Wrong parallel

I am a bit busy but just wanted to comment on this article. While I do agree with the basic thrust of the article, which is the religious character of the so called independence movement, the parallel between agitation by Hindus of  Jammu and by Muslim League is historically incorrect.

The reason Partition took place was not because Muslims feared for their lives and safety in united India, but, in short, because of democracy. Democracy meant electoral supremacy of Hindus, which meant that Hindus rather than Muslims would have an upper hand in power.

Such an arrangement was unacceptable to Muslim League, a coalition of Muslim intellectuals, gentry and clerics. Congress, in contrast, protested that such concerns were misplaced as there were no reasons to believe that Hindus would ever constitute a monolithic bloc. But to Muslim League even a distant possibility for such an eventuality was unimaginable.

Again, it was not for safety. To Muslim establishment, for any arrangement to be acceptable, a parity between Hindus and Muslims was must at minimum. The reason for this is not very hard to discern either, for them they were a superior people, not also by virtue of history of conquest over Hindus, but also because they were the followers of true faith, as opposed to the kaffirs. Congress couldn't agree to it, because this would have opened a Pandora's box. Result was Partition and resulting carnage.

In contrast, Hindus in J&K have considerable grievances. They, as the example of Kashmiri Pundits shows, have reason to worry for their safety. They also have, justified, resentment against Valley hegemony and discrimination by center for appeasing the separatists.

Therefore there is no justification to compare the two cases.

Updated:  There is of course this little bit of historical revisionism whereby RSS/Hindu MahaSabha/Veer Savarkar are elevated to co-villainy of  partition along with Muslim League, whereas the truth, and one which would have been clear enough if only our historical narrative were not a monopoly of secular fascists and if  Hindus were not so disgustingly Dhimmi, is that  a) they were marginal players and b) they didn't have same opinions reg. Partition although I have come to the same conclusion as Veer Savarkar now.

Confessions

1. At risk of horrifying some of you, I have to admit that I haven never watched Seinfeld before, and while I have just begun watching it, I *gasp* prefer general optimism of Friends over nihilism of Seinfeld.

2. I haven't seen Gone with the wind, or Casablanca, even though I have them on my hard disk since last year. Meanwhile I have gone and seen complete season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I don't regret it either.

3. I was underwhelmed with Shawshank Redemption. Still it was better than in case of Forrest Gump, which I found annoyingly cloying. Also Tom Hanks looks kind of retarded.

I am back to livemint

This is a horrible horrible article. I request Ritwik to tear it apart, otherwise I will be doing it later

(Ok the post continues below)

You know some time back when I was watching Tashan, that unspeakable crime against anything in this world,which is sensible, I had a nagging feeling. There was something disconcertingly familiar. Suddenly I realized, what the  horror reminded me of. Yes you are right, livemint, or to be more precise a sartorial version of livement in that it sought to cover lack of story with wardrobe much in the same way livemint covers lack of content with out of context economic jargon. The above article is latest transgression against intellectual clarity.

To start with is the rather specious assertion that  stray dogs are public property, benefiting those who feed them but nuisance to general public, in other words an example of negative externalities.

First, I doubt that stray dogs are surviving because they are fed by dog loving people (although to be sure people do feed them), but primarily as as scavengers and secondarily as predators of pest (rats etc). This needs substantiation by data, but I am pretty sure that I am correct.
Second, now economics is hardly my strong point, but surely calling stray dogs public property surely borders on misapplication of  concept of property.*

Then comes the brainwave of auctioning of stray dogs to individuals, which is all well and good, but what happens if no one decides to buy the dogs, what is to be done with the remaining of them. And since this is what going to happen eventually (I mean can you really see people buying stray dogs, for God's sake), in other words, we are back where we started.

But the most egregious serious error (and yet most common in libertarian circles) is the assertion that animal rights is an oxymoron, because only humans can have rights because it flows from right to own self.
Excuse me, where does this right to own come from ? Did it exist from beginning of time, when neither sky nor earth existed ? Or was it brought over from Galt's gunch by Ayn Rand ?
The reality, if these libertarians were honest enough to admit, that rights don't exist prior to society. Society came before and takes precedence over individuals, and any rights, whether accorded to human or animals are matter of social conventions **. Now one can say that for him only humans have rights and not the animals, but it is also one social convention among many and not any natural law which in my opinion is nothing but an exercise in sophistry***.

PS: My view regarding stray dogs is to prefer methods which do not involve any killing, but if it is unavoidable, I will prefer elimination of stray dogs over human suffering. In a way outlined in a previous post.

* I am note sure about this. Surely one can argue, if one wishes to, that the community does own stray dogs, but I believe it is hard to make case that stray dogs can be exchanged, or are a part of economic activity, except perhaps in some rare circumstances.

** I believe what I have said is nothing short of sacrilegious in Indian blog-sphere, but as I have said earlier I find talk of natural rights tedious. This is not to say that I dismiss the idea of rights but a) I arrive at human rights from position of consequentialism and b) I don't buy in the idea that freedom is the necessary and sufficient condition for human progress.

*** I believe Ritwik holds view favoring natural rights interpretation. Though I am not convinced with it, still I will like to hear it from him.

How Democracy Works - Interest groups, free agents, externalities etc.

I have been meaning to comment on this post  (and its follow up) by DataNazi, which ostensibly on Nuclear deal, is actually commentary on Indian democracy. I have somewhat similar take. The chain of reasoning whereby I arrived at it is as following.

1. On the one hand is the behavior of  individual in a society. In individual capacity, humans have a tendency to act in self interest. They can also act in a way which is altruist, but the altruistic behavior is in general much weaker than self interest in context of individual, having  any appreciable effect only if present as a cultural, (and therefore in context of collective) norm.
However the problem with actions solely based on self interest is that it leads to uncontrolled competition leading to conflict, and breakdown of governance.

2. On the other hand is the return to the individual in participatory democracy. I don't have the link, but I think it is well established that effect of individual voting in a particular way is negligible to the result.

These two condition present challenges for democracy to function in any meaningful way. First condition challenges the capability to provide stability, whereas the second condition challenges the ability to deliver the goods.

These two challenges can be resolved by an existing phenomenon in human society, identity groups. Human, given a large, and heterogeneous, sample space, tend to coalesce as identity groups. This process of coalescing takes place along, to coin a phrase similar to phase boundaries, identity boundaries, the specific boundaries being ever fluid, present form depending on the past history as well as immediate power dynamics, when I say I include both social as well as economic perspective.

Therefore, how well a democracy is capable of delivering, is a function of how the power struggle between identity groups is resolved*, in other words the (dynamic) equilibrium state**.

Now here my analysis differs from DataNazi. He classifies the voters as interest groups and free agents, with (according to him) interest groups working for their narrow interest, and free agents for the interest of larger group, further from the reading of the posts, one gets the impression that interest groups are taken to be mainly social, that is based on caste or religion (though he does give example of big farmers as interest group, for some reason he excludes bureaucracy from the definition). I disagree with both the criteria.

First interest groups can be economic as well as social in nature. Caste/language/religion/ethnicity are examples of purely social interest groups, whereas class/occupation are examples of economic. In reality the interest groups are bound to project both into social as well as economic spheres.

Second, his distinction between free agents and interest groups, and recommending more free agents (though there is some confusion, as in follow up he calls pay commission an exercise to mop up free agents, calling in question desirability of free agents). He also introduces concept of rivalrous vs. non rivalrous economic resources, in order to understand the difference between interest groups and free agents. However  I will formulate it differently.

The key to understand is while all groups act according to their respective group interests, the important point to consider is effect of their actions on the whole. If the net effect of action on the whole is positive we call it positive externalities, and in the opposite case, negative. As a general rule the actions with positive effects are co-operative in nature, whereas those with negative ones are coercive or conflictive in nature. From the above we conclude that democratic systems deliver or succeed when the group interaction is set up such that it promotes positive externalities while suppressing  negative externalities, whereas inability to do so results in failure of the state and with it of the community.

Related to above is the fact that very frequently the democratic systems act as a feedback loop, in that systems with net negative promote conflict which strengthens conflict based negative identities***, ultimately causing the system failure, whereas systems with net positive promote cooperation which strengthens positive identities. In general it is possible for a stable system to switch between negative and positive cycles.
Here I will like to note that the feedback effect in both the cases is not same with conflict feedbacks more effective that cooperation feedbacks. ****

Hence the desirable course is

a) Indian democracy at present is configured in such a way that the result in a negative system with feedback. In order to succeed, suitable changes must be effected so that system switches to positive. Easier said than done. (Will try to address this point later)

b) This above is possibly only if we can forge group(s) based on the identity(ies) which promote positive externalities.


* In the previous post I listed following social conditions for meaningful democracy.

a) The various competing groups (based on differing identities) are matching in the power

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.

** Just to be clear the equilibrium state is variant and will change as the competing forces continuously adjust themselves.

*** Here I am identifying conflict with negative, and cooperation with positive this many not be always true.

**** Why the asymmetry ? My best guess is conflict is a more basic response, and hence stronger, to man than cooperation.

What a despicable scumbag

So, according to the libertarian dunce.

India = British Empire.
Kashmir = India
Gilani = Mahatma Gandhi.
Manmohan Singh = Winston Churchill (How, I wish)

Well what else can one expect from such a narcissistic jerk. Seriously I hope his love is reciprocated by some Jihadi, his life is a disgrace to memory of his dear departed mother. Anyway file this away as why I find libertarians as despicable as socialists, and why I have nothing but contempt for center of right non sense.

E pluribus unum

The fallen one responds to Swaminathan Aiyar and Turd with the beard ( aka Vir singhavi), explaining why allowing Kashmir to secede is a bad idea. For the most part the post is tolerable enough, however it is in summarizing his argument that fallen one blunders.

The reality is this: To ensure the well-being of people in the region, including those of its neighbours, India as a whole, and not just Jammu & Kashmir, needs to place a premium on individual freedoms on the one hand, and on tolerance on the other

I am sorry but this is same old secular non-sense. We can not dream of the well being, the freedom, the tolerance unless India is united, politically as well as culturally. And that is the biggest question what is the idea behind India. Curiously this is always left unanswered for some strange reason. This failure to address the question render the rest of the exercise about Kashmir moot.

Having said that, let me admit here that a careful reading of the above post makes one discern the secular assumption behind India, that is, utilitarian, with utility function comprising of individual freedom, prosperity in some way. In this it is similar to what former blogger (and present greedy capitalist pig) Ritwik wrote here *, however a little more candidness on the part of secularists will be most appreciated.

PS. As regarding Kashmir, I say keep Jammu and Ladakh to ourselves, divide Kashmir between ourselves and Jihadis, expel Hurriyat, Muftis and Abdullahs from India, and if the independent Kashmir makes some nuisance or tries to merge with Pakistan. bomb the ingrates to stone age. Or whatever barbar says.

* That post was a part of arguments between us which started with this post. I still have to counter Ritwik's arguments. I will reply to it one of these days , but briefly while in general I find much to agree with consequentialism (a superset of Utilitarianism) , I don't think it answers question of national identity, or even the dynamics of human societies, leave alone philosophical quandaries.

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.