris of collapsed school buildings. On the 18^th of last August the river Kosi in the Indian state of Bihar abruptly changed course and swept away villages and rendered millions homeless. The responses of a democratic and a communist political system as well as these two ancient cultures to these recent disasters offer a thought provoking contrast.

Spurred into action, China’s Communist Party leadership ordered the army out the very next day. The crisis was worrying enough for the Prime Minister too to show up at the site personally leading the relief team. The party after all touts its raison d’etre as the only one that can keep the nation united, prosperous and mighty. It was now reckoning time.  Relief effort became an overriding priority trumping even the upcoming Olympic extravaganza. Adroit minds in the Leadership doubtless estimated that doing so would douse the brouhaha over the Tibetan protests worldwide accompanying the Olympic torch relay. For weeks following the quake, relief flights had priority over civilian traffic. Having had the painful experience of sitting in a plane awaiting take off for over an hour on a couple of occasions, I was surprised at the solidarity this evoked amongst my fellow Chinese passengers who put up with the inconvenience with nary a murmur.

Many people imagine the Chinese living in a quasi 1984 world with Big Brother watching over their every move.  The actions of Chinese netizens will no doubt come as a surprise. Websites seemed to spring up overnight reporting the financial commitments of the rich Chinese and Multinational Corporations to the relief effort. These were compared with the public information on their earnings and the misers were publicly named and shamed for being ‘iron roosters’. (Chinese is a figurative language and an iron rooster (Tie Gong Ji) is someone with not even a feather to contribute!) Boycott calls went out against products of these companies. Chinese employees of these companies received hate mail and text messages from friends for their apparent lack of patriotism in influencing their companies to contribute more. The impact of this campaign was severe enough for the CEO’s of several corporations to fly down to their global headquarters and secure exceptions to corporate policy and increase contribution over previous global crises including the Asian Tsunami.

Over the next several weeks the world watched as the Chinese led and globally assisted relief effort brought life back to normal in time for the Olympics. State media played up the heroics of the relief team and the army. Leaving people feeling positive about their country is important in China. The crisis predictably diluted the storm over crushing of the Tibetan insurgency. The one issue the government continues to tiptoe around though is that of the construction quality of the schools that seemed to have suffered disproportionate collapse.  That continues to rankle in the minds of the survivors.

Bihar is as remote from Delhi as is Sichuan from Beijing.  However that is where the similarities end.  It took days for the flood relief effort to get going in Bihar. The army was called out well over a week later. The relief exercise complicated no doubt by electoral considerations that predictably affect everything in democratic India. An opposition party was in power in the state. There were rumblings that the state administration was being brought down a few notches and shown in poor light. Public participation in disaster relief no doubt occurred. But in Indian culture this is mostly a volunteer effort with conscientious citizens contributing as they deem fit. The concept of ‘Dana’ has a long and rich heritage across religions. Giving under duress is deemed to harm all parties. The anger and moral rectitude of China is missing. In a week or two however the floods did a disappearing act from public consciousness as media, hankering headline grabbing news moved on. A recent article reported that the displaced population was patiently awaiting reconstruction. Elections seem to be the only time when things get done.

Floods are an annual ritual in India. The Economist produced an article from its archives of Seventies vintage. A different river then had broken its banks. Since independence not much has changed except the volume of reports and studies on flood control. Canals have been proposed linking rivers. Not one has seen light of the day. It is Brahmanical to propose a strategy. A committee at work attacking a problem is a conjurer’s trick creating an illusion – a smoke and mirror act that accomplishes nothing.  Sinecures are available to be doled out; Global junkets for the asking. Execution in contrast seems a trivial pursuit. In the heat and tumult of India it is no doubt a tiresome affair.

In democratic India governments no doubt are regularly voted out for their incompetence by a hurt populace. Incoming administrations except a severe minority, though then proceed to exhibit the same level of incompetence or parochialism. This flip flop dance of democracy means a step or two backward for every movement forward. In China’s unitary system in contrast we see a clear recognition by the incumbents of the limits to their authority that can be ignored only at their own peril. A recent incident in the prosperous city of Xiamen brought this home. The local administration had approved the construction of a petrochemical complex near a residential seaside community. This brazen action incensed the local population. There were rumors of a protest march. The local administrators panicked, no doubt seeing their future in the party hierarchy imperiled. Text messages went out from the Government to the local citizens asking them not to take to the street as the decision was being reconsidered.  

Herein then lies the paradox: A single party dictatorship that seems to fear the wrath of the masses and is responsive to their plight while a vibrant democracy displays callous disregard to their suffering. Amartya Sen has long argued that Democracy is the single insurance against famines. The data overwhelmingly support his thesis.  It is hard to imagine for example, the famine following the ‘Great Leap Forward’, occurring in India. The recent disasters however seem to indicate that while democracy is necessary, by itself it is not sufficient. 

© Milind Yedkar

The rubber band effect

The business logic depicted above is a familiar sight to all of us. Like everything in this universe, the global economy bears a semblance to the source and sink model of being. When the currency is money, the source becomes the ‘source of money’ and the sink becomes the ‘consumption of money.’ The consumption of money is not literal: the reason money is a currency is because it is one fundamental unit that can comparatively measure up one object against another with great convenience. For example, say an apple costs Rs. 5 and orange costs Rs. 2.50. In the previous barter system of goods-exchange, the traders would have to weigh them against each other and then begin the transfer of goods – as many apples would be given as oranges that weighed the same amount. But, with money on a third scale, it’s easier to see that twice as many oranges need to be given to obtain a said quantity of apples.

So, as an extension of that logic, we have the researchers, the manufacturers, the logisticians, the warehouses, and the retailers between the source of money and the sink of money. Although fairly general, the above chart can be made to specific for a given set. Different sets exist today. An advertiser for Adidas’ deodorants will target the youngsters in the local population; that would make the set ‘demographic’. In another example, Nokia’s 1100 series of mobile phones were designed and built for users in India: they came cheap (target: large middle class), had a rubber cover (target: rough users) and had anti-slide sides (target: people living in humid areas). In this case, the set would be ‘geographic’. However, these sets are confined to the consignment of products. The money that goes into all of this, it needs a completely different classification. Combining money and politics, we have different currencies. By employing one currency as being the benchmark (ex. Gold, USD), even they could eventually be purchased and sold.

Later on, as the concept of taxes, duties and customs built up around such original principles, money itself became a commodity. With the advent of this commoditization, nations began to safeguard their economies more carefully as their respective currency became a strong determinant of their progress and development. This was when someone in some corner of the world, most probably from one of the first world countries, suggested the opening up of local markets to international competitors. Now, according to me, this suggestion has 3 aspects.

1. The local manufacturer is now exposed to a very large number of competitors, some of whom are MNCs and veterans of aggressive marketing, fuelled all the more by fat wallets. (BAD)
2. The local consumer now faces many more choices than he originally bargained. In place of just the Nike shoes, the consumer will now see Adidas and Power as well. As an added bonus, the encroachers will now sell at prices similar to those of Nike’s just to stay in the loop. (GOOD)
3. The knowledge pool.

Points 1 and 2 I’m sure you would have read about a million times, over and over again. The prioritization of one over the other is the core of most persisting disputes on globalization today. However, point number 3 struck me some time back when I was talking to a friend, and his ideas about micro- and macro-communities, within the framework of an open market, which work together (as parts of a network) to minimize the adverse effects of the business idea.

Let me take up a suitable example here. Consider the local weaver in a secluded region in south India. Prior to the advent of globalization, the weaver would have enjoyed the presence of a small, but sufficiently loyal, local market. However, when the doors of this market opened to foreign investors, an MNC begins to infringe on his share of the sales, thereby leaving the weaver at a loss. The consumer cannot be blamed for it is not his decision; the government of the nation can, however, be blamed only to a partial extent. Although it is an unsaid duty of theirs to protect their local talents, the opportunity will be seized which delivers more for less at some point of time – it is inevitable. However, over a period of time, the market (i.e. the pool of consumers) is bound to become accustomed to the variety. Most people will begin to be able to identify their needs and wants, and the corresponding products, more accurately. This is because, in a market with a monopoly, the customer will have to suffice with what the company can make. If there are too many companies and too many competitors, the generated variety of the products itself will become self-allocated – as that which one needs, that which one wants, and that which one desires.

At this juncture, if the weaver was to emerge again (with supplementary governmental funding to restart his business), he will now be exposed to a larger version of his small-and-loyal market which was present earlier. Thus, if one were to wait for the effects of globalization itself to dissolve into a pool of information, the knowledge pool thereby generated will condense all of the world’s peoples into one large market without altering the response they had earlier on. It’s just like a rubber band: if there is a stiff one, you stretch it as much as you can without snapping it, and when it gets back to its original position, it will be more flexible than before. The only bad thing about this idea is that no one knows for a fact as to when this condensation will occur, and therefore how long the local talent will have to live off the local government’s money.  

The Change Of Guard

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with a few friends of mine. We were talking about those things that 20 year olds usually talk about when suddenly the talks turned sober. Someone from some corner had brought up the issue of paedophilia, and immediately, small political arguments began to pop up from around the table. While we were engrossed in it, Benjamin made a quirky comment when asked by Niaz if he was willing to start an awareness campaign in college about it. This is what he said: “I’m not worried man! Oprah Winfrey will take care of it. She is one of the most powerful women in the world, she’s not gonna sit quiet in her studio and let paedophilia take over!” Although all that he said was right, it was not enough. I began to wonder if this was the mentality we had all begun to assume, that of complacence in favour of letting the lobbyists take care of everything. Where is democracy today? People think that once they’ve voted, their job is done. It is not! Democracy has a meaning, a very fundamental underlying principle that makes it the most efficient way to rule a country. It gives power to the people, we the people, not only during the elections but also after it. How many of us know that in India there quite a few methods to impeach our own MLA when he is in power? I’m sure the US also has something along the same lines. How many of us actually realise that while all the ministers sit in their chambers of ‘power’ and discuss ‘national issues’, they can only discuss the questions we have asked? For if it is money they are after, no minister would bother to open his mouth once the elections are done with. Our government runs the country, but WE run the government itself! We forget that chain of command and drown in cheap self-pity, an emotion that ultimately cascades into surrendering to the ways of the corrupt. If you think the sewage dump stinks, it’s only because you’ve dumped your garbage there. If we think it’s too late to change anything, we’re wrong. It’s never too late but I agree that it’s easier said than done. Let’s make a change today. All we need is belief. All we need to change is the small things around us. We need to be able to believe that one day, things will be different.

I’m sure you would have heard all of this some thousand times, but have you ever wondered why people keep talking about it?  

Hindutva Fascism: Golwalkar & The RSS

In the wake of Varun Gandhi’s infamous speech against minority groups in India on March 6th, 2009, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections from Pilibhit, we the people need to the basis of such thought in India, and what sets apart the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its minions (or, the Sangh Parivar) from the rest of us. In fact, even more than the RSS, we need to, importantly, know about the life and works of Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar, who succeeded Dr. Hedgewar as the Supreme Leader of the RSS and built it to what it is perceived as today. The following is an article by Mr. Ram Puniyan on the same. 

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Beginning this twenty Fourth February, RSS combine has undertaken programs in different parts of the country to celebrate the centenary year of RSS second Sarsnghchalak (supreme dictator), Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, known in Sangh circles as Shri Guruji. What are going to be the implications of this celebration? To answer this, we will have to delve into the work of Golwlakar, who penned a small book, ‘We or our Nationhood Defined’ (We…), which gives an outline of his ideology and later his articles were published as a compilation, ‘Bunch of Thoughts’. In both these books and also in various other outpourings of his, he denigrates democracy and pluralism on one hand and upholds fascist concept of nationhood and sectarian version of culture on the other. His writing is most intimidating to the minorities in particular. He was the chief of RSS for 33 long years and was instrumental in giving RSS a direction, which assumed menacing proportions in times to come, and strengthening the foundations of the ‘hate minorities’ ideology resulting in the consequent waves of violence, undermining the democratic norms in the society. He can also be ‘credited’ with giving the sharp formulations which laid the ideological foundation of different carnages in the country. Golwalkar praises Lord Manu as the greatest law giver mankind ever had. It was the same law giver Manu’s book, which was burnt by Dr. Ambedkar in his pursuit of getting justice for the dalits. In current times, Golwalkars’ successor also demanded a throwing away of Indian constitution, to be replaced by the one which is based on Hindu holy books, implying Manusmriti, of course.

His formulations of Hindutva Fascism are so blatant that even his followers, the RSS combine, is running for cover and claiming that this book, having a naked hatred for minorities and eulogies for the likes of Hitler, We…, was not written by him. They avoid owning these ideas. But one knows that this book *was* penned by him. In an affidavit submitted to the charity commissioner, Rajendra Singh, a later Sarsanghchalak pleaded, “With a view to give a scientific base to propagate the idea-India being historically from time immemorial a Hindu nation-the late Shri M.S. Golwalkar had written a book entitled ‘We or Our Nationhood defined’, which was published in 1938.” (Quoted in Islam, Undoing India: The RSS way) J.A. Curran in his classic study, RSS: Militant Hinduism in India Politics- A study of RSS: points out “The genuine ideology of Sangh is based upon principles formulated by its founder, Dr. Hedgewar. These principles have been consolidated and amplified by the present leader (i.e. Golwalkar) in a small book called “We or our nationhood defined”. It is a basic primer in the indoctrination of Sangh volunteers… (Curran 1979, p.39). Since its quotations have been brought to the notice of people, RSS publishing houses have stopped republishing this book. What does Golwalkar say in this book?

In this book he rejects the notions of Indian nationhood, India as a Nation in the making. He rejects the idea that all the citizens will be equal. He goes on to harp the notions of nationhood borrowed from Hitler’s Nazi movement. He rejects that India is a secular nation and posits that it is a Hindu Rashtra. He rejects the territorial-political concept of nationhood and puts forward the concept of cultural nationalism, which was the foundation of Nazi ideology. His admiration of Hitler’s ideology and politics is the running thread of the book and he takes inspiration from the massive holocaust which decimated millions of people in Germany. He uses this as a shield to propagate his political ideology. It is this ideology which formed the base of communal common sense amongst a section of the population. “German national pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up purity of the nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races, the Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into a united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”

In the Sangh circles this book is regarded as their Gita. The implications for Indian minorities are presented here in a forthright manner. Today the swayamsevaks brought up on this Gita, do believe in all this but the language of expression is being made more polished so that the poison is coated with honey and administered with ease. Golwalkar goes on to assert, “From the standpoint sanctioned by the experience of shrewd nations, the non-Hindu people in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and revere Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but the glorification of Hindu nation i.e. they must not only give up their attitude of intolerance and ingratitude towards this land and its age long traditions, but must also cultivate the positive attitude of love and devotion instead; in one word, they must cease to be foreigners or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, for less any preferential treatment, not even the citizen’s rights.”

When the Hindutva politics came up in the late 1980s, in the beginning an unsuspecting observer could not comprehend from where has the concept of Hindu nation come up suddenly, why such an intense hatred for minorities, a glance at We… and one becomes clear that those fed on this ideology cannot but be what they are, cannot do anything else than what they did and have been doing since 1990, the Babri demolition, the anti minority violence and an open violation of democratic ethos of the country. These ideas were translated into the stories of atrocities of Muslim kings, the myth of Hindus owning this land from times immemorial and a lot of such make believe concoction. Irrespective of the fact the freedom movement rejected this ideology and its formulations, it was kept alive through the ideological indoctrination work in the RSS shakhas going on ceaselessly.

Golwalkar was also faced with some of the ‘naive’ swaymasevaks wishing to participate in the national movement, more so after the massive Quit India movement was launched. That time Golwalkar was the RSS chief and he dissuaded the people from participating in the movement, and some of them who participated did it in their personal capacity, some of them now claim that they also participated. (e.g. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was onlooker in the anti British movement, was arrested but wriggled out of the jail and later claimed to have participated in the movement.) As matter of fact Golwalkar was very contemptuous towards the anti British movement. There is no mention of presence of RSS in the anti British movement even in most of the sympathetic accounts written about it. Even Nanaji Deshmukh, the foremost leaders of RSS puts this question, why did RSS not take part in the liberation struggle as an organization? (Deshmukh, Victim of Slander, Vision Books, 1979, p.70) Since Golwalkar propounded religion based nationalism, there was no place for anti British stance. “The theories of territorial nationalism and of common danger, which formed the basis of our concept of nation, had deprived us of the positive and inspiring content of our real Hindu Nationhood and made many of the ‘freedom movements’ virtually anti-British movements. Anti Britishism was equated with patriotism and nationalism. This reactionary view has had disastrous effects upon the entire course of freedom movement…” . In a frank defense of British colonialist he reminds the people of RSS pledge, “We should remember that in our pledge we have talked of freedom of the country through defending religion and culture. There is no mention of departure of British in that.” With allies like this British could merrily pursue their policy of divide and rule!

No wonder British never repressed RSS. Also the collusion between Religion based nationalism and colonialism can be understood from such statements. Later the World saw that in tune with this pro imperialist ideology, Golwalkar was to support the US aggression on Vietnam and his successor Sudarshan defended the US aggression against Iraq. The murder of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindutva follower Nathuram Godse not only shocked the whole nation; it led RSS followers to celebrate this event by distributing sweets. While RSS followers were celebrating, and the links of Godse with RSS became apparent, RSS was banned and Golwalkar was arrested. They denied that RSS had any links with Godse. At that time it was easy to claim so as RSS had no written constitution and membership lists, enrollment register etc. Godse was RSS Pracharak and later he joined Hindu Mahasabha and was editing a newspaper, Agrani (leader), the subtitle of the paper was Hindu Rashtra. In the court he denied any links with RSS. Later his brother Gopal Godse, who was also an accomplice in the murder, in an interview given to Times of India (25 Jan 98) stated that his brother Nathuram spoke a deliberate lie in the court, “The appeasement policy followed by him (Gandhi) and imposed on all Congress governments’ encouraged the Muslim separatist tendencies that eventually created Pakistan…Technically and theoretically he (Nathuram) was a member (of RSS), but he stopped workings for it later. His statement in the court that he had left the RSS was to protect the RSS workers who would be imprisoned following the murder. On the understanding that they (RSS workers) would benefit from his dissociating himself from the RSS, he gladly did it.” 

In the wake of the murder of Gandhi, RSS was banned and Golwalkar was jailed, from where he wrote a letter to the Government of India offering to cooperate with the government in ‘dealing with the menace of Communism’ in return for being released from the jail. Incidentally it was also the period when US was on the witch hunt of communists world over. Today, the global US agenda of demonization of Islam, and Muslims world over matches with the RSS agenda, coincidence again? Is this running parallel in the matching agenda US and RSS policies a mere coincidence? For him the notion of Hindu Rashtra remained supreme and he could never reconcile to the secular values of Indian constitution. Time and over again he kept on harping on how *UnBharat* the constitution is and how Manu’s rules are more desirable and profound one’s. The partition of India and the consequent tragedy was registered through the Hindutva eyes, “Even to this day there are many who say, ‘now there is no Muslim problem at all. All those riotous elements who supported Pakistan have gone away once for all. The remaining Muslims are devoted to our country. After all they have no other place to go and they are all bound to remain loyal…It would be suicidal to delude ourselves into believing that they have turned patriot overnight after the creation of Pakistan. On the contrary, Muslim menace has increased a hundredfold by the creation of Pakistan, which has become a springboard for all their future aggressive designs on our country.”

The way to look at Indian communities as Hindus and Muslims as uniform monoliths continues to be exhibited all through. Further he also goes on to label Muslims, Christians and Communists as internal threats to Hindu nation. And this is the ‘ideological fodder ‘ of RSS shakhas and its practical unfoldment is visible in the regular occurrence of attacks against Muslims and Christians. With collapse of Soviet Union, the venom against communists has been given a different turn. And in the third category secularist have also been added up as a threat to Hindu nation. It was Golwalkar again under whose stewardship the RSS gave birth to other organizations to play the divisive role in different arenas of social and political life. He was instrumental in helping bring up Bharatiya Jansangh, Akhil Bhartiya Vidayarthi Parishad, Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, amongst others. The infiltration of RSS cadres in different wings of state apparatus; army, police, bureaucracy, judiciary, education and media was another move initiated by Golwalkar, the effects of which are visible prominently from last two decades. While secular democratic elements, activists have a long road ahead, we need to take care that in the already vitiated atmosphere, the communal divide is not accentuated further by this move of RSS and we put forward the values of humane plural and democratic society and dispel the ideologies which have been playing a very divisive role in the society. 

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