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?

The Modi Shindig

I An Introduction

For those who aren't clued into it, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, was recently denied a visa (both diplomatic and tourist) to the US for delivering a speech to a congregation of Non Resident Indians. The ostensible reason for this was the indictment by the National Human Rights Commission of India of his participation in the Gujarat riots of 2001, though the Indian press has been quick to offer many conspiracy theories about the "real reason" behind the denial of the visa. The Hindu nationalist elements in India have gone to town about the perceived "insult" to Indian pride, while the rabid segment of secular-liberal civil society can scarcely hide their glee at what they regard as just desert for Modi. Like most other political situations which create ideological faultlines (see Terry Schiavo's case in the US, the screening of Jerry Springer - The Musical on national TV in the UK etc.), the extremist nature of discourse surrounding the Modi visa denial tends to overshadow the less divisive aspects of the matter, aspects which are probably as relevant as the broader ideological debate.

This post, therefore, is an attempt to explain why I'm slightly more agnostic about taking pleasure from Modi's visa denial than some extremist liberals. I propose to look at this from two points of view - (i) the arbitrariness of the decision to deny Modi a visa (ii) the seeming insignificance of the matter from the US' perspective.

II Spot the odd one out

In the recent past, Pervez Musharraf, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Gerry Adams have all been granted visas to visit the USA. President Musharraf has been severely criticised by several international organisations for suppressing democracy in Pakistan (doh) and also for promoting religious discrimination in that country (or continuing to tolerate it); Chandrika Kumaratunga has been accused of the most horrendous human rights atrocities being committed against suspected Tamil militants in custody in Sri Lankan jails and Gerry Adams we all know about. Like Modi, none of these persons have been convicted for the commission of any of these offences, and yet all of them have been accused by some human rights organisation. Clearly then, the issue is not one of meeting certain criteria, because the criteria laid down in the International Religious Freedom Act applies to all of them. This arbitrariness also seems to be reflected in the recent denial of permission to Ram Guha for entry into the US.

However, regardless of what the actual reason for refusing Modi a visa is, every State has the right to determine who it allows onto its territory, and who it should grant a visa to. Few legal procedures exist to allow for review of these sorts of decisions, and very rarely is much political capital expended in seeking to right a perceived wrong which arises from decisions of this nature. There isn't much India can do to protest the US' decision, and arguably there are more important aspects to Indo-US relations to sort out than this. To talk of just desert for Modi, though, is to take a long leap - we have no idea of knowing why Modi was denied a visa, and given the sort of people who have been granted the visa, it's unclear why a random and arbitrary denial of a visa should be taken as a means of vindication in lieu of a properly adjudicated process of justice delivery (unless of course mere denial of a visa is regarded as sufficient punishment for the acts Modi is alleged to have committed). This is why I believe that there's little to rejoice in Modi's denial of a visa - it has little to do with providing justice to the victims of Gujarat, it is unlikely to make Modi feel repentant for what he's been accused of doing(or provide sufficient punishment for it) and it has just provided the Hindu Right with a cause to revive itself around.

III They Don't Really Care About Us

The core of the right-wing argument protesting the denial of Modi's visa is to claim it to be a sign of "disrespect" towards India. This may well be the case, but even if it is, it is not just a problem with the US government's stance towards India, but a reflection of the general lack of interest about Indian affairs in American society. Preliminary support for this can be gathered from the attention given to this denial by the American media - the NY Times carries a 129 word report on column A3 of page 4 of the edition of 19 March, the Washington Post does slightly better by giving it newspace on page A21 of the edition of the 19th, and A18 of the 20th. Other than the Indian community in the US (which seems divided on the propriety of the denial of the visa), few Americans are aware of the whole incident. By raising the "national insult" flag, the Hindu Right is drawing attention away from the important lesson which lies behind the denial of a visa to Modi - that for the US government, as well as for members of civil society, it doesn't matter if this constitutes a national insult or not. In such a situation, it is quite pointless to agitate on the basis of the disrespect being caused by the denial of the visa because it is not likely to result in Modi obtaining a visa (since the US government has no interest in doing so), pressurising the Indian government is unlikely to have any results (because issuing of visas is a purely internal matter for any State in the world) and the feelings of offended Indians don't count for much internationally.

IV The Way Forward

What this incident should be utilised for, therefore, is to introspect about why it is that India has such low presence in the context of the US' internal politics. Why is it that certain leaders would not be denied a visa into the US, but certain Indian leaders would? Why don't Americans care about this apparent discrimination? Why is the supposedly powerful and influential Indian lobby in the US unable to bring about a change in the perception of India there? Ideology-based arguments merely obfuscate this most central concern which arises from the whole visa denial incident.

Secularism in India

Ok, this is a topic which started off much debate on one of the lists I'm on. I posted two articles from a recent edition of the Indian newsmagazine Outlook, which seemed to reflect two different positions on the notion of secularism as it was understood in the Indian and South Asian context. These articles are part of a debate between Ashis Nandy and Kuldip Nayar. Nandy's article, titled "A Billion Gandhis", essentially argued that secularism as understood by Nehru in its Western sense (i.e. separation of Church and State) was a "dry import" which was artificially imposed upon India. According to him, India has traditionally always had a multicultural ethos premised upon tolerance (a sort of "Hindu secularism"), and hence Western secularism was a pretty needless imposition. Nayar criticises this identification of Indian multiculturalism with Hinduism, and believes that such a notion could be powerful ammunition for proponents of communalism in India. I got an interesting response from a friend to this debate, which was:

First a question of definition and context - in India, no other word is bandied around so much as secularism - the press discusses it, politicians make a living out of it, and almost every Indian has an opinion on it. Our constitution mandates India to be a secular state, but Indian secularism is not a strict separation of church and state - it would be closer to what in the Western context has now been understood as 'multiculturalism' (this itself should be enough to refute Nandy's claim - the fact that the Indian variety was so different from how secularism has been understood in the West). Nandy's post-colonialism makes him blame almost everything on the colonial state. While it is true that the British policies led to the concretisation of 'Hindu' and 'Muslim' identities in the popular psyche, crediting them with running a secular administration is what they certainly did not do. A number of colonial British policies were clearly designed to drive a wedge between the two communities, their oft-quoted 'divide and rule' policy. But secularism was certainly a reaction of the then Indian elite (led by Nehru) to the problem of increasing tensions between the two communities in the aftermath of partition of the country based on religious lines. That Pakistan chose to become an Islamic state made it still difficult for Nehru to justify why India was not becoming a Hindu state, since that was the 'logic' of partition.
Anyway, that much history aside, the main problem of Nandy is that he comes from a romanticisation of everything traditional, and while he claims to be a non-believer, the Hindu colour of his ideas is unescapable. At another place, Nandy claims that 'Hindutva' (that is political militant hinduism) is the death of 'hinduism' (the traditional, rural, tolerance-based religion). A lot of his love for rural tolerance is mostly, for him, Hindu tolerance. His tolerant India is surely hindu India, because he sees the essence of hinduism as tolerance (I am not disputing or affirming the truth of this claim, but the fact is that this does exclude other religions as fundamentally tolerant). He, actually, says that the Hindu Right in India is actually christianising/islamising hinduism.
He gives himself away when he says:
> These ideas of tolerance in ordinary people and everyday life are
> tinged
> with popular religious beliefs, however superstitious, irrational and
> primitive they may seem to progressive, secular Indians. Modern India,
till
> today, has not produced a single hero of secularism except for that
> fading
> star, Jawaharlal Nehru.
He is more direct in his other writings as to which 'popular' religious beliefs he is referring to. Of course, the above question may not necessarily be a critique, and is open to demonstration that in fact the basic belief in hinduim is tolerance. (that still does not prove that the same is not true with other religions - and even if it was, it does not discredit secularism, which teaches tolerance irrespective of religion). However, one very crucial aspect that Nandy almost entirely ignores is the context of caste - his tolerant rural India continues to discriminate on the basis of caste, and only the modern, urban (western) secular state has considered it worth to intervene and disrupt the massive caste infrastructure (with whatever digree of success or failure).
The only point that Nandy gets right is his claim to Gandhi's legacy - this much is true - Gandhi did employ religion to fight religious hatred, and employed religious symbols for his political struggle. Indian secularism truly owes its debt only to Nehru.

And I responded by saying:

I don't necessarily agree that the notion of secularism as understood in India can so easily be equated with multiculturalism. The point Nandy has made in the past is that it is not clear what secularism is meant to be in India, for some it is separation of State from religion, and for some it is a more pluralist recognition of the rights of all religions. This is reflected in constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court on the content of the notion of 'secularism' in the constitution, for instance. Nandy's critique is of one such stream of thought - that of purely Western secularism, symbolised by the separation of State and church, which he believes is impossible to recreate successfully in Indian socio-political discourse. ('If secularism only means the traditional tolerance of South Asia, why do we need an imported idea to talk about that local tolerance?') Nandy is essentially contrasting two modes of achieving amity (Gandhi's religion-based method with Nehru's Occidental secular method) and nominating his preference between them. By declaring Nehru to be the only advocate of secularism in India, Nandy is implying that the current practice of secularism in India (i.e. as among the people of India) is closer to Gandhi than Nehru (who represents the political class in India), and for him this is a desirable outcome (ergo the title 'A Billion Gandhis'). Hence, according to Nandy, the traditional (Hindu/Gandhian) notion of communal amity which is prevalent in South Asian multicultural communities is a workable alternative to Western notions of secularism (which is what is sought to be imposed on them by the political elite). One possible criticism of Nandy could be that he errs in believing that the entire ruling class in India takes one view of secularism (in the Nehruvian sense), whereas in reality even the ruling class is more fragmented than that. This would not detract from the essence of Nandy's argument, that in a struggle between traditional notions of secularism and the Western one, it is the traditional which should prevail, atleast in the South Asian context.
The point about traditional notions of religion reinforcing caste structures is a valid one, but some also appear to believe that the 'modern, urban, secular State' is replacing caste structures with class ones. Is this necessarily a positive step?
Also I believe Nandy's romanticising of other traditional Indian concepts (including that of 'sati' - widow immolation) should not influence analysis of his notions on secularism, as each has its own context.

What do you think?

Prithvi.