The Stinky Politics of the Khushboo Saga

For those of you seriously concerned about the bizarre reactions to the safe premarital sex comment, the Indian Express runs an analysis of the politics behind the anti-Khushboo madness here.

Kyunki Dilli Dur Hai

Rakesh Sinha has a very sensible column in the Express today, in response to the Jehanabad jail break. His argument is that the Red Menace can be combatted most effectively by an efficient police network with local intelligence, rather than by Central efforts to send in troops with no ground coordination. A must read for those interested in the strategic aspects of counter-terrorism in India.

More of the Same?

Just when reports of Pakistan's acceptance of Indian aid made you think that this was an epochal moment in the relationship between the countries, here's indication that it's back to business for our new found friends (see also BBC's Why the Dispute over Indian army help)

Wisely, though, the Indian army is seeking to downplay the incident after initially publicising it, thereby avoiding some responsibility for the squandering of goodwill generated by Indian assistance towards the general relief effort.

There also appears to be some controversy over the Indian relief effort in Kashmir. While the BBC calls it a "cruel joke", Indian news sources appear to give the Army high points for its efforts to bring relief to the devastated regions (see this and this). Given that this is an opportunity to show the people of Kashmir that the rest of India cares about them, it would be a shame if apathy and the usual approach to disaster relief were allowed to prevail.

Quake Relief

There appears to have been a massive spike in visits to this blog in the last 2 or 3 days, the total number of visits is more than a thousand now. Let me take this opportunity to mention that for those seeking updated information on the quake relief efforts, or wondering which organisations to donate to, the erstwhile tsunami relief blog is now the Quake Help blog and provides details on both.

Also I'd be interested in knowing how you're making contributions to quake relief, and how you contributed to the tsunami relief effort. I had a quirky system during the tsunami - I desisted from drinking for a whole term and instead donated the money I would have spent on drinking to Oxfam's tsunami appeal at the end of term. I'm planning to do the same for the quake, but I'm not sure this is the most efficient way of achieving the relief objective so I'm hoping to get some better ideas for this from your comments.

Is India free?

I'm often in a minority of one when I tell friends that I believe free speech is too easily restricted in India, and our expressive civil liberties are too often taken for granted by the system and by citizens. The latest controversy to hit the Indian blogosphere just strengthens my conviction - see this and this for the lowdown on the IIPM-Gaurav Sabnis-JAM Mag face-off. The post which was targetted is here, linking to an article in JAM Magazine here.

Here's the irony - a man comments on what appears to be a scam, and is threatened by an institution for doing this. Rather than having his speech rights protected, he loses his job, and no action is taken against the institution. Too much free speech?

Happiness Olympics

Apparently Indians are the world's 4th happiest people. Australia, the US and Egypt take the podium positions. We beat out Canada and Britain which share 5th place, and Hungarians are the world's most miserable people (perhaps because they're always hung(a)ry...)

Is there something I'm missing here?

Prithvi.

Bloggers without Borders

This deserves publicity. Please pick it up and feel free to run it on your blogs. Also check out the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-dissidents and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "How to Blog Safely" Guide.

Prithvi.

The Two Indias and the Politics of Protest

Got this from Frontline - in Delhi, a protest led by Resident Welfare Associations resulted in a rollback of fares imposed by the Delhi government; whereas in Orissa, the cabinet and the legislative assembly fail to take action on the Fishing in Chilika Regulation Bill inspite of regular protests at the local and State level, and the Supreme Court's recognition of the rights of the fisherfolk.

What's going on?

International Voice of the People Survey

Here are the very interesting results of Gallup's International Voice of the People Survey for South Asia (thanks T). The survey is a mix of the predictable and the surprising, for e.g -

1. While only 1% of Indians surveyed trusted politicians, 61% trusted the police and the army. Given media and cultural representations of the police (and increasingly, the army) this is a surprising finding indeed.
2. Perhaps even more surprisingly, 77% of Indians surveyed do not believe that India is democratically governed. This in spite of all our talk about being the world's greatest/largest/most successful democracy. Can we call a nation democratic if its people do not believe it is being democratically governed?
3. And finally, while 18% of the Pakistanis surveyed said they were most influenced by their religious leaders, no statistically significant percentage of surveyed Indians did so.

Do you find the results of the survey contrary to your assumptions too?

An Alternative to Reservations

The recent flap over the Supreme Court’s decision on reservations for admissions to private educational institutions and the government’s reactions to it has put the question of reservations back on the front-burner. This is, in my opinion, where the reservation debate rightfully belongs. Merely because the political consensus in the country says something, does not necessarily mean that it is the correct view; and the Supreme Court’s intervention has brought to the fore the need for an impartial judiciary willing to act as a counter-majoritarian check on exactly such consensuses.
But that bit of hyperbole is not what I’m really concerned about discussing here. What I do plan to deal with is why I believe there is no need for reservations in India, and how the social problems which are ostensibly being corrected by reservations can actually be addressed far less problematically with other methods. Justifications for (and against) reservations can be broadly divided into two categories – consequentialist and moralist justifications. Consequentialist justifications for reservations look at the consequences of reservations as their merits, consequentialist opposition to reservation looks at the consequences as demerit. Similarly, moralist justifications look at reservations as being imperative because of the morality of ensuring social justice, substantive justice etc., whereas moralist opposition looks at reservations being immoral (or unacceptable) because of the essential immorality of the State privileging one community over another. I’m leaving out of the loop here that form of opposition which asserts that reservations (and affirmative action) are immoral because of the inherent superiority of upper castes. While there may well be many people who hold this opinion, I would believe (and hope) that such arguments would not gain much ground in public debate today.
Before I go any further, a distinction must be made between affirmative action and reservations, because this is essential to the argument which follows. Not all forms of affirmative action involve reservations. Affirmative action is a substantive equality enhancing measure which aims at annulling the effects of historical discrimination in a given society. There are thus many forms of affirmative action, many of which do not involve the prescription of quotas, or even legal intervention. There is nothing prima facie inconsistent in supporting affirmative action in principle and yet opposing reservations, something which I am about to do.
Now affirmative action is usually to be justified on a moral ground – that there is a moral right of those who are historically discriminated against to reach a situation where the effects of such discrimination are removed. Hence, arguments against affirmative action must also counter it on the moral ground, that mere formal equality (ensuring non-discrimination by law, for example) is sufficient. I do not intend to go into this debate; I believe that the moral imperatives of affirmative action are strong enough. On the other hand, reservations as a means of affirmative action are often (though admittedly not always) justified on consequential grounds – that given our political systems and the predominance of upper castes in administration and education and public life, it is the most effective means of ensuring affirmative action. This may or may not be true, but I would like to offer a moral argument against reservations, without seeking to present a moral argument against the principle of affirmative action.

There are two levels of argument based on morality against the system of reservations in India today. The first level is an argument from merit, the second is an argument from multiple equality. The merit argument has a simple and a complex merit aspect - the simple merit argument is that merit alone can be the basis for selection by the State, as an offshoot of its commitment to neutrality. This is of course not a meaningful argument in light of our Constitution's providing the State with a socialist mandate, the State can well act in favour of the underprivileged at the expense of the privileged. The complex merit argument is that while the State can privilege certain deprived communities over others, it should not do so in certain fields (e.g. employment, education and so on) because these are fields which either depend wholly on merit for their importance (as it would be in the case of education) or because these are fields which the State does not have the moral authority to determine membership of (e.g. employment). The complex merit view does have some "merit" in it, but the problem with this view is that it could be taken to deny all affirmative action on the same basis.

The multiple equality argument is more convincing. This argument puts forth the view that equality and discrimination occur at many levels. Deprivation and discrimination on the basis of social status, for historical reasons or due to a lack of political empowerment are one form of inequality which requires to be addressed. There are also other forms of inequality which deserve to be addressed - predominantly economic inequality, but also gender and sexual equality. Many advocates of reservations today would recoil from providing reservations purely to those below the poverty line, and perhaps a lesser majority to women and sexual minorities. By providing for reservations for one segment of persons, the State is privileging one form of discrimination over another. Have women, the historically poor and gays faced lesser discrimination than lower castes?

This problem of privileging would not occur in a non-quota based affirmative action system, for example as in a diversity based system. In such systems, those with a higher likelihood of historical discrimination (e.g. the daughter of Dalit farmers in rural AP) are higher placed to gain access than those without such a likelihood of discrimination (e.g. Oxford-educated Brahmin from Calcutta). Such diversity based systems would also go a long way in answering merit-based criticisms of affirmative action (though not always, a diversity based system could provide for "points" to be allotted on different criteria, some of which could relate to historical discrimination).

But a significant problem still remains. Undeniably, SCs/STs/OBCs have been historically wronged in India. Reservations are not only a means of ensuring them a means of overcoming access deprivation, but also a significant measure of the State's owning up to its responsibility for the discrimination suffered by them. This may not be done through non-quota based affirmative action, because such action does not deliver the "sorry" message to targetted communities. What is the solution in these cases of historical discrimination? I would argue that a Truth and Reconciliation process akin to that of South Africa, followed by a national apology and symbolic reparations on the German model would be the appropriate means to acknowledge responsibility for the wrongs committed to SCs/STs/OBCs in particular. The method of distribution of compensation could be through tribunals, to a designated agency, or through programmes for the upliftment and welfare of the underprivileged communities.

Is Islam a "Problem"?

There's been a lot of stuff happening on the listserv. First, there was a war on multiculturalism (how strange that sounds) which started with one assertion that multiculturalism would never work because strong cultures trump the weak, ergo the values of post-Enlightenment Christendom could never co-exist with the umma. Predictably this sparked a lot of outraged posting, at which point I referred to Naomi Klein's latest article in the Nation - Terror's Greatest Recruitment Tool. Klein's argument is that extremism is prompted not by Muslims, but by Western reactions to Muslims, which results in a fomenting of religious hatred in reaction to racism. Klein takes two test cases - Hussain Osman and Sayyid Qutb - to show that merely being Muslim was not what made them take to terror, the perceived (in Osman's case) and real (in Qutub's) mistreatment of fellow Muslims is also responsible for pushing people into extremism. In sum, Klein believes that the problem is "not too much multiculturalism but too little".

This led to an email which critiqued Klein's argument on the ground that Islam per se was the problem, not the treatment of Muslims by non-Muslims, and in order to prevent extremism, Islam necessarily had to change. There were two strands of responses to this -

a. American high-handedness, not some "problem" with Islam, was responsible for extremism (following from Arundati Roy's Come September article). I personally feel this goes too far, Roy does not offer a single word in condemnation of the violence adopted by Islamic extremists, she seems to believe that it's a perfectly natural consequence of Western treatment of the East. A corollary of this argument was that Indian Muslims did not commit acts of extremism in the West because Indian Muslims were not mistreated in a similar way as those who do commit acts of extremism.
b. A more moderate strand, the essence of which was that the problem is not with Islam per se, but with certain forms of Islam, and with some Muslims, not all of them. This is my response, which falls into the second category -

(Note - in a prior email, I argued that in order to say that Islam as a whole was a problem, one would need to show that there is something fundamental to Islam - i.e. in the Qu'ran or the Haadith-which could uncontroversially be regarded as promoting extremism. Where this was not demonstrated, one could not argue that all of Islam was extremist and fundamentalist. The counter was that in order to criticise a religion, how it was practised is all that mattered, not what the religious text said. A comparison was drawn between British Hindus and British Muslims to buttress the point that only Muslims take to extremism as a response measure, not others. I've tried to respond to this as well in what follows)

1. From what I gather, the Klein's point is that the reason some Muslims turn to terrorism is because of factors other than their religion, and its conflict with our supposed tolerance for persons of different faiths and cultures. The counterpoint appears to be that this is not so, because there are problems inherent in the way Islam is practised today which make it easy for terrorism to flourish in Islamic contexts.

2. Here is my first problem with the simplistic assessment in the counter-Klein position. Islam is not the world's first religion which has been used for extremism in its name. Much as we may like not to think about it, Hindus have had a pretty pathetic record of tolerance in the last half century (and even before that). British and American Hindus are large funders of Hindu extremist organisations, whose target is admittedly not the countries of the West, but fellow Indian citizens. Assuming that terrorists are not only Muslims who kill non-Muslims, and that financial and moral support for extremism is also extremism, Hindus have much to account for. Further, there is a large amount of support for Hindu extremist reactions to the perceived "Muslim problem" among Hindus (in India and elsewhere), and as Thariel points out, Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated by suspected Hindu extremists. Does this mean that Hinduism is a problem? Of course not, because any interpretation of Hindu texts and values which could be used to justify extremism would be an unquestioned perversion. A religion's significance cannot be separated from its core texts, though the texts of a religion may be misinterpreted by those hostile to the religion to criticise it. So it's perfectly valid to say there is a problem with "some Muslims", or with "extremist forms of Islam", but how can one say there is a problem with "Islam" without detailing what the problematic aspects of the Qu'ran and/or hadit are? Are peaceful Muslims followers of the Church of Scientology? Or is a secular Muslim a bad Muslim?

3. I would disagree with the assertion that no Indian muslim has carried out suicide bombings, or with the broader argument that Islamic extremism in India is absent, yet would use this to further Klein's argument. Most Indian muslims and the majority of Indian Muslim scholars, priests and leaders (like Muslims in Britain and America) condemn acts of terror committed by extremists in the name of Islam. Those who do take to extremism (or organised crime) in India are by and large socio-economically underprivileged youth for whom terrorism/crime is a real option of gaining things they would never else have access to. Political power-players (Hindus and Muslims) also provide tacit support to extremist elements and stand to gain by pulling out the terror card at the elections. Hence, the problem of extremism in India is not a problem of Islam, but a political problem. And given that India has more serious incidents of terrorism a year than Israel and Iraq combined, nowhere is the flaw with the "Islam as a problem" argument proved better.

4. A consequentialist point - even if one were to accept that those who argue that there exists a problem with Islam do not apply the same yardstick to all Muslims (I'm not even going into the legal fictions involved here because it would keep me awake for the next year), this lumping of Islam with genuine ideologies of terror(such as Fascism-an abhorrent analogy if I ever saw one) can be abused by others without such pure motives as a mask for Islamophobia (even perhaps racism). By giving currency to a spurious claim (i.e that all forms of Islam are problematic), we run the risk of validating several other evils in the name of confronting the aforesaid (false) problem.

The long and short of it was that in order to prove that most Muslims are potential extremists, or that all forms of Islam facilitate extremism, one would have to show that there was something fundamental to Islam, or something common to most Muslims. This was not done on the listserv, can it ever be done?

Prithvi.

PS. Robert Pape, Professor of Politics at Chicago University, argues here that the Al Qaeda's acts of extremism are "less a product of Islamic fundamentalism than of a simple strategic goal: to compel the United States and its Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim countries."

PPS. This pretty much blew away the blissful apolitical euphoria I've been feeling for the past couple of weeks. All good things must end, I suppose...

Should we restrict hate speech?

One of the tricky questions of human rights law is how to approach the regulation of hate speech. There is a spectrum of hate speech regulation, swinging from the extremely libertarian US Supreme Court approach to hate speech (which I'll summarise shortly) to the aggressively restrictive German approach (for obvious historical reasons). Most countries fall somewhere in the middle here, regarding free speech as a highly important and valuable right, but preventing the right from being exercised where it was likely to cause harm, or infringe on other rights of groups or individuals (hence, the denial of the Holocaust has been restricted in different countries on grounds of fomenting hatred for Jews, infringing religious freedom and denying dignity to Jewish people).

Before moving onto hate speech in the Indian context, a brief mention of the American practice. The First Amendment to the US constitution codifies what appears to be an absolute right to free speech - "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech". This right has generally been interpreted so as to exclude certain devalued forms of expression from the definition of "speech" under the US constitution (obscenity, "fighting words" which incite people to violence and libel are good examples) but to protect all which falls under the classification of speech. Even in the case of incitement to hatred, however, the courts have struck down legislation which has restricted hate speech on the grounds of it being hate speech. So, for example, the court has allowed members of the American Nazi Party to march through neighbourhoods with a high concentration of Jewish persons (because the injunction was granted against them solely because they were Nazis planning to march in a neighbourhood of Holocaust survivors- Smith v Collin, 439 U.S. 916 (1978) and Collin v Smith, 578 F.2d 1197 (1978). In order to be constitutionally valid restriction on speech, therefore, a restriction on hate speech in the US can probably never discriminate on the basis of the viewpoint of the State in relation to the content of the speech. The US Constitution is unique, however, in not using any form of balancing justifications for analysing freedom of speech restrictions (the Indian constitution, does provide for "reasonable" restrictions on freedom of speech). Some authors are of the opinion that this is done because it is presumed that an absolute guarantee of the freedom of speech ensures equality as it ensures governmental neutrality in the regulation of speech.

The Indian constitution does not contain an absolute restriction on the freedom of speech. Like most other common law former colonies, Art. 19 (2) of the constitution permits for "reasonable restrictions on [the freedom of speech and expression] ... in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order,
decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence". In addition to the constitutional provisions, the IPC also allows for restrictions on speech and expression where similar interests are affected (Ss. 153-A/B, 295, 295 -A, 296, 297, 298, 505 are some examples). Clearly, therefore, the Indian constitution (and statutory law) allow for far wider restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression than the US Constitution does. Particularly, unlike in the US, the requirements for valid hate speech regulation are not very stringent, in the sense that the discriminatory treatment of ideas by Indian law is tolerated under the Indian constitution.

I will argue however, that the courts in India (and the statutes as they exist) ought to import the American practice, rather than continue to regulate hate speech in the current manner. The practice of hate speech regulation in India has been highly arbitrary. Depending on the political groups (or the dominant ideology) in power at a given time in the country, regulation of Hindu extremist speech (see the facts of Dr. Ramesh Yeshwant Prabhoo v Shri Prabhakar Kashinath Kunte and Others, AIR 1996 SC 1113 which deals with the legislative and executive action taken against Bal Thackeray and Manohar Joshi), of Muslim extremist organisations (see for e.g. the SIMI ban) and so on indicates clearly that the state restricts speech in a selective and non-uniform manner. Arbitrariness, in this context, leads to inequality because these groups (Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc) have their speech rights restricted on the basis of their religion rather than merely because of the content of their speech; and this substantially undermines the equal treatment guarantee available to people across the country.

Additionally, I would argue that deregulation of hate speech will enhance equality among religions and communities in India. A pluralistic society can only grow when there is free and frank discourse in the public sphere, and restrictions on one group's right to access this sphere creates inequalities. This not only flows from the previous point that this gives the State the potential to abuse its powers in an arbitrary manner, but also because exercising a free speech right is empowering for minorities. Let me illustrate - if a religious extremist organisation publishes statements hatefully directed at another religion, we have 2 situations which may arise -

a. The State bans the publication and/or the group

b. The other members of the community react to the publication and/or the group (both positively and negatively)

In situation b. the community assumes agency, and forges a sense of community identity within (or in relation to) the national (or larger group) identity, which, if nurtured, could lead to the beginnings of a process of integration (because it is a process of empowerment through discussion). In situation a. before any of this arises, the State acts to deprive the community of agency and contextual identity. This could, if exploited improperly, lead to resentment and subsequent conflict.

This would work just as well for majority as well as minority groups, there will be equal and non-regulated (i.e. non arbitrarily regulated) discussions among all groups in a pluralistic society, which will define their relations with each other, and also with the nation-State. Where the State steps in to regulate hate speech, it breaches the equality which ought to exist in the public sphere, and this leads to one community being privileged over the other.

What do you think?

And Now for Something Completely Different...

Till I get over my "I'm in the World's Greatest City" high, and begin to feel cranky and upset with the world again, I'm not going to be able to post on anything critical. Here are some photos instead. Larger versions are available here - unlike this blog, the photos will be regularly updated.

Feel free to tell me what you think of them,

Prithvi.



The Woolworth Building



Three Generations of Broadway



Looking Uptown from Astor Place



Empire State Building from Times Square



Ugly Brooklyn!



City Hall Park



Life in Manhattan



Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges from Staten Island Ferry Station



Rickshaws (!) on 49th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues

Empire State Building from 5th Avenue

On Central Plaza and Broadway

On Central Plaza and Broadway

Are Indians insensitive?

Marriages Made in Hell

Everyone in Delhi is talking about Vivaha 2005, an annual marriage exhibition. This year's exhibition seems to have wowed more people than last year's edition, mainly because of the higher prices and more outrageous items on display (including a Ganesh worth Rs. 1,60,000, and edible body paint for couples for Rs. 2,400), and the prospect of higher returns for the exhibitors and organisers ($ 16 million this year as opposed to $ 12 million in the last one). Here's what upsets me most about this event and the media coverage of it -

1. None of the articles covering Vivaha 2005 which I have come across as of 07/08/05 comment on the propriety of holding such an event in light of the losses in Mumbai. Perhaps the socialite segments don't have much to do with the real-life segments of our media?
2. The organisers are moving this event to Mumbai after the Delhi show, and yet there's still no mention of the poor taste displayed by hosting such an event in that city right now.
3. There is no indication in these reports about whether any part of the proceeds from the event (or from the exhibitors' revenues) will go towards relief or charity.

This inspite of the Maharashtra CM's appeal for more relief resources.

Please let me know if any of this changes in the next few days.

Prithvi.

A Little Comparison

Being in the ethno-religious minority in the UK, I've been watching the news closely for signs of a fallout from the London blasts. While Muslims are understandably jittery, and there have been sporadic incidents targetting Muslim symbols, the police have been taking steps to prevent any large-scale attempts to breach the peace. In addition, religious organisations have been stepping in to emphasise the need to maintain comity, and it doesn't seem likely that any large-scale violent incidents will erupt as a result of the blasts.

Yet, there have no calls for bandhs, no calls for revenge, and very little chances of being able to create large-scale death and destruction. No one wants to attack Muslims because they had it coming, and there are no mainstream apologists for Islamophobia who want Muslims chucked out of the UK. 427 people had died 4 days after the Godhra carnage, no serious attacks have been reported against British Muslims almost two days after the London blasts.

I'm feeling ashamed. Are you?

Putting the Dead to Good Use

I'm breaking from my self-imposed hibernation to blog about this disturbing piece by Tom Hayden which wastes no time in using the casualties in London to make a case for withdrawal in Iraq. Let me make my point clearer -

a. I am not in favour of the Iraq war, and am all in favour of those who make sensible and clear cases against the war.

b. I am, however, against using victims of terrorist attacks as some sort of a justification for my stance in opposition to the war (which is essentially what Hayden is doing). These were innocent men and women and I'm shocked that they're being used as mere tokens in a political game. My fear is that making them purely instrumental in a debate of concern not only demeans the fact that these were human beings who died, who had valuable lives and contributed value to the community in which they lived, but also loses those of us against the war the moral highground. Hayden's argument is the Terry Schiavo case of the left - it uses individuals purely as political ends, and denies them dignity and humanity in death.

c. Interestingly, Hayden's post doesn't even once mention the terrorists who were responsible for the attacks, or the general moral illegimitacy of terrorist movements which target innocent civilians (whether in Baghdad or London). It is a diatribe against regimes which "forcibly occupy Muslim lands in the oil-driven search for dominance", but no mention of the forcible occupation of our public space and lives by a hate-driven lust for terror...

Well, that's my point of view. What do you think? Also, Andrew Sullivan gets it so much better.

Prithvi.

Must NRIs Return Home?

Last week, I sparked off an email war on the listserv (and off it as well). This particular battle was on whether citizens of the developing world can contribute more by returning home than they would if they stayed away from home. Here's what I had to say -

I feel that the assertion that returning to one's home country will make things better there is a simplistic one (atleast so far as my home country, India, is concerned), and there's someone far more eminent who agrees with me, see The Migration of Knowledge Workers: Second-Generation Effects of India's Brain Drain by Binod Khadria (Sage, 1999). Prof Khadria is Professor of Economics at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

His basic argument is that while the first generation of immigrants from India did cause a net loss to the Indian economy (i.e. net remittances were less than the amount invested in their education and training in India), the second generation of Indian emigrants (those who left after economic reforms in 1991) is pumping huge amounts of money (in the form of investment in infrastructure, the stock markets, purchase of government bonds etc.) into the system. Also, a large amount of investment in non-profit sectors and charitable organisations comes from persons of Indian origin living outside India. It may also be argued (and I diverge from Khadria here) that the presence of highly trained Indians abroad contributes to a greater international awareness of India, and the emergence of Indian political groups in the US, the UK and Canada may be evidence of this heightened political awareness. Finally, Indians abroad have a significant voice in the governance of India as well, perhaps as a result of the money they're pumping into the economy. The government seems to be making a special effort to appease non-resident Indians with a slew of policy changes designed just for Indians living abroad (for eg, there is a newly formed Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, currently considering a serious proposal for providing tax breaks on investments made by Indians living abroad). Clearly Indians abroad wield a lot of influence with Indians back home (probably more than they would have if they stayed home. I had an interesting conversation with a fellow member of this list last term which went something like this - "Before I got here, home was the place I would eat, sleep and chase my dog around. In the past 9 months, I've received 8 wedding invitations, 3 marriage proposals and an invitation to guest lecture in about half a dozen universities. Suddenly home is a lot cooler").

Concerns have been raised about whether this position I am taking denigrates and devalues the position of those who wish to return to India. I strongly feel that it does not. I believe that one's choice to return to India is a personal one, and should not be externally imposed on others. Hence, while this personal choice is necessarily individual specific, I think there is no systemic, institutional or public obligation to return to one's country.

This is without prejudice to the broader question of whether one should contribute to one's home state at all. I believe I should, but someone who has a more cosmopolitan (or more communist) world view than I do may well disagree. I just think that it is totally possible to enjoy the academic freedoms and research benefits which institutions in this country offer and still give back to the people of one's home country, perhaps more than one could by being back home.

Prithvi.

Taking over the ad world?

I was recently looking for some Indian ads which I was very fond of on the Internet (because a friend had forwarded me the unusual "Manno Bhabhi" ad). In the process, I discovered an incredibly interesting cultural revolution which seems to be taking place in the West - the use of Indian themes (and in several cases, Indian professionals) to market products which have nothing to do with India. There are several examples of this -

1. By far the best of the lot, Absolut's "Mulit" ad. This is an ad featuring an all Indian cast, but is a pseudo history of the mullet (as in the hairstyle), shot in a Bollywood-spoof style by a European film director. Mulit has spawned an underground fan following, but the funny thing is that it is an ad film intended for Western audiences, not for Indians.
2. The Cobra beer ads. I think these are the ones which started the whole trend. It makes sense that Cobra advertise their beers in this manner, given the origins of Cobra as the beer which goes with curry, and their India launch(see here for a brief write-up on Cobra beer). In addition to this, they're really funny. I would put the Tennent's beer ad in the same category.
3. The Coke Spanish Bollywood spoof. This is clearly not intended for Indian audiences, it uses a sort of Bollywood asereje, and is in Spanish. It is interesting however to see how wildly popular this ad has become, and the awards which have been heaped on it.
4. The Peugeot 209 ad. This ad has no non-Indian aspect to it - it's shot in Rajasthan (you can see from the buildings, the clothes the people are wearing and the car registration plates), features an Ambassador, a man talking to an elephant in Hindi/local dialect ("baitho, baitho"), a poster of Pukar on the wall and so much more. The soundtrack is Bhangra Knights v. Husan, which while incredibly popular in Europe, is an Urdu song. So here's the funny part - this ad has never been released in India (because Peugeot has pulled out of the Indian car market). This ad is made for the European market (maybe even the American one), and is incredibly popular, but it has no European symbolism.

What's interesting here is that with the exception of the beer ads, there is no ostensible connection between these ads, the product being sold, and the market in which they're being advertised. In spite of this, they've grown wildly popular (though I have no exact figures about how they've influenced sales). Why is this? Is the much anticipated Indian cultural summer finally here in Europe? Or is it just another form of product placement through cultural stereotyping (like the Cable & Wireless ads on Caribbean cellphones)? If it is the latter, given the poor consumer visibility of South Asians in Europe, is it just more economic sense to stereotype Indians rather than Eastern Europeans, the French, the English, the Germans etc?

Prithvi.

PS. Thanks to Manish Vij and Sepia Mutiny for the links.

The Pope's Legacy

I recently found an editorial by Polly Toynbee, who's writing I admire though often disagree with, as a reaction to the international adulation being heaped on the Pope upon his passing away. The rest of the post will only make sense if you read the article, and it is quite thought provoking though presenting an extremely controversial point of view.

I want to concentrate on one particular aspect of the Pope's legacy, I'll come back to whether we ought to be analysing his legacy at all in a subsequent post. This would relate to the impact the Pope's insistence on the unacceptability of birth control had on AIDS cases in the developing world. As Toynbee has pointed out in the article, the Catholic church (hereinafter "Church") has maintained a rigidly conservative line on the church's acceptance of birth control. I am inclined to believe, along with Toynbee, that this has resulted in a lot of deaths from AIDS in developing states (and perhaps even developed ones). This article formed the basis for an extremely informative discussion with a group of friends recently, some of whom were progressive Catholics. The most important points of difference which came up were:-

I. The Actual Impact Argument. One of the main points of difference which arose was about the actual impact which the Church's insistence on the unacceptability of birth control had on instances of HIV in Catholics. My argument basically ran as follows - by insisting that birth control was contrary to the tenets of the Catholic faith, the Pope failed to prevent several deaths from AIDS which could arguably have been prevented where the Pope to have (a) encouraged or (b) not discouraged birth control (though there would be a variation in numbers depending on whether the Pope adopted method (a) or (b). The first rebuttal was that the Church also advocated abstinence prior to marriage, and if this rule were to be followed, there would be no need to take a different line on birth control, since the rule on abstinence would be sufficient to ensure that AIDS did not spread as rapidly. My counter to this argument is that it is not part of the human condition to abstain, and/or to participate in monogamous relationships. Monogamy and abstinence are to be enforced, either by the imposition of external norms or as a result of an internal moral code. This is not the case with the purchase of birth control devices - it is not natural for human beings to practice birth control or to purchase birth control devices. Besides, the stigma attached to birth control as a result of the Church's sanction on them attaches a social deterrent to the purchase and use of these devices, which is not present in the case of the Church's sanction on extra-marital relationships (at least most often not in cases where males indulge in extra-marital relationships).

II. The "You can't Teach an Old Dogma New Tricks" Argument. The second rebuttal to my original argument was that Roman Catholicism was an essentially faith based religion, which had certain dogmatic cardinal principles which were central to the faith. To expect the Pope to change one of the central tenets of the faith, one of the most respected and highly regarded tenets was to expect too much of him, for then it would mean a betrayal of the Church's beliefs which he is expected to uphold. I'm not sure how convinced I am by this argument. Protecting human life is also one of the most central tenets of the Catholic faith, and in cases of conflict which have arisen between this tenet and others, the Church has preferred to respect the right to life of the corporeal existing human being (as in the application of double effect to abortions). Why can't this be done in the case of birth control for persons facing a very high risk of AIDS?

III. The "Papal is Bull" Argument. The final rebuttal is that the Pope has limited influence over the decisions which people make in their reproductive lives. The choice of whether to use condoms or other AIDS-preventive devices is an expression of social relationships between partners, and there is little the Pope could have done to change that, even if he were to have declared contraception and birth control acceptable. I disagree with this argument because it denies the social impact which the Church has on procreative choice. By outlawing birth control, the Church denigrates condoms, and imposes a social cost on their use. This social cost then can easily translate into non-use in relationships of dominance (as between sexually active men and women, for example). If the Pope were to have encouraged the use of birth control, it would go a long way in reducing the social costs associated with condom use, and therefore perhaps have saved many more lives. An ancillary point in support of this rebuttal is that several Catholics, and some churches, use birth control anyway. While I agree with this, the fact remains that this is occurring in spite of the Church's stance. Those Catholics and churches, which allow for this are indeed deserving of praise, but does this excuse the Church for it's failure to preach what right-minded followers of its faith are practising?