Ask a Question
In 2009, The South Asian Idea begins to offer a new service – Ask a Question. You ask a question; we provide the answer.
The South Asian Idea covers a lot of subject areas – Development, Governance, Religion, and Modernity are among the major themes. Still, our posts cannot anticipate every question you might have; and when you need an answer in a hurry you might not know which post to access.
Therefore, we are experimenting with this new and direct rapid response service – Ask a Question.
If you have a question that you would like answered, send it to us and we will provide the best answer we can in the shortest time possible. Our team includes highly trained professionals and academics who have many years of work experience in South Asia and abroad. The range of experience covers the liberal arts, the social sciences, the natural sciences, engineering and medicine.
Your questions can pertain to any subject not necessarily limited to the major themes of The South Asian Idea. The questions can be of general interest or about some specific homework assignment. You might want guidance on writing an essay or on preparing for a debate—we will give it a try.
As an example, our post (Is Corruption Good or Bad?) was a direct response to a request from a student participating in a debate with the proposition Corruption greases the wheels of development; it benefits the rich and poor alike.
You have two ways of sending your question. You can post it in the comment box below; that would enable other readers to provide their inputs as well. Or you could email it to us at thesouthasianidea@gmail.com and we would provide the answer only to you.
We are excited to be pioneering this service. Let us run it as an experiment for three months to see if it meets a demand amongst school and college students.
We are ready for your questions.
January 4, 2009 at 7:50 am |
Why are some persons tolerant others not. Does it come from smugness?
January 4, 2009 at 2:26 pm |
Anil, Suppose we answer Yes. The immediate follow-up question would be: And where does smugness come from? So, we wouldn’t go down that way.
There could well be some part that is genetic (we don’t know enough to say how much) but we think that most of the variation could be explained by variations in early childhood education.
Take religious education as an example. A child could either be taught Islamiyat in the madrassah with the message that his is the only true faith, everyone else is wrong, an infidel, and needing to be shown the right path. Or he could be taught religion in a way that explains that all religions are different ways of seeking the same truth, have a common core, and differ in practices that are largely due to differences of time and place. It is reasonable to assume that these two children will grow up with very unlike tolerances to differences of belief.
More generally, an education that includes a good component of the liberal arts and the social sciences achieves the same effect because in these fields a question generally has more than one plausible answer and the mind gets trained to think about legitimate reasons for the differences.
On the other hand, in the natural sciences there is mostly only one correct answer. This is the reason that today (when liberal arts and social sciences are increasingly neglected as a waste of time or are taught poorly) even very highly trained professionals like physicians and engineers are often more intolerant than others who have much less education.
So, just education is not the explanation. It is the content, the nature, and the timing of the education that makes a difference.
We would recommend a book by Mark Lilla (The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West) that explains how tolerance to differences within Christianity has increased so markedly in the West. It is mostly due to what one is taught on the mother’s knee when the mind is an empty vessel.
January 4, 2009 at 2:47 pm |
Why would any religion encourage…..
“he could be taught religion in a way that explains that all religions are different ways of seeking the same truth, have a common core, and differ in practices that are largely due to differences of time and place.”
After all the entire edifice of a religion is based on exclusivity.
January 4, 2009 at 3:14 pm |
When societies realize that the exclusivity has costs greater than the benefits, there is an incentive to soften the edges. This is what happened to Christianity after Europe was exhausted by doctrinal conflicts. This is the subject of Mark Lilla’s book.
Of course, all religions are not based on exclusivity to begin with. Hinduism is a much more tolerant religion to start with and it is ironical that it has begun to shift in the other direction towards a greater exclusivity. This is the subject of the novel on this blog – A Gash in the World:
http://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/a-gash-in-the-world/
Here is a paragraph from the first chapter:
“Meghnad recalled his recent article, “What is a Hindu?” published in Time. It had created an outburst in India and America, seeking to answer the question Veer Sawarkar had originally posed in 1923 in an anti-colonial nationalist context. Meghnad had approached it using the idea of fuzzy communities. He challenged the notion of a sharp boundary between any two religious communities. Time was deluged with letters, since the article also appeared in the wake of the riots in India.”
Also, see how knowledge of other religions and cultures is imparted in this school in the US:
http://www.onenessfamily.org/VisionsofOneness070208.pdf
There can be a great deal of variation in how these subjects are taught and that shows up in the differences in tolerances. If there were no difference between how Islam is taught in a madrassa and in a regular school, there would be no reason for the special focus on madrassas. Even the madrassas protest that only a few of them teach hate.
So, even within the domain of exclusivity, there can moderates and extremists depending upon what one grows up with.
January 4, 2009 at 4:45 pm |
What you say is correct. There are a variety of complex factors at work. What also makes a difference is how they interact with one another. An orthodox early childhood upbringing and a liberal education at the university would produce an impact that would vary in different people depending on one’s temperament (genes as you say) and also real life experience that varies from person to person.
January 4, 2009 at 4:54 pm |
“When societies realize that the exclusivity has costs greater than the benefits, there is an incentive to soften the edges. This is what happened to Christianity after Europe was exhausted by doctrinal conflicts.”
Is religion the same as society? I don’t think so. Could it be possible that softening and detoxification of Christianity probably was a reaction to rise of science and atheism in society.
January 4, 2009 at 5:29 pm |
You are right, religion is not the same as society. Religion is an integral part of society and can have positive or negative impacts on it. Corruption in the Catholic Church gave rise to the Protestant Reform movement. Doctrinal conflicts led to a move to think of social arrangements not dependent on the divine revelations that were proving excessively divisive. Atheism was part of this disenchantment with religion. Hobbes used the emerging framework of scientific enquiry to change the subject of the discourse – that was his revolutionary contribution: The traditional subject of theology – God and his nature – was successfully changed to that of man and his religious nature.
The second part of Hobbes’ contribution was to make religion a subject of scientific enquiry by focusing on the university curriculum. As a result of that it is normal in Western universities today to have the academic disciplines of religious psychology, sociology of religion, religious anthropology and the like.
Of course, the socioeconomic context of the time had a great deal to do with this revolution – one could say that the times demanded a Hobbes. The best exposition of these contextual circumstances is here:
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/introser/hobbes.htm
I think when Machiavelli stumbled upon the intellectual insight that religion was a political phenomenon subject to either good or bad use, it triggered a major change in the attitude of thinking people towards religion. In some sense, this was to religion what Newton and the apple were to physics.
January 4, 2009 at 5:38 pm |
Zubeida, You are absolutely correct. The individual level variations are quite fascinating but very hard to generalize about. You know, it makes a difference if you add the tea to the milk, the milk to the tea, or you boil them together. And then of course, the variety of the tea leaves, the time when they were picked, the type of roasting, how long they stayed in storage, the quality of the water, how well it was boiled, the material of the cup, whether it was pre-warmed – all of these end up going into the taste of the final product.
And this is just your everyday cup of tea; human beings are so much more complex because they react to what is done to them. The one thing one might say with some confidence is that if you screw up in the beginning it becomes mighty hard to salvage a good outcome.
This message should be very easy to communicate to people because it is already a part of common wisdom. How many times do we hear the following: “is ka kya ho sakta hai ji, is ka tau ‘brought-up’ hii kharaab hai.” So we should think of framing this issue in terms of what makes for a good ‘brought-up’ in the world today.
January 5, 2009 at 5:10 am |
How ego evolved in evolution context. What is its role in survival scheme of things?
January 5, 2009 at 5:32 am |
Anil, That is a tough one. Id, ego and superego are Freudian concepts; evolution and survival are Darwinian concepts. I am not sure how they relate to each other. I know that the selfish gene helps in survival but does being selfish have anything to do with being egotistical? Did the ego evolve because it is useful for survival? Then why did pride evolve because it leads to a fall? Is it necessary that only those things evolved that are useful for survival?
Let me refer this to a subject expert and I will get back to you.
I have not yet been able to find a good enough answer but an article in the Dec 18, 2008 issue of The Economist (Why we are, as we are) on the 150th anniversary of the publication of ‘The Origin of Species’ is useful to read:
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795581
January 5, 2009 at 5:57 am |
While on the subject, consider ‘Nostalgia’ as well and its role in abetting fundamentalism.
January 8, 2009 at 2:50 am |
Anil, I love these questions that can have more than one answer; your opinion is as good as mine on this. Here is how I look upon the association.
I would distinguish two variants of nostalgia. There is the nostalgia of my grandmother who wistfully remembers how wonderful things were in her time. She has no particular end in mind in recalling bygone days except to amuse me with a story.
Then there is the nostalgia of those who wish to shape the future in some image of the past that they have not directly experienced. They have learnt of this second hand. I am wary of this type of nostalgia because it is a means to some political end and therefore open to manipulation.
Think of the nostalgia of the fundamentalist Talibans who wish to impose a Caliphate that would reproduce the perfection of the time of the four rightful caliphs. A little bit of reflection would make you wonder about that perfection – three of the four caliphs were murdered; the Prophet’s wife was in combat against the son-in-law; and the Prophet’s grandsons were martyred by someone who reintroduced dynastic rule. It doesn’t seem very different from what is happening today, does it?
Locke said that “most men are simply too lazy or ill trained to apply themselves to the dull work of sifting through evidence and reasoning properly. They prefer pseudo-certainties, even if those are inherited from tradition and untested by experience; and once they are committed to dogmas, they enjoy imposing them on others. That is how religious superstitions are born and perpetuated.”
Mark Lilla writes that by the nineteenth century continental Europe was “awash in nostalgia for its religious past and in dreams of a new, improved religious future…. Ignorance and fear had obviously bred superstition and fanaticism among Christians as well as pointless wars among Christian sects and nations.”
So, the ‘nostalgia’ of those who have had no direct experience of the past for which they are nostalgic employed for the purpose of reshaping the future – that is a dangerous mix especially if there are a lot of intellectually lazy folks around. That could very easily feed the fires of fundamentalism.
[Quotes are from Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West.]
January 8, 2009 at 4:08 am |
Even grandmother’s nostalgia and our own first hand experience nostalgia is misleading. Nostalgia always presents romanticized past, a sanitized version with sharp edges blunted; an endearing fuzzy, sepia motion picture of past. Past in hisory was rarely better than present yet nostalgia produces irresistible desire to swim back in time. If I think hard, I was quite miserable as a little kid but that’s not what I reminisce. I see images of a little kid running around clinging to thread of a kite, of playing ‘jhaaR bandar’ (a kind of game) and stuff like that not the deprivation, the difficult teachers and difficult parents and difficult environment in general.
It is this ability of our mind to ignore the bad experience that fascinates me.
January 8, 2009 at 5:49 am |
Anil, I agree but I wouldn’t want to be authoritarian and banish nostalgia altogether. I wouldn’t want to take away the freedom for people to remember and to romanticize their pasts. What would grandmothers do if we went that far?
On the other hand, I would be very wary of the nostalgia of those whose memory is manufactured in the use of political objectives. I would combat it in the way Locke recommended – by giving human beings enough leisure and training to let their natural faculties develop. Locke was a lot more hopeful on this count than Hobbes was.
Even if Locke was too optimistic, promoting the faculty of critical thinking should be of benefit.
At the same time, those who are unable to move beyond their bad experiences can be pretty tedious to live with. So, there is a happy medium somewhere – Aristotle’s golden mean? People were so much wiser in the olden days!!!
January 8, 2009 at 12:53 pm |
It seems nostalgia is a device in our mind to purge unpleasantness from our memory, a kind of safety mechanism. But like everything else it too spins out of control to produce delusions of grandeur. And when this happens archaic practices appear glorious therefore worth emulating.
January 8, 2009 at 12:58 pm |
Why do religions need after life? Is there no incentive to live morally if there is no after life?
January 9, 2009 at 12:29 am |
Anil, These days atheists are running a campaign in London with messages posted on buses. One of them says: There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” In Washington, the message is: Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/europe/07london.html?_r=1&em
Actually there are two different dimensions of this question: Why do people think of an afterlife? And, why do religions need an afterlife?
People have always been very familiar with death. So, it must have been natural to speculate on what happened to them after death. In different places and at different times, people would have imagined this differently. Some would have assumed that the end was really the end; others would have imagined that there was something like a soul that left a dead body. This soul could wander around, go down into the nether world, go up into a heaven, or be reborn in another body. This is all quite natural.
Why religions need an afterlife is probably more political. Almost all societies were based on oppression and exploitation with the aid of priests. In order to make the subjects reconcile themselves to their fate they could have been promised divine reward or punishment in the afterlife depending on their behavior. At some point individuals could have internalized this because, subjectively speaking, belief in an afterlife could well make it easier to bear suffering in this one.
I feel the need for an afterlife has more to do with putting up with suffering than with an incentive to behave morally. When I look at the behavior of those who believe very strongly in an afterlife I don’t find it any more moral than that of those who don’t. When asked if God existed, Bertrand Russell is reported to have said: “I don’t know if God exists or not and I don’t care either.” Ghalib’s disdain for behavior motivated by concerns of reward is also well known – he wished to consign the concept of heaven into hell.
It is interesting to compare the positions of Hobbes and Locke on this subject. Hobbes was convinced that people who believed in an afterlife would always be susceptible to the manipulation of priests hungry for political power. Therefore, in his system he emphasized that the Kingdom of God was on earth, not in heaven.
Locke, however, believed that as a tolerant liberal order made life on earth more appealing, thoughts about the afterlife would be relegated to Sunday services.
Was Locke right given that fervent belief in the afterlife is stronger in poorer countries than in richer ones?
(Material on Hobbes and Locke is from Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God.)
January 10, 2009 at 7:31 am |
Why can’t we ignore things that don’t concern us?
When Stefan Hawking was writing “A Brief History of Time”, he was allowed only one equation in the entire book, the celebrated E = MC2. Any other equation, readership will go down exponentially he was told by the publishers. Why? People could simply ignore those equations.
When you write Hobbes and Locke, these words are absolute nothing to me and it irritates me that I don’t know anything about them. Am I supposed to know about them, No! I can easily rationalize that you probably do not know how black holes lose mass when even light cannot escape past event horizon. The irritation lingers for a while, why?
Our inability to ignore is essentially the cause of a lot of intolerance. People who don’t have any sense of aesthetics appreciation can’t see the grave but peaceful aura in Saraswati’s countenance of M F Hussain, all they see is a nude woman and go berserk. In some newsgroups I have seen members quibbling over posts for being merely there because they don’t concern them at all.
Why?
January 10, 2009 at 1:57 pm |
Anil,
Live and let live is still quite a popular maxim.
Could you be generalizing too broadly? People have different reactions to things that are not familiar: they can ignore them, or get irritated at not knowing, or feel the urge to find out what they don’t know.
What makes different people react differently is a more difficult question. Perhaps this new way of looking at human behavior might provide some material for discussion:
http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-candles-in-the-dark/philip-zimbardo
January 11, 2009 at 11:51 am |
How concept of soul came into being?
Indestructible and transcending death but isn’t it logical that parameters of existence beyond death should be qualitatively different from this life else death as an interface is meaningless.
January 11, 2009 at 7:36 pm |
Anil, I am missing something in your question.
I would seem to me that precisely because people must have thought of death as a very profound transition (a meaningful interface) that they must have speculated about what happens after death.
And because most people really do not want to die, it would have been natural to think of some part of the individual (call it the soul or the spirit) that would live on after the body disintegrated into dust (which they would have no doubt observed).
I am not an expert of this subject but this seems a fairly plausible explanation from common sense. Of course, human beings always complicate matters so there were some (the Epicureans, I think) who came along to argue that while the soul existed, it was not immortal. As you well know these kinds of theological divisions were endless and could go on for ever because there was no scientific way to resolve them. These were all unobservable phenomena and they remain so to this day.
January 12, 2009 at 4:20 am |
It seemed to me that when we think we hear our thoughts therefore get the impression of some thing abstract quite not us yet residing within us probably gave reason for concept of soul. Now all defining events dramatically alter states therefore it is logical that past death if we visualize life then it must be dramatically different from this flesh and blood life.
All the writings and thoughts we have is continuation of the same life with some window dressing.
January 13, 2009 at 7:04 am |
Anil, Conscience is a similar phenomenon. People often hear an ‘inner voice’ telling them not to do what the body desires or some authority requires them to do. Because its workings are mysterious people are inclined to attribute such a voice to a benevolent God.
When an appeal is made to conscience to defy the laws of the state complex issues can arise. Think of the ‘conscientious objectors’ who opposed the compulsory military service in the US during the Vietnam War. Many had to escape to Canada and those who didn’t were arrested like Mohammad Ali Clay, the boxer, who lost some of his prime years in prison.
January 18, 2009 at 4:22 pm |
Can Artificial Intelligence ever match human mind in every aspect? Can a computer be ‘aware’ like we are?
January 20, 2009 at 3:31 am |
Anil, I received an answer to your question from a subject expert. It was so comprehensive and useful that I decided to make it a free-standing post so that it may be available easily to other readers. It can be accessed at:
http://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/can-a-computer-be-aware-like-a-human/
January 25, 2009 at 12:42 pm |
What feature of death we fear most? Is it the cessation of this life or the commencing of journey into unknown or the fear of pain accompanying death?
If the biological purpose of life is reproduction and fear of death keeps us alive then shouldn’t that fear disappear when we are no more useful for reproduction?
Are we naturally programmed to die of old age? After all the weak and feeble become first meal of predators!
January 29, 2009 at 1:38 am |
Anil, This is an empirical question and impossible to answer without a survey. One can say that at bottom death is associated with uncertainty and uncertainty of any kind makes many individuals fearful. It is interesting that the composer Rachmaninov was terrified that there might be survival after death and it was Socrates who said “To be a philosopher is to learn how to die”.
The uncertainty associated with death does not disappear with the event of reproduction. I doubt that the person who chooses not to reproduce thinks of life after death very differently. You might argue that one who has reproduced dies happier or more contented (although that depends on the quality of the offspring) but that is not necessarily correlated with lack of fear.
All available evidence (disregarding stories about long-lived people like Noah or Khizr) suggests that human beings are programmed to die. Dying of old age is a relatively recent phenomenon. Life expectancy used to be very short.
January 29, 2009 at 10:10 am |
“All available evidence (disregarding stories about long-lived people like Noah or Khizr) suggests that human beings are programmed to die. Dying of old age is a relatively recent phenomenon. Life expectancy used to be very short”
This suggests that we are not programmed to die but we are programmed to live, else Life expectancy could not have been increased. Seems we are programmed to live upto reproductive age beyond that program removes all controls and we are on free steering……
January 31, 2009 at 6:37 pm |
Anil, Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that human beings are programmed. This is an open issue but let us ignore it for the moment.
If human beings are programmed to live and they all die it would reflect very poorly on the programmer. If they are programmed to die and they extend their life spans, it would reflect well on the ingenuity of human beings. We can choose between these interpretations depending upon our beliefs and perspectives.
To think that there is some multi-stage programming seems implausible. As it is, the infant and child mortality rates are so high (especially in South Asia) that it is hard to believe we are programmed to live up to reproductive age.
February 1, 2009 at 3:30 pm |
You have not taken into consideration biological purpose of life which is perpetuation and evolution of species therefore it is logical that program runs to meet that purpose beyond that it does not care. In addition DNA is about code therefore life is some kind of program. We cannot fault with the program if external factors influence it. High child mortality in south Asia is due inaccessibility of better health care.
Also the argument in other article by Aakar Patel, I disagree that Indians are voracious eaters and also doing dishes and making dinner is hardly any exercise to make any impact. Americans eat a lot more than Indians and red meat at that but yes they do a lot more hard work and indulge in physical exercise. But essentially Indians proneness to heart ailment is mostly genetic.
February 3, 2009 at 5:55 am |
Anil, We may be thinking of slightly different aspects. The perpetuation of the human species may be guaranteed but that would not mean that any human being is programmed to live. There is no contradiction between human beings being programmed to die and the human species to continue.
How well has Eliot put it in Sweeney Agonistes:
“Birth, and copulation, and death.
That’s all the facts when you come to brass tacks;
Birth, copulation and death.”
May 29, 2009 at 3:01 pm |
I finished reading the first chapter of Khilnani’s ‘Idea of India’ last night and had a few thoughts relating to what he says about state and society in India and what I think that means for inter-community relations in India.
Khilnani argues that since the Republic was constituted it has steadily taken power away from society. And indeed one does see evidence of this in India today. The level of mobilization that political parties achieve is almost unprecedented. And while Khilnani gives the impression that this is a good development as it leads to the erosion of the caste system and other social problems, I think it creates other problems particularly between communities.
Multicultural societies are stressful and even more so in the presence of pervasive depravity. The society in India seemed to have mechanisms to deal with its inherently pluralistic nature, sufi shrines, shared traditions and fixed economic dependence of various groups on each other.
I think the entry of the state distorts this picture significantly. Often, the state seems to be unable to construct or even create conditions for the construction of an equivalent secular space in modern urban India. I think this is one reason for the communal mindedness of many in India’s middle class. Communities are segregated, do not interact and do not visibly depend on each other. Shared cultural spaces seem to be almost non-existent. In fact, the actions of the state have lead to even further erosion of the secular space than one would have expected.
Like you pointed out, it will take very careful management of inter-community relations for India to be stable in the coming decades. You gave the example of inter-race relations in America, however I think there are a few differences. Blacks in America have had to eventually accept an identity that is much heavier on Anglo-Saxon traditions than their African ones. Even the newer migrant communities, which are encouraged to retain their ‘culture’ are heavily Anglo-Saxonized by the second generation.
What I am trying to say is that simply managing inter-community relations will not be enough in India, a new secular space has to be constructed and I am not sure what role the state will be able to play in this construction. If you have time, I would like to know your thoughts on this issue.
Thanks.
June 1, 2009 at 10:03 pm |
Vikram, I read the first chapter on democracy again. We will need to go back and forth a number of times before we can be sure of the message. The text is so rich, covering both the history of ideas and a chronology of governance in India, that is easy to stray and lose the main thread.
In relation to the points you have raised, my understanding of the text is as follows:
In the India before the British, there was virtually no politics as we understand it today. Power was diffused and localized. There was no central agency “with powers to change society, to alter its economic relations, to control its beliefs, or rewrite its laws (p. 20).” The stability of such a diverse society was based on the acceptance of a social code. This was an oppressive code (p. 19) but its strength was that it allowed for a lot of variation at the margins; hence the existence of the syncretic communities and the shared cultural spaces that you have mentioned.
The British brought “modern” politics to India and a central state became the repository of power. This was an activist state that wished to control the entire territory of India, to initiate social reforms, and to reorganize society along modern lines (p. 21). In fact, it articulated its disapproval of the very social code by which Indian society had been ordered before the emergence of the state.
I did not read in the text the author giving the impression that this was a good development as it led to the erosion of the caste system and other social problems. Let me know the sections that made you think so.
The point that you have not mentioned, and which is critical to the author’s argument, is the institutional mechanism that determines who controls the state with all this power. In brief, this mechanism was elections based on universal suffrage. Here the author makes the key point that European democracy rested on individual rights but the British decided that the interests of Indians could not be individual (p. 24). In India, the British put in place a system based not on the rights of individuals but of communities. From this emerged the notions of majorities and minorities and communal electorates whose interests had to be protected from each other (pp. 24, 25).
Khilnani terms this the ‘inconsistent bundle of ideas and protocols of the British imperium (p. 25).” From there we can move quickly to understanding how conflicts arose “among social groups whose identities could be activated for political ends: religious, urban or rural, caste, language, class, or ethnic origin (p. 50).” This explains the rise of identity politics and the shrinking of the shared cultural spaces that you have mentioned.
The first manifestation of this inconsistent bundle, and of the degree of its inconsistency, was the rise of Muslim politics and the incredible human tragedy that was its consequence. After the partition, the two countries started from scratch again without doing anything to remove the inconsistency. The tensions overwhelmed Pakistan once more in 1971. India has been luckier, ironically because its deep divisions prevent any one group from dominating all the others. But the shared spaces have been shrinking and the level of violence and intolerance continues to rise.
The author summarizes it well: “The conflicts in India today are the conflicts of modern politics; they concern the state, access to it, and to whom it ultimately belongs (p. 60).” Given the nature of the state and the basis on which its control is contested, it is hard for me to imagine how the same state can manage inter-community relations and create a new secular space. Perhaps there needs to be a new principle of authority in Indian society. This would go back to the debates that took place at the very beginning with Gandhi arguing for an independent India that would dispense with the state altogether, Patel wanting one that would express and reflect the existing patterns of society, and Nehru believing in one that would actively reconstitute India’s society and reform it in the image of the West (p. 33).
Who had the better vision? Who appreciated best the consequences of adapting a Western model to the India of that time given that there were none of the Enlightenment debates that preceded the rise of representative governance in Europe? The sharp observations of the author are to be noted: “Constitutional democracy based on universal suffrage did not emerge from popular pressures for it within Indian society, it was not wrested by the people from the state; it was given to them by the political choice of an intellectual elite…. Most people in India had no idea of what exactly they had been given. Like the British empire it supplanted, India’s constitutional democracy was established in a fit of absentmindedness (p. 34).”
Let us keep talking and refining our understanding of these issues. Hopefully we will get others to join in as well.
June 6, 2009 at 9:39 pm |
I apologise for not being able to reply, but I have been asked to do a lot of work in the last week by many different people. I will reread the first chapter and get back by the end of next week.
Apologies, Vikram.
June 25, 2009 at 2:33 am |
I have reread the first chapter. I definitely get the impression that the author feels that the Indian state set out to restructure Indian society and that this was a good development,
“the true historical success of Nehru’s rule lay not in a dissemination of democratic idealism but in its establishment of the state at the core of Indian society”
You said,
“Given the nature of the state and the basis on which its control is contested, it is hard for me to imagine how the same state can manage inter-community relations and create a new secular space.”
Indeed if the basis for the control of the state is based on majoritarian ideas of democracy, the state cannot play this role. But perhaps other entities can.
June 2, 2009 at 4:20 am |
I have not read the book under discussion, nor have any intentions of reading the same. Hence, I do not qualify to be a participant in the discussions based on the book. However, having read the last response of The South Asian, first I quote from it and then offer my observations on the same.
“The conflicts in India today are the conflicts of modern politics; they concern the state, access to it, and to whom it ultimately belongs (p. 60).”
Like the British empire it supplanted, India’s constitutional democracy was established in a fit of absentmindedness (p. 34)
‘Perhaps there needs to be a new principle of authority in Indian society.’
Over a long span of time, the societal phenomena are the outcomes of the interaction of societal forces. and cannot be the result of ‘fit of absentmindedness’. In fact, even the ‘chance is an expression of necessity’
I am of the view that in a society, ‘politics’, in the ultimate, is a part of the superstructure, and not the base or the foundation. And, invariably, the conflicts – whether overtly or covertly – represent a struggle for control over resources. And, that is why the economic criterion has to be accorded its due place, notwithstanding several other important criteria. However, not for a moment, I am advocating vulgar ‘economic determinism’.
Mostly, the conflicts are camouflaged, and disguised in various ways, so as to hide their real economic nature, because in a bourgeois democracy, and even otherwise given the level of development, adoption of the policies with the explicit objective of ‘rich becoming richer and poor becoming poorer’ cannot be placed on a high moral pedestal.
‘The principle of authority’ are ultimately decided by the dominant interests of the society – local as well as non-local.
June 2, 2009 at 11:07 am |
Hasan, Your position that even the chance event is an expression of necessity can lead to the conclusion that whatever happened had to happen – there could have been no other trajectory.
Many people will call this an extreme position. In the book under discussion, the author claims that in 1950, there were two diametrically opposed visions for India in contention, Nehru’s and Patel’s. “But at the end of 1950 Patel suddenly died, and with this chance event the command of the party passed into Nehru’s hands.”
It seems reasonable to characterize this as a chance event with important consequences. I don’t see how it can be considered an outcome of the interaction of societal forces.
July 1, 2009 at 7:05 am |
Vikram, I continue to feel ambiguous about the thrust of the first chapter. You have quoted a key sentence: “the true historical success of Nehru’s rule lay… in its establishment of the state at the core of India’s society.”
History will undoubtedly see it as the major achievement of Nehru’s leadership. The author describes and notes this achievement but I am not sure if he commits himself to saying whether the development itself was good or bad for Indian society.
The subtext of the chapter exudes a different message. The nationalist leaders were Macaulay’s children “Indian in colour and blood but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” They saw history and the future through a European lens. The notion of a state was alien to India and was championed by a handful of individuals with no comprehension on the part of the people. It politicized social communities and led to growing violence and criminality in politics. It reduced democratic governance to a caricature centered only on control of state resources via elections.
After reading this it is hard to think of the establishment of the state as a success. But it is equally hard to imagine what the alternative modalities of governing India could have been. The British had already started India down this path and perhaps there could have been no turning back. It is difficult to imagine what the Indian trajectory would have been like if the British had never colonized the territory.
Perhaps Nehru’s achievement could be considered as extracting the best outcome from the hand that was dealt by history.
Re your last point, can you elaborate on what other entities might be able to play a role in creating a secular space.
Added later: Discussion of possible alternatives to democratic governance and the importance of content rather than form – Life, Liberty and Benign Monarchy?
July 2, 2009 at 2:11 am |
I wrote one post on how individuals can contribute to inter-group reconciliation,
http://vikramvgarg.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/a-r-rahmans-vande-mataram-reclaiming-and-reshaping-indias-inter-communal-space/
Obviously, my ideas in that post can be (and were) challenged, and even if I am right that is a drop in the ocean.
But I think in general, cinema in India has tried to create a secular space, although there are exceptions and it could do a better job.
That is one entity I can think of. But I guess the state has to get its act together here, in many ways it seems to be the only thing that matters.
The temptation is there in some circles to introduce hyper-nationalism (like that of China) but that will do much more harm than good.
July 2, 2009 at 2:13 am |
And initiatives like this help too,
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1668481,00.html
Do read it, it is quite important in the context of many conversations we have had.
July 2, 2009 at 6:36 am |
Vikram: Thanks for the link. It is an interesting insight. I agree cinema and schools are institutions that can do what you had suggested. However, the impact would be much greater if the state takes a proactive stance. This would be equivalent to the US Congress enacting the Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s and the Supreme Court putting its weight behind the desegregation of schools.
On The Idea of India, I suggest we skip to Chapter 4 (Who is an Indian?). it picks up the discussion from the chapter on democracy. Here the author does commit himself and supports your interpretation of the earlier chapter: “The minimal precondition for any kind of Indian identity after 1947 was a state…” (p. 172). In Chapter 4 one also gets a sense of what an alternative to a state-centric model might have been. It was a Gandhian vision (pp. 164-165) very much in harmony with the Indian ethos. But as Khilnani writes “The influence of the Gandhian vision receded with surprising speed during the 1940s…”
July 1, 2009 at 9:41 am |
SA, your ambivalence reminds of the feeling I get when I think about globalization and Haussmanisation – different phenomena from the establishment of a state – which lhave left a lot of damage in their wake but also do a lot of good. It becomes very difficult to give one single moral comment to such phenomena that have widespread social impact. One can only highlight the good and the bad and speculate on how the good effects can be achieved in future attempts without the ‘bad’ effects or mitigate the bad effects already wrought on the society. A single comment will only reflect the author’s bias.
July 1, 2009 at 6:16 pm |
Vinod: You are right, of course. I guess that is the reason why Sunil Khilnani has described what happened but not offered a value judgement. The question that keeps turning over in my mind is whether there were other paths available, other ways of governing India that might have been more in harmony with indigenous traditions. We accepted an alien graft and paid a very high human cost, first at the time of Partition and then with the separation of Bangladesh. Add to that the perpetual divisions of Punjab and Bengal, the crises on India’s flanks, the wars, the turmoil in Sri Lanka. Put that all on one side and on the other the fact that we have been able to do very, very little for the bottom third of the population. I don’t see the costs and benefits balancing out. I am left with the feeling that we should have been able to do better. When I look at Malaysia, I know that even within the framework of the nation-state it was possible to do better.
August 7, 2009 at 1:49 am |
PHOOLAN DEVI’S MOTHER
The Americans and the Pakistanis are at war with Baitullah Mehsud. Assume that Baitullah Mehsud is guilty of war crimes. Does that justify the killing of Baitullah Mehsud’s wife as the Americans have done with a missile strike?
Answer YES or NO and justify your answer.
For contextual relevance substitute for Baitullah Mehsud any individual whom the government of your country has declared an enemy of the nation and assume that you agree with this assessment.
The advanced student may read John Gray’s review of The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen.
August 7, 2009 at 6:14 am |
From a moral standpoint, I would argue that the killing of Baitullah’s wife is unjustified. Even if we grant that he is a terrorist, that does not necessarily make her one. She has not been accused of any crimes, unless being married to a terrorist and being the daughter of a terrorist are crimes.
Of course in war situations, combatants often go after those who are close to their enemies, though this doesn’t make it right. Baitullah’s wife was not strictly a solider or “enemy combatant.” One could argue that she was an innocent woman who happened to be married to the wrong man. Similarly, Baithullah’s children are not necessarily terrorists. The sins of the father should not be blamed upon the child.
August 8, 2009 at 3:49 am |
This question has bothered me for a long time. Does circumstance or what the Americans are fond of calling collateral damage justified at anytime? In law too it is said that let a thousand convicts be free but not one innocent go to jail. What about the right to life of innocent people who will most certainly be killed by these freed criminals?
I suppose dying is finality of life. Fore knowledge of dying in a short finite time is the most horrifying experience of life. Abrupt death of Baitullah’s wife is similar to death of an innocent person waylaid by a freed criminal. In that sense and also the knowledge that Baitullah must be stopped before he kills or becomes instrument of killing many more innocents is awful reason to kill him along with his wife but at least the pair died without the fore knowledge of dying.
August 26, 2009 at 8:36 am |
Anil, in your questions lie the essence of the conflict between utilitarian morality and the Kantian-rationalists.
August 16, 2009 at 7:57 pm |
If we accept that the mark of an educated person (and by extension an educated society) is the ability to self-criticize, and that most countries in the West are ‘educated’, and most in the Islamic world are not, then doesn’t this make dialog between the two pretty much irrelevant ?
For example, if the Israeli society does allow room for debate and dissent on the Palestine issue but the neighboring Islamic countries refuse to even recognize the existence of Israel, then how can dialog lead to a solution ? It seems to me that in the absence of any kind of effective critical thinking in the Islamic countries, obliteration of Israel would be very much on the cards, if it was not able to defend itself, and did not have the kind of belligerent posture it does right now. Recall the reactionary, undesirable elements of the Partition.
I think similar parallels can be drawn between Pakistan and India. If India did not hold on to Kashmir and take on terrorists there, would an ‘uneducated’ country Pakistan really stop at that ? I doubt it, especially, given that most in Pakistan refused to even use the word terrorist until that country itself began to feel its sting.
Note that on many internal issues, India itself is not educated, especially on the Hindu-Muslim issue, something that might have terrible consequences.
August 16, 2009 at 8:13 pm |
Vikram: I feel you have answered your question in the last sentence. Countries are not educated or uneducated, people are. And the same people can be more educated on some issues than on others. So the purpose of the dialogue on any issue is to enlarge the circle of educated people relevant to that issue. What is the alternative?
August 16, 2009 at 10:28 pm |
I was referring more to education as self-criticism, I don’t see much of this in the Islamic world, mostly due to state control of media. To have a meaningful dialog, we need to have equally educated societies on both sides, dont we ? Otherwise the moment the more educated one drops its guard, the reactionary elements of the other side can cause great damage.
August 17, 2009 at 12:15 am |
Vikram: The real issue here is what is the appropriate actor or agent in this argument – society or individual? I feel that using society as the agent is not helpful because then one is unable to explain any dynamics within a society. The real danger may be less from the reactionary elements outside society and more from those within.
One can test your hypothesis against the evidence and see how well it explains historical events. Most modern-day aggressions have been launched by the ‘educated’ countries against the ‘uneducated’ countries (to use your terms). Aggression has its origins in factors other than the ability for self-criticism. Once a war is launched the ‘reactionary’ elements in the originating society support it regardless of its merits while those who possess the capacity for self-criticism question its legitimacy if they feel its is unjust. The Vietnam War is a major example.
As the debate takes root and events intervene the balance of opinion in society (on a particular issue) can shift with people revising their positions. Even McNamara who was one of the key architects of the Vietnam War at the end believed that it was unjust. Societal opinion on any issue is a cumulation of individual opinion on that issue and individual opinion is always open to change which is why debate and dialogue are needed. Note also that individuals are not in the same camp on every issue.
August 26, 2009 at 8:31 am |
Vikram, in my opinion the orthodox scholars and institutions have a death grip on the muslim community. If there is any reformation that has to happen it has to come from within orthodoxy. I cannot imagine a layman breaking the stranglehold of the orthodox scholars on the laity.
Having said that, I do find orthodoxy evolving. The rulings on apostasy laww have changed within some quarters in orthodoxy; and so have the views on homosexuality. These are healthy signs. The orthodoxy of Sunnipath is something that seem amenable to dialogue with modernity.
August 26, 2009 at 2:11 am |
Are you aware of any books on the history of Bihar or UP after 1950 ? Guha’s India after Gandhi has some info but it is too broad for those particular states.
August 26, 2009 at 11:32 pm |
Vikram: Nothing has caught my attention. I haven’t really seen much with substance in South Asia at the sub-national level. The British at least had the District Gazetteers that were and still are invaluable for research. I wonder if the practice was kept up anywhere?
September 17, 2009 at 4:30 am |
hi kabir, i am an 18 yr old studying at india’s AIIMS med school for my mbbs. I stumbled upon ur blog from pth and really like it.
My question: When will india have a tryst with her destiny again?
September 17, 2009 at 1:12 pm |
Hi different opinion,
Thanks for liking the blog. It’s not mine though, I’m just a fan like you:) Please keep visiting
September 18, 2009 at 9:23 am |
Kabir , in any case , from your debates at pth, i have come to the following conclusion:
1. you are one cool human being
2. you are a rational pakistani
3. you give a tough fight to mr hamdani
May god bless you
September 18, 2009 at 12:36 pm |
Thanks different opinion:) lets chat off the blog? I’d love to make friends in Delhi:) What’s the best way to reach you?
September 18, 2009 at 2:12 pm |
Kabir/Different Opinion: If you wish to take your conversation off-blog, send your email addresses to TSAI (thesouthasianidea@gmail.com) and we will exchange them in a secure transaction. Thanks to both of you for visiting the blog and making friends on it.
September 19, 2009 at 5:22 am |
BUT, southasian ji, you haven’t still answered my question.
September 19, 2009 at 5:53 am |
DO: I thought the question was for Kabir (with a great sense of relief). That’s a tough question – it’s less a question and more an invitation to reflect. I wonder if there are people in India mulling that over?
September 19, 2009 at 12:05 pm |
DO, I thought about your question:
When will India have a tryst with her destiny again?
Your emphasis is on the timing, not on the nature of the tryst. The implication of the question is that India does not have a tryst with her destiny at this time.
I went back and read again Pandit Nehru’s great speech and came away with the conclusion that a tryst (in the sense of a pact) with destiny does exist and is well-defined:
The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.
The tryst (in the sense of a meeting) with destiny will occur “when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.”
September 21, 2009 at 2:15 am |
What is this tribal urge to celebrate an unethical act? I refer to the shoe episode.
September 25, 2009 at 2:53 am |
Why didn’t Islam win all Hindus over? Islam was able to win over the over whelming populations of the pre-Islamic people in the former Persian empire and North African countries. They not only changed their religion they even changed their language, all over a period of centuries ofcourse. In South East Asia too, particularly in the Malayan peninsula, Islam managed to win over 60% of the people there.
But in the Indian subcontinent, where Islam has been around since its beginnings (8th century AD) Islam has barely managed to win 35% of the population. What can explain this relative lack of success in conversion?
September 25, 2009 at 3:13 am |
Vinod, I’m not really qualified to answer this question, but I’d like to venture a guess.
I think that the reason why Islam barely managed to win 35% of the populaton of the Indian subcontinent is because Sanatana Dharma is very flexible as a religion and allows for a lot of variation in local practices. Most people didn’t feel the need to convert. Those who did convert were usually the shudras, who clearly were being disempowered by the caste system, and were perhaps attracted to the egalitarian nature of Islam (of course, only in theory).
Also, as we know, despite the BJP myths that Islam arrived in Bharat by the sword, most conversions were done by Sufi saints, who taught by example. Other saints like Bhagat Kabir evolved a philosophy that was neither purely Islamic or Hindu, but focused on belief in a personal god, and not on the manner in which one worships.
September 25, 2009 at 7:51 am |
I read some where (lost reference) description of an English officer of the company about how a preacher standing bang in the middle of a busy crossroad in Varanasi abusing and rediculing Hindu Gods while people standing around him laughed. He was making this comment with reference to why the missionaries were not able to convert Hindus.
September 25, 2009 at 2:27 pm |
SN Balaganghadhara gives a lot of details about why Christian missionaries failed with Brahmins. It had to do with the philosophical outlook of Brahmins. SNB presents the bewilderment of the missionaries at the arguments of the Brahmins. They simply do not get the paradigm in which the Brahmins think.
But my question is about Islam. I wonder whether that same outlook was the reason for Islam’s modest yield in India.
Regards
September 26, 2009 at 12:37 am |
I think one could formulate a better answer to this question by looking individually at the various people’s of South Asia. Here’s my guess at why things are as they are:
1) Punjabi People : Mostly converted to Islam, probably due to geographic location.
2) Sindhi People : Almost fully converted to Islam, again due to geography.
3) Hindi Peoples (Rajasthani, UP, Himachal etc) : Mostly stayed Hindu. A bit surprising considering the geography and length of time under Islamic empires.
4) Bengali People : Mostly converted to Islam.
5) Gujarati People : Mostly stayed Hindu.
6) Marathi People : Stayed Hindu. History of resistance against Northern Empires.
7) Kannada, Malayali, Telugu and Tamil People : Mostly stayed Hindu, due to geography and historical animosity towards the North.
8) Oriya : Stayed Hindu.
9) Assamese : Stayed Hindu, geography and resistance of the Ahom Kings.
10) Manipuri : Stayed Hindu.
So 3 out of 10 South Asian peoples converted heavily to Islam, rest stayed Hindu. Bengal is the real puzzle here.
September 26, 2009 at 12:55 am |
Vikram: This is the right way of looking at the situation but it needs to be qualified. Punjab and Sindh appear to be fully converted to Islam if you look at the post-partition scenario but there was heavy movement of non-Muslims out of these regions. About Bengal you are definitely mistaken. The best evidence of this would come from the last census before partition which would give the population breakdowns in the undivided provinces of Punjab, Sindh and Bengal.
I have found the following breakdown of population by religion (percentages) for Punjab in the paper Demography of the Punjab by Gopal Krishan (page 83):
Census Year 1881: Hindu (44) Muslim (48) Sikh (8) Christian (-) Other (-)
Census Year 1941: Hindu (29) Muslim (53) Sikh (15) Christian (2) Other (1)
The following explanation is given for the change: “A big erosion in the percentage share of Hindus was caused by the conversion of many of them to Islam, Sikhism and Christianity. Such a change of religion was much more typical of lower castes among the Hindus, such as chuhras, chamars, jhiwars, and malis. Conversion was negligible from the higher castes, such as Brahmins, Aroras, Khatris, and Aggarwals.”
The important point to keep in mind is that this heavy conversion was well into the period of the British Raj and after the end of the Mughal dynasty in 1857. Even after this heavy conversion, the Muslim population was about half the population of the Punjab.
For Bengal, you can find the information here for 1905 when the province was divided for the first time. Out of the total population of 81 million, there were 54 million Hindus (67%) and 27 million Muslims (33%).
September 26, 2009 at 2:24 am |
Could it be eating habits? Hindi belt is largely vegetarian while Bengalis love their fish?
September 26, 2009 at 3:23 am |
Could it be the differences in caste dynamics among these linguistic communities?
Vikram, that’s a very good approach suggested. I didn’t quite understand what you meant by grographical location. Could you pls explain?
September 26, 2009 at 5:04 pm |
@ SA: The Bengal province of 1905 included present day Bihar and Jharkhand, that are mainly Hindu and tribal. So those numbers don’t reflect the actual situation among Bengalis.
@ Vinod: I mean the proximity of Punjab to fully Islamic areas like Afghanistan and Iran.
September 26, 2009 at 5:37 pm |
Vikram: I take your point. Still, the Bengali people cannot be described as “mostly converted to Islam.” Information about Bengal is proving hard to find which is why I gave the 1905 data which was more readily available in connection with the first partition of Bengal. If you look at page 8 of this paper, it gives the population of Bengal just before the second partition of 1947 as: 3% Tribal, 55% Muslim, and 42% Hindu. This must be from the 1941 census. Once again, like Punjab, the population at the time of partition was about half Muslim. But keep in mind, that a significant percentage of the conversions in the Punjab took place in the British period. The same might well be the case in Bengal. This requires tracing the census data from 1881 onwards. I am sure someone must have done this analysis and we have to locate the reference.
September 27, 2009 at 3:42 am |
Vinod: I am looking at your question along the following lines:
The process of religious conversion differs greatly depending on the size of the host population and its political structure. Small populations in centralized states are very different from large populations in decentralized states. In the former, if the head of the state converts the bulk of the population is likely to follow suit along with adoption of new language, etc. This is not possible in the latter.
India today is one-sixth of the world’s population; it would have been even more when the subcontinent was not divided. Its political structure was comprised of hundreds of small principalities. Even its religious structure was extremely localized – there was no such thing as one Hindu religion at that time. Conversion must have been a family by family process as one can sense by the remnants of syncretic communities in India.
There was no overt attempt to convert non-Muslims. In fact, the Mughal emperor with the most geographically extensive rule, Akbar, explicitly stated his opposition to religious conversions and his belief that no one religion was superior to another. In such an environment, only those families would have converted who had an economic or social reason to convert. It was for this reason that conversions continued well after the end of Muslim rule and into the British period.
September 28, 2009 at 2:45 am |
That is a very likely explanation, SA. I know of stories of conversions in Iran and South East Asia where the chief or king converted and he commanded that the subjects convert too otherwise he would stop the water supply to them and they all complied. The relationship between chiefs/kings and the subjects had a big role to play in conversions. If you got the king, you got the people under him. But I don’t find or haven’t heard of such stories of conversion in the indian subcontinent.
September 28, 2009 at 4:05 am |
When emperor Ashok converted to Buddhism everyone converted to Buddhism. Not a small kingdom.
September 28, 2009 at 7:45 am |
Anil, that’s an interesting tidbit.
Emperor Ashok was known to be a govt-in-everything kinda guy, an absolutist. Govt controlled everything. With this background, one can expect the people in the empire to convert given the govt control + Ashoka’s rather noble development zeal. As his title suggests, he was an emperor and ruled over a rather big chunk of land as compared to the little kingdoms that existed in India (characterised as principalities by SA) just before the arrival of Islam.
September 29, 2009 at 12:12 am |
Vinod: I tend to agree with your argument. There have been very few occasions when India has had a centralized state and Ashoka’s reign was one of those times. Also, the population in the third century BC must have been quite small.
September 29, 2009 at 5:35 am |
There is one aspect of Hinduism that is irreversible on conversion therefore major deterrent to conversion. In the unique pyramid style caste system, everyone except the SCs find more persons below his status therefore wouldn’t want that distinction gone. This irreversibility acts as a major deterrent against conversion. The SCs on the other hand are too terrified to alter status quo.
September 30, 2009 at 2:25 am |
Anil: There is life in this argument. Still I think there is something more to the story. Indonesia was a Hindu/Buddhist territory which became 90 percent Muslim. The same did not happen in India. The reason may be that the caste system did not have the same rigidity in Indonesia – this remains to be determined.
The other interesting dimension to the Indonesian story is that there were no invasions similar to those in India – the contacts were all trade related. And the conversions took the more conventional route with individual Sultans converting first carrying their subjects with them.
September 29, 2009 at 6:10 am |
Is there a connection between the level of civic sense displayed by a population and the socio-ecnomic-political conditions they experience? Is a culture of good civic sense found in a society with responsive and responsible governance? Is the latter the cause of the former? Is the converse true i.e. a corrupt, unresponsive and inefficient government leads to a degradation in the civic sense of the population by forcing a harsh and crude behaviour pattern as a necessity for survival?
September 30, 2009 at 2:58 am |
Vinod: It would be going too far to think in terms of a one-to-one correspondence simply because the time constants of the two are very different. Civic sense evolves much more slowly while political conditions can vary quite rapidly. A society with a strong civic sense could just as well resist and throw out an unresponsive and inefficient government. Even a very prolonged Franco dictatorship in Spain could not undermine the civic sense of the Spaniards. However, severe shocks and dislocations can undermine civic sense even in the presence of reasonable governments. To some extent this is what partition did to Pakistan replacing its civic equilibrium with a predatory get-rich-quick culture.
September 29, 2009 at 7:14 am |
SA, pls do something about the commenting feature of this blog. It behaves quite atrociously.
September 29, 2009 at 3:02 pm |
Vinod: Could you let me know the specific problem at thesouthsianidea@gmail.com. I will take it up with the WordPress support team. If others are also having problems please let me know.
September 30, 2009 at 1:22 pm |
Why are fertility rates highest among the most underdeveloped countries where basic infrastructure is in shambles, diseases that can easily be prevented strike in shock waves, unemployment is rampant? Conversely, why do fertility rates fall when there is adequate employment, economic development, infrastructure and healthcare? It sounds counter intuitive.
September 30, 2009 at 3:26 pm |
Vinod: It will not seem counter-intuitive if you think of children in terms of insurance. The poor in developing countries have no assets and no old-age security. Children are like lottery tickets in this hopeless situation – the more the better, limited only by nature and affordability. Some will survive the ravages of disease, one or two might turn out to be exceptional, one may land a job in the public service, one may be around for comfort in old age – you can always hope for one winning ticket. When systems develop to the point that child mortality is limited, everyone is educated, most people can get jobs, health, life and unemployment insurance schemes exist, and there is institutionalized old-age security, the need for such a primitive form of insurance disappears and fertility rates drop. Such social progress is accompanied by urbanization which increases the cost of raising children – so both effects work in the same direction. The need decreases and the cost increases. In most European countries (as also in Singapore) couples have to be given incentives to have children.
The exact analogy to this are the actual lottery schemes that exist in most countries including the US and England. Only the poor buy tickets every week; the rich don’t need to.
October 7, 2009 at 5:53 am |
Why is cancer not considered an epidemic but AIDS is?
October 7, 2009 at 3:17 pm |
Vinod: This is useful question to consider because the usage of terms has changed in recent years. In popular perception the term ‘epidemic’ was used to refer to infectious diseases that were transmitted from an infected individual or group to a previously uninfected individual or group (e.g., cholera, small pox, etc.). According to this definition the distinction between AIDS and cancer was quite clear since the first is an infectious disease and the second is not.
However, the current usage is different and to understand it one needs to define two basic terms in epidemiology (the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations):
Incidence refers to the number of new cases of an illness in a population in a certain period of time, normally one year. Incidence is a ‘flow’ concept.
Prevalence refers to the current number of people suffering from an illness in a population in a given year. Prevalence is a ‘stock’ concept.
In current usage an epidemic refers to the situation when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceeds what is “expected,” based on recent experience (the ‘incidence’ rate).
Since there was a sudden and unexpected outbreak of cases of AIDS, it was classified as an epidemic. On the other hand, although the incidence of cancer is increasing (i.e., the number of new cases every year is rising), this increase is in line with expectations. Therefore cancer is not classified as an epidemic.
Note that according to this definition prevalence is not important to the classification although it remains very important to public health costs and planning. There can be an epidemic of a disease with low prevalence while something with high prevalence like the common cold is not considered an epidemic.
November 10, 2009 at 2:37 am |
I thought I would share this with you, it is quite brilliant,
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/18-jawed-naqvi-rulers-the-only-minority-am-05
November 10, 2009 at 7:06 am |
That is one thought provoking article, Vikram.