Telangana: The price you pay for lack of objectivity.

Telangana. Its been described by the media as a tangle, tussle, puzzle and that which is very complex to solve . This is nothing but lazy journalism. Issues are not irreducible, everything can be resolved into right/wrong. All you need is to explore an objective standard against which you can pass a judgement. Political parties won’t logically pursue issues to find out the truth; for the system doesn’t reward it. And add to that there is a fear of losing one set of people(read votes). Media on the other hand, instead of using adjectives, can do some real research and come out with an objective analysis to expose political parties. But they have long given up that process and happy to go by perceptions and emotions much like politicians. Worse, they talk about electoral gains instead of understanding the issue at hand. When you are dividing a state, the natural question is why? Is it because I feel like doing it or is there a scientific principle involved or an uncontested reason?  The question whether ‘Telangana’ is right or wrong lacks reference. If I put a question whether the Charminar is big or small without giving any reference, there can never be a single concrete answer to it and it will always be a complex question to answer. But if I ask whether it is 160ft tall or not, there can be only one answer. You can never bridge subjective feelings without weighing them against an objective standard. Big and small are subjective feelings, where as a ‘feet’ is an objective standard, which is agreeable to all. When they say ‘public sentiment’ or ’emotion’ they are talking about subjective feelings. If you don’t counter them with an objective standard, they will translate into justifiable agitations. That’s exactly what happened in AP. You cannot go on an agitation saying that the charminar is only 50 ft tall, for it can be proved otherwise and you will be condemned and seen as a fool. But in Andhra Pradesh, people have been creating ruckus for a while now, yet no one has the moral authority to stop it; for everyone is acting on their subjective whims.

The vague reason centre gives for the decision is, that the agitation has been since 1956 and that they are conceding it today. This is factually wrong. It was in 1956 that these two regions were merged to form a state(merger was voluntary). Not going much into the history, even if we consider that the agitation was there for 60 years, would the time period justify a demand? If I start an agitation to kill someone, will it become justifiable after, say, 50 years? If the demand is justifiable objectively, it shouldn’t wait even a day. Even if we take this irrational thing as a basis, there are much older demands in the country, why don’t center divide them?

When there is no uncontested reason, why did every political party agree to it? Around 2001-04, when the demand came up, it was a fringe issue. But the congress, to make absolutely sure that they win the assembly election, had brought it into the main stream by aligning with the TRS. They managed to win the election which put pressure on the TDP to change its stand to not lose any votes in the telangana region. Neither there were any principles involved while taking the stand nor the political parties had any intention of separating telangana. It was done to neutralize each other’s advantage in that area. Moreover, since the regions are so interlinked they were sure that the division was impossible. So they let it simmer until it went out of hand. Once it did, centre was cornered to take a decision and it panicked. And a point was reached ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’. So finally, it chose the option which gives them an edge in the upcoming elections and not necessarily the right one; infact it never did the exercise to find the right thing to do. India is called the largest democracy, vibrant democracy and all, but this issue, which has been in the public domain for 10 years, has not been discussed once in the state assembly. And the sri krishna committee, which the centre constituted to study the issue, came up with a report that ideally should have been tabled in the parliament for discussion. Even that was not done. The decision was taken behind closed doors based on electoral calculations and is being imposed on the people. We are only a democracy by constitution, but working wise it is no less than a monarchy.

A congress spokesperson when questioned about the current situation said, “when there is a cut there will be blood, pain and anger. It is understandable”. Even if the cut is inevitable, there are ways to do it. Though both involve piercing a knife into your body, there is a difference between an incision and a stab. Doctor explains you the importance of going under the knife, convinces you and proceeds. Where as a stab is a criminal act which causes bad blood that could take years to sort itself out. Congress seems to have no patience or tact – so they are going for the forceful act.

So much can be written about the history, geography and cultures of two regions, but not going much into the details, people who really understand the issue will agree that the situation would never have got to this had the state been named ‘Telugu nadu’ instead of Andhra Pradesh in the first place.

The sad part is, no matter what happens from now on, knowing how congress handles things, the animosity is here to stay.

Why Government

In India, there are about 500 Newspapers, 160 TV News Channels and countless Online Social Media platforms. 90% of the news that comes out of them is ‘politics’. In fact, the word ‘News’ has become synonymous with ‘Politics’. Invariably, your headline would be either a scam or a scheme or an election result/analysis or some legislation or split in the alliance or coming together of an alliance etc. When was the last time you saw a Newspaper carrying a real achievement on it’s front page? Yes, once in a blue moon, when India does well in sports or when they successfully launch a rocket, they do find some space. But don’t we really have any achievements to show case on a regular basis or is ‘politics’ too important a thing to miss out?

With general elections coming up next year, this news is only going to get doubled-trebled. Much of the energy in the media will be spent on the analysis, discussing vote share, vote swing, caste break-down, minority votes, majority votes, exit polls etc. On the ground, the activity will be even more frantic with political party’s campaigns, rallies, road-shows etc. On the other hand, Election Commission will be busy deploying its machinery and organizing it to make sure every voter gets to exercise his vote. Not to mention the scale- around 70 crore(700 million) voters. All this to elect a Government. So much of energy is spent, but the real question to be asked is, ‘how important is it to go through this grind over and again?’

I have been following politics since I was 12 and tracked every election since then. Every time there is an election, it brings a lot of excitement and hope that something new would come up, which would change the old order. The terminology media uses – ‘vibrant democracy’, ‘world’s largest democracy’ etc adds to the excitement and makes you feel proud of this unique phenomenon. But,once the elections are done the enthusiasm would fizzle out very quickly. And in less than a couple of months time, when you see the same old politics being played out, you go back to the pessimistic view that you always held ‘nothing ever changes in this country’. Why is this repeating every time? Where is the flaw? I think it’s time we got back to the basics.

We have accepted Govt. as a norm and inherited Constitution without questioning it. Since the root of all this is government, let us now ask: Why do we need a Government? How did it come into existence? If it is really needed? If yes, what is it’s exact role?

Let us assume a small building with ten odd apartments, which works without an association or a president. At some level this can work. There are unwritten rules that exists which directs inmates to park their vehicles in the allotted space, to not pollute the environment of the place, limit their TV volume and many such things. Now, the conflict arises, if someone does something irrational. Like dumping their garbage in front of neighbour’s door or unfair use of elevator etc. This creates insecurities among people and then a wise man would suggest everyone to come together for peaceful co-existence, makes a coherent set of rules with the consent of everyone rational, and chooses someone to safeguard these rules, then the rules become the constitution and the one who upholds it becomes their government. It is this government that decides what is illegitimate in that apartment based on the constitution.

Let me try to trace the evolution of government in the society.  Since anarchy was the default setting, what could have made the early man go look for an authority? My estimation is, there would have been instances of people initiating force on others, which naturally would result in an insecure environment. So, to get a sense of security and predicitbility to their living they needed some authority. And I estimate that the concept of ‘God’ could have taken birth here. Inorder to bring some order to the system, may be a few wise men would have come together and popularized the theme that there was some higher authority that was watching their behaviour. Then they might have defined behavior that Gods would approve…which today might be your holy books. Since people need motivation to behave in a certain way, they might have created the concept of hell and heaven. The concept of God as the invisible eye watching from the skies above was needed, because people would commit crimes away from the public glare and try to get away(as you didn’t have cctvs or any such technologies back then). Once you placed God at the top, he has a clear view of all the things happening on the earth. And over a period of time they might have realized that they needed to punish people for their misdeeds here on the earth rather than leave it to hell…hence the concept of king came into existence. King as someone who acts on the word of god. That was why you always had king-church association, and later when people got more empowered they instituted democratic governments. In short, Gods became kings and kings gave away to governments.

Rights

So it is fairly clear that Govts. came into existence to see that there are no conflicts. A conflict arises when someone infringes on others rights. So, in effect, to protect rights we are instituting govts. Now what are these rights? When someone initiates a force on you, why is it wrong and who decides that? Before communists distorted the concept of ‘rights’, the western philosophers had recognized three basic rights. Right to life, liberty and property for every individual. These were considered by some as God given and by some as natural. But neither can be really used to to put up a strong case for the concept of rights; except may be to show a proof that this concept worked in the western world, and basically the reason for its progress compared to the rest of the world. Ayn Rand was the one who really gave a rational explanation to these rights. She says “Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work.” Let us examine. Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Just like claws and teeth for a tiger. Now, if one’s standard of moral value is man’s life, and acting in contradiction is immoral, man should be able to use his mind, anything that stops him from doing so becomes an evil and anti-life. Remove claws and teeth of a tiger and it can’t survive. Now what is that stops man from acting on his own free judgement? Physical Force/Coercion. If you put a gun to my head, I can’t act on my own free will..that is how one deduce that ‘liberty’ is a right. Since man acts on his free judgement to sustain his life, it is his right to keep the product of his actions. Hence property becomes a right. If a man is living alone in a desert island, these rights would be implicit, but because we are living in a social context these rights should be identified and recognized, and govts are instituted to uphold these rights. And one should objectively arrive at laws based on these rights. These rights are not subject to vote; they are absolute. Now the question arises..what if people don’t subscribe to this concept? What if someone doesn’t subscribe to the concept of gravity and jumps off the building?..If the standard is man’s life and the goal is for the survival of ‘man qua man’, everyone should submit to these rights for peaceful co-existence. There is simply no other way a society can exist.

Now, this brings us to the question of why do we need a society?

Imagine everyone living in one’s own deserted island. One has to produce things that are needed for his survival all by himself. Compare that to a day in life of an individual in a society. From the dress he wears, food he eats, gadgets, vehicles, movies etc…As Frederic Bastiat puts it “even the humblest, obtains in one day more satisfactions(in a society) than he could produce for himself in several centuries”…What makes this even more interesting is that he didn’t rob anyone..he paid for all the services he had received. Hence the purpose of coming together and living in a social context is – division of labor, sharing of knowledge and when we specialize, we become vastly more productive than when we produce everything ourselves. The only threat in a social context is to man’s rights, which were implicit in his island…That threat is in the form of initiation of force..so by coming together to take advantage of the benefits of living in a society, man, by default has agreed to the non-aggression principle and that he only involves in a value-for-value transaction. Living in a social context makes supporting one’s life a lot easier, but as Ayn Rand puts it “Living in a society, instead of on a desert island, does not relieve a man of the responsibility of supporting his own life.”

Govts. Role

Now that we have identified individual rights, we need a framework and a body to uphold them like we did in the case of our apartment example. Since ‘force’ is what disturbs the social co-existence, we need to frame objective laws to take retaliatory measures on those who initiate it. Hence an institution is needed to identify and punish the aggressor as per the already laid objective code of rules. To put it in Miss Rand’s words “This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.” .  Govt is a tool to take the force out of the system..so that men can go about their business peacefully.

Generally, Govts are seen as either servants or masters. In my observation, a real govt is neither, but a referee. Here we need to make a distinction : Govts are not there to protect you(every moment), but only to recognize and uphold your rights. The difference is, Govt. recognizes your right to property,makes robbery a punishable crime and punishes the criminal, but locking ones house is the job of the individual. Just like in sport where player brings in his own protective gear and umpire’s job is to penalize rule violation, but not to prevent it…he can never. People rally on streets and demand the government to protect them, really they should be demanding Govt to let them be free to protect themselves.

Legitimate Govt.

So, in short, Govt. should have the monopoly on ‘retaliatory use of force’. To exercise this, it needs judiciary and the police.Just like an individual needs to protect himself, a country too should be able to protect it’s land – thus military becomes a legitimate function. These and only these are the legitimate functions of a Govt.  People also call this form of set-up ‘Limited Govt’ but I prefer to call it a legitimate govt. Now, the big question is – who pays for it? I will deal with this in the last section where I will try to answer anarchists.

Socialist Govt.

Almost all the Govts in the world today are socialist….they may vary in the methods and degrees, but the goal is always the greater good of the society. Govts intervene in every aspect of human life to achieve this goal. Let us see why, this, seemingly beautiful concept of greater good is such an evil. Recently, in India, there was a debate about the food security bill which the govt. was planning to enact. It is supposed to benefit 75% of the people – this is what they call ‘greater good’. Not even one political party opposed it in principle…they merely had difference of opinion in the implementation, but no one questioned the morality/legitimacy of such a concept. Now, lets imagine this scenario – there are 5 people of which 4 have different organ defects and one is perfectly healthy…socialism permits you to kill the healthy person and yank out required organs from him and donate them to those in need…because the concept of “welfare” only sees how many  people are getting benefited, but not “at whose cost”. Sacrificing the individual for some greater welfare of the society is socialism. If you want to understand how it translates-  just imagine, tomorrow, your building president storms your apartment, demands you to produce your bank statement, and then forces you to pay maintenance bill in proportion to your income.. – how does that make you feel? Isn’t that what’s happening in the name of income tax? The moral concept of “individual rights” has no place under these Govts. How does it feel when the umpire intervenes and restricts a player from performing to the best of his potential in the name of ‘inclusive growth’ ?  Even those who oppose socialism, oppose, because they say it doesn’t work. The problem with this argument is,what are you trying to achieve to say whether it works or not? The right question to ask is, whether it is moral or not? and it is immoral as it denies individual rights. As a result threat to the existence of the individual. And the point to note is, India is a self-proclaimed socialist govt.

Anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism is a political ideology which advocates the elimination of the state; law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be provided by privately funded competitors rather than through taxation. In short, they believe that justice can be bought in the market. They see this as a step further to the limited govt which the likes of Ayn Rand proposed. Let’s see what’s wrong with this.

The basic flaw with this system is, it assumes markets as a given. But the reality is, we cannot have markets without taking the force out of the system. Market is a concept based on value for value transaction, and force is not a value. It is anti-mind and it’s presence nullifies any real value. Govt is that tool, which helps to extracts force out of the system(as seen above). Free-market justice means, there would be multiple law enforcing agencies..which indirectly means selling force as a value in the market, which destroys the premise on which capitalism stands. If I buy all the oil in the world, people can still explore other forms of energy and that is the essence of capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t say you can’t monopolize a resource, all it says is, even if one does, you are free to come up with alternative ideas and market them. But, if I buy all the force(law enforcing agencies) that is available in the market and exert it on the fellow beings – can they innovate? Force is anti-thought, so you can do nothing but simply surrender. And to think of it, what exists today could be your Anarcho-capitalism with an agency called ‘government’ holding the monopoly on force. Can you now establish an alternative to compete with that?

You can however buy protection for defense purpose, but not force to initiate or retaliate. Here a distinction has to be made between ‘defense’ and ‘retaliation’. When there is an immediate threat to your rights and recourse to the govt is not available, you can use force to defend your life or property. But, once the act of right violation has been committed, to make the violator pay for it, a retaliatory force is necessary. We delegate this job to the govt for the purpose of an orderly, objective, legally defined enforcement.

Ethics determine how people should treat one another in a society, based on that Politics prepares the ground for Markets/Economics to thrive. That political ground here is rule of law and its enforcement. You can’t put the ground for sale. As a friend put it, ‘Competing law enforcers means competing law creators, which means competing sets of rights. With “free market justice”, rights would be open to being bought by the dollar. That is not justice, nor is it right’. For a produced good to be translated into value/money, you first need to have a claim(a right) on it and then should be free(a right) to sell it. So clearly rights precede market and cannot be brought in the market, for there can be no market without rights. Based on ‘rights’ you formulate ‘law’ and based on ‘law’ you deliver ‘justice’. As discussed above,  the sole legitimate purpose of the government is to recognize these rights and uphold them. When you don’t have a common law, a killer service and a police service will have the same legitimacy..infact the word legitimacy wouldn’t be applicable in such a society.

Hence anarcho-capitalism is simply a sophisticated term for ‘anarchy’. Which actually could work if everyone in the society were rational. But reason is not an automatic function for man.  It is a matter of volitional choice. As ayn rand puts it.
“Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice. Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice.”

Now the big question anarchists pose is – who funds this govt? as taxation violates right to property. Lets see. Majority of the people who pay taxes today, see it as a moral duty – only a few who deplore socialist policies of the govt see it as looting. Though the latter part is raising for good, the point I’m trying to make is, if they are already paying so much for the welfare of others as a moral obligation, they will have no problem donating for their own self-interest. Yes, government will run on donations, and if you are wondering if this can work..you might have to look at the kinda donations that pour into private charities, churches, temples etc…surely, when people see the merit in securing their own rights, they will donate voluntarily.

What if no one donates? what if no one agrees to delegate their right to retaliate to the government? Well, if the vast majority doesn’t want to be persuaded by reason and are too irrational to see that such a system is required in their own self-interest – then it is better to give up on the idea of society and retreat to our own respective islands.

Another question is, what if only a few donate and as a result try to take control of the government…a legitimate question..since this is how Govts are run today. The reason for this situation is that the laws are not objectively defined..they are open for interpretation..as a result, it can be easily influenced by money. For example, Constitution grants us free speech with reasonable restrictions. Reasonable is a subjective term and can be interpreted in any way the enforcer wishes to. When the law is absolute and everyone is aware of it, this cannot happen. This can be clearly seen in sport. In cricket, when the batsman gets bowled, no matter who the batsman is, whether he belongs to the richest cricket board or the poorest, whether he is a debutant or a guy with 100 100s…he has to go. When the law is subjective, those in charge of the enforcement can derive extra powers and it multiplies.  But as you see in sport, where rules are mostly objective, umpires can’t dictate what the players do..their role is limited to penalizing rule violation.

In kings we had individuals dictating people…then people revolted and brought in socialist governments..which resulted in mobs dictating individuals…Now is the time we let individuals dictate their own lives.

I will end this with a quote that sums up today’s government.
“Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else” – Frederick bastiat.

The Lost Paradise

“It is not in the nature of man—nor of any living entity—to start out by giving up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one’s mind; security, of abandoning one’s values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential.” – Ayn Rand,  The Fountainhead

“Observe the persistence, in mankind’ s mythologies, of a legend about a paradise that men had once possessed, the city of Atlantis or the Garden of Eden or some kingdom of perfection, always behind us. The root of that legend exists, not in the past of the race, but the past of every man. You still retain a sense- not as firm as a memory, but diffused like the pain of hopeless longing – that somewhere in the starting years of your childhood, before you had learnt to submit, to absorb the terror of unreason and to doubt the value of the mind, you had a radiant state of existence, you had known the independence of a rational consciousness facing an open universe. That is the paradise which you have lost, which you seek – which is yours for the taking.”
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged pp. 968 – 969.

Legality vs Morality

Recently Loksatta party convener, Jayaprakash Narayan, conducted a debate on twitter on the need for bringing Political Parties under RTI (Right to information Act). Which would mean funding to the political parties, reasons for selecting a party candidate etc should be made public. They see it as a step to bring in transparency. I was opposing it. Many people started questioning my stand and why I was against good politics. I told them that I was not against transparency, simply against forcing a law. My point was, why do you need a law when you can ask for their balance sheet when political parties come to seek your vote.  This same political party, which fights for the cause of transparency and prides itself on being transparent, contested election in 2009 in AP and won just 1% votes. I simply read it as public rejected ‘transparency’ or at least it was not on their priority list. So what do you achieve by forcing a law? I asked,  “I agree that we need good political parties, so do we need good mobile service, should we also bring all mobile companies under RTI?” Jayaprakash Narayan responding to it said “Mobile companies only provide a service; they do not exercise power over me.” In which case, every voter determines who exercises power over me, should we also bring him under RTI? I need to know why a particular voter is voting for a certain candidate,if he is sold out or ignorant or with a genuine reason. I didn’t get a proper answer for that. The problem here is not with political parties, the real issue is elsewhere,which I will address in next post. Here my argument is not based on how political parties or govt. should run, but purely based on what should constitute a law and what should be a moral choice. Someone immediately asked me.. then why a law against killing? when you could simply ask the murderer not to kill. Well, political parties are not forced on you, it is you who vote them to power. You have a choice there, whereas someone trying to kill or rob me doesn’t have my approval. That is the critical difference. Thus, former becomes a question of morality and latter a case of legality.

Long time back, when I was this reformist who wanted to change the world, disillusioned with big fat Indian weddings.. wanted to file a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) to seek regulation/ban on them.My reason was: it was becoming a status symbol and was putting pressure on different sections of the society to arrange a grand wedding ceremony for their daughters, whether they had the money or not. If I remember well, in my research, I found out that a Punjab court gave a ruling against pompous weddings. Over a period of time, I have realized how absurd my argument was. No one was imposing on you to put up a grand wedding. You may not like it or see no meaning it, but as long it is not harming you it cannot be seen as a legal issue. It comes down to your own morals and ethics. A few weak-minded might get influenced and burn their fingers, but it is the problem of the weak and you can’t ban it on that basis. I see this attitude a lot nowadays: ‘If you like it, you want to make it mandatory; if you don’t, you seek a ban’. Dowry prohibition is an another example. If I demand dowry, judge me as an irrational person and move on, now, how difficult is that? If it it a dowry harassment case, right to life/liberty should cover it. Why have a special law for it? Same with discrimination. I see people making a hue and cry about how still people discriminate based on caste, religion and sex. Discrimination based on caste is even punishable by law. If someone denies you a job or house for rent or even a glass of water based on your caste or religion or sex, just move on why do you want to do business with such irrational people. This actually reminds me of an interview of Ayn Rand, when she was asked about women being discriminated in the job market, she said “All you have to do is show your ability, if someone discriminates you based on your race and doesn’t give you a job..an intelligent employer will.”

When you have a choice there is no need for a law. The choices you make determine your morality and people judge you based on that. That is how you are valued. The purpose of law is not to teach you or force you to accept morals but to protect you from coercion and contracted rights. We have too many laws in this country and too few morals. Legality recognizes youe right to live, morality determines how you live it.

Nature of Indian economy, role of govts etc.

//When someone questioned me about the nature of govt in India, why I think it is socialist when we see lot of privatization and what I thought about the misdoings of politicians.

The nature of Indian economy is mixed, but its goal is socialist. The privatization we see today was not a deliberate choice but we were left with no other option. Public enterprises failed to deliver and the government needed money to support its welfare programs so the only way out was privatization. In 1990s when economic liberalisation happened, most of the reforms came because IMF required them as a condition for loaning money to India in order to overcome the economic crisis that the country was facing then; not because of some ideological shift. Even today, governments talk about ‘inclusive growth’ and people approve it; which is nothing but an alternate phrase for ‘re-distribution of wealth,’ which in turn is a core principle of ‘socialism’. Yes, we haven’t seen the bloodshed that the communism is capable of, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have socialist leanings. We are in that grey zone, neither here, nor there– which I believe is even worse than a purely communist state: a communist state will go down quickly (gives an opportunity to build from the ruins), a capitalist state will rise up quickly…where as a mixed economy goes nowhere; it is just stagnant.

When people say, “The money that the productive parts pay as taxes is being misutilized by politicians,” the major flaw in that is not ‘misutilization,’ but productive parts having to pay taxes. Why do they need to pay?  For producing? Worse, the more you produce the more you are penalized. Isn’t it violating individual and property rights? Misutilization is a subjective term. If the government spends on housing, a shelterless guy may appreciate it, but I, as a tax payer, who wants to see it spent on education will feel robbed. The government shouldn’t be handling all this. All the problems arise when the government tries to intervene and control what should happen voluntarily.

When people say, “There is no political accountability,” the question is, accountability to whom? The Public? The Public is nothing but a sum of groups and individuals with varied interests, intellects and standards so it is not possible to be accountable to each one; hence the Government choose groups which are majority in number (in India it is always the poor and unproductive) and feed them (thereby institutionalising poverty) so that they can win the next election (as democracy is merely about numbers and not reason or logic)

The US declaration of independence has these lines.

“Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”

And I truly believe that the Government’s only purpose is to protect individual rights and every individual will be happy to pay to that extent. Nothing more nothing less.

But my issue is not with the form of the government or the economic ideology as I believe that they are merely an extension of the morality that exists in the society.

That morality which teaches you to live for others. And that which considers living for oneself is a sin. That which glorifies sacrifice and reprimands any act of self-interest. That which identifies only ‘we’ and turns a blind eye to ‘I’. That which sees ‘giving’ as a value and ‘earning’ as an evil. When they say ‘tax the rich’ it is this morality that works. Philanthropy is praised, productivity/creativity is penalized. It is this altruistic morality that I am against. Which says that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty. From family to businesses to governments, every system is plagued by this altruistic/collectivist morality. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can let a man create something except freedom of the mind.

Force vs. Freedom, Emotion vs. Reason, Collective vs. Individual. This is actually what I am interested in Socialism vs. Capitalism is just a logical extension of the above mentioned battles.

(Also read Why Govt.?)

(Thank Vinaysheel for fixing up Punctuations)

Reason and Emotion – My Take.

I used to have so many questions pertaining to reason and emotion. As a way out I started analyzing each and every act of mine and over a period of time I was able to evolve a theory that would work for me. Here it is.

Emotions

People generally associate reason with the mind and emotion with the heart. But if you observe carefully, heart only comes into the picture as an effect. Anxiety affects the heart rate to go up, but it is the thought in your mind that causes anxiety. The genesis of emotion is always in the mind. For me emotion is nothing but sum total of all your values and reasons pertaining to a particular event. ‘Elation’ is an emotion often caused by an achievement. What did you achieve? How did you achieve? what it means to you? the struggle you under went, all these things are packaged and delivered as a single emotion. You arrest your thought there and let the emotion take you over. The longevity of this emotional state is determined by the magnitude of the reason behind it. Same goes with pain or any other emotion. Pain is often caused by a loss. As long as that thought is fresh in your memory, you endure that emotion. Stronger the reason, stronger is the emotion and tougher it is to let the mind take control of you again.

How do you determine whether a particular emotion is good or bad?

Emotions per se are neither good nor bad. The thought process behind the emotions make them good or bad. The other day I saw this news item on TV: two students attempted suicide as they were denied hall tickets by their college management to give their exam. I observed two emotions in the people who were watching along with me. ‘Sympathy’ for those students and a sense ‘disgust’ towards the college management. Even the news report carried that tone. Sympathy is generally an emotion that surfaces when you see someone in pain for no fault of his. Here in this case the pain was self-inflicted and not accidental. The reason was that they were denied hall tickets. Was it a matter of life and death? – we don’t know. Grounds on which they were denied? – we don’t know. Did college management purposefully deny them or were they merely acting as per rules and regulations? – we don’t know. Just on seeing someone suffer, and not questioning any further, if you are going to freeze your mind, and let the emotions take over, they will be still considered emotions but would be judged as bad. A sound reasoning person would find it tough to associate with you.

Intangible Reason

I classify reason in to two types: tangible and intangible. When I say emotions are backed up by reason, I am talking about intangible reasons. Intangible reason is something only you can perceive and the world at large can’t. I see a building and I find it huge(emotion) because I have not seen any thing that big till that point. Next guy looking at the same would find it ‘small’ for he had seen bigger buildings before. Each of us is right personally. Both have our own valid reasons to feel the way we feel. But no one can take these reasons into a public space and argue that the building is huge or small. That is why I say these are intangible reasons. But you can go back home and tell your partner about the huge building you saw. He/She can understand it as he/she has an estimate of your emotions. When you say beautiful, huge etc he/she can visualize what you exactly mean. Hence emotions are personal and are valid only in your personal space. Then how do we communicate with the outside world?

The answer is ‘Tangible Reason’

When you are communicating with the outer world, you don’t talk in terms of relatives like huge,small,pain,happy,anger etc no common ground can ever be found using them. If we go back to the building example, people can dispute about it being big, small, medium etc. but the fact that it is X meters tall cannot be disputed. This is what I call a ‘tangible reason’.  Let us say I gifted a book to my friend, he earned it because of the values he possess and the friendship he offers. What I gained by gifting a book to him is only known to me and not visible to the outer world. But if you go to a bookstore to get a book from there ..you exchange the book with  X amount of money, which is tangible and valid everywhere. So, when you deal with the world in general, you deal with absolutes and not with your feelings(whose reasons are only valid in your personal space). Let us say your neighbor is suffering from a disease which needs expensive treatment that he cannot afford. You know him well and have a good opinion about him.  Hence you rightly feel bad for his current situation and you want to help. This is absolutely fine. You are acting on an emotion caused by a genuine reason(intangible). But the problem arises when you start questioning the world on why it doesn’t care for this guy and start wondering if the world has become insensitive. One, others don’t see your reason. Two, even if they see it, they need not respond like you do for they can have their own intangible but perfectly valid reasons. Though your emotions are valid, to engage with public, you need a tangible reason.

Finally I conclude “Reason(tangible)  is universal, emotion is personal“

The Tajmahal

This has to be the lowest point in my life. The relationship that lasted for more than 3 years, has now been deserted. Yes, that is the worst part, the relationship is very much there, just that people decided to not live in it anymore. I was never really forth-coming about admitting my relationship with anyone. Yes a couple of people know a brief account of it, but not much. Now I have decided to make it public. I want to let this out and get lighter so that I can soar up. The main objective before me is to make sure that this remains the lowest point and doesn’t get any lower.

Meeting

All this started when I met her in an online forum. Before I get to that, I need to tell about my mental state back then. I had this habit of pleasing and wanting to help people in order to be in their good books . Being an introvert, it comes naturally I guess. What used to happen with that behavior was, I wouldn’t open up my true self with anybody. It used to leave me dissatisfied. So after giving it a sincere thought, I realized that- ‘how a relationship(be it any) shapes up entirely depends on how honestly it starts off’.  So I said to myself, no more pleasing people. You can impress with whatever you have but not with borrowed ideas. Precisely at this point I met this girl. I vividly remember her posting some childish stuff to tease people. She was posting no-holds barred. I like people with free-spirit, so it naturally impressed me. Some witty conversation happened in the forum between us which landed us in a private chat. Not sure who pinged who, would have been a big debating point if this story had a different ending, doesn’t matter much now. Though I tried to be as instinctive and spontaneous as possible, I was no match for her. Before I could type in one thought, I would get 10 replies. I loved that energy. In the first conversation itself, she asked me If I would be interested in getting in to a relationship with her. I had my doubts on whether she was really honest about it or just fooling around. But something made me trust her and say ‘why not?’. We then decided to exchange emails on what each others interests and preferences were. Again doesn’t matter whose idea was that.

It all started with that email. 

After that we went off chat. And for about 15 mins or so, I didn’t do anything but try to understand what actually happened there. Clearly I went against my natural, measured, ‘please people’ approach. I pleasantly surprised myself. I then sat down to write about myself, took this opportunity to explore my mind and put it on paper. I hardly knew her so it wasn’t an email to impress her. After one point, I felt like I was writing for myself. After it was done and sent, I fell in love with what I wrote. I fell in love with my honesty. Just now it crossed my mind to revisit that email, but I am not going to. It is not the content I wanted to refresh but the emotion. My ideology, my outlook everything has changed over the last three years and I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the content now. And girl! this is precisely why I used to hate when you would dig those emails and read them out to me. Coming back, the next day I got an email from her stating that she was only trying to find out how a boy would react to such a proposal, but after reading my honest response she felt guilty and went on to pour her heart out like I did. It got us hooked to wanting to know more about each other. Thus the journey started.

The Dilemma throughout.

I am not for a committed relationship. By which I mean, I wouldn’t promise her nor would expect the girl to promise me, that we would stay committed forever. I could very well go on to live with that girl forever, but I don’t want a word or promise to tie us together but love. I would want my girl to choose me, when she had the option of not choosing me and vice-versa. I love to apply freedom and independence in every aspect of life and this is no exception. She would initially insist on a commitment, but when realized the depth of my argument, she was convinced. She would still continue to ask for it, only when emotions got better of her and not when she was her rational self. The problem she always had was family acceptance. Being the only child didn’t help her. The worst thing about a family system is, you are enslaved to one another. Individual is completely lost. They are held hostage in their own homes. And when they still say they love their family, I can’t think of a better case of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’. Though I concede that there could be an odd rational family, majority are hostage homes. She would talk to me, she would pour her heart out but would never come out of that prison. She was sailing in two boats and I was guilty of encouraging her . I used to advocate her from time to time that you can’t get best of the two worlds..you have to choose one. Looking back, I feel, I should have been more stern about it.

Philosophy

Seeing my strong individualistic ideas with no respect for traditions and conventions, she introduced me to Ayn Rand, the philosopher. Being a seeker of reason and freedom, I got naturally hooked to her philosophy. It gave me answers to so many puzzling things that I had in my mind. It was the best phase of my life. Understanding the finer details of life in the company of a person who appreciated not my name, not my face, not my profession but me. The rational me. The thinking me. Tears rolling down as I write this. This is not easy. The only philosophy that I missed applying to our relationship was, the black and white nature of the world that Miss Rand advocated. Ayn Rand says “There are two sides to every issue: one side is right(white) and the other is wrong(black), but the middle(gray) is always evil. Middle is the knave which blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice exist”. ‘Black’ could be excused for limited knowledge. But ‘gray’ is the one with full knowledge but doesn’t want to act. I am guilty of encouraging ‘gray’, did that in the hope that it would turn ‘white’ one day. But it went back to being ‘black’ leaving me shattered. And I am rightly facing the consequences today.

Girl! Today I am passing a moral judgement on you, you traded yourself to a lesser value. You sacrificed your life. You went back to the darkness after seeing the light. But one thing I appreciate, when you asked me to not message you again, though it hurt me endlessly, I loved the conviction and courage with which you said it. I never saw that in you before. If only you had exhibited that in choosing the right value. It did occur to me, may be I should have forced you to take a decision in our favor. But I did the right thing by not doing so. Force is an evil and that’s exactly why we are in this situation. I always believed that you counter irrationality with rationality and not with some other form of irrationality. Yes! irrationality won it today and you helped it win handsomely.

Why am I making all this fuss now- when I knew this was bound to happen? 

I genuinely thought I had the courage to march on even after she’s gone. I didn’t pretend it. You could call it lack of imagination. No matter how well you know about yourself, there is always that one situation that could bring out a facet that you never thought you had it in you. That’s exactly what’s happening to me.

And Girl! Yes! I did tell you that I would want to see you happy even after our separation. Back then you were still my girl and I couldn’t take the idea of you being sad, so I had said that. But it really doesn’t make sense to me now. The fundamentals of our relationship were understanding each others values and happiness. There is no way anyone can understand you and your happiness better than me. The how could I possibly believe that some random guy, picked up by your parents(who never gave any thought to your ideas) would understand you more than me and make you happy? So it doesn’t give me any confidence that you will be happy. I don’t want to lie about it. And you very well know that happiness is a relative subject. So even if you feel you are happy it could never match my standards of happiness. You deserve more. You deserve me. I cannot wish you happiness either, for you know I never believed in wishes and greetings. If wishes could come true, I would do nothing but wish all day. Still, if there was a possibility of a wish coming true, why would I wish for your happiness with some other guy, when I could easily wish for us and our togetherness?

Whenever we would have a fight, you used to ask me to return all the emails and gifts back. Girl! Now you are free to take this all back! Hope you got a big garage in your backyard..because it would take years to burn all this down. I cannot forget the tone with which you spoke  last time. It felt like a stone. I never thought you were capable of something like that. You did the impossible. They say “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” I think you are on a mission to prove that wrong.

This relationship now feels like a monumental waste of effort. The monument is still there but there is no life in it. It makes me think of the tajmahal. It is just a show piece, inside it is a fucking graveyard.  And Girl! this epic, that I am writing now is your tajmahal and I am going to bury you in it forever and move on. You are as good as dead. Yes someone with the same name and same features would be living on, but my girl is dead. I am not an irrational guy to go after a look alike.

The Box Theory

A few days back, a friend and I were talking about the soon to be implemented food security bill and we both were opposing it. On the face of it, it seemed like we were on the same page. Only once we started reasoning out did I realize how dissimilar our views were. His argument was that priority should be given to strengthening education/healthcare and not food security.I didn’t agree with him,my point was why should anything be given for free. So there is clear contrast in our ideas, but if a referendum was to be put up on food security bill we both would be on the same side.That made me come to this conclusion

“Taking same stand doesn’t mean agreement. Two people on the same side of the issue can have two completely contrasting reasons for taking that position.”

Pictorial representation of the above write up would look something like this.

The horizontal line is the ‘current issue’ and the two cross marks are two individuals, both taking the same position with respect to the present subject. If you go a little further, you can see a vertical line dividing these two individuals. This is not so prominent today as this particular issue is not in the limelight. If and when it comes to the forefront, these two people will find themselves on the opposite end of the spectrum.

If we extend this a little bit,

This is self-explanatory; two people on the opposite side of the first argument, find themselves on the same side when there is a shift in the subject.

If we scale up this theory to the whole world, this is how it looks like

In Fig:1, you see world as a single entity. In the next, you see a how a major issue divides the world in to two and how people on the same side are divided further. If we extend all these divisions, we get an ideal world(fig3).Where each box represents a distinct individual ideology. What is an ideology? ‘How’ I perceive things and ‘how’ I react to them forms my ideology. What determines that ‘how’? Combination of genes, environment, experiences etc.  So something which is derived from so many complex parameters is always going to be unique, just that in a perfect world, everyone realizes those demarcations and accept/respect them.

In the real world, you don’t see these clear divisions. There are couple of reasons for this:

Firstly, most people don’t recognize ‘self’ because they hardly ever look inward. When you don’t have conscience to justify your acts, you look outward for groups which approve those acts and try to get associated with them. Hence you are more comfortable being identified as citizen of a country or follower of a religion etc than as an individual entity. That is the reason why we see most people acting in the name country/religion/community/society/family etc than out of ‘self-interest’.

Secondly, there are individuals who ‘strongly’ believe in their ideas and are always on the look out to expand their boxes – i,e  try to spread their ideology and assert it on their surroundings. Here the word ‘strong’ is a relative one. So practically everyone does it when they sense the person they are dealing with is comparatively weak minded. In some societies, we see people using physical force in the pursuit of expanding their boundaries.

Real world could look something like this.

Direction:

These are not static boxes, ideology keeps improving/changing with every new experience. Hence there is one more parameter attached to it- that is ‘direction’. So when you are judging a person, it is not enough to acknowledge the ‘box’ and its boundaries but also the direction it is headed.

In the first set, red and blue looked like a perfect match initially but in no time are occupying diagonally opposite positions because of their dissimilar orientation. In the second set, red and blue are occupying very dissimilar positions but their orientation brought them together.

Case Studies

(to be continued)

Deserted Monument

This beautiful building, which until recently was occupied and full of activity, is now empty and locked down. It now increasingly seems an irreversible process. All I can now do is simply sit and stare at this monument. Don’t think it is prudent to entertain thoughts of living in it anymore.

It was built on foundations of ‘honesty’, using bricks of ‘trust’ and concrete with immense ‘integrity’. Weathered many a storm since it’s construction days and remained unshakeable. But today it’s been reduced to nothing but a show piece. Lot of thought and sweat had been put into building it, which makes it very difficult to move on. Had it been in tatters, it would have been much easier to forgo it and build a new one.  Also, the question arises of whether, and to what extent, the new construction would match the class of this bygone one. One thing is for sure, if and when I decide to build a new one, it will NOT be based on the argument ‘everyone needs a roof to live under’. Will never compromise on quality.

For now, the weather is still gloomy and feels like it could rain any moment.

Modi-My observations

Political parties’ campaign in India thus far has revolved around only one phrase “we will give you___”  (free rice, free power, reservation etc). For the first time in Narendra Modi I have seen someone talk consistently about creating wealth, governance and development. Coming from a state(AP), which has been witnessing politics of fear for the last three years, his speech on hope, that trends can be reversed, felt like music to my ears. It took 60 years to change the political discourse from “we will give you” to “we can do it”. I don’t for a moment think that everyone will readily embrace it, but we atleast found someone who is willing to adhere to that ideology and also has seen success in convincing people of his state. Incidentally, AP also has seen someone like Modi in Chandrababu Naidu. Infact he was the one who first tried to reverse this trend from ‘giving’ to ‘creating’. Instead of ‘free’ his emphasis was on ‘quality’. But had very few takers at that time and Naidu also was a little too rigid with his vision for his own liking. Recently a friend from Delhi passed a light-hearted comment that he considered Naidu second only to Modi for the simple reason that latter knew how to face an election better.

No discussion on Modi is complete without discussing 2002 riots. So I want to get rid off this first. To be frank I know nothing about what exactly happened there. If Modi was involved, he should go to jail. I don’t think anyone in India would dispute that. Till like 3-4 years back, when I had to depend only on electronic media, I too was of impression that Modi was a hardline Hindutva leader. Later when I learnt about what he did with Gujarat, I had to change my opinion. I now don’t even understand why media calls him so. You hardly see him talk about Ram Mandir or anything of that sort. All he talks about is development and governance. If he was such a polarizing hindutva figure as media makes out, he wouldn’t demolish temples to clear roads and get in trouble with the Sangh. From one of the discussions running up to the recent Gujarat elections, I understood that Gujarat got this long history of riots. In 1969 too there were similar riots. A muslim entrepreneur pointed out how the hindu-muslim tension was there even during Mahatma Gandhi’s time. To Modi’s credit, there hasn’t been a single disturbance in Gujarat ever since 2002. On the other hand, we in Hyderabad see communal disturbances and rioting atleast twice every year, media neither reports them nor makes any leader responsible for that. Why just ask him for an apology? like he himself says hang him if found guilty.

Our country’s intelligentsia, after harping on riots for more than a decade, which clearly didn’t work, seems to have changed their stance a bit. Here are the new set of arguments. I am making a list of it as you would surely hear more about them in the coming months.

• There is development but it is not inclusive.
• There is governance but he is too dictatorial.
• Gujarat is not the only state that has seen development.

I will try and deal point by point.

Inclusive Politics/Growth

During recently concluded Gujarat elections, Barkha Dutt(journalist), the star campaigner for congress party had raised this question “Why Modi didn’t give any assembly ticket to Muslims?” We generally see journalists asking tough questions on development, infrastructure etc, where as politicians accusing one another about the caste/religion versus seat ratio. Here roles have completely reversed. Modi was talking about development and Barkha was talking about seat allotment.  This I think should be considered as the defining point in Indian politics. She poses this question in the guise of inclusive politics. Tokenism has destroyed this country for years now and it now frightens me to no end realizing that these so called best minds in the country think this way. You won’t find a single woman president in 200 years of US history. Did it stop women from progressing there? Out of 65 years, Indira Gandhi had ruled India for 15 years. Did that give our women an edge over the women in the US? What did anyone achieve by making Pratibha Patil president of India. Except the tag “First Woman President of India’. Promoting tokenism in the name of inclusive politics seems to be the trend that is catching up quickly.

Other argument is that, development we are seeing is not inclusive. This socialistic mindset is completely ruining the country. Inclusive growth again like inclusive politics is just a fancy word. A leader’s job is to  create a conducive environment to grow and individuals grow depending upon their ability and passion to take up the challenge. The question of inequality arises when you have a person with ability yet is denied a chance to grow because of his race, then you could question the growth story, not because you still see poor.  Even the US has poor. But they lead a better quality of life than Indian poor. That’s because, when you create wealth, it eventually trickles down to the poor and they get better. Trickle down effect takes time.(For more thoughts on poverty, here I wrote an elaborate blog post). A leader is one who can show you the way, give necessary confidence, lead by example, but at the end of the day you have to tread the path by yourself. That’s what Modi seems to be doing. But by our experts definition, a leader is one who airlifts people to their destinations.

Dictatorial

During one of those TV studio discussions, an entrepreneur defending Modi, got irritated by a co-panelists continuous criticism on Modi being dictatorial asked  “What has Manmohan Singh done with democracy with all his parties?except saying I can’t interfere in this.. I can’t interfere in that”. Which got an instant applause. I have issues with democracy since it is not the central point here, I will address it in a separate blog post. Lot of people tried to belittle Gujarat’s growth story by comparing it with China’s growth. But those bankrupt minds are actually complimenting Gujarat. If you are able to grow at China’s pace yet get the nod of people every 5 years unlike in china, isn’t that an achievement worth marvelling at? When people elect you, they do because they value your judgement. People have given him the authority to take decisions and he is exercising that authority in the best possible manner. Today, in the name of consensus building, if you take years to take a decision, it is seen as a sign of flourishing democracy and any quick decision is seen as dictatorial. Suddenly the word ‘dictator’ doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing.

Need to add one more thing here. Historian Ramchadra Guha finds objection to Modi using ‘I’ . Not only this, they brought in this strange perspective : “Modi is taking all the credit for Gujarat people’s hard work and success”. Fair enough, seems a convincing argument. So from now on you will accuse 6 cr Gujaratis for 2002 riots and not Modi. Is that what you are saying?

I used to think that these kinda perspectives stem from socialistic mindset but now I have realized that it is only a shield and they actually takes root from thoughtlessness.

Gujarat is not the only state that has seen development

This is the pinnacle of absurdity.  Modi merely listed out his own achievements and shared his vision for India. Did he say that no other state has developed? And again, what is stopping media from doing stories on other states growth stories? TRPs? What is stopping respective Chief Ministers of states from sharing their success stories and their vision for India like Modi? Wouldn’t it be nice to have such alternatives? Modi has his drawbacks. He is not my ideal leader. He banned books and movies. Prohibition is not something I appreciate. I can’t take ban of any kind. If someone comes up with a better track record and vision I would surely consider him. Unfortunately I don’t see any better than Modi for now. And if the alternative you give me is Rahul Gandhi, I would even be tempted to booth capture and vote for Modi. 🙂