Democracy & India

(From annals of forgotten posts)

Ravi recently wrote couple of posts on democracy, whose premises I am not sure I completely agree with.

Let's take the later post first.

According to Ravi democracy is better for the ruling class because it reduces the possibility of a violent change in the regimen. I don't know really, but I doubt that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Allende or any number of democratically elected leaders who met their maker in violent takeover by one or other faction will agree with that, in fact they might have strongly disagreed with the argument, if not for the fact that they are dead.

"Now, now", I hear you objecting, "The manner in which the above became departed was hardly democratic. If the manner were democratic, they would still be on this earth waging long war against Hindu India/Imperialist America".

Which, exactly, happens to be my objection, a system of governance can only be tested by its results and not how it is supposed to work in theory, if democratically elected leaders are overthrown in violent coups, it means the existing power dynamics made democracy unsuitable to begin with.

Which brings me to the more important point. People mistake effect for cause and over stress the importance of democracy. Historically it was not that establishment of democracy was the beginning of the great social transformation such as greater freedom or individuhalism but that democracy, along with freedom, was the end result of accrual of incremental changes gradually brought over by interaction and conflict between existing social forces in presence of technological advances.

This is not to say that democracy doesn't have any effect, but in general, like any social or technological event the change has a feedback effect, and to proposing a simplistic model of democracy as a sufficient cause for peace, or prosperity is simply erroneous.

Now coming to the former post, again I suspect that the post confuses specific structure of state with  underlying social dynamics. Democracy is a particular form of governance whose existence is subjected to social dynamics.

Now any detailed analysis of the dynamics for the specific case will be too lengthy for this post, but briefly democracy can exist when a) The various competing groups (based on differing identities) are matching in the power and b) There should exist at minimum tradition of co-operation to not only participate in democratic process, but also for democratic state to govern, this requires consensus on, in other words common assumptions about, certain issues where the whole take precedence, at least politically, over the constituent (and competing) groups.

Now India fulfills the first condition, however second condition is tricky, while historically we Indians share same cultural and civilizational space, we have not yet been able to form a political identity. As long as Nehru-Gandhi family was focal point of Indian politics, it was possible for Indian democracy to function.

However, having spent their political capital over years, the erstwhile first family is reduced in its influence.
As result that we find, with the beginning of coalition era, our democratic system in chaos and disorder.

Whether Indian democracy can survive, or even Indian republic will exist will depend on the ability of Indians to forge political unity.

Clamour For Kosovo

Retrieved from Deep Freeze

I intended to write this earlier, but kept postponing it Ah ,well.

It is hard not to feel disappointed with this clamour for Kosovo best exemplified by this article, written disappointingly, by Pratap Bhanu Mehta. This does however represent the general position in that it is lacks any convincing argument or even an insight. I admit I am not unduly alarmed by Kosovo independence. Sure these is a possibility that Kosovo might join Caliphate, but Kosovo is hardly the country which is going to scare the beejuses out of me. Or even the fact that this development is in all probability going to cause unpleasant business.

What galls me can be stated as following.

One. There is no international law involved in this case. Sure there can be scope of understanding, but the question of nation formation is more a case of history, identity and balance of power than some universally agreed upon principle.

Second. Related to first, there is a curious (and also irritating) subtext that Kosovo has repercussion on territorial integrity of India, the argument goes that principle of self determination that is employed for Kosovo can be used to support succession of various disgruntled regions from India (Kashmir, North East, Galt's Gunch etc.). This is pure bunkum. Whether India survives or not depends upon ability of Indians to both establish a unifying narrative as well as her military strength, principle international or otherwise, doesn't enter into it.

Third and final. The argument opposing Kosovo independence belongs to the tired liberal ideology best summarized in phrase "holiday from history". Indeed it is frustrating to see Mr Mehta stretching his case for sake of a vaunted multi ethnic and secular nation democracy. Why should Kosovo remain in an arrangement it doesn't wish to , or is not even forced to. It is erroneous for Mr Mehta to conflate how a nation is formed with how a nation is governed. As stated earlier in the post, former is a function of socio-cultural identity and essentially decided with flow of history, the matter of governance on the other hand is matter of political philosophy and its aims constrained by existing circumstances. Therefore it is not so much as Europe has failed in her ability to form stable multi ethnic nation as a product of her history which resolved in present situation, with diverse territories of Austria-Hungary Hapsburg and Ottoman empires disintegrating to form homogeneous democracies. Similarly relative stability of India isn't a result of liberal project but her history and culture and it is that which is responsible for her success. To assume otherwise is fallacious and yet this is what liberal establishment assumes, and peddles as the incontrovertible truth.

Incorrect conversion

(Retrieved from deep freeze)

Sometime back Ritwik fisked some dude*. The only problem that what the dude wrote was unfiskable. I mean, if I can point out what's wrong, it must be horrible. Anyway the article was about why it makes sense to execute who write computer viruses (or is it virii, who cares) just like murderers. The whole arguement rests on the cost benefit analysis of executing vermiscripters (that's the term used), as opposed to executing murderers. Problem is the arguement is valid only when the premise is analyzed in terms of money.However this is incorrect, as capital punishment for murder is justified in terms of human lives saved and not money. If it were otherwise surely economic utility of murderer must have been taken into account in the judgment. This doesn't happen (or to be more precise in this doesn't happen in the context writer is talking about **)

There is an interesting point related to this. What if the arguement was that economic loss due to virus had human cost. To decide on this we can consider case of sabotage. Now in case of sabotage one could argue capital punishment if it damaged or crippled some vital utility related to national security or public health/safety , and as a consequence of which either some catastrophe did (or almost) occur. However I assume, even in that case intent to harm would have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Absent above condition, if the arguement is on the general lines of a loss in economic activity leads to decrease in production which ultimately has cost in terms of human cost would never be admissible to secure capital punishment, even though it is valid.

Why this happens and what are conditions to consider an exchange between human cost and economic cost is not clear to me, however if I were to make a guess to save my life I would speculate that there is a psychological barrier, itself a result of evolution, which denies us to consider this exchange after some point, the exact location of this barrier being dependent on the broader social context. Also breach of this barrier has tremendous social costs.


* Ritwik followed up with another post (as did Ravikiran), which went over my head. I am offended.

** Of course there is concept of blood money, but even that requires consent of relatives.

Padding policy

(Retrieved from deep freeze)

Some time back Gautam Adhikari wrote an editorial explaining TOI editorial policy. Let's ignore the absurdity of TOI having any policy, he wrote,

We take this stance because we are a ‘liberal’ newspaper in the classical sense of the term. Our job is to offer you a wide variety of opinions to help you reflect and form your own views. When we want to express opinions as a newspaper, we do so in our editorials.

I can only assume that he implies classical liberalism. Now I am hardly an expert on classical liberalism, but I always believed that classical liberalism was more concerned with individual rights and freedom, specifically in context with state, such as property rights, due process, civil liberty. What it has got to do with the editorial policy of TOI, is beyond my comprehension.

Now it is possible he was meaning to say that TOI welcomes diverse opinions. However while there is no doubt that classical liberal welcomed diverse opinions, I am sure they were not the only one to do so. I will go so far as to say that during those days even the socialists, monarchists and conservative must have been eager to debate contrary opinions, so that doesn't make much sense either.

Really why do people have to throw around buzzwords. At least he didn't invoke Coase. That would have been too unforgivably annoying.

PS. Padding as in resume padding.