Tagged: politics

Am I a coward?


This post is actually sparked by the tragic murder of Manjunath: the IoC officer [[http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articlelist/1306442.cms|who was murdered]] near Lucknow, for his honesty and integrity, for [[http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=82603|doing his duty]].

Atleast thats how I feel at times (a coward). I keep telling myself that I’m just averse to high risk situations, but thats just a nice way of putting it. Reading about Manjunath, I feel sad, and angry. Yet, I ask myself — what would I have done had I been in his place?

Its a shame that as humans, after thousands of years of civilization, we still have so much barbarism in our society. Its a shame, that as the largest democracy of the world, we are still struggling to deliver justice in such blindingly unambiguous cases of injustice.

And at the same time, in the middle of all this, I feel a little sad and guilty, that so much emphasis is being put on Manju being an IIM-Man (read the [[http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articlelist/1306442.cms|economic times]] title). Yes, what happened to Manju or [[http://skdubeyfoundation.org/index.php|Satyendra Dubey]] was wrong. Yes, we must fight for their justice, make people aware, fight this corrupt system. Yes, the nation lost an IIM man and an IIT man. But what about the countless others, who die because of their honesty, but were not fortunate enough to make IIT or IIM? Why does the India media keep missing the point? Why does it matter if they were IIT or IIM? Would their deaths be any less important if they weren’t?

Two years back, the SK Dubey case shook the soul of the country (or did it?) — it was given wide spread media attention and the PMO office itself was involved and in large part, the massive awareness campaign happened with the help of the incredibly large network of IITians all around the world. But in Manju’s case, the media didn’t notice first. And the IIM graduates were not alone in spreading the word. A sporadic, yet loosely connected //collective// wrote about it on their blogs, talked about it — so much so that the Indian Express [[http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2005/11/in-letter-and-spirit_25.html|actually cited]] one of the blogs as being “letters” sent to the newspaper.

I hope I learn to find more courage in me, so that lives of the Dubey’s and Manjunath’s would not have been in vain.

On motherland


[[http://nakulmandan.blogspot.com | Nakul]] and I have been debating on nationalism and whether one should feel a certain way about one’s country by virtue of being born and/or brought up in it (see [[http://nakulmandan.blogspot.com/2005/07/hypocrisy-is-it-just-indians.html|this]] and [[http://floatingsun.net/blog/2005/07/21/55/|this]] for context).

A couple of days back, Nakul raised the issue again in [[http://nakulmandan.blogspot.com/2005/08/motherland.html|this post]]. The quote mentioned there-in is very well written indeed (that [[http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050811&fname=monbiot&sid=1&pn=1|outlook article]] raises some very good points, and presents them succinctly). It might all boil down to just a difference in perspective, but let me still try to further elaborate on my point of view. I’ll give you three different ways of looking at it.

**Why you //must// have some feelings for your motherland**

Nakul (and that article) say that they are not ashamed of their nationality, but why should they feel any different for it than for any other country. They say how does it matter where you’ve been born and brought up.

I’ll give a simple analogy (its an exaggeration, of course, but you should see the similarity). How do you feel towards your parents? Looking at it objectively, they invested some resources in you to raise you (just like your motherland); you’ve lived with them and inherited much from them in terms of culture, beliefs, values (just like your motherland); and you _do_ feel differently towards them than say towards other parents, don’t you? Then
why do you treat your country any differntly?

I would love to live in a society where there are no geo-political barriers, where we are all citizens of the world. However, the reality is that that day is no where close. For an innumerable number of reasons (some good, some bad) the world we live in continues to be divided. And its going to stay that way for a while.

**Why you //should// have some feelings for your motherland**

The fact remains that who who are and where you were born and how you were raised, //do// make an impact on your life, whether you want it or not. Throughout history, groups of people have been in clashes, inevitably.
Perhaps its just human nature. Whatever be the case, even today, we see nations in conflicts, there are still the opressed and the oppressors. If you were born in a country that was being invaded, just //randomly//, would it
help that none of the people of that country felt no feeling of nationalism?

What if no other country comes to help?

We live and breathe in a free world today, and we should be thankful for that. But not less than hundred years ago, things were very different. This independence didn’t come for free, it came at a cost. Sure, had you been born elsewhere, who knows how things might have turned out. But you were born //here//, and the life you led would have been *so* much different had you not enjoyed this freedom. Don’t you owe anything to the people who fought for this country and built it?

**Why you //could// have some feelings for your motherland**

Feeling pride for your country doesn’t mean you look down on others. I don’t
know how Mr. Manbiot concludes that a patriot British will choose a program
that lets 101 non-britishers die other a program that lets 100 britishers die.
Since when did patriotism imply non humanitarism?

Infact, I have often found that appreciating how my “motherland” has evolved
over the years has //increased// my appreciation of the struggles and the
triumphs and the tribulations of countries and cultures struggling elsewhere
(both in time and space).

Let me rewind a little bit. Let me ask you some questions: we always hear
about efforts to preserve and promote handicraft, aboriginal art, rare
forms of pottery or porcelain or even cheese making — what do you think
of these efforts? Why do we care about these things? What are “these
things”?

I’m guessing your answer would be something similar to “they are a part of
history, a part of the cultural heritage of some people and so it is
important that they be preserved”. When I was in middle school, I used to
hate history — it was so boring, so drab. But over the years I’ve come to
realize how interesting and fascinating history really is. And not just
for the factual content, but also for insights into the evolution of
civilizations.

Why is culture important? Why should we care what culture people had
before us? I’m not going to answer those questions. But I believe if you
sit down and think about it, you will come up with //some// reasonable
arguments. But how does all this relate to nationalism?

//If// I was living in the aforementioned utopian world, the notions of
nationalism that we are discussing here would simply not make sense.
Then we would all be part of the same culture, the same civilization,
share the same heritage and so on. However, that is not the case. The
fact remains that (and this is as true for individuals as it is for
countries) if we don’t assert our individuality, we start to lose our
identity.

True, if you moved around a lot, you might feel more a part of the “global”
citizenry than others, and you might not feel strongly about any one
particular country. And I think thats //perfectly fine//. Eventually
(hopefully) as boundaries dissolve, we will all merge in the global culture.
But its not happening yet.

I don’t know from where Mr. Manbiot got the notion that patriotism can be
interpreted as a kind of racism, and could encourage wars. While there are
certainly extremes in each ideology, I think “taking pride in my culture” and
“looking down upon other cultures” are two entirely different things. I
respect and admire other cultures as well (modulo the fact I don’t know most
of them as well as I do mine).

Finally, I’m not in favor of blind or false pride. That kind of disillusion
is never useful. No one is perfect. Be critical of your motherland, just like
you are of your parents. But if you find something that you believe in, that
you admire, that you care about, then be proud of it. Why not?

Religion in schools?


Its a different thing to have a separate category of schools dedicated to religious teachings (such as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrasa|Madrasas]]). But teaching religious as part of a regular science curriculum? That, I find a little weird. NYTimes (among others) is carrying a [[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/politics/03bush.html?hp&ex=1123041600&en=c1600f3f547f7dc7&ei=5094&partner=homepage|story on George Bush]] pushing for //alternative// theories of evolution to be taught in schools.

He says that teaching Darwinian evolution as a theory is fine. But then, one should also look at other theories of evolution as well (just like we study different theories of gravitation, for instance). The //other// theories, in this case, fall under the category of **intelligent design**.

I wasn’t too familiar with this term, so I did a little bit of research. It seems that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design|intelligent design]] is the “scientific” counterpart to the theory of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism|Creationism]]. It posits that the whole gamut of species that we see today could not have come about by mere natural selection and random mutation.

Now I’m not too knowledgable about these issues. But I still haven’t read anything truly “scientific” about intelligent design (by way of experiments or empirical evaluation). There is [[http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm|this article]] that tries to discuss intelligent design using mathematical tools such as probability and information theory, but I still wasn’t convinced.

On the whole, I’m highly skeptical of this issue. It seems to me bordering on religion, and mixing religion with science is not a good idea IMHO.

For the interested, here are some more articles on intelligent design:

* [[http://speakout.com/activism/opinions/3116-1.html|Intelligent Design Theory: Why it matters?]]
* [[http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-09/design.html|Design Yes, Intelligent No]]

Lunch hours


As I’m settling down at HP, I’m realizing how critical lunch hours are in the industrial setting; atleast much more so than they are in academia. Its like high school all over again.

People mingle together, flock together. Groups are formed, loyalties are found. There’s gossip, there’s politics. Small little things that get said here and there turn up a few days later as major public announcements. You have to take care of what you say to whom, and always keep your eyes and ears open.

I don’t know what the numbers are, but it seems to me that a lot of the big stuff in a company—be it products or ideas or new recruits or other decisions—are made over innocuous lunches.

Budget 2004


No, I’m not a financial expert, so I’m not going to give a detailed analysis of the Union Budget 2004. But I am going to mention a few things that I caught on from reading here and there. But first, I just realized today that the present government has a really funky name for their coalition. I mean I knew the name before as well, but I hadn’t thought about it closely enough. Anyways, coming back to the name — its Unified Progressive Alliance. I wonder how much thought our leaders put into what these words actually mean. My first reaction was this name sounds straight out of a Robocop style movie (or Terminator 2 for that matter). India is certainly progressive; but what about this alliance? There have been concerns in the industry and in the general public regarding the slowing down of liberalization and economic reforms under this new govenment. Also, when they say Unified, are they talking about India being unified or their alliance being unified? One without the other doesn’t India much good does it? Okay, coming back to the Budget, here are some of the things that I have gathered:

* Laloo Yadav has mandated that all tea in railways will henceforth be served in kulhads (clay cups)
* There shall be no more excise on personal computers
* There will be a 2% surcharge on your tax liability (kind of like a tax on your tax). UPA says this money will be used for primary education and providing food to the famished
* There is some kind of transaction fee (15 cents or 15 paise? don’t remember) on foreign investments (again, not sure on this point). I read somewhere that this is going to discourage investors
* On the flipside, the investment cap for FDIs (foreign direct investments) has been raised by as much as 20-30% in some sectors (notably insurance)
* The IT exemption limit has been raised to Rs. 100,000 — so no tax if you’re earning less than that
* To protect the receding steel market, excise duty on steel imports has been increased

I’ll put in more comments and opinions as and when I form them. To be honest, I don’t understand much of the finance jargon, but I wish I had some more understanding of how economy works. I don’t even have strong opinions on politics and political parties in India… which is kind of sad, since I would be a voter if I were in India right now. [sigh] I guess I should start reading up more on politics. But good news sources are so hard to come by these days — ToI has already become a pathetic tabloid junkie, Rediff and some others are still doing a good job though.