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Jan-Lokpal Revisited

Posted by Mandar Gadre on August 28, 2011

Finally, Anna Hazare ended his fast, and ‘victory’ was celebrated. Though ‘victory’ may be stretching a non-binding parliamentary resolution too far, the first of many battles has been won – a lot of us were stirred and made to think and take some symbolic action. It was amazing to see an old-school Gandhian take up an issue and risk his life to see it through. Without this effort, no one would be even talking about this.

One thing is clear that a healthy democracy is hard to come by. However rosier it sounds when compared with an autocracy or a colony, it is not easy to practice. It takes everyone to play a role: citizens, press, houses of parliament, executive, judiciary, police – everyone. You cannot ignore your role for decades and then suddenly wake up, and since the situation is really bad, justify an extreme solution. A solution which fails to attack the roots of the problem, fails to be a long-term solution. Moreover, it may create an impression of a ‘victory’, while all it has offered is a superficial, temporary patch-up.

Going back to what I wrote in April, many questions remain unanswered. It would serve us well to not forget them.

Some notable comments included how ‘Team Anna’ is ‘using’ the media – kudos to them! I do not see what is wrong with a social movement using media to its fullest advantage. Though there could still be a debate whether Anna Hazare’s methods were democratic, the lawyer in Pranab Mukherjee was suddenly reminded of the laws of the land and warned Anna against breaking them. As ‘Team Anna’ argued for details like bringing the PM under the purview of Lokpal, some editorials and blogs tried to take a 30,000-feet view and argued against the whole idea – though varying in their style and argument (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.) Arundhati Roy picked up her pen to write against Lokpal, and took it one step too far as she proposed a conspiracy theory. The editor of the Open Magazine tried to focus on Anna’s personality and his past, and reminded me of the ‘you-cannot-lynch-the-‘sinner’-if-you-are-not-pure’ story. While Kiran Bedi and Ramachandra Guha briefly talked about deteriorating state of the democracy over many decades, most shied away from speaking about it. Karan Thapar tried taking a high intellectual ground by stating that people would find it difficult to understand his stand (if only there was one!) and talking about age-old points and details in the bill in a fluffy language. Nandan Nilekani took a balanced stand – and then lost ground by saying his admiration for politicians has gone up. Well, he did state that Lokpal can be just one of many solutions, if at all. More than admitting the roots of the problem and attacking the government that it has now lost the moral high ground to claim the supremacy of the parliament, Dr. Abhay Bang suggested a few solutions like decentralization of power. As I continued to search for more discussion of the very idea of Lokpal – the philosophy and ideology, and not just the details of the bill (which can be continually improved) – the website dedicated to the movement (IndiaAgainstCorruption.org) failed to help. Then I turned to Arvind Kejriwal – the young, dynamic face of the anti-corruption movement, an ex-IRS officer, a Magsaysay Award Winner. His speech delivered at IIT Madras – just two weeks before Anna’s fast began – represents what is lacking in this ‘fight-against-corruption’.

He started out by quoting the Jan-Lokpal Bill as “Anna’s Lokpal Bill”; and that “people believe that whatever Anna is saying is right, and whatever the Government is saying is wrong.” I find this idol-centric view disturbing. Addressing the “why’s” of a Lokpal, all he did was to cash on people’s anger about the corruption and state how the current institutions – the CBIs, the CVCs – are not independent and powerful enough. (This should have been a clue!). He wants a Lokpal on the same lines of Hongkong’s ICAC. Anecdotes – that too from a different country in a different era – cannot be an argument. (Otherwise, what about Mao’s Red Brigade wiping out corruption once and for all? That didn’t work!).

Kejriwal argued for a watchdog over ALL of the bureaucracy – all 1.25 crore government employees. Not only that it is not practical, it is not how the system is supposed to work. We will end up creating another huge piece of bureaucracy and it cannot be a long-term solution.

While arguing to bring PM under Lokpal’s purview, Kejriwal said “I dread if tomorrow Madhu Koda becomes PM” and “the security of the country will be in danger”. He went on to say how some 150 of our MPs had criminal charges against them. I expected – at the very least – an honest admission that it was us – the voters – who let such criminals be elected, but I was disappointed. Our MPs come from within us, and nowhere else. By voting irresponsibly or not voting at all, we let them get into the parliament. When will we realize that we are also at fault?

Then Kejriwal took up the argument against the claim that “Lokpal will be a parallel government”. To counter it, he gave examples of independent agencies (CAG, NHRC, CVC, CIC) and how they are not termed as parallel government, and said “why can’t we have one more independent agency?”. Just a few minutes back, he had argued for a Lokpal saying that there was no independent agency. If we do have so many agencies, it is clear that we have failed to make them work. Maybe we should first work on making them independent and powerful.

Further, he tried to counter the point that “Lokpal is too powerful and will sit on everyone’s head.” He gave the example of how an ordinary income tax officer can check PM’s records and we don’t say “he sits on PM’s head”. Well, that officer has only that one power, nothing more. But the Lokpal is being given powers of the judiciary, the investigator, the police and the prosecutor! It IS too much power, and then it does come out as a parallel government.

I continued to listen to him only to be bombarded with more naïve points. He put forth a plan to “go to villages and educate them about the Jan-Lokpal Bill” – in 9 days flat! I wish it were that easy. The 9-day education was to be followed by 6 days of evening candle marches and mass-burning of government’s version of the bill. Nothing wrong, but nothing effective. He urged the audience to change the country – like Egyptians throwing off their government! I would like to understand how one can compare the two. When he appeals to everyone to take a week off for the country, I hope we do not forget the fight after that week is over. I do not see where the direction of this ‘movement’ is, who is providing the ideological leadership, what is the long term solution, and whether we are willing to accept the blame that we did not play our part in the democratic process.

Disturbingly, I am not imagining all of this. Kejriwal adds that ‘we cannot fail this time, we don’t know when we will get next chance – maybe after a few more decades’. To me, that is precisely the mistake. Democracy is a process, not a week-long fest. If we are going to continue not playing our role and hoping for another ‘Team Anna’ to take a stand after every few decades, we haven’t learned what democracy is.

Sadly, even this was not the most disturbing piece. Kejriwal, in the hottest part of his speech, put forth a plan for 15th of August – to switch off the lights for one hour, “because this independence and democracy have given us nothing but darkness!!”

Please take a moment to read that again. Does our generation even know how we achieved the independence? Do we even know the darkness that prevailed before the independence and democracy? And how entitled do we feel!! What did WE do to make this democracy successful? What did WE do to carry on the legacy of our freedom fighters? We have NO right to say that the independence gave us only darkness. We clearly do not understand our responsibilities. I am sad and concerned.

I hope we can still make it right.

Mandar Gadre.

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About the Lokpal and Jan Lokpal Bills – II

Posted by Mandar Gadre on April 8, 2011

(Part I of this post is here.)

For those who may wish to read the draft bills in full, here they are: the original Lokpal bill proposed by the Government (GoI) and the Jan Lokpal bill (Version 2.1) proposed by the ‘Civil’ Society (unlike the GoI). Also, here is the comparison between the two, put up by the ‘Civil Society’ (CS).

The CS has already done most of the job of tearing down the GoI version in their published comparative analysis. Looking at the Jan Lokpal bill, here are some points (in the order of their appearance in the draft; with rewording used only for the sake of brevity and simplicity):

1. Sections 5(1) and 6(1): The age of any acting member of Lokpal has to be between 40 and 70:
Arbitrary, at best. You can become a President – and have power over the Lokpal – at 35!

2. Section 5(5): Setting up of a Lokpal Fund which gets money from all the fines, penalties and 10% from the loss of public money recovered under Section 19. Disposal of this fund is completely at the discretion of Lokpal and it may be used only for enhancement/upgradation/extension of Lokpal:
Good going, O self-feeding powerful machine! And what happens to the rest 90%?

3. Section 8(1a): One of the prime duties is to ensure integrity of its own staff and employees:
‘How’ is the devil, dear. If we could ensure that, we would have done it. Or – here’s an idea – let’s do it now with the systems we already have in place.

4. Section 8(3): Suo moto can initiate action against any official or person:
And what do we do in case of the misuse of this power? Go to the Lokpal above the Lokpal, silly!

5. Section 8(5): Orders from Lokpal are binding on the government:
Over the democratically elected government! Why even call it a representative democracy then?

6. Section 10(2), 12: Lokpal deemed a court and police officer:
!! Still not enough power to be corruptible, right?

7. Section 13(B): Provision for punishing corrupt Lokpal employees:
… do I need say anything here?

8. Sections 20, 21: Whistleblower protection and Citizen’s Charters:
Some good things there; if we can do such things, what are we waiting for? Do we need Lokpal for those?

9. Section 24: Abolish the already-existing Central Vigilance Commission:
Why?? And then all vigilance admin staff then has to go work for the Lokpal. Playing a little shuffling game, are we?

10. Section 25: Investigation Wing to have all the powers of Delhi Special Police Establishment:
Why? What is the DSPE doing then? Guess – part of it will be transferred!

11. Section 27: Cannot prosecute member of Lokpal wrt anything done “in good faith”:
Right, they can do no wrong. Hmm.

12. Section 28(3): Public servants not submitting a statement of property:
First, the deadline to submit the statement is 31st August. If it is not done by then, they get a one-month grace-period. Why?? Then just make the deadline 30th Sept!

13. Section 28 (B2): Complaint against an MP about taking bribe for an action in the parliament – it will merely be forwarded to the ethics committee:
Why?? Isn’t that serious enough?

14. Section 30(2): Investigation will be completed in 6 months, in any case not more than 1 year:
Why? Just choose one! The GoI version firmly says 6 months (though it cleverly avoids saying anything about the actual trial).

15. Section 30A: Lokpal will make “every effort” to put all the information on its website:
So it’s not binding! Wait – what is binding on the Lokpal, again?

16. Sections 32-2A and 34: Lokpal can make rules about itself:
How convenient! You got me there!

Mandar Gadre.

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About the Lokpal and Jan Lokpal Bills – I

Posted by Mandar Gadre on April 8, 2011

For those who may wish to read the draft bills in full, here they are: the original Lokpal bill proposed by the Government (GoI) and the Jan Lokpal bill (Version 2.1) proposed by the ‘Civil’ Society (unlike the GoI). Also, here is the comparison between the two, put up by the ‘Civil Society’ (CS).

A few thoughts:

1. Do we really need another institution to control what we do? If we (voters and men-women of various professions) and our bureaucracy-politicians-police are not doing the respective jobs right, there is no guarantee that adding one more institution will really help.

2. You have a body X which is supposed to a job and do it right. But since you don’t believe in X anymore, you’re appointing Y. I don’t see any guarantee that Y will be incorruptible. Where does it end? Or does it just give us someone new to point our fingers at? We don’t accept the blame; we’re bored of blaming the government, so now we will blame the Lokpal!

3. On a philosophical note, Gandhiji said “learn self-rule”, meaning the rule of your own conscience, without a need of an outsider watchdog. If we don’t do that, no collection of governing/eye-keeping/watchdog bodies will truly help. Why do we always need someone to babysit us, our government, our judiciary and more? Apparently our conscience is not troubled enough to keep us awake at night.

4. The ultimate challenge is to create a system which will work largely independent of people of such tremendous incorruptibility. There has to be a feedback loop. By design, it should be largely robust to the personal specificities of the ones running it. Democracy tries to achieve this, by having elections as feedback loops.

5. The Lokpal can override the police, the government and act as a court. Isn’t that too much power? If the whole issue is that power corrupts, how is creating something EVEN more powerful [than the government] and giving it in the hands of EVEN fewer persons [than the government] helpful? And how is this different from all of police, courts having to finally listen to the Lokpal? How is this different from putting your faith in a good, benevolent ruler king/queen (like we have done for most of our history)?

6. If we think by arranging for “requirements by the Lokpal to be transparent”, the transparency can be achieved, why not do it for all the existing systems and the politicians and officers? It’s easier said than done. And, if making punishments more severe stops corruption, we will keep needing more and more watchdogs, as it is clear that we cannot be guided by our conscience but only by the fear of getting caught and punished.

7. Though I do not wish to question the integrity and good intentions of the proponents of Jan Lokpal bill, is fast-unto-death a democratic way to go? Did I miss the public debate about this? Have all the discussions and negotiations failed? I have the highest respect for all the soldiers against corruption; but is bringing the government down on its knees by threatening to take our lives a good example of social leadership in a democracy?

What can we do, then?

We can work on our existing systems – the institutions, the laws. Use RTI to its best. Build public opinion and pressure to implement the current laws better. Let’s make the public voices stronger, press truly free. The answer is not an arbitrarily selected body which can override the democratically elected government. And if we think the current system is failing, it is not because there are not enough watchdogs. It is failing because we have not used the public pressure enough and hence rendered the feedback loops ineffective.

Yes, Anna Hazare is at least doing something against corruption. Definitely. It is humbling and great that someone is so passionate about it. But as all of us get all pumped up, isn’t it a good idea to know what we are signing up for?

Mandar Gadre.

+++

[Edit: 9 April '11]

Addendum:

We have screwed up our own democratic setup for more than 5 decades. We haven’t voted – especially the so-called educated class, haven’t given attention to raising public awareness, haven’t worked on our press. We haven’t matured in the arena of public discourse.

And now we suddenly come up with something drastic and think that since the situation is so screwed up, any such drastic action is in itself justified and obviously required.

This allows us to think that not doing our part for decades is still fine and can be remedied just by appointing a new body. Now we can keep blaming the Lokpal if the corruption continues, but never take the onus on ourselves. If we want to call ourselves a true democracy, we have to participate and do our part. To me, appointing Lokpal and wishing that everything will be set right is not only undemocratic but escapist. We still don’t want to accept the blame and get our hands dirty.

I tried to write about this with my limited knowledge, understanding and socio-political vocabulary. I got called a cynic. Am I one, when I still believe we can make the democracy work if we all truly play our part, without appointing another laaThi-wielding officer to kick our asses.

This will set a precedent where we do nothing to nurture our democracy for decades, and suddenly spring up to action and adopt drastic measures. Democracy does not come that easy.

Mandar Gadre.

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Two Virtues of Information

Posted by Mandar Gadre on September 23, 2010

It’s clichéd to say we are in the information age. Some are getting drowned in the flood; some are trying hard to stay afloat. Others are sitting on the side and some are doing their part by throwing in noisy bits. More we are exposed to the information, more apparent are its effects on our ability to concentrate, to take a pause and ponder, to think deeply and to discern. Like this book or countless other blog and news articles, people are writing about distractions of modern life. But the availability of information sure has more than its obvious virtues.

With the disclaimer that by ‘information’ I do not mean ‘knowledge’ and that mere information is useless without the ability to reason, let us look at two virtues of easier availability of information:

For one, fact-checking has become easier. People can’t fool you so easily anymore, and you do not have to take your friend, colleague or the local newspaper for their word. Provided you know where to look, and you don’t throw away the thinking cap, you can quickly gather a lot of reliable information on a range of issues. Websites maintained by science magazines, academics in universities all over the world, independent think-tanks offering arguments and counter-arguments.. the wealth of information available at your fingertips can be leveraged to wade through all the cacophony. This is not to say one should believe in these particular sources, but merely to point out the importance of weeding out sources by one’s own questioning and reason.

I will offer an example of what I mean by “if you know where to look”. In fact-checking, among other things, you look for the kind of rigor displayed by Sara Lippincott who retired as an editor at The New Yorker. As the magazines archives put it: Explaining her work to an audience at a journalism school, Sara once said, “Each word in the piece that has even a shred of fact clinging to it is scrutinized, and, if passed, given the checker’s imprimatur, which consists of a tiny pencil tick.”

Curiously enough, this goes against our natural tendency of accepting all information initially during comprehension and discarding false information only later. As Gary Marcus has discussed in his elegant book ‘Kluge’, the 17th century philosopher Spinoza had noted this quirk of the human mind. To test his hypothesis, psychologist Daniel Gilbert did some experiments in the 1990s, by presenting subjects with true and false propositions and observing that the sequence was more like hearing–accepting–evaluating than hearing–evaluating–accepting. As Marcus puts it, this might be because our belief formation mechanisms evolved from ‘machinery first used for perception’. We are fooled because the linguistic world (like the one in which we live right now) is much less trustworthy than the visual world (in which you believe what you see).

The other advantage is the ease with which you can hope to form a more studied and balanced opinion on various subjects, because you are less likely to be blind to various facets of issues being raised. When information is suppressed, one is left at the mercy of those who control the narrow channels of information which may not be reliable in themselves. Though nowhere close to being ideal; carrying out a systematic survey on a particular issue is much easier in this internet age. The multiple sides of technological, environmental, political, social, religious, economic issues can be learned through news from across the world, blogs, podcasts, videos, online open courseware, websites of various institutes and organizations working directly and indirectly on those topics etc.

The ability to check the “facts” that are thrown at you and to simultaneously explore the otherwise hidden sides of things emerges as a tool of tremendous potential. The keys to leveraging this power are curiosity and reason. It means we can study, question and revise our earlier beliefs based on new facts which come to the light. It means we can get out of the paralyzing dogmas more easily and form our belief in more balanced ways.

And most importantly, it is easier to become and be well-rounded in opinion and hopefully, rational.

(Thanks to Karthik Sivaramakrishnan for the discussions.)

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Passing It On

Posted by Mandar Gadre on July 1, 2010

I beg your pardon for starting this post on a scatological note (find a pun here). While out traveling in the past couple of months, I came across two amusing signs in public restrooms: “We aim to please. You aim too, please!” or “If you sprinkle while you tinkle, be a sweetie wipe the seatie!“

Despite such notices, frequently one is forced to use dirty washrooms in airplanes, restaurants, corporate buildings or government facilities. What do you do if you see it has been left in an inappropriate state by the previous user? More important: when you know that after you leave, there is no way for the subsequent users to find out who the real culprit was (whether it was you or someone before you) and you do not want to come off as one, what do you do? Maybe no one is going to notice or if they do they are not going to care; but the safest way out is to restore it in a proper way – the same as you would expect it to be in when you needed to use it. Thus, out of sheer fear of creating a bad impression of you – if not out of concern about proper use of public spaces – you make it as pleasant as possible for the next user.

This need not apply only to public facilities: it holds for various kinds of ‘footprints’ left behind by one generation of ‘users’ for the next to take over. Take the environment itself. Or the use of public transport. Or any rental facility. Or teaching, especially where the lessons have a highly sequential build-up. Out of these, the situations in which such fear of bad impression is unable to move people to be more careful and responsible are where the previous ‘user’ is hidden from the next ones (trash thrown in public parks) or where the perceived expectation to be responsible is very low (we should probably work on changing such perceptions).

While dealing with various kinds of people and situations, we need to use different kinds of motivations and encouragements. Could we use this ‘fear/shame of ugly footprint’ to get things moving? The environmentalists keep tooting the pass-on-a-beautiful-earth-to-your-children horn, and they should be offered more amplifiers. We see it working in a relay race – however bad your earlier team-mate has performed, you try your best once the baton is handed over to you. In fact in that case, everyone knows who might be the poor performer, but that does not make your role any easier or the expectations any lower. If you want to win badly enough, that is. It probably works in the corporate world too – if you are the new CEO, there is a limit to your complaining about the mistakes of your predecessor. You have got to take what you have inherited, and build it up from there.

Could this work in social organizations and politics? We see politicians often blaming the previous government(s) for various things. Maybe a grace period of one year is alright, but nothing more. Forget the national or the state government, can we make this work at the level of local civic bodies, where there is more direct and frequent contact with the common people?

In our various roles, we are all going to inherit problems. Instead of mere complaining, we need to ask ourselves what we did with what we received. Can we have a pass-down with at least some of the issues resolved? If yes, we could all be called a little more civilized.

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MonThLy mAdNeSS: aPRiL

Posted by Mandar Gadre on May 1, 2010

Whoever said ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ probably forgot the ‘more entertaining’ bit. Here is the Backbenchers’ Serving of the monthly round-up: some whackiness, some nonsense and some plain stupidity.

This month literally (well, I should say figuratively) rocked… What with the humongous drama called IPL (a humorous take on IPL here at Backbenchers’); Lalit Modi riding the waves of riches and drowning in the troubled waters of controversy; still-honourable-no-more-a-minister Shashi Tharoor getting even more free time to tweet; and another World Leaders’ Nuclear Summit in US culminating in obvious rhetoric and some more of.. nothing.

In 2010, India definitely seems on her path to glory as Mayawati committed herself to interrupted power supply for Uttar Pradesh, and children – our future – are made to walk on fire, perhaps to prepare them for what lies ahead. The sadness of such things is accompanied only by the ridiculous irresponsibility as exemplified by our governmental entities, when they claim that white ants ‘ate’ the 24 kg cannabis (better known as charas) from the official warehouse. (The innovation does not end here, by the way – the animals in Coimbtore zoo are being fed ice-cream to fight the heat.) And if you thought that the problems are limited to the politicians making blunders at the helm, think again: you could find a drunkard passed out behind a jet engine.

But it’s not just us Indians who can do such stuff. Things change, and nothing testifies for that better than the Son of Hamas who went on to become an agent of Shin Bet. In the New Occurrences Section this month, we saw a possible new species as one of the members of their fairer sex tried to tell us (we haven’t gotten very innovative after naming those crazy rays as ‘X-rays’, have we?); and kangaroos thought to be popping up in Japan. While a teen sued his mom for hacking the Facebook account, workers in a factory in Denmark demanded more beer, and not just during lunch! One of the dumbest robbers the world has seen called up ahead in the bank for the money ‘to go’ while another in his line of tradeleft his wallet as a parting gift.

In the (so-called) most free country in the world, though huge number of dreamy-eyed immigrant workers have come from various places, some people still want to live in the bygone era, marking April as the Confederate History Month, and turning a blind eye to the horrendous practice of slavery.

The world is showing a mixed performance on the Scientific Front. While we may have been getting a clue about how gut bacteria evolved to feast on Sushi; and about how men’s and women’s smiles mean different things (as if we didn’t know the real difference already!); some people are preparing for the 2012 doomsday! Satellites may now be issuing speeding tickets and we might have levitating wheelchairs, but in one corner of this world, people are doing hilarious things to get unmarried men to tie a knot. The ‘Deenga Gawar‘ festival has married women in traditional attire take out a procession, beating up unmarried men with the belief this would herald their early marriage! Seriously, ‘this happens only in India’! And if you thought religious institutions were the only ones punishing people in weird ways, chew on this: the Goldman Sachs CEO is to perform community service as – wait for it – Treasury Secretary! Wow.

If you want to know what takes the cake in the ick-factor department, this is The One: Holiday Inn in UK is now offering human bed warmers.

Have a good month ahead, folks!

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MonThLy mAdNeSS: mArCH

Posted by Mandar Gadre on March 31, 2010

Whoever said ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ probably forgot the ‘more entertaining’ bit. Here is the Backbencher Serving of the monthly round-up: some whackiness, some nonsense and some plain stupidity.

Maqbool Fida Hussain – whose first name means ‘popular, accepted’, by the way – shifted base to a less liberal Qatar. The things that a 94-year old man has to do for money! The news was followed by a big debate on what your freedom of expression really means, whether you have that right at all and if yes, how much can I offend you. Few would be able to pack it up under two minutes, like Philip Pullman, the author of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ does here: “no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it.” While we are on this topic, here is a great way to evade defamation lawsuits.

Coming to Jesus you gotta give it to the French. When they come home having thoroughly enjoyed the cheese, wine and sex , they can call God on the Confession Hotline – and why wouldn’t the snooty French do that? While they are at it, they could ask God about the virgin birth in sharks. Now you don’t feel so special about Mary and Jesus, do you? No wonder the bishops don’t like it. If not God, maybe one could ask the Texas Education Board. They might have some answers!

While that was happening, we back home took our obsession with quotas a step ahead, by fighting for a Quota within Quota. Why not give every child a paper outlining all the opportunities and perks they are going to get throughout their life, for their ‘right choice’ of the home to be born in (alas, if they had one)? And when they die, maybe there would be a quota in the heaven too. I know, atheists, we’re not even in the picture.

In the US, the economic slowdown might be a blessing for the census. Out of jobs, now even the Ph.D.’s are working as clerks. (In fact, if you don’t have a Ph.D., you have hope: some think success follows college rejection letters). The counting for the census might be more accurate and efficient.. well, unless the superclerks have spent their time in graduate school on social networks. It may not be that far-fetched: here is a police officer who took facebooking a bit too far. And talking of social networks, Twitter is going to make up in numbers what it lacks in length: it has already celebrated 10 billion tweets, and there are people who keep count!

I gather it was all dark till 600 million years ago. But some people still manage to forget their babies and others have no clue what their own product is for.

There is still hope, folks; there are good things happening like Canada finally getting its gender-neutral national anthem. For the rest of them, keep watching this space!

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Going Through and Beyond

Posted by Mandar Gadre on March 22, 2010

Recently, I was outraged to find out that one of my Indian friends here who was engaged and about to get married in a few months had no clue whatsoever about the menstrual cycle. Mind you, this guy is from one of the four metros and educated in one of the premier engineering institutes. He is probably not the worst representative of the urban middle class. I have met numerous ‘simple’ guys like him who seemed deprived of any basic sex education. Parents and schools are equally responsible: each assumes it’s the responsibility of the other. When mandated to have sex-education sessions, schools just make it a formality and get away with a haphazard, behind-closed-doors talk.

On the other hand, romance and sexual activity are also made a big deal of. When we make a big deal of anything related to sex and frequently label it as ‘bad, immoral, wrong, of low taste’, we suppress the natural curiosity among the youth and a healthy expression of their sexuality. This breeds ignorance and disrespect. If one does not know about something, how would one learn, understand, relate to, and respect it? Without knowledge and respect, how is one supposed to work shoulder-to-shoulder with others through various challenges in life? How is a man who lacks the essential knowledge of his partner’s physical and mental well-being supposed to stand strong with her? Not behind, not in front – but with her, on her side, as a good partner?

I am tempted to think that we have neither learned to think of and respect people in general and women in particular as unique, free, independent individuals with their own individual opinions, aspirations, qualities and faults (without any generalizations!); nor to freely express our natural sexuality. The latter has led to muted expression or an unhealthy and lewd one – both equally unacceptable.

Could one trace this back to influential leaders and thinkers of last century? Gandhiji famously denounced sex-for-pleasure, and said husband and wife should live together as brother and sister, having sex only for procreation. He used young females in his ‘experiments’ to test out his control over carnal desires. When he took the oath of celibacy at the age of 36 while still married to Kasturba, did he ask her opinion? Dayanand Saraswati, through his Arya Samaaj promoted completely sex-segregated schooling. One could find many more such examples where women are singled out, and looked at in an ‘us’ not equal to ‘them’ way. Perhaps it stems from much older thoughts and is much more complex: we have had goddesses all along – but sadly, all we have done is worship them in the temples and give their earthly manifestations a sub-human treatment outside in the real world.

When such basic instincts as romance and sex are suppressed, people get all the more drawn to them. Haven’t we learned this when we deal with kids? More you deny them something, more they want to experience it. Let them have it, and eventually they outgrow it, learn to look beyond and not get stuck in there. At this point, one remembers Osho Rajneesh who promoted fulfilling the carnal desires so as to not end up being obsessed with them: suppression leads only to alternate and often disrespectful expression. Once one goes through the experience, one enjoys it, appreciates it and is more likely to steer clear of the obsession. Through is the way to Beyond.

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Posted in General, Philosophy | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

“Social Service”?

Posted by Mandar Gadre on March 2, 2010

Remember those history lessons about pre-independence India when we would read about the activists who not only fought against the British Raj but also worked on various social issues? These social reformers would fight for women’s equal rights, for equal opportunities in education and employment to all sections of the society, fight against caste divides and social injustice.

One of the acts much talked about was supporting widows to help them live a normal life with dignity and respect as an equal member of the society. Back in those days, getting them remarried would be the way to achieve that. Shameful as it is, there was immense inhibition and opposition not just to a widow’s leading a normal life as a single woman but also to her reentering the wedlock. (The fact that the widow had a hope of a normal life only after marrying again is disgusting, but that is whole another point.) Many reformers would remarry widows themselves trying to set a positive example. What I wonder about is what actually went through their minds as they would decide to do it.

Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve, a luminary in the field of social reforms, says in his autobiography “Looking Back” (1936), narrating how he asked for the girl’s hand in marriage to her father –

“I told him…..I had made up my mind to marry a widow. He sat silent for a minute and then hinted that there was no need to go in search of such a bride.”

From the perspective of the society, it is a grand act. Not specific to Maharshi Karve or any one reformer, is it completely unreasonable to ask – what if the person doing this ‘grand act’, however good the intention, had even the slightest feeling of doing ‘charity’ and making the person on the receiving end forever indebted and grateful? What if through a few words or an action it became clear that the reformer did this and obliged the widow? Worse, what if the reformer eventually behaved in a condescending way? How would the person at the receiving end feel? It would be disgusting and devastating to say the least. Acts in ‘social service’ (and under other banners) should not be insulting to the individual’s dignity and freedom. If one can’t adhere to that, it would be wise not to do them at all. It applies not only to marrying a widow, but also to many other such acts – adopting an orphan child for example. It is not hard to imagine at what points of time it might all go wrong.

What if one wants to do good but is not sure what he/she would feel after the fact? What is the alternative?

In an excellent article published last year, Vijay Mahajan gives examples of social innovators who have taken the route of giving social service a business-like structure, through what they call ‘social entrepreneurship’. To paraphrase him:

“There are two elements of [this] strategy:
1. Philanthropies like the Gates Foundation, which are more like social venture capital funds than grant makers.
2. Making use of highly paid, cause-driven expert professionals in place of volunteers.”

Business-like approach is very much applicable to income-generating activities. Mahajan gives three examples in handloom and handicrafts: Fab India, Anokhi and Rangasutra. Those which feature social service-like healthcare converted to social enterprise include Aravind Eye Hospital, Sulabh Shauchalay Network, SELCO (set up by Harish Hande in Bangalore; working on Solar Lighting Systems).

It is difficult for one to do a good deed and do it without attachment and keep the benefactor free of any feeling of obligation and indebtedness. The alternative of doing good at an appropriate distance has much less chance of condescending behavior and feeling of charity, much less chance of insulting the individual’s dignity and freedom.

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Mahatma Phule and his ‘Baliraja Proposal’

Posted by Mandar Gadre on February 25, 2010

Sometime last year I got a chance to attend a very interesting talk on ‘Mahatma Phule’s Baliraja Proposal’. Organized by two societies which identify themselves as Christian organizations, the talk was delivered by a very passionate, animated speaker by the name of Dr. Thom Wolf. Dr. Wolf is President and Professor of Global Studies, University Institute, New Delhi.

The speaker outlined Phule’s life and work, and how he had experience the deep caste-based divide in the society. More than the excellent biographical sketch, the talk revolved around Phule’s proposal for uplifting of the poor and disadvantaged through education and social justice. How much do we remember Phule’s body of work – starting from a school for girls and the ‘untouchables’ in the 1850’s to his numerous writings on the state of society at that time? This piece titled “About the griefs of the Mangs and Mahars” by one of his early students Muktabai, exemplifies Phule’s contribution – wherein the ones who had suffered had finally found a voice. Still bound by the caste system, as India struggles with same basic issues – poverty, education and equal opportunity – the so-called ‘Baliraja Proposal’ put forth by Phule is worth studying, once again. In particular, it will be worth looking at two of the salient points:

Baliraja as the cultural leader: Phule invoked the story of Baliraja and the deity Vishnu (the creator) in Hindu mythology. The story portrays how Baliraja had to give up everything he owned before surrendering himself to satisfy Vishnu’s demands. Phule used that imagery to show the suppression of the servicemen of the society including the farmer by the ‘upper-caste’ few who believed that they were the rightful ones to carry forward the sacred Vedas. What Phule proposed was reinstating the ‘Baliraja’ in the Indian society to his rightful place, and making progress under his mentorship.

Phule’s philosophy: Kancha Ilaiah, Hydrabad’s professor and head of the Department of Political Science at Osmania University, compares Ambedkar, Marx, and Gandhi: “Karl Marx thought of only social, economic and political liberation but left the question of spiritual liberation untouched. Gandhi thought of social, political and spiritual liberation but completely ignored the problem of economic liberation of the people.” To quote Thom Wolf:

“Ilaiah positions Ambedkar .. in contrast to Marx and Gandhi.. only Ambedkar worked out a comprehensive scheme of liberation—social, political, economic and spiritual.” Ilaiah’s clear conclusion: “Only Ambedkar thought about all the four processes of liberation. Therein lies his greatness.” And therein also lies the greatness of Ambedkar’s intellectual and social mentor: Jotirao Phule. For Phule was the only person other-than-and-before Ambedkar who so fully thought through the needed changes for Indian transformation. And Phule thus became the one person both Ambedkar and Gandhi acknowledged as their own guru. For it was Phule alone who, in the 19th century, worked from a comprehensive scheme for India’s social, political, economic, and spiritual transformation.”

The various Christian thinkers seem to portray how Phule’s philosophy and approach to social upliftment is the Christian theological thought with no place for inequality, where everyone is considered God’s child. Gandhi lost the ground there, with his explicit labeling of the ‘untouchables’ as the ‘harijan’. Such labels never let anyone get over the past divides and truly treat fellow countrymen respectfully as unique, free individuals.

Clearly, the Hindu caste system was blatantly against social equality and justice, and we are still suffering from it. In the 21st century it probably would be wise to look beyond how religion affected the social scenario and into the socio-economic implications of Phule’s body of work, and not get stuck in the debate whether his philosophy is coincident with Christianity or not. Whether an approach for social upliftment seems to fit with a certain theological thought and past social scenario is less relevant. I do not think we need the backing of a particular religious framework to learn from Phule. What we can learn today, as the farmers of India are committing suicides burdened with a plethora of issues, is that there has to be more focus on the problems at the grassroot level without which we cannot attain any of the four lofty goals: economical, political, social and spiritual. It would serve us well to revisit the teachings of one of the early social reformers we have had.

Recommended reading:
Thom Wolf’s essay: Nations Progress-prone and Progress-resistant

Posted in Development, Politics, Religion | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

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