Vitcimisation of the aggressor

The recent case when an American student at TISS, Mumbai accused six others of sexual assault shows the shortcomings in our implementation of "rule of law" and in our failure to reform social norms. It only reinforces the belief that Police instead of acting as the watchdog to safeguard people from crimes, have been reduced to a bureaucratic, self-serving machinery that takes the path of least resistance out in most cases. It is ironic that in most cases, we feel safer approaching another citizen than approaching the police for help. We must reform our police force before we end up surrendering our liberties.

Our social norms however are a bigger threat. For a country that claims to stand for liberty, equality and fraternity, our norms are depressingly patriarchal. Nothing is as disturbing and disgusting as the claims that a victim has brought it upon herself the crime that was committed. The basic defence against accusations of sexual assault seems to be to cast aspersions on the character of the victim and then to conclude, "She brought it upon herself".

From Jessica Lal to Soumya Vishwanathan to this case, consensus seems to be to accept a moral judgement against the victims actions and then condemn the act. In this particular case, the accused has submitted a statement

"The act of the victim accompanying the accused persons who was lonely lady (sic) with six male persons in long midnight itself shows the nature of the victim and therefore, whatever would have happened might be due to willingness of the victim (sic)"

It is a shame that we even entertain a statement such as this. Whence the pink chaddi lobby? Or is it a cause just not glorious enough for the great liberal progressive thinkers? Moral righteousness has no place once a crime has been committed. Crime should be treated as a judicial issue free from any moral judgements.

To extrapolate, the same should be the case with any other crime and that includes terrorism. Conservatives argue for "no compromise" on terrorism, but don't hold the same position when it comes to crimes against individual liberty. Liberals wouldn't compromise on individual liberty and fight against moral judgments on crimes such as these, but don't apply the same logic to terrorism. Hypocrisy thy name!

UPDATE: Exactly the mentality I'm talking about . And they call it "an age-old debate" Beyond disgust.

Right wing politics in India

I'd cited Pratap Bhanu Mehta's previous post in his column most approvingly earlier. But In the next instalment, in spite of making some very important points, I find it hard to agree to his critique in its entirety. The points about BJP playing up the victimhood and Advani's remarks on being "hurt" are spot on.

Advani unconsciously revealed more about himself and his party: both thrive on a constant play on the theme of victimhood. The minute the Congress ratcheted up the heat on Advani’s record, he retreated into playing victim. Try as much as it can, the BJP struggles to rise above a discourse of victimhood, one that has increasingly less resonance.....

.....Electoral fortunes depend on a lot of things. But the very longevity of the Congress is a sign that there is something about it that is worth salvaging. But all that remains of the BJP is a long sulk, one that will haunt it even when it is in power. A party whose leader is so quickly “hurt” is a party with no foundations.

But, as he mentioned in his previous post, secularism has taken on quite an insidious meaning. To backtrack on this, and say that "Pseudo-secularism" is irrelevant is hypocritical. To dismiss the "Gujarat" model of development without explanation also reeks of dishonesty. The development seen in Gujarat is just a result of empowerment of the individual and accountability, therefore it is as much a novel model as are freedom and democracy. We classical liberals believe that it is replicable, not just in a country, but in the entire world.

It is a sad reflection on the leadership vacuum, that BJP had to recall Advani( who admitted to thoughts of quitting active politics after the Jinnah incident). But, the same holds for INC which fields as its Prime Ministerial candidate, Dr.Manmohan Singh who is leader enough to sit in the chair, but not a leader enough to contest an election or even lead a campaign.

Infact, it is an apt commentary on the absence of first-tier national leaders that even after five years of such gross misgovernance and incompetence, the opposition finds it so hard to dislodge the incumbent party from power. He mentions Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Narendra modi as the only visible second tier leaders from BJP, but apart from Sheila Dixit(who incidentally doesn't belong to the 30s-40s group he talks about), I don't see any second tier leaders who can grow into their own in INC either. Unless he wants to believe self-endorsed "leaders" like Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, and Jyotiraditya Scinida are the gen-next, it is like watching a game between two minnows. Also, longevity has nothing to do with desirability.

And a final remark regarding the difference in kind of criticism INC and BJP receives. Just as the columnist sees INC as his ideological representative and criticises it for deviating from its ideal, there are a few who hope BJP evolves into a Right-of-center party in economic terms so that a parity is restored to political and economic discourse at national level. A disenchantment with RSS, growing distance between RSS and BJP and slow-down in recruitment of RSS ranks is a welcome development. At the same time response to initiatives like Friends of BJP both from the people and the party suggests to me that there is hope that BJP may one day outgrow the religious roots and into a right of center party acceptable to a majority.

PS: Why do the intellectuals who never fail to remind us that even the extremists like Taliban, Hamas etc have good and bad factions, find it convenient to club all right wing activism and attribute it to RSS and by extension to BJP?

Secular and Communal

Rarely do I agree with an entire post/article these days without significant points of disagreement. But I couldn't find anything to disagree with in this article:

Secularism, like communalism, is no longer a first principles debate; it is a pretext for forcing issues where none exist. The only two interpretations of secularism that are current in India are deeply warped: secularism as erasure of identity, or secularism as communal parity. Neither interpretation has room for the core meaning: secularism is about the freedom of individuals to make of themselves what they will; it is about making “identity” irrelevant to politics, not about its enforced erasure...

Real secularism is about giving citizens the freedom to escape being tagged, whether by caste or religion. The Congress politics now has limited appeal, even for the minorities it courts, because it is still caught in the politics of tagging. The BJP tags to target, Congress tags to provide noblesse oblige. But it is the tagging that’s insidious.

It is for this reason that I support a uniform civil code. By definition, in a public sphere of life, there shouldn't be discrimination based on any parts of one's identity.

As I come to understand from the roots of the word, communalism means to discriminate people based on one's community. I wonder then about the honesty in calling religion based politics communal, but not the caste based. After all a caste is a smaller community, isn't it ?

Monotheism

A wise man foretells:

Therefore, more and more Hindus are concluding that we too should acquire the same reputation, we too should acquire the same capacity. In a word, three things are teaching the Hindus to become Islamic: the double-standards of the secularists and the State, the demonstrated success of the Muslims in bending both the State and the secularists by intimidation, and the fact that both the State and the secularists pay attention to the sentiments of Hindus only when the Hindus become a little Islamic.....Finally, a forecast : the more the secularists insist on double-standards, the more Islamic will the Hindus become

An observer comments:

Militant Hindutva is on the same monotheistic power trip. It is seeking to replace pluralist Hinduism with something that is more useful to attain power. If enough Hindus feel threatened by the power of rival monotheisms, Hindutva will take us in that direction. We may even end up replacing the narrow intolerance of caste with a broader intolerance of monotheism.

Although I agree with the broader direction of his thesis that Hindutva practised by RSS/VHP is growing monotheistic and intolerant, to club Swami Vivekananda and the entire monotheistic school of thought in Hinduism to the same branch is preposterous and ignorant to the core. One need not look any further than the Vedānta tradition of the yore to know the seeds of this particular school of thought were sown long ago. However, It didn't matter if there were monotheistic schools of thought in traditional Hinduism, because by definition, Hinduism was pluralist, "Ekam Sat bahuda viprah vadanti" . It is unfortunate that he looks at the monotheistic strains only through the prism of Abrahamic religions(Judaism, Christianity, Islam) which are by definition exclusive.

When it comes to god and worship, one religion isn't that better than the other as they are mostly related to a supernatural being and relegated to one's private space. The only contributions worth studying are those in the field of philosophy. Religion tried to answer the philosophical questions like "What is life?" "How does one go about living his life?" etc, and unfortunately the answers to these questions affect not just the individual practising the religion, but the entire society.

Locus of Control

According to Locus of control theories in psychology:

Perceived control is defined as a generalised expectancy for internal as opposed to external control of reinforcements." For every individual it spans between the extremes of "External"(where one believes everything is caused and influenced by external factors) and "Internal"(where one believes that everything is directly determined by one's own actions irrespective of the external factors)...
... A strong internal locus of control has been shown to have high correlation with a high 'need for achievement' and therefore greater motivation.

The "Left-Liberal" bias of a majority of "intellectuals"(connected to socio-economic studies or otherwise) may perhaps be explained thus: Most of the intellectuals(especially the ones at the top) are loathe to admit that any situation is beyond their sphere of control. They try hard to internalise the locus of control and believe that they can "do something" to "fix the system."

Resignation to external factors requires considerable amount of "swallowing one's pride" and it is not that easy for the high-fliers. It would seem arrogant coming even as it does, from the most powerful person on earth to say "We know what is wrong and we're going to fix it." Sadly, we don't know (yet) how to "fix it".

Therefore, how much ever the enlightened ones may insist that these ideas are dead, a few of us hold on to the ideas of libertarianism and capitalism not because it is bereft of ills, but because we believe that in trying to fix these ills without understanding the systems, we give birth to greater evils.

Intentions and interpretations

We have had apologists for all kinds of social evils in over the ages: People claiming how the intentions of caste system were purely professional classification; Claims that dowry was a system of maintenance; Claims that the church was usurping power merely to protect the society from destruction and dare I say, how Burqa is actually a symbol for women empowerment and how the Islamic militants today misinterpret and misuse the sacrosanct sayings of the Prophet.

It is high time these apologists (supposed progressives and liberals form the majority amongst them) woke up to the reality. To be a true progressive means to critically analyze and evaluate each and every act committed and purge (or atleast attempt to) the society of these evils. The caste system was vilified regardless of its intentions and rightly so! Over the centuries, it stood as a symbol for oppression by the elites in the society regardless of what its intentions were. Similarly dowry is rightfully criticized by one and all.

Why then, are we hung up on these interpretations of The Qu'ran? After all, it is not us, but the perpetrators of violence who interpret The holy book in ways that suit their agenda. It is moot to discuss whether the interpretation they use is right or wrong.The road to hell is paved with good intentions it is said. Ultimately the intentions don't matter half as much as the outcomes.

If any, it becomes imperative for the other schools of thought who oppose these interpretations to drown out these voices, cry for reform and enlighten the rest of the world. Until then, I believe it is a cardinal sin to ask(and to do) the rest of us ignoramuses to stop listening to our enemies, because "they don't represent the truth." A territorial conflict may be resolved by over powering the opponent, but a war of ideas and ideologies can't and won't be won in ignorance.

"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."

---Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

of Civilization and violence

It is perhaps a romantic notion and very fashionable for the "psuedo-libertarian" group to diss the institution of police and state. But, as Dr.Pinker demonstrates in this talk, contrary to popular idea, we are living in the most peaceful of times.

That means that we are doing "something" right. It is important that we discuss the ills of our society as it exists today and strive to improve. However, that is not the same as the thoughtless nihilism being exhibited by some in the name of "libertarianism"

Identity

The essay "Keep your identity small" by Paul Graham makes many poignant points.

I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity. By definition they're partisan............

.........The most intriguing thing about this theory, if it's right, is that it explains not merely which kinds of discussions to avoid, but how to have better ideas. If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible......

......A scientist isn't committed to believing in natural selection in the same way a bibilical literalist is committed to rejecting it. All he's committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads.

I do agree that the identity can cause a partisan bias. Therefore, the foremost trait to infuse your identity with, would be a strong streak of self-awareness and self-criticism. This will automatically lead to pruning of the useless edges that start taking roots in one's identity from time to time. I also like the way he proposes this theory but claims no authority over its veracity.

His other essays are also enjoyable and thought-provoking and my first contact with his writing came through the essay: "Lies we tell our kids".

Objectivity of truth

Orwell writes in the Tribune on Feb 4, 1944 in his column "As I please":

...Up to a fairly recent date, the major events recorded in the history books probably happened. It is probably true that the battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, that Columbus discovered America, that Henry VIII had six wives, and so on. A certain degree of truthfulness was possible so long as it was admitted that a fact may be true even if you don't like it. Even as late as the last war it was possible for the Encyclopedia Britannica, for instance, to compile its articles on the various campaigns partly from German sources. Some of the facts — the casualty figures, for instance — were regarded as neutral and in substance accepted by everybody. No such thing would be possible now. A Nazi and a non-Nazi version of the present war would have no resemblance to one another, and which of them finally gets into the history books will be decided not by evidential methods but on the battlefield.....
.

My admiration knows no bounds when it comes to Orwell's insights. Take the recent Israel-Palestine conflict which has produced gems like Pallywood or the "Al-Dura murder":


Or our very own "Godhra riots", one version of truth is vastly different from another. Orwell says later in the same essay:

The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits ‘atrocities’ but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future.

A totalitarian regime doing this is not surprising, but a whole bunch of cronies running the media, doctoring the truth to protect their life-long investments into a hollow ideology is catastrophic.

"We are not the sole owners, but custodians of the liberties we enjoy today . We have inherited these liberties which were won by bitter struggles of our predecessors and it is our duty to safeguard them for our successors."[1]

For the past few years(decades?) we have grown complacent and turned into that fat behemoth that is crushed under its own weight. It is high time we cast away our apathy and learn to shoulder our responsibilities.

[1] I cannot recollect who said this

Standards

Take a look at the interview. By her own admission, Mrs. Shabana Azmi had a very secular upbringing and she was only questioned about her "Muslim origins" after the Mumbai riots.("It is only when they were affected that they woke up" ) She claims that this led to her "digging in her heels". Let us turn that around for a moment. Let us discount the earlier part of her statement which provides a rationale for the discrimination she had to face(not judging the validity of it), Isn't it entirely plausible that most of the "Right-wing" activism taking place these days maybe a reaction to the way anything and everything to do with "the majority's way of life" is vilified as regressive and pre-historic?

Here is Mr.Arun Shourie writing in "Strong to the weak, weak to the strong"

Many Hindus also notice the other thing -- the one I mentioned as the reason as against the rationalization for no artist ever being galvanized by the creative urge when it comes to painting the features of the Prophet. They notice that the artists do not do so, not because these masters cannot do so, nor because their muse never goads them in this direction, but because they know that, were they to do so, they would be set upon. And that the State -- which is weak, and which also has internalized the same double-standards to rationalize its weakness -- will not come to their rescue. Therefore, more and more Hindus are concluding that we too should acquire the same reputation, we too should acquire the same capacity. In a word, three things are teaching the Hindus to become Islamic: the double-standards of the secularists and the State, the demonstrated success of the Muslims in bending both the State and the secularists by intimidation, and the fact that both the State and the secularists pay attention to the sentiments of Hindus only when the Hindus become a little Islamic.....
Finally, a forecast : the more the secularists insist on double-standards, the more Islamic will the Hindus become.

I wonder if people like Mrs.Azmi have ever heard of "Cognitive dissonance"
It is alright for the youth to take on a radical ideology because they were boxed into that corner by discrimination, but it is not right for the majority to associate that ideology has anything to do with the actions of these youth. In other words, "victimisation of the aggressor."
Correlation does not imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively to 'look over there' (xkcd). Perhaps it is important to take a look at why there is such a high correlation between certain ideologies and acts.

Libertarian thoughts

I've often described myself as a libertarian. It pains me to see what shallowness passes for libertarian thought. I do believe that outlawing cannabis is restriction of personal freedom and that it is yet another act of "paternalism" showered upon us by government. But, he says

" Tomorrow night, I will not be celebrating. No Boom Shankar for me. Not if it is criminal. I despair for the Hindus. All pious, all cowardly."

Accusing people of cowardice because they don't fight for your cause in which most of them have not an iota of interest is libertarianism?

In another context, he had written :

"I sincerely doubt whether such a brazen strike by just 25 armed men would have caused so much damage and lasted so long if all decent Mumbaikars had guns of their own. In fact, if they did have guns, such an attack would have perished at the thought itself. It would not have been even contemplated."

Forget the terms "Economies of scale" and "specialization of trade" that are central to the very theme of development, but even an idiot could see that citizens with hand guns and pistols would be mincemeat in the hands of trained (specialized) operators using AK-47s , grenades etc. Of course, how can I not tip the esteemed libertarian's latest offering:

"In the old days, prosecution was the individual’s prerogative. He collected the evidence himself and argued his own case."

return the jungle-law? "Ban the police", Indeed!

Remember children, any ideology and ideologue is to be mistrusted. True libertarians do not argue that their ideology is the best, but only argue that it is the ideology that descends the most gracefully into "real world". In other words, they are set aside by their pragmatic world view.
I think instead of his vocation as a "psuedo-intellectual" he should just admit to being a hipster who wants his freedom - I'd have way more respect for him that way.