Deluded and Dysfunctional

So a gruesome, horrible beyond imagination, rape/murder happens, which arguably could have been prevented, culprits are apprehended and verdict pronounced.

You know what is this? The bare minimum requirement of functional government in a normal society (look it up under Law & Order).

Yet media and deluded middle class is celebrating as if it was a momentous achievement for India! This sorry state of affairs is a direct fallout of dysfunctional government, itself a result of cargo cult that passes for democracy in India

A Conservative Paradox

To be more precise the paradox is that of conservativism  in a democratic polity.

Now conservatism has no single definition, depending on the specific society it also differs,  the quote by Tolstoy about unhappy families* applies to conservatism also. However, broadly speaking conservatism tends to emphasize importance and conservation of existing traditions, customs and institutions, considering this to be key to a life well lived. In short it is democracy of dead.

So what is the paradox, democracy by its very nature is susceptible to mob rule or tyranny by demagogues,  there can be checks and balances in form of republican form of government but ultimately political power, like any form of power is corrosive. It corrodes the moral grain of those entrusted with stewardship of democracy, it corrodes the political institutions, until the checks and balances give way. The ultimate bulwark against this corrosion is an informed public, whose awareness about politics goes beyond palace intrigues, not only zealously tracking the conduct of political officials and the debates on policy but also finer nuances pertaining to political philosophy.

The above sounds nice, and you might be thinking where is the problem. Well, it is this.

Since conservatism is concerned with the society as a whole, it seeks a balance between the various (often competing for power) social institutions, among which state is but one. The engagement described above is nice in theory, but human nature being what it is, the engagement can turn into obsession fairly quickly, this obsession creates imbalance in favour of state. State monopolizes, in order, the discourse, the narrative and finally even the perspective. This monopoly causes gradual decay of all the institutions, with the exception of state, which progressively sucks up more and more power. This social upheaval, needless to say, is diametrically opposite to what conservatism holds to be prerequisite for good life.

 So what is the resolution of this paradox? Unfortunately there isn't any, pertaining as it is to fundamental nature of democracy and human nature itself. However it is possible to mitigate this somewhat.
One by cultivating general scepticism of the state and another by cultivating a  broader sense of civic virtue which strengthens all the institutions and not just state.

* Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta & Art Of (Forced) Equivalence

I confess, I am pretty pissed off at collective orgasm of Internet Hindus over the overrated Pratap Bhanu Mehta's "While we were silent" piece. Here is what galls me, when PBM uses the hackneyed "We were silent" phrase, he doesn't really mean "I", which he should be doing.

I am not saying PBM has never criticized the disaster that is UPA before, he has done ample of time. What I am saying is, even though the article he wrote now might score high on literary scale, an article titled "Holy shit! this government is a disaster! EJECT! EJECT! EJECT!" published, let's say, eight years ago, while scoring considerably lower on the scale, would have been immeasurably more useful because then it might have helped in averted our present "decade of decline" (which threatens to become "decade of darkness").

And please don't say PBM couldn't have foreseen. Its one thing for paid dullards in Indian media, who copy every frickin' trend in US, to say this, but PBM is a smart fellow, he could and should have foreseen this, especially considering that many in blogosphere (incl yours truly).

It is not my contention that those in blogosphere were particularly smart, rather it is that it didn't require particular keen sense of foresight to predict this, considering Sonia Gandhi and her minions were shouting from rooftops, that was the platform on which they fought 2004 elections, that was what they promised and that was what they delivered. Sure they used latest socialist jargon and that could fool the dullards in media, but surely PBM is a smart fellow, he could have cut through the verbiage and seen the reality.

Ofcourse I think he did see the reality, and as I said at the starting he has criticized UPA ample times. However almost all of his articles can be boiled down to either of the two themes.

1. Congress is bad, "lekin saala akhha system hi kaharab hai".
2. Congress is bad, but BJP is worse.

Of course he took far more sentences to say this, and used fancy vocab and sentence construction, but the gist, was always this.

Why would someone as smart as PBM do this. Surely it must have been clear to him, that as flawed as BJP was, in matters of sound policy and in matter of respecting the institutions, it was (and is) far better than Congress.

Let me postulate this, like all liberals PBM is basically a cultural warrior, his overriding concern is the cultural war over soul or rather idea of India. Sure he wraps this in noble sounding rhetoric of apolitical liberalism, don't let it fool you though, this is anything but apolitical.

PBM is a participant in this war, even if he doesn't explicitly realizes this.Sure he may point to the lumpen elements (and there are many) within the fold of cultural nationalism. but he is more than willing to turn a blind eye towards similar element within lib-sec fold. What is more he has no problem being congenial with our intelligentsia which practices intellectual La Cosa Nostra. In contrast you can bet he feels revulsion associating with, even interacting with, any member of nationalist fold, irrespective of the fact how exemplary that member is.

Mr Pratap Bhanu Mehta, you can play or you can referee, you can't do both.

Our Modern Crisis: Ancient Discontent (Updated)

Previous post might have given the impression that we moderns have stumbled on the crisis on our own. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The genesis of modern crisis is ancient, rooted in the human nature itself.

The human nature, transcending evolution, always becoming, ever dynamic, is also the scene of a struggle. A struggle between its projections.

The biological man is in existential confrontation with social man who in turn is challenged by technical man who is a rebel against the spiritual  man. It is not in power to man to stop or end this confrontation. This confrontation will resolve only when ever unfolding evolutions draws to its unknown conclusion.

Update: In simple words, this means there is always a tension between an individual and society, society and technical progress, technical progress and spiritual faith.

So if the man can't bring the confrontation to its end, what can he do? The overarching aim of philosophy, politics, science, any body of knowledge as conceived by humans should be to  try to mitigate the frequent destruction unleashed by evolution even as it carries human to next stages of his transformation. 

Our Modern Crisis: Background

Ecce Homo

We are missing it. Beyond the incessant chatter of media traditional as well as social, beyond even the rarefied atmosphere of policy debates, there lurks a crisis. I doubt if many are aware about it, much less attempted to grasp its seriousness.

Our modern crisis is about true nature of man. Western politics is sharply divided into Conservatives and Liberals. Yet despite their often bitter partisan rancour, they have fundamentally same view about nature of man. To both, man is an atom, isolated entity imprisoned in his biological form, completely defined by personal virtues and vices, by his intellect and desires. Whether he is triumphant or defeated, he stands alone.
Man is atrophied, static. Man is a mere "being".

Let me humbly suggest that this conception of man is flawed. Man in fact is dynamic, he has progressed from biological evolution itself to higher forms of evolution. Man is "becoming".

It is true that man has a biological form, but that's not his limit. He projects onto higher planes. He is a nexus in social network. He is a shard of global data. He is a wisp of reason. Finally man is the very part of cosmic concious.

What a magnificent creature man is!

Alas how he has been sundered by simple minds 

Zeroth Law

Consider this post as addendum to previous one, while I don't think much of first principles, I do defer to what I modestly like to refer as Gaurav's zeroth law. It is simply this, in my opinion in order for any social theory to be taken seriously it must be non nihilistic. That is to say, assuming human nature to be what it is, society ordered on the basis of that particular social theory must not annihilate itself and must survive and thrive

Colbertization of politics.

Let's talk about Uncle Sam a little longer. Stephen Colbert  appeared before US Congressional committee on immigration in his blow-hard O' Reillesque persona (via Hot Air again). In a way this just furthers bolsters the argument that American politics is becoming an extension of personal, in this particular instance a result of excessive self-regard and at the same an acute need for peer approval among the demographic group termed as hipsters. This main characteristic of this phenomenon, let's call it colbertization, is trivialization of serious matters, accompanied with self-assuredness and self-righteousness that only comfort and security of living in United States can bring. In it it is reminiscent of what Heinlein termed as "Bread and Circus democracy",

"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally has no internal feedback for self correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens...which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it...which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'

"Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."

Why Barkha Dutt hates Hindus ?

Of course here Barkha Dutt is just a stand in for the whole sec-lib establishment, so the question really is why sec-lib establishment hates Hindus. Essentially this question is answered by my previous post, but I would still like to expand on this. To understand the Hinduphobia of the sec-lib establishment, it is important to understand its psychology (hey I am all about the big ‘M’).


Regarding any political establishment four factors come to play. First, it is formed for some noble (as perceived by its members) purpose. Second, no matter how noble the purpose is in reality sooner or later preservation and expansion becomes its one of the main focus, if not the primary focus. This dismaying fact is just inevitable result of human psychology. Third, the assumption behind formation of any such organization, which is the members of organization are better (whether in matter of faith, chivalry, or intellect) than the common populace. Fourth, as the establishment favors the conformity, the unstated assumption to judge any member is zealousness with which he adheres to the specific dogma of the establishment. These four factors, assumption of nobility, assumption of superiority, will to power and pressure to conform profoundly affect the self identification of the individual members of the establishment, essentially engendering what I like to call "second foundation complex", sort of vanguard to shepherd the unwashed masses, the only force standing between barbarism and civilization, and the engine to carry out the great commission. 


To add to these general characteristic, we have the circumstances peculiar to sec-lib establishment. Basically sec-lib establishment is an alien organism within the host body. The establishment predominantly constitutes of the deracinated Indians, intellectually and spiritually Macaulay's children. Historically they self identify not with their Indian brethren, but with the British colonizers. Brought up in an environment where the western and the modern is appreciated, and Indian and the traditional is sneered upon, they develop a western and irreligious outlook which outside the immediate circle of the peers is at odds with the a deeply spiritual and traditional country.


This contradiction presents an existential dilemma to the establishment, much like Islamic rulers of Delhi, they feel besieged by the surrounding Indic civilization. Subconsciously they realize that Hinduism is the core of Indic civilization. They also realize that it is our traditions with all their quirks and follies which are an obstacle to their vision of a irreligious and westernized future. This threat of being subsumed by something which they consider far inferior to themselves, and the frustration at being unable to convert unwashed heathen masses to their superior and enlightened outlook are what ultimately drives their hostility to the Hinduism.


It is important to realize their game plan. All their self righteous outrage about Gujarat riots, or Mumbai riots, or Shri Rama Sena, or Discrimination against Muslims is just smokescreen. Their aim ultimately is to annihilate the Indic civilization.




And they will not stop.


Unless we finish off them first.

Wave Particle Theory Of Politics II

(From where we left )


Now it is my contention that failure of Indian state is a result of our inability to resolve the tension between Individual and Citizen. Let's see why is that so.

Of the two roles Individual is naturally predominating. This is because, self interest is more deeply ingrained in human genes. In order to bring the balance between the two, cultural training to suppress selfish instinct and reinforce altruist one is required. I believe that we have simply failed to form a culture which imparts such training.

There are quite a few reasons for this. First around six decades under totalitarian rule of Gandhi-Nehru dynasty have spawned a culture of scarcity, thus ensuring that even any natural altruistic instinct is eradicated, result, at social level, it is everyman for himself.

Second factor is the mechanism whereby cooperation and by extension altruism is strengthened. This mechanism is the affinity that an individual has towards others. Now this affinity is strongest among members from the same gene pool, next to genes, it is dependent of shared culture, religion, language and decreases as the social interaction decreases. The other factor affecting affinity is the power differential among members. All things remaining constant greater the power difference, which is reflected in social status, lesser the affinity. Thus people with same social status have greater affinity among themselves than among unequal status.

This has unhappy implication for Indian democracy. As a consequence of caste system even at local level Indian society is highly stratified and hierarchical, this is why while there is affinity within the caste group, the affinity between two different caste group is much weaker. Add to this caste hierarchy and historical social inequality in form of caste discrimination due to it, and the result is a society is where  there is a high level of distrust and more important resentment and anger among different castes groups situated in the same locality.

This combined with the first factor has two consequences first the more benign one unless the underlying conditions change politically Indians will continue free loading, the more alarming concern however is the struggle for resources between different caste groups is leading to a powder keg situation where all that is required for conflagration is a small provocation, which may make phrase a million mutinies literally true.

The Wave-Particle Theory Of Politics - I

(Or why Youngistan is bad news)

Good evening (or a bad one, I don't care either way). Those of you who visit this blog to actually read it (instead of looking for Tanushree Datta's photos) might have noticed one theme, among many, of the political posts, viz. while Indian entrepreneurs have succeeded, Indian state has been a massive colossal failure. Now while this observation, call it contradiction or paradox or whatever you like, has its epigrammatic moment, it has kind of bothered me, but it's only been recently that I understood why. The way it is put, it gives the impression that Indian state and the Indian entrepreneur are distinct, an obviously misleading impression, as the Indian state represents (or is supposed to represent, at any rate) Indian people! Taking this to conclusion it's the failure of state is actually that of Indians.

This raises further question, viz. why have Indians failed to establish functional democracy (as opposed to what exists which can be best characterized as cargo cult democracy). There is no single factor to explain this. Yet one factor, significant enough, has been the inability (and as a consequence failure to frame specific institutions of state to address it) to understand the dual role of an individual in a democracy.

Before that a minor digression to explain the title. In classical physics matter and energy are considered to be distinct phenomena with particle a characteristic of matter and wave a characteristic of energy. Quantum physics shattered this picture, tuned out matter and energy are different aspects of the same phenomena, with wave actually representing probability distribtuion of locating particle in space.

In the same way a man has two roles in all forms of democratic society, one as an individual, the other as citizen.

It is expected that man as individual will work for himself, if we want to be retentive about it, the technical description for such behavior is optimization of self defined utility function. Now entrepreneur as an individual seeks to maximize his well being,  the way he does this is by creating value, which ultimately benefits others, however the main objective remains self interest.

This can be contrasted with man's role as citizen. Citizen is better understood as a part of the social experiment, and therefore it is his responsibility to ensure that all the social institutions, ( including state) function to ensure the welfare and prosperity of the society as whole. Again if one wishes to be retentive about it, this roughly means the optimization of aggregated utility functions.

One more digression is required here. The use of "self defined" may suggest that the utility functions are arbitrary, and that is true if one goes by logic alone. However historical evidence and our experience suggest otherwise. Not being a credentialed expert I can only speculate that for a healthy society the utility function somewhat resemble the Maslow's hierarchy*.   Here healthy society means any society which, in addition to the previous qualification, is fit enough to survive in present and also in future, the time scale being civilizational. This then suggests aggregation of individual utility function must be combined with an utility function which applies to the society as a whole. Again this is just my speculation, but this will mean addition of religion and philosophy to Maslow's hierarchy.

It is not difficult to see that there is inherent contradiction between these two roles, with Individual being a self centric role and Citizen an altruistic one. The resolution of the tension between these two roles is the key to a functioning democratic society.


(To Be Continued ...)


* Yes I am hooked on  Maslow's hierarchy. Hey don't judge me at least I don't snort Data unlike Data Nazi.

The 'M' argument *

Here is a confession. I find the level of political discourse in Indian blogospehre quite underwhelming. The problem is that the interlocutors tend to be tunnel visioned, missing out the big picture in their argument. Consequently the arguments tend to be limited to exercise in logical correct, an examination of X follows Y follows Z. And yet the chain of causation, no matter however long or however convoluted, must end up somewhere. This beginning is the first principle. Now people talk about first principles all the time, but what no one realizes is that first principles by very definition are not established by reasoning. In fact if we strictly adhere to logic, the very notion of first principles seem quite arbitrary, the chain of cause and effect being turtles all the way down. A prime example of such an argument being this post (though someday I intend to rebut it, that day is not today) As it happens though first principles are not arbitrary, anchored as they are in human psyche, his instincts and belief system. To give an example, my first principles, for lack of any better words, are traditionalism and cultural nationalism. Now I didn't  happen to stumble upon these principles by accident, but because identification with tradition and culture is an aspect of human instinct. Same must go for liberals and libertarians. Identifying what motivates the politics is therefore as important as the actual politics. Any investment in such an endeavor will be worth its while for we will be better placed to appreciate why people think the way they do, and why it is futile sometimes to engage in debate.

* Argument from motivation

Friday Double Bill - II, Of Gay Marriage

Welcome back ladies, gentlemen and indeterminate life-forms in the back. For sake of social appearances I hope you are comfortable around here, and let’s just move on. In the second part (first part here) of this edition of LaS (i.e. Life and Something), we will discuss gay marriage. As some of you might be aware, in what is considered a major victory to proponents of same sex marriage in US, District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker overturned California proposition 8 an amendment which declared that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”. According to the judge, proposition violated the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of United States constitution.

Not being an expert on American constitution, I will not dispute the legal reasoning behind the verdict. Also unlike most of the opponents of same sex marriage in US, I don’t think that legalization of same sex marriage is solely capable of destroying traditional marriage in US. Having said that, I think it is a bad idea, further it is latest in a series of bad ideas starting from no fault divorce, which have weakened marriage as a social institution. Even further this series of bad idea has its root in western notion of individualism.

To see why is that so, let’s begin by examining the two arguments in support of same-sex marriage, first is that traditional marriage is discriminatory in nature, that is ofcourse true but then so are almost all the relationships, state usually does not recognize a woman as father of her children, same way as much as a man may want he can not be mother of his children.

In short state doesn't define relationships, society does. State merely recognizes the societal definitions, for otherwise the legislation becomes needlessly convoluted. If tomorrow America society recognizes marriage between same sex couple, then state should follow the changed mores.

Here it is important to note that this issue is fraught with slippery slope, the argument presented above is usually countered by the supporters of same-sex marriage with the poser that whether same criteria of social acceptance should be applied to interracial marriage. To this the counter poser by opponents is if the criteria of non discrimination should also apply to incestuous or polygamous marriage. There is no satisfying argument to either of the posers, which is rooted in logic.

However where logic fails, observation comes to the rescue. The observation is this, any society, formed anywhere in world, since the beginning of civilization, has without exception defined marriage as a relationship involving one man and one woman.

The reason for this also answers the second argument in support of same sex marriage, which goes like this, "Just because same sex marriage is legal doesn't mean that normal couple with stop loving each other". The answer to this is, "What has marriage got to do with love ?". Marriage is about forming a committed, and hence stable familial unit. This is because almost all societies found out by hit and trial that a committed and stable familial unit, ceteris paribus, a. ensures the best upbringing of younger generation and b. is the most stable building block for larger society.

In other words, marriage is less about love of two individuals towards each other and more about claim of society towards individuals. When individuals reject any claim of society on them, which, in nutshell, is Individualism, the institution of marriage loses its raison d'etre, and from these its a long slide to irrelevance, aided by attempts to redefine it according to whatever the intellectual fashion of the day.

PS You know what just don't bother, read this post instead, from the archives of Jane Galt

The PostDiluvian Creed

[This post is a result of  email exchange with Don Virmani]

Don raised an important query, one which has intrigued me for a long time. The query is this, despite the apparent contradiction in their world-view, why is left so enamored of Islam? Now  I don't have any definitive answer to that however to best of my understanding the alliance between left and Islam is similar to Molotov-Ribbentrop pact against a common enemy, the Kaffir.

That still doesn't make sense however, surely left realizes that as flawed as (according to them) capitalism (or in our case, Hinduism ) is, it is much more closer to left's vision than a life of abject terror under Islamic tyranny. Here we leave theory and enter the politics. These are just my speculations of course but they kind of make sense to me.

Conservative stalwart Buckley was dismissive of leftist projects, finding its goal of utopia on earth as absurc. He popularized a term for it immanentizing the eschaton. In my opinion he missed a much more pernicous instinct of left, I like to call it Post Diluvian instinct.

Much like Islam and Christianity, left is an inerrant ideology to its adherents, meaning it admits of no fault or incompleteness. This certitude combined with an excess of self regard makes the leftists highly intolerant towards any difference, especially when coming from (in their opinion) their intellectual inferior.

When this fanatic outlook collides with the reality of a social order based upon a differing ideology, the only conclusion open to leftist is that social order is immoral and corrupt, and only after the social order has been destroyed, a new man can rise free from the corrupting influence of earlier order. It is this new man who will be enlightened enough to recognize the historical inevitability, and thus initiate the social reconstruction as envisaged in the doctrine.

This is similar to what happened in legend of Noah. Left wants to bring paradise, but for that it first needs to bring a deluge.

It's Time For Reality Check

Remember when we were talking about how can we rescue India from the clutches of patronage system. At that time I said I don't know what will work. I do know however, what will not work,  that is the  way of data, also known as DataNazi's path. Now RC is a smart man, and my appreciation for his smartness is next to no one, how ever it is time now for an intervention.

To understand why, consider Indian politics as a game of chess, now as per RC this game follows the usual rules for chess, only thing that matters is what is the position of chess pieces at the time. Position decide the future moves and which piece can take out which one. This means that even though theoretically queen is more powerful than pawn, depending on their positions a pawn can take out a queen. Now as much intelligent as he is, RC is making a fundamental mistake. The usual rules are just the pretense, the real rule of Indian politics is, to paraphrase fight club, there are no rules.

Or to be more precise there is one rule, it is the beefier player, if he is losing, proceeds to knock down his opponent, and then feeds him chess pieces one by one until he concedes the match. Now one may question the need for pretense. Well it is not a perfect analogy, so give me a break , will you?

So my advice for anyone wishing to win this game is 1. Eat Protein 2. Lift weights.

Paradigm Shift

Related posts 1,2,3

This is related to the previous post, and something about which I have thought now and then. That governance in India leaves much to be desired is quite an understatement. This reason this happened is accident of history depending about how we define the initial state. However while it is an interesting and relevant discussion, let's restrict our focus to what we can do about it. A short answer to this is in democracy we get the government we deserve (and before people object that it is a cliche, understand that cliches are nothing but truth made tedious by familiarity). A more detailed explanation follows. Our political system as it exists today, can be best understood in terms of  patron - client model with government acting as a patron, dispensing favors to interest groups who are its client  at the expense of others, the ending is similar to that in the parable of the monkey and the cats. If Indians wish to prosper that present arrangement must be superseded by a better one. Now I have not yet arrived at precise details of such an arrangement but broadly speaking it should be an ownership model, where the accepted political culture observes the right of ownership, it means by and large citizens understand that the proper, or dharmic, way for prosperity is by  their own ingenuity and entrepreneurship, and not by extorting wealth from fellow citizens. How to reach from present condition to desirable condition should inform our politics as well as policy decisions.

Fear and loathing in Switzerland

We will be talking about 3 idiots but first let's see what is my problem with Swiss minaret ban. Now all crypto Hindu fascists are more or less gloating over the ban and I think that's wrong. Before I state my problem though I think it should not be controversial to admit that this ban is motivated by an apprehension of Islam. This is not to accuse Swiss people of Islamophobia.


Islamophobia is a term frequently deployed by our Sec-Lib overlords to browbeat anyone critical of Islam, which is ridiculous as strictly speaking phobia is irrational fear of something, whereas there are at the least more than a few reasons for Swiss (or for that matter anyone, including Muslims) to be wary of Islam. The only purpose for terming any criticism of Islam as Islamophobia is to frame the criticism as a psychological affliction and therefore not worthy of reasoned response. This is a typical example of the how Sec-Lib establishment frames the narrative.


So apprehension of Islam is not my problem. My problem rather is this ban is just a reflexive response which doesn’t actually do anything to address the concern. Present situation in Europe has arisen because of their asinine immigration policy. Almost all European countries have a minority population which is ethnically distinct, socially depressed and culturally disconnected from the rest of population. These differences, hard to reconcile over in any case, turn to impossible hurdles in case of Europe due to two factors. One, specific to Europe nation states, is the gradual erosion of common culture first as a result of secularism and later socialism. In absence of any foundation, European nations are losing their relevance as political or social unit, only surviving owing to the fact that they are mostly mono ethnic, and Pax Americana. However this state of inertia is challenged by the second factor which is supremacist nature of Islam. 


These two factors combined are the origins behind tensions in Europe, and to address the European problem these factors must be addressed boldly. The ban on Minarets in no way addresses these factors. In fact, it makes the situation worse because it deludes Europeans into believing that they are confronting the problem as the situation becomes increasingly precarious. 

Tying loose ends

Minor update at the end.


While writing the post on partition, I forgot to include some relevant info which I am including in this post.
But first I will like to summarize the post, as I think it is very much likely that the length of the post might have obscured the theme, which is the conventional view of moderate Muslims as Pro-India and fundamentalist Muslims as pro-Partition is not necessarily borne out by the historical facts.

One such inconvenient fact is the role, respectively of Barelvis and Deobandis with respect to partition. Deobandis are usually considered to be orthodox Islamic school with emphasis on Islamic jurisprudence such as   Shariah and Hadith. In contrast Barelvis are considered relatively unorthodox with a significant incorporation of Islamic experience in India, specifically Sufi traditions. Historically Deobandis have been considered more of conservative/traditionalist and Barelvis reformist/modernists. Yet their role during partition were diametrically opposite to what conventional view would dictate, while Deobandis sided with Congress and opposed partition, Barelvis were in general agreement with Muslim League *

Then there is something I want to address. Rohit, in one of our conversations, remarked that my hypothesis can not explain the fact why Muslims in such a large number chose to stay behind in India. Actually I think one need not even my hypothesis to explain the fact.

Simply put, for League leaders demand for Pakistan was just a bargaining chip to extract maximum concession from Congress. They had hoped, that by raising by communal passion for Pakistan, they could corner Congress leaders into conceding their demands for an ill conceived arrangement superficially resembling federalism. This gambit backfired, and Muslim League ended up with what Jinnah termed as a moth eaten Pakistan. For most of the League leaders Pakistan should have included Hyderabad, Lucknow and Delhi, traditional centers of Indo-Islamic culture and power. However for most of the Muslims residing in what is currently Republic of India, leaving their home for Pakistan was never a real option.

That said, it should be noted making sense of Identity is always perplexing with different intrepreations according to different vantage points. Specifically and reiterating what I wrote in the previous posts, different individuals have diverse influences on the identity. A plebeian unless he is in sync with others of same class has minimal effect on identity, whereas a social elite, either because of his wealth or because of his intellect,  has disproportionately larger influence over the identity. Why is that? Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the answer.

For elites not concerned with fulfillment of basic are naturally more inclined towards identity. Which is why "common man doesn't care about X", although superficially appealing is nonsensical as far as human psychology is concerned.

"But wait", Some might say, "If common man is not concerned with identity, then your point doesn't stand". This is a misreading of what I am trying to convey. Common man doesn't influence the identity to a great extent, but he is influenced by the identity which he shares with the elite.

This is what happened in case of Partition. For a common Muslim, identity was not a major issue, but for an elite a united India meant sub-ordination of Islamic identity to Hindu identity which was a reversal from history where Islamic identity ruled over Hindu identity and thus a matter of distress and insecurity.

This is why the movement for Partition started not in Muslim majority provinces but Gangetic Plains including Bengal, over which Muslims, even though in minority, had ruled for so many centuries.

Initially Muslim League had limited success with masses, even though Khilafat movement was preparing ground for eventual communal polarization. One dirty secret of Congress, in order to undercut Jinnah who was Shia, it actively fueled Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict, foreshadowing Sikh terrorism. Also it is interesting to note that Maulana Azad was much more orthodox in his religious outlook than Jinnah. This explains the drubbing Muslim League received in 1937. However within a decade the situation was reversed, much of it due to the Ulema. 

After this, only the matter of Mahatma Gandhi's politics remains, which I will touch in another post.

Update: In fact I am confident that this hypothesis can be applied to global Islamic terrorism as well.

Faithful, besieged

So this is post I promised about, supposedly a brief examination of historical causes behind partition. As usual it is going to be long and incoherent, and people are better off not reading it. You have been forewarned. 

I think it should come as no surprise I am no fan of Harry Potter. To be sure, the series had promise in the beginning, but as it progressed it became a casualty of its own hype. That and I really don't need "snogging" mentioned in literature.Even then I found Lord Voldemort and his death eaters interesting. Lord Voldemort  and death eaters are of course allusion to Hitler and Nazi. Hitler like Voldemort was obsessed with blood purity and just like Voldemort was a half-blood, Hitler was rumored to be part Jewish.

Now this is fictional, but there is a psychological basis for their seemingly contradictory.
Consider an ambitious young man who more than anything craves social status and peer approval. As it happens the only way available to him to achieve his desire is by belonging to a particular group identity.
Unfortunately for him, his association with the group is not strong sufficiently for his liking. Then, if our young man is neurotic enough, it is possible that he will become a zealot for enforcing the group exclusivity.

Coming to Partition, the villains, as is insinuated by minders of secularism, were fanatics of Muslim league led by Jinnah on one side, and Hindu Mahasabha on the other side. This is, to put it mildly, hogwash. Notwithstanding its politcs, Hindu Mahasabha was always a fringe player and as such not a priority for Muslim league. No, their bile and venom was reserved for wily Hindu Bania aka Mahatma Gandhi and Congress under him. So far from Hindu Mahasabha, it was Congress which was the culprit or at the least protagonist during partition.

 Moving to other side, while it is true that Muslim league is guilty of preticipating partition, it was far from a party of wide eyed Mullahs. In fact, in a way it reflected Congress in that it was a coalition of landlords, middle class professionals and intellectuals. But what is even more remarkable about the movement for separate Muslim homeland is its leading lights.

First Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. He was a reformer and modernist. His commitment to western and liberals ideals was such that not only he freely consumed alcohol and pork he also advocated same for Muslims so that they can emulate the British. He also contributed significantly towards establishing modern educational institutions for Indian Muslims (Aligarh Muslim University being foremost) and at one time he was a strong advocate of Hindu Muslim unity. Yet later in his life he became one of the prominent proponents for a distinct Muslim political identity, a  position which were to directly lead to formation of Muslim league.

Next comes Aga Khan, Imam of Ismailis, a moderate sect within Shia Islam. He in addition to to religious education, also received modern European education in best of British universities. Later on, he made significant contribution towards establishment of social and economic development. And yet, he was one of the founders of Muslim league.

Following him is Allama Iqbal a descendant of Sapru Kashmiri Brahmins, who like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Aga Khan, received western education in European institutions, and besides being a renowned lawyer was an accomplished philosopher and poet. Like others he too began as a patriot who not only stood for an undivided India but also prided himself on Indian heritage (Remember he was the man who gave us Saare Jahan Se Accha). Yet he was to make a turn around in a very short time, and set off on a course which ended up where he is acclaimed as spiritual founder and thinker of Pakistan.

The last exhibit is of course Jinnah. For sake of completion, let's recapitulate. Jinnah, belonging to Khoja Ismaili sect (we will come back to this later) educated in England, possessing a sharp intellect, a western outlook, a man who enjoyed his whiskey and pork, and not his Islam, a man who had no use for religion in public life, a man who was hailed as ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, a man who doggedly opposed Muslim league and proclaimed respect for Ten incarnations of Vishnu. And yet the same man turned into a demagogue pouring incessant vitriol on Hindus, provoking passion, and setting India ablaze.

Of course this is not an exhaustive list of the leaders of Pakistan movement, but I am sure by now you must have noticed something curious. In all the cases we have Indian Muslims, of considerable intellect and education, moderate in their world view, belonging either to more moderate sects or of recent Hindu ancestry, all initially patriots, paving the way for Pakistan.

As Goldfinger remarked, Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action

Now then, if there is a pattern, what is the reason behind it. I have come to believe that the reason is anxiety. To be specific anxiety of identity.

Of the many infractions against reason that Dr Amartaya Sen has committed to this date, none is more flagrant than his characterization of identity as a buffet from which individual can pick any one at his will. Now this may be true of certain western nations at present but it is not true everywhere, what is more important that historically  it has hardly ever been the case.

To be sure, left to himself, a common man of the street whether a Hindu, or a Muslim, will like go on with his life. He has not much use for identity. This is what our enlightened masters mean when they claim, Muslims and Hindus, or Pakistanis and Indians are not much different. Therein lies the problem. Common man, whatever his creed, is never left alone, rather his interactions in the larger social setting are determined by his group association which is acceptable to the society for that particular setting.This holds true even if his interaction is not a part of larger group effort.

The question then arises, what is that mechanism whereby group associations form, reinforce and wither away. What follows is not a not particularly well formed explanation. Group identity are self-enforcing phenomenon, which roughly means group association determines social privileges, obligations and hierarchies, which subsequently  define the cultural assumptions and social norms governing the dynamics of the social interactions. It is the result of these interactions with respect to evolutionary fitness which acts as a feedback to reinforce the group association.

Next we come to the role of individuals. It is my belief that the common man as such doesn't influence the workings of group identity, instead as I wrote earlier, historically speaking his action is dictated by the group identity to a large extent. However, if we make the assumption that the response of common man to factors is not random or arbitrary but limited by some basic rules of human psychology, in that case the masses acting in sync do impact the society, as evidenced by popular movements.On the other hand uncommon men also known as thinkers, philosophers, intellectuals etc, have ability to influence group identity at individual level.

But men, both common as well as uncommon, are guided by a much stronger force, of history. For much of, well history, humanity has flow in its silent yet inexorable currents, and though the thinkers pretend otherwise, even they are not unaffected by it. As George Orwell famously remarked, Those who control the past, control the future. A corollary of this for present context is those who control the identity, control the present/

So where am I going with this. Well the whole digression about identity was to introduce what was in my view the real reason about partition. Which is the historically there has been conflict between Islamic and Indian identities. Now before I proceed, let me do away with some possible objections, I do not think it is accurate to say that everyday co-existence of average Hindus and Muslim is marked with strife and violence, either now or historically (Though I will add that historically even the relations between common Hindus and Muslims have not been entirely peaceful. Hindu-Muslim riots, after all are not something which started after demolition of Babri Masjid). Neither I am implying that Muslims are un-Indian. My intention rather is, that Indian Muslims are claimed by both Indian identity as well as Islamic identity. This is different from other such cases because other linguistic or cultural identities are subset of Indian identity, whereas Islamic identity has an existence and history independent of Indian identity, and as I will attempt to show,by discussing about Islamic experience in India, at conflict with Indian identity.

For Secular class anxious to whitewash the history, Islamic experience in India is mostly a fable about swirling Dervishes and qawwali singing Sufis. That and Akbar the great. In my view a single word more accurately captures the experience of Islam in sub-continent. That word is Urdu. Urdu, derived from Turkic language, means encampment.

Islam was mainly introduced to India, as a consequence of invasions spanning centuries by Muslim invaders, initially from Arab and later on from Central Asia. Now India has been invaded since time memorial by barbarians and nomads from beyond Sindhu. However Islamic invasions were different. Surely the series of Islamic like previous invasions were meant for both loot as well as conquest, but in addition to that, the invaders this time carried the word of Allah as revealed to Prophet Muhammad, seal of Prophets, and zealously guarded by Ulema. They were united in communion with every Muslim of the world in Ummah as bearers of the truth, and foreshadowing the annihilation of Incas and Aztecs by conquistadors,  obligated by religious injunction to bring the kaffirs to righteous path.

The invading zealots sought to spread the true faith by the terror of sword. Templed were desecrated, Murtis were destroyed, Kaffirs were compelled to embrace Islam on the pain of a torment and death. However as the conquerors set to rule the conquered land, the compulsions of the geopolitics and the governance tempered their zeal to multiply the believers. Sure, they wanted the glory of Islam to spread, but they also had to maintain the alliances with Hindu Kings and they could not oppress their subjects too much lest they start rebelling. So instead of sword they took recourse to coercive taxes and laws for the dhimmis. Slowly Islam in  India came to an uneasy arrangement, the rulers didn't try too hard to convert the idolaters, and Islam occupied the seat of power. However this arrangement was an extremely fragile, as this was considered deviation from the righteous path by Ulemas and the more fervent of the ruling class. The result was this arrangement was breached by the zealots who launched frequents campaigns to show the infidels error of their ways and the inevitable rebellion by the oppressed subjects.

Here it should be noted that this was no different from what happened with the Zorastrianism or Buddhism when Muslims invaded Iran or Afghanistan. However one crucial difference between Hinduism and the two religions was that both the religions depended heavily on priests and monks as opposed to Hinduism which was more folk based. Which is why even when its institutions were annihilated (you can count North Indian Temples belonging to pre-Islamic era on your fingers) it managed to survive.

This went on for well over a millennium, and as the sword and the jiziya slowly converted heathens, Islamic identity that formed was that of a superior creed by virtue of power as well as faith. It was this identity which the Muslim elites as well as clergy with. However since Hindus were always the majority, and Islamic identity couldn't reconcile with this, it retreated behind wall of powers. Thus Islamic identity also assumed characterstics of encampment. Urdu, in other words.

This arrangement began to unravel in the 18th century first with the decline of Mughal dynasty and arrival of British. Hindus, so far reduced to secondary citizens, began to take advantage of the western education to re-occupy position in the government, in addition to even further securing the advantage in trade. With education there also emerged a class of middle class professionals with interest in sciences and renewed curiosity about their Hindu identity. This combined with the freedom for expression of religion available to them after deprivation of several centuries saw a new vigor in the religion and giving rise to Hindu revival movements of 19th century.

In contrast was Muslim experience, they didn't take advantage of the opportunities available to them, owing to hubris of being ruler as well as certain of superiority of faith. The loss of power, the advance of  the formerly inferior Hindus over their former superiors, and even more important resurgence of Hindu religion  had a severe effect on the psyche of Muslim elite. To the former rulers it felt as if Allah had abandoned his believers by failing to safeguard their honor from suffering the indignity of  jostling with the inferior kaffirs for living. It was this crisis which caused a crack in the foundation, which was assumption of superiority over kaffirs, of the Islamic identity.

Islamic identity could never recover from this. This crisis was made more severe by the breach of the wall of power which separated Islamic identity from the majority identity. For the first time in history Muslim elites felt threat to Islamic identity on account of its being subsumed into the Indian identity, especially since Hinduism is much more encompassing, inclusive, adaptive and tolerant than Islam, or for that matter any other Abrahamic creed. Camp was no longer secure for the Islamic identity anymore.

Since Muslim elites could no longer count on assumption of superiority afforded to them by power nor were able to reconcile with a resurgent Hinduism, and further since they felt besieged by Hinduism enveloping them in the society, they increasingly assumed  an adversarial role to define themselves. As a result gradually Islamic identity transformed into a negationitist one in the sense it was defined by negation and rejection of Hindu identity rather than by a positive statement relating to historical or cultural context.

This is what I believe was more fundamental reason for Hindu-Muslim tensions and ultimately partition.
And once Pakistan was formed on basis of Islamic identity, its tragic destiny was also decided. For in defining their identity in negation to Hindu identity, Muslim elites had made themselves dependent on their adversary. When the partition eliminated the adversary, the Pakistan intellectuals sought to define themselves either by associating even more strongly with Ummah in a Voldemortian fashion, and at the same time taking a strong adversarial position to India. This is the reason I don't think any reconcilation between India and Pakistan is possible.

As far as Indian Muslims are concerned, I think they can still be reconciled to broader Indian identity, provided they recognize, and make peace with, the Hindu core of Indian identity and disregard Ummah and Ulema.

Mirage Of Assertive Hindutva

A well accepted maxim among those who work in any sort of team is that while success has many fathers failure is always other man's bastard.

This perfectly encapsulates contentious debate currently in progress among BJP sympathizers struggling to discover the cause, or in most cases, to shift the blame, for recent drubbing in Lok Sabha elections.

One such group in this debate comprises of people who blame the defeat on BJP diluting its assertive Hindutva plank as exemplified by Koenraad Elst (via)

As promised previously, this post is essentially my attempt to bring pox upon house of assertive Hindutva. Before I start though I will like to make two things clear. One I remain an unrepentant Hindutva Fascist, one who is dismissive of secularism as a meaningful or relevant concept in India, and who hopes to see not only Ayudhya but also Mathura and Varanasi restored to Hindus. Second while I have certain sympathy with the proponents of assertive Hindutva, I restrict my arguments to what in my opinions is the crux of the debate, that is the  electoral viability of assertive Hindutva.

Oh and I hope, by the time I finish, I would have thoroughly confused everyone.

Now, to the contention that defeat of BJP can be attributed to its retreat from assertive Hindutva. The argument is seductive in its simplicity and bias to the true believer. The only problem, it doesn't hold to even most basic scrutiny ( except in a very narrow sense to which I will come later).

 Let's recall some of the issues on which BJP primarily focussed during UPA's previous tenure; Ram Sethu controversy, Amarnath controversy, Afzal Guru,  POTA, Volcker report ,  Mitrokhin Archives just to name the few. These issues are either firmly in the category of assertive Hindutva or belong to the broader security/nationalist platform. Even focusing on these issues, and I agree with BJP on most of them, did nothing to prevent BJP from getting the drubbing in 2009 polls.

At this point usually the argument morphs from insufficient focus to loss of credibility, a result of BJP ignoring Hindutva while in power. This is true, but without context. BJP shifted focus from Hindutva while in power because it never had the requisite numbers to implement the core agenda of assertive Hindutva, Ram Mandir, uniform civil code and article 370. At this point the argument may take two form. One forwarded by the firm adherents is for BJP to sit in opposition and keep campaigning till it gets the requisite majority to implement the agenda.

The problem with this is BJP did run on this platform from 93 to about 96 and consistently failed to get the majority and worse support of other political parties to form the government. It was not until Shri Advani in a masterstroke decided to make much loathed moderate Vajpayee as the face of party that party could come to power.

Now it may change in future. May be some day in future, Indians will decide all that matters is to build Ram Mandir, or abrogate article 370, or enact uniform civil code. That will be the same day when our urbanites will prefer Gau Mutra Cola  over pesticide laden Coke and Pepsi.

There is a more sensible course, which is the recognition that Hindutva, as it exists today, has no intellectual heft and also no credible political road map beyond high decibel sloganeering. To sustain the movement politically, Hindutva supporters need to construct a more serious platform beyond the three issues above mentioned and more importantly sell it electorally. I doubt this will happen though as it requires rigorous thinking, and in the present Sangh culture that is haraam.


Instead Sangh Parivar instinctively resorts to responses based on emotional catharsis or non sequitur such as  this.

Now that I have "demolished" the believers, allow me to demolish the apostates or "the center right" clique in the next part. Confused ! You are welcome.

Positioning Hindutva

I would write in detail on "Secularism vs Hindutva" later, meanwhile reposting my comment on Swapan Da's post .

I believe what Oldtimer wrote by Oldtimer is certainly one of the the most articulate and coherent rebuttal not only of the article as well as the clique of centre- right.

I will just like to add a bit of my thoughts on this. I believe the first point (i.e. of Hindu identity) is what many secularists advocate discarding in favor of a vague adherence to secularism. This would be a mistake.

Even though both Hindutva and Secularism are vague terms, to me the essential argument behind Hindutva is that Hinduism* forms the core of Indian identity and which is why it must be treated uniquely of all the other religions as far as civilizational perspective is concerned.

I would note here that civilization is different from state. Further I do not advocate any discrimination among citizens on basis of religion, only an imperative to recognize distinction between different traditions (how to apply this recognition in matters not abstract is admittedly not an easy task).

Secularism, on the other hand, shorn of all flowery platitude and saccharine rhetoric is a refusal to recognize Hinduism ** as the mainstay of Indic civilization, which leads first to disavowal of our history and civilization and ultimately de-recognition of group identity and tradition as the prime mover behind social instincts and responses.

This is as impoverishing and emasculating of society spiritually, intellectually and morally, as other Utopian ideologies such as Islam, Christianity, Marxism and Objectivism (or even its lesser cousin libertarianism).

* Perhaps using Dharmic tradition instead of Hinduism would be less contentious and more palatable, however I use Hinduism because a. it is the most prevalent tradition at present (and to a lesser extent historically) b. Once the other traditions detach themselves from Hinduism they lose their vigour and enlightenment (The unpleasant business in Vienna being a recent example)