Aphorism: Refuge

Rationalism is the last refuge of unimaginative, but aphorism is the last refuge of superficial.

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.

What they mean by Azaadi.

[Originally posted as comment on this excellent article by greatbong]

 

You know what riles me most is this Kashmir vs. “rest of India” dichotomy as if “rest of India” is a monochromatic, monotonous monolith. What idiots in media such as Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose don’t get is that Marathis, Bengalis, Telugus, Oriyas all have history as rich as Kashmiris (if anything richer) and all are as proud of the fact as anyone. Idea of India is not something which belongs to Lutyen’s Delhi, or to air-conditioned newsrooms where pretty young things read breaking news in their precious accent. Idea of India is also the essence behind the Indic civilization, the essence which pervades its congested cities and dusty country sides, its desultory summers and its intoxicating monsoons; it is the idea which unites its various histories, its people, past, present and future. It is not some single hegemonic construct but a spirit unique to Indian experience best exemplified by Sarve bhavantu sukhinah

 

It really breaks my  heart to see no one among our “intellectuals” has the cojones to call this Azaadi nonsense for what it is, a Islamist movement to obliterate the kaffir past and unambiguously belong to the community of faithful i.e. Ummah.

'fess up, that's what you have been thinking for some time

Not to toot my own horn but ...

Look guys just admit it already, I am a freaking genius. Here is what I wrote way back in 2007,

 

Islamic fundamentalism is a bigger menace than communist thuggery. It is a tiger which one should not be riding.

 

And in 2008

 

As I pointed out earlier, the rise of Islamic politics in Bengal portends ill for the future. The increasing population pressure in Bangladesh has altered demographics in the border districts of Bengal and Assam to a alarming degree. This is a security threat in its own right as pointed out numerous times by Arun Shourie, and when combined with the kind of politics Nandigram signals, a potent recipe for disaster.

 

 

Things are turning out exactly as I feared it would. It is a good read, even though it has the usual “I am a pox-on-both-the-houses independent thinker” greatbongish disclaimer.

 

The bad news is things are going to get worse, the good news is we don’t really care.

 

 

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.