October 15, 2007

That is where I live or Zveego says that is where I live

By the way, that is not a static image. That is a live map widget. You can drag around, zoom in & out.

Oh, another thing. That is not google maps.. That is Zveego!

If you want to see a bigger widget (or if the the previous widget breaks in Internet Explorer 6), take a look at the following


Posted by nachiketa at 08:04 PM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2007

Moving to India

Finally I am moving back to India after many years of residence in California. Most of my well wishers have been asking "why". Is this pig-headed ideology? To be honest, I too have doubts.

I too loved US and bay area in particular. For me, this place has magical memories and great thoughts associated. Here is the answer I gave to myself when my own doubts arise about moving back to India.


I need US more than I need India.
India needs me more than US needs me.

And the second is nobler of the two.



Posted by nachiketa at 05:35 PM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2005

Review of Naipaul's "India: A wounded civilization"

This is the middle of Naipaul’s three books series on India: 1) An Area of Darkness, A discovery of India (1964) 2) India: A wounded Civilization (1977) 3) India: A Million Mutinees Now (1990). In the past, I had a prejudice against Naipaul about him being pro-hindutva. But after reading "A wounded civilization", he dispelled my fears. I can say that this is the best book I have read about India in last 10 years.

The book is written around the time of emergency period. The emergency itself seems like a triggering point for lot of themes in the book.

Naipaul's style leaves me an inspiration to try a third person perspective of India's situation. The analytical power of most of native Indian writing is dulled because of subjective involvement. On the contrary the writings of western writers sway in two extreme angles: either too much adulation or too much of harshness and both of which are completely unrealistic. But the Naipaul's position is different. He is an outsider and an insider. Since he is an outsider, he is harsh as he can be in judging. He is still insider with a caring heart.

He dissects ruthlessly but has a heart to suggest diagnosis. His analysis of the situation itself presents as a bold diagnosis.
Nothing & nobody in India including Gandhi had survived Naipaul's criticism. His insight is sharp. His generalizations are sweeping and sometimes tend to be crude but I loved them all.

Naipaul seems to be intrigued by RK Narayan's statement that "India will go on". Naipaul is convinced that India will go on but is skeptical about where it is going.

Naipaul's central theme revolves around the psyche of the Indian religious experience, the self-absorption of Hinduism and the acceptance of karmic fate. He claims that it is not the Muslim invaders of middle ages or the later British who impoverished the spirit of India. What he says is that the Indian religious experience is inward looking. Whenever a foreign invader came to India, the India withdrew itself; it could find a place in a religious path which emphasized the way out through self-nirvana instead of fighting the world.

"It is religious response to worldly defeat"

And he claims that it is not we fought to get the freedom; the freedom movement itself was only a response to our religious experience tapped into by Mr. Gandhi. Naipaul says that Gandhi had well understood the Indian psyche. The tool of non-violence was specifically invented by Gandhi after having understood the Indian psyche.

Archaic emotions, nostalgic memories: when these were awakened by Gandhi, India became free. But the India created in this way had to stall. Gandhi took India of one kind of Kal Yug, one kind of Black Age; his successes inevitably pushed it back into another.

Naipaul is angry with Gandhi for not having left an ideology to follow.

Gandhi swept through India, but he has left it without any ideology. He awakened the holy land; his mahatmahood returned to archaism; he made his worshippers vain.

Out of multitude of Indian leaders Naipaul dissected, only person who could get some credit was Gandhi. Though Naipaul is bothered about inward looking focus of Indian mentality, he seems to be thrilled at Gandhi's achievement. He says that even though Gandhi drew his strength from inward looking self-introspection, Gandhi always stood for action.

Now, in Bengal, he has nothing to offer except his presence, and he knows it. Yet he is heard to say to himself again and again, "Kya karun? Kya karun? What shall I do?" At this terrible moment his thoughts are of action, and he is magnificent.
Even though Naipaul claims to have understood the Indian psyche all by himself, he sometimes invokes Sudhir Kakkar to make some of his claims. Here is one of Kakkar's correspondence Naipaul quoted:
We Indians use outer reality to preserve the continuity of the self.

He expresses how the caste is surviving, how it strengthens the identity but how it spoils the bigger Indian cause. What spoiled India is not just the inward looking self-absorption offered by Hinduism but also myriad of mental blockages masquerading in India.
When caste and family simplify relationships, and the sanctity of the laws cannot be doubted, when magic buttresses the laws, and the epics and legends satisfy the imagination, and astrologers know the future anyway, men cannot easily begin to observe and analyze.

When men cannot observe, they don't have ideas; they have obsessions. When people live instinctive lives, something like a collective amnesia steadily blurs the past.

While talking of poorer classes:
In complexion, features, and physique the poor are distinct from the well-to-do; they are like a race apart, a dwarf race, stunted and slow-witted and made ugly by generations of undernourishment; it will take generations to rehabilitate them.

Naipaul had no respect for communism either. While commenting on naxalism,

The best left the universities and went far away, to fight for the landless and the oppressed and for justice. They went to a battle they knew little about. They knew the solutions better than they knew the problems, better than they knew the country. India remains so little known to Indians. People just don't have the information. History and social inquiry, and the habits of analysis that go with these disciplines, are too far outside the Indian tradition. Naxalism was an intellectual tragedy, a tragedy of idealism, ignorance, and mimicry: middle-class India, after the Gandhian upheaval, incapable of generating ideas and institutions of its own, needing constantly in the modern world to be inducted into the art, science, and ideas of other civilizations, not always understanding the consequences, and this time borrowing something deadly, somebody else's idea of revolution.

Naipaul is vary of sustainable-development-economists. The word he rather uses is "intermediate technology scientists". He says that the sustainable development is a romantic notion of the west being rubbed on third world. He is appalled by this one Indian scientist who is bent on increasing productivity of bullock cart and how retro-progressive idea it is as per Naipaul.
The man (the intermediate technology scientist who talks about the bullock cart improvements) himself was out of the country, lecturing; he was in demand abroad. Certain subjects, like poverty and intermediate technology, keep the experts busy. They are harassed by international seminars and conferences and foundation fellowships. The rich countries pay; they dictate the guiding ideas, which are the ideas of the rich about the poor, ideas sometimes about what is good for the poor, and sometimes no more than expressions of alarm. They, the rich countries, even manage now to export their romantic doubts about industrial civilization. These are the doubts that attend every kind of great success; and they are romantic because they contain no wish to undo that success or to lose the fruits of that success. But India interprets these doubts in its own debilitating way, and uses them to reconcile itself to its own failure.

Naipaul talks about an US educated computer engineer who keeps cribbing how India is not yet ready for his genius.
He belonged to old India; nothing had happened to shake him out of that security; he questioned nothing. From the outside world he had snatched no more than a skill in computers.... To match technology to the needs of a poor country calls for the highest skills, the clearest vision.

He has only disdain for all those politicians claiming as true Gandhians.
The Gandhian spinning wheel no longer a means of livelihood for dispossessed, or a symbol of labor and brotherhood with the poor, but a sacred too, an aid to thought or a yogic means of stilling the waves of the mind, and aid to mental vacuity.

He is perturbed by the Gandhi-cap clad politicians who are doing nothing but taking the country back.
Gandhianism expressed in the white homespun of the Congress politician, no longer the sign of service but the uniform of power....

His solution going forward is harsh:
While India tries to go back to an idea of its past, it will not possess that past or be enriched by it. The past can now be possessed only by inquiry and scholarship, by intellectual rather than spiritual discipline. The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill.

May be the interpretation of Naipaul is colored by my own prejudices; but don’t close your mind yet on Naipaul. Read him by yourself. He is worthy of reading by any audience who care for India.

Posted by nachiketa at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2005

Your tax rupees at work!

Currently in India, we are used to see the foundation stones on any public project exhibiting the names of the honorable politicians who laid the foundation stone for the project. My proposal is to erect a permanent signboard in cement on any public project (be it a road, be it a dam or be it a bridge) to name the contractor, architect, builders involved in the project. The contractor name has to be so prominently displayed on the projects. This has to be preserved forever for posterity.

Most of the public projects are so lousy because of corruption and unprofesssionalism of the contractors.

We want to celebrate the people who build great projects. At the same stroke, we want to give the incentive of discredit to the bad guys.

One could argue that the bad contractors have anyway developed thick skin for criticism and that they would float another benami company for another project. But my idea is to celebrate the good contractors more than punishing the bad contractors. By celebrating the good guys, we are setting expectations a bit higher for the future generations.

Inspiration one: Your tax dollars at work

While driving around in USA, I have seen huge signboards by the side of road construction projects: "Your tax dollars at work". These boards explain the project details like timelines and costs. What an empowering idea? It is people's money which is making these roads, not the grace of a politician.

Inspiration two: Reset your expectations

Rajesh Jain's call to "reset our expectations" was an inspiring thought to my idea. Read his article at TECH TALK: Building a Better India: Prologue

Inspiration three: People who built the Great Wall of China

One inspiration for the idea came from a documentary on the Great Wall of China. During the construction of the Great Wall of China, certain sections of the wall mandated the bricks to be marked with the name of the army unit or village unit which contributed those bricks. By marking the bricks with a particular entity, they could trace back the manufacturer later when a section of wall collapsed. This is a wonderful idea.

Inspiration four: Dale Carnegie

Another inspiration was Dale Carnegie. In one of the books, Dale Carnegie tells the story of how a manager increased the productivity of two departments. By writing the production numbers on a black board outside the units, he set a competition between the two departments to beat one another in production numbers. It was a cool trick!

Posted by nachiketa at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2005

Temples of modern India are libraries

While inaugurating the Bhakra dam, Nehru commented it as the temple of modern India.

Going forward into new millennium, the temples of India are libraries.

The modern India is going to depend more and more on the knowledge of its populace to progress itself and to compete with the west. The libraries are surely the temples of India. But these temples are in dilapidated condition now and most of them don't even exist. The government does not realize the significance of the libraries. Or sometimes, the corruption is so rampant that the funds for libraries go straight into the pockets of crooked.

Probably the schools & universities also would qualify as the temples on par with libraries. We have been doing reasonably good with the schools. But the universities are right now in such a bad shape because most of the research at Indian universities is irrelevant to current India; we seem to rather ape the west and look forward for an approval from the west.

One saving grace for these temples could be philanthropy. The philanthropy in the west has done some miracles. Why did not Dhirubhai Ambani leave his wealth to libraries (or some other philanthropy) rather than to his bickering children ? Hope, at least the more modern thinkers like N.R. Narayana Murthy does that!

Posted by nachiketa at 05:59 PM | Comments (2)

November 16, 2005

Cotton farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh

Overview

Do we really understand the reasons for suicide of cotton farmers in Andhra Pradesh? Do we understand the psyche of the farmer? Is it a political issue or an economic issue or an issue of literacy? Do we understand their plight?

I believe that all of the political parties either have not understood the real causes or are only interested in the causes, which they can exploit politically. Similar to cotton farmer suicides, there had been ginger farmer suicides in Karnataka. What did we learn from them?

Even YS Rajasekhar Reddy's populist measures (like free electricity) in the wake of elections and aftermath did not address the real issue. We need politicians who can sustain the faith that honest & courageous efforts beyond the populist measures do pay off electorally. Populist steps may be what the people ask for; but are they good enough?

Illiteracy & greed are the causes

I am not claiming to understand the whole of the reasons but I believe that the mainstream politicians have not understood them either. The causes are complex. But the illiteracy & greed seem to be the root causes. Illiteracy includes illiteracy of the agricultural & scientific crop techniques, illiteracy of the financial & risk assessment. The greed of the farmer is also another reason. Ofcourse some times the nature (either bad rains or the diseases) also have bad luck with the farmer; but the main reasons seem to be illiteracy & the greed.

Cotton crop is a game of high investments & high returns but also of high risks. If there is a disease during the flowering, it becomes a big investment game. Sometimes costs spiral beyond managing when disease goes out of control.

The small farmers out of greed have taken huge amounts of loans from private lenders to raise the crop. They don't understand how much loan is too much. If the nature (weather & disease) favours, yes, they would be able to pay back all those loans. But what if the nature overruns the farmer's luck? These loans at such compounding interests (50% per annum or even 100% per annum) would snowball into untenable debt in couple of years. The loans now look so oppressive to kill the spirit of even the best optimist.

There are also issues of scale of farm size. There is a critical scale at which these huge investments make sense. If you raise one acre plots of cotton, you are also at the mercy of your neighbour's plot. Even if you do good disease control of your crop, but what if the neighbour did not control his disease? The neighbour's disease can reinfest your crop. There is a minimal size of land, which makes sense for investments and gives a sense of control on your crop.

The greed of the farmer also blinds him. Having seen a bumper cotton crop at a relative's village, he plunges into cotton farming without doing homework. One can do some minimal soil testing to find out if this patch of land is suitable for cotton. There have been instances of even the landless folks plunging into this game by taking huge tracts of land for lease. For the people who take on leases, the risk is more dangerous if the crop fails.

Wrong diagnosis

There have been a lot of wrong diagnoses (as per my opinion) suggesting the bad moneylenders and lack of enough subsidies from the government.

You can't ban private lending. It is not feasible. The business of private lending blooms not because the lender is driving it but because the borrower is so desperate. If the government bans it, the debtors would sustain the business out of their own desperation. So one could argue "why not make government/bank lending so available that there is no necessity for the existence of private lending?". Well, there are lots of limitations for government/bank lending. The banks are concerned about the feasibility of lending, non-performing assets and how much to lend to a farmer. If the farmer resorts to an untenable debt on a certain amount of land, he will be forced to private lender.

Some argue that the government does not subsidize enough support purchase price.

Psyche of the nation

What is the mental health of the average Indian? There are people committing suicide when their movie hero's film fails at box office. In such a nation, how can we accurately pin point the reasons for cotton farmer suicide?

What can be done?

Farmers need education on financial risk & return assessment. How much investment is too much? How does the compound interest work? When to back out? If they borrow at such exorbitant interest rates from private lenders, what happens if the crop fails? When the crop turns out good, they can easily pay off the debts. But if the crop fails, how the compound interest spirals out. There are instances of people borrowing at 100% interest rates. If the crop turns out good, there is no big deal; but if the crop fails, the interest rates compound so badly that they can't imagine recovering for their life.

We have such huge pool of government bureaucracy (including the college lecturers and school teachers). We need to use them to campaign and educate the people. Yes, the results of such campaigns are not easily quantifiable. Nor do such campaigns appease the emotions of the people. But the political parties have to think beyond their *quick* electoral payoffs.

The government can do a lot apart from education. Government can conduct free soil testing and encourage people to go for soil & water testing before planting crops.

Government can put more scientists into service. We need to recruit more agricultural scientists. Even the ones already employed with government are turned into file pushing bureaucrats. Rather we should deploy them in the real fields advising the farmers. Lot of the times, the farmer uses wrong pesticides at the suggestion of the *uneducated & greedy* pesticide seller. We need these pesticides to be prescribed by Government scientists. But we got to make these government scientists roam the villages instead of hoping that the farmer would visit the government offices if he needs the advice.

Government needs to open up the "model farms" in each district and use these model farms to educate the people about scientific techniques.

The summary is that government has to think beyond the electoral payoff of populist measures like free electricity. Yes, we need to give free electricity but something more needs to be done too.

Posted by nachiketa at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)

August 17, 2005

Difference between Indian & American electorate

Americans expect in their presidents what they themselves don't practice in their private lives. Indians excuse their political leaders for errors which they don't themselves tolerate in their own private lives.

Posted by nachiketa at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2005

Call for "secret society" as a tool for activism in India

TOC:

* The Call
* What is a secret society ?
* The need
* Historical examples
* The efficacy of a secret society
* Why should it not be open to general masses ?
* Why does it have to be secretive ?
* Problems with secret society as a tool
* Conclusion

The Call

How many times have you thought, "if only I have the power to fix this corruption, if only I can kill this bloody politician to rid of his evil influence on the system, if I only become the prime minister with absolute majority in parliament to clean the system" ? I have heard a lot of people even wishing for dictatorship to fix the system; the democracy is too noisy and the masses are too docile.

Do I want to join a political party to fix the system ? The path is cumbersome and messy. Do I want to join an NGO (non-governmental organisation) to fix the system ? The NGOs are too timid to solve the burning problems. The answer is "Secret Society".

The able, brilliant and concerned citizens need to form secret societies around the chosen goals and execute them fastidiously. The secret society is a more efficient form compared to either political party or an NGO.

What is a secret society ?

A secret society is a social organization where the members conceal the activities of the society. The membership in the society is not open to the general public. Most of the times, the membership to the club is possible only at the invitation of the organisation. The society picks the members who best fit the goals of the society. The initiation ceremony and the activities of the society are concealed from the general public. The members are sworn to hold the society's secrets by an oath.

One form could be vigilantes which are militias who attempt to enforce the law by taking the law into their own hands. As we many a times see in fiction & movies, the vigilantism often occurs when the population is frustrated with the complex and seemingly unfair court procedures that apparently allow the bad guys to walk free or when the organised law enforcement breaks down.

Historically there have been instances of many secret societies in the western society. The secret societies could be legal or illegal organisations. But what I am advocating is ofcourse for a society which does not violate the law.

A secret society could even work as a "think tank" with additional responsibility of influencing the public opinion from behind the scenes.


The need

India is in dire need of tall leaders of the stature of Gandhi who can fix the existing system. We need a leader who can fix the corruption, reform the system of injustices, set a vision and inspire the nation out of morass. The problems are too complex to be solvable by any of the existing cadre of political leadership. Rather, the existing leadership itself happens to be the origin of the problem.

A lot could be achieved by NGOs (Non government organisations). But inherently, the structure of social service organisation is weak which renders it too timid to address the complex issues like casteism, religious strife or corruption.

Historical examples

The freemasons is a successful fraternal organisation which survived the centuries of existence. The members of the freemasonry share common ideals of moral and metaphysical values. There are a lot of conspiracy theories of how freemasons influence and control the world to bring a new world order. The famous freemasons include George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D Roosevelt, Benjamin Franklin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Winston Churchill, Cecil B DeMille, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexander Fleming, Henry Ford, Rudyard Kipling, General McAruthur, Thomas J Watson and so on.

The Bilderberg Group is a secretive and international association of powerful people from Western Europe and North America who meet every year in Netherlands. The original intention of the group was to increase the understanding between Western Europe and North America through informal meetings between powerful individuals. Each year, the group's steering committee picks an invitation list of 100 names. The agenda of the meeting is kept secret.

The Trilateral Commission was founded by David Rockefeller of over 300 citizens of Europe, Japan and North America to promote closer cooperation between these areas.

There are even malign secret societies like Klu Klux Klan (KKK) which spearheaded white supremacy and targeted black killings. Any radical, extremist and terrorist organisation also would fall under the "secret society" category.

The efficacy of a secret society

A committed group of individuals can achieve more than a single individual. However such group should not be too huge which removes its agility to act.

Why not just an individual ? The amount of results achievable in certain areas by a single individual is small. Even if certain things can be achieved by an individual, some of the moral challenges are too oppressive for a single individual's spirit. A group can sustain and nurture the faith in the goal in a better way.

If you are fighting an issue, imagine what all you could achieve if only you have a band of 10 journalists, 10 lawyers, 10 civil servants, 10 politicians, 10 intellectuals and 10 fired up youth on your side.


Why should it not be open to general masses

It is very tough to maintain the secrecy of the charter & activities of huge organisation. A small organisation can achieve better agility and discipline. Invitation based organisation has benefits for efficiency of the effort.


Why does it have to be secretive ?

There are certain activities which are tough to take stand in public. It is very tough to take a stand on sensitive issues like removing a religious place built by crooks on the public roads.


Problems with secret society as tool

There is a possibility that these organisations can spawn really harmful organisations which can foster communal hatred or terrorism. Who is going to decide what is right and what is wrong for the society in general ? Are political assassinations a choice for an organisation? At some point, if a certain organisation is found violating the law, should an individual member be held punishable? Yes, the individual members are liable for themselves if they are found breaking the law even if they commit them at the instance of the organisation. It is your choice to join an organisation or not. It is your duty to join an organisation if you firmly believe so. Not only the nuns and saints have the callings. Listen to the callings of your soul. I am not here to tell you what is a right cause. I am only espousing the "secret society" as a tool to further the cause you believe in.


Conclusion

Society evolves through dialectic process of opposites. Activism (of whatever kind) is better than the passivity and fatalism. Now it is your choice.


Posted by nachiketa at 07:02 PM | Comments (6)

June 05, 2005

Case for a new language for India

Abstract: The author argues for creation of a new spoken & written language for the usage as a national language for India. The contention is that the new language would unite, invigorate and rekindle the vibrancy of India as a nation.

TOC:

* The problem of many languages
* The proposal
* Arguments for it ?
* Arguments against it ?
* Criteria for a new script
* Criteria for a new language
* How do we do it ?
* Is it worth it ?

The problem of too many languages

India has so many languages and dialects along with so many scripts (lipi). If you are traveling from one part of India to the other, you can probably survive with English or a bit of Hindi. But you can't read the local sign boards nor participate in a vernacular conversation.

Even for the administrative purposes, there needs to be a common national lingua franca. English and to some extent Hindi have done a reasonable job so far; but the demands to learn English to advance in the society has created an elite class alienated from the bottom.

The language issue has also played an anti-nation-building role. The identity derived from linguistic roots has subverted to some extent the sense of single nation.

If India needs to make progress in the new century, it has to make strides with the scientific development too. The development of science again asks for a common scientific jargon. None of our current languages including Hindi have a critical mass against English for an expression of scientific thought. Probably English can co-exist with local languages as the vehicle of advanced sciences; but the dichotomy of English and local language is not a good basis for bottom-up development of the country.

The proposal

The proposal is to create and develop a new language for India which can replace the local & national languages over a period of time.

Isn't that one heck of blasphemous unholy proposition? To create a new language ? Aren't the languages supposed to be passed to us from an higher authority ? Well, the languages are just the tools of communication. And they evolved over a period of time. There is nothing wrong to imagine creating a new language.

Well, people have constructed a lot of artificial languages all over world. For example, Esperanto published in 1887 by Dr. L. L. Zamenhof is one of reasonably successful languages. Esperanto was conceived to facilitate communication between different lands and cultures. Our own president Abdul Kalam is supposed to be well versed in Esperanto. Esperanto is a minimal language designed to serve its purpose. But what we are proposing here is a full fledged language on par with current Indian languages including English.

The plan of agenda is to create first a common modern scientific script to replace various current scripts. At this stage, the various languages are in tact but they make use of a single lipi (script). Imagine a time where at any place in India, you could read any publication, newspaper, sign board or postal addresses, probably even if you can't understand the content fully. The next stage is to work on the new language in all its glory: common words & grammar.

Arguments for it

One argument for a having a single common language is for the national integration. Having a single spoken and written language for whole of India (and probably along with the eliminating of castes) would unite India as a single nation.

There are huge economic benefits too. With such a huge population, a single language would soon attain the critical mass needed to withstand the onslaught of English for literature, arts, movies etc. We would have critical enough mass to attract publication of scientific works too.

The new language will definitely rejuvenate the spirit of India. Call it Bharati, call it Indica or call it by any specification number; the new language would definitely rekindle the sleeping Indian soul.

Arguments against it

Isn't my cultural identity destroyed with this new language ? Yes, probably the narrow-minded identity will be destroyed, but the culture as a whole will not be. Most of India shares common cultural themes albeit minor differences. A common language would hurry the cultural integration. As a matter of fact, we could protect the Indian culture against the inevitably impending western cultural imperialism.

Why can't we just use Hindi as national language ? Would it not save lot of effort creating a new language from scratch ? Using any existing Indian language would invite resistance from rest of the groups. More over, the sense of empowerment achieved through creation of new language would be a soothing balm in the struggle to regain the ancient glory of India.

Why can't we use Sanskrit as national language ? Isn't it ancient and isn't it very capable for the needs ? Yes and no. Sanskrit is a literary elite language and never worked as language of common people. Because of Sanskrit's rigorous inflexible grammatical requirements, the common folks have tended to use Prakrit'ic languages for everyday use. For example, Pali is one such language during Buddhist revolutionary days. Initial Buddhism (Theravada style) emphatically chose Pali for expressing its literature because Pali was more closer to common people than Sanskrit. Apart from Pali, there were so many variations of Sanskrit from which other current Indian languages evolved. The summary is that Sanskrit is a rigorous language probably not suitable as a replacement candidate.

Then why can't we use English as the national language ? English is an excellent and successful language in international domain. Probably we can use it as administrative, scientific and link language but definitely can't serve as replacement for all the existing Indian languages. There are so many cultural themes which probably will better suit only an Indian language.

If all existing languages are replaced by a common single language, what would happen to great works & great thinkers of my current language ? No, they are not going to be destroyed. Rather they are going to be revitalized. I am sure all the old great works of Kalidasa will be translated into our new language as has been done into so many current languages. Now we would have bigger and better pool of intellectuals, writers, poets going forward. Isn't it wonderful to have the greats of Masti, Tagore, xxx, xxx sharing their minds to whole of India rather than sharing only with smaller audience of their own language.

Criteria for new script

One has to distinguish the script from the language. The script or lipi is the set of alphabets and their corresponding rules for expressing the language in a written form. In contrast, the language is a bigger bowl; it consists of words which stand for things & grammar rules which combine words to form sentences. Probably, it makes sense to create a new national script well before attempting to create a new language as a whole.

The criteria for a national script are aesthetics, simplicity, expressibility. Probably digital automation could be one requirement but probably should not weigh too much since the fast pace of technology evolution can do justice without requiring inventing a new script just for automation purposes. One great characteristic of Indian languages compared to other world languages is that it is phonetic: what you pronounce is what you write. [There are some exceptions to this in some Indian languages e.g.. there is no separate letters for "k" and "g" sounds in Tamil.] But for most part, Indian scripts are phonetic. Probably we need to retain the phonetic character in the new script too.

As contrast, Chinese is not phonetic but a symbolic language; the English is not a phonetic language too. [ In English, both the words "know" and "no" are pronounced in same way. ] Probably we should continue the tradition of phonetic script still in the new language.

There is one more important characteristic to Indian scripts. Consonants in most of the language morph their shape based on the next vowel or next blending consonant. For example, basic shape of consonant "k" undergoes transformation when it becomes "ki" or "kyi". But some of the south Indian languages (e.g.. Tamil and Malayalam) don't undergo such transformation. Probably non-morphic nature is more suitable for simplicity and automation.

Criteria for the new language

The new language should definitely try to incorporate the most general common words from all of the languages. For example, variations of "prem" is used in most of Indian languages for the word "love". So one criterion is to leverage common words found in most languages.

The other criterion is that the language should be usable by common folks. The grammar & rules should not be strict and inflexible. At the same stroke, the language should be usable by poets and artists too.

And the language should be evolvable. The language should evolve based on needs and times.

A language defines the extent of what you can think. Language is the tool through which we understand the world. Without the symbols of language, there is nothing in this world, not even the peacefulness suggested by Jiddu's call to destroy the symbolism. As has been articulated by George Orwell in "1984", a language can also limit the scope of thinking. So our new language should be capable of expressing all that has been possible so far in this world and beyond such possibilities too.

How do we do it ?

Yes, it is doable. All we need is vision and will. It is doable over few decades of time period. Few decades or even a century for such a noble effort is a short term in the history of a nation.

Is it worth the effort ?

Is it worth the effort in terms of social and economic costs ? I believe, such an effort is worth it. The new language coupled with reorganizing states on non-linguistic basis and eradication of caste system is going to churn out a new strong, vibrant nation.

Some people can extrapolate and ask for next level of evolution. Why should we try to focus on a narrow national identity ? Why not work towards an international language ? Well, it is doable. The concept of national identity itself is silly (at least as per people like Tagore). We are probably humans first and then Indians next. I don't have a very good answer to this question. But I can only affirm that India with such an ancient bowl of knowledge and distinct cultural flavor would deserve a common language of its own. India has been an island (remember an island) of vast amount of distinct cultural evolution. Most of the themes are unique to Indian sub continent. But this vast pool of development is more or less common across all current Indian languages. The Indian identity doesn't deserve a seclusion based on the language.

I would just say, it is worth it..

Just imagine, how would you feel peeping into an alternative future where such a thing has already been accomplished in India? For myself, I would feel good & would feel proud..

Posted by nachiketa at 12:39 AM | Comments (1)

June 04, 2005

State of public toilets in Indian society

Abstract: Author tries to highlight the appalling state of toilets in public places in India; also proposes if and what can be done about it.


TOC:

* The immensity of the problem
* State of things
* What can be done ?
* Can it be done ?


The immensity of the problem

Imagine you are traveling through an Indian city and suddenly you have to attend to a nature call. Look around to find a nearest toilet. Either you would not find enough toilets in public places or whatever you find is really in bad condition.

What is the nature and root cause of such a bad state of affairs as far as the toilets in public spaces are concerned ?

Recently the author has heard of a poignant story of a rural visitor to Hyderabad city trying to find an urinal for his pregnant wife. They had to walk around for couple of miles after being turned around in few restaurants. Finally the man had to stand guard while she relieved in a corner of a street. This incident makes me really uncomfortable on our achievements as a nation when we couldn't address probably a silly but such an important civilized requirement. The state of toilets in public places really shows the mark of a civilized society.

Public toilets along with drainage and sewage systems express the state of the civilization. What use is to boast if the ancient Harappa had public sewage system while I can't to find a decent place to urinate in 21st century Bombay.

Whatever the toilets you find in few places, the state of their maintenance including cleanliness, flushing, water availability and graffiti on them is shameful. I am not sure of what kind of a feeling a foreign traveler would go through when he visits a public toilet in India, but I am sure this is not an acceptable situation for our own citizens at home. This is not just a question of aesthetics and convenience but also the question of health risks.

Probably relieving by the side of road is better alternative to most of the men, but what about women population ? Even today, most of the rural folks still don't use toilets at home but rather head towards woods with water tumbler in hand. Though my focus in the current article is limited to public places in urban settings, we still need to address the rural toilet issue but probably in a different article.


State of things

Currently some of the railway stations and bus stations have implemented "pay per use" toilets. The reason for payment they put forward is that the payment lets them achieve a clean environment. The first question propping in most people is why do we need to pay. Aren't we paying for the bus service/train service already which discount the usage of toilets? Even though the idea of fee for usage is irritating for most people, probably this is the first step.

Some of state governments have tried the concept of Sulabh Complex; the idea is to open up more number of toilets & bathrooms all over the city for use at a fee. Probably this needs to go to next step.

Other positive direction is where the high end shops and high end restaurants are opening up toilets in their facilities. But these still don't address adequately the needs since I am arguing for everybody and not just for rich class of consumers.


What can be done ?

What can be done ? A great lot can be done. The first proposal is to pass a law mandating any business working in public domain to provide toilet facilities. What I mean by public domain is that any business dealing with goods & service offerings to public. Probably this does not include a factory which has closed premises for its employees. The list would include any public place like shops, petrol bunks, restaurants, movie theaters, hospitals and even the non-commercial temples.

The law should allow for grace period by which all businesses should implement or a time table for a phased implementation. But after the law kicks in, there is no excuse but to withdraw the licenses for businesses which don't comply.

Again, the facilities are not meant only to their customers but for any by-passers too on the street. Any business which does not discriminate between the class of customers should not also discriminate the usage of toilets.

The law should allow "right to toilet usage". The law should allow any by-passers to use the toilet of your business on a fair use policy. They could even file a legal complaint for not keeping it clean. The semantics of "fair use" could be tricky but these can be worked out.

One concern we may hear is that, if we open the gates for everybody, how should a business get a sense of control ? Aren't the people from the street going to spoil it ? Probably yes and probably no. But a business can not discriminate based on whether a customer buys some goods or services from them for the usage of toilet. Another thing to note is that the toilet usage etiquette (eg. not writing on walls, flushing properly etc) would increase if only people get to find more and more toilets in public places.

Let us measure the "number of public toilets per thousand of population", not just the "number of telephones per thousand of population".

Another concern people can raise is why should the businesses pay for such service. Well, the businesses are not paying for them. It is you, the consumer who is paying for them by purchasing stuff from the businesses. Business shall extract that extra expense finally out of your pocket. Well, what does it mean ? It means that things you buy are going to be bit costly because of small contributions diverted to the toilet maintenance. But this is like any other public "common-greater-good" project.

Instead of mandating by law, can't we let the market place to determine based on the customer base ? Probably yes, but nothing short of government law is going to fix the problem effectively.


Can it be done ?

Yes, it can be done as long as the leadership shows the vision and will to do it.

As an inspiration, look at "Americans with Disabilities Act" of 1990. Among so many other provisions, this act mandated all businesses to provide access to wheelchairs in every floor and every building no matter what. Lot of businesses had resistance but they had to implement any way at huge economic and social cost. Well, one could start with usual skepticism that we are Indians and not Americans.

Well, great problems warrant greater solutions. Just imagine, how would you feel peeping into an alternative future where such thing has already been accomplished in India ? For myself, I would feel good & proud..

Posted by Melody at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)

It is the productivity

Abstract: The author argues that the root cause of the Indian (or third-world) poverty is neither the corruption nor the huge population. But the problem lies in meager growth in productivity levels.

TOC:

* The problem of under development
* It is not the corruption
* It is not the population either
* It is the productivity
* Some ponderings on the subject

The problem of under-development

Even after achieving 50 years of Independence, the rate of social and economic development is not up to any Indian's satisfactory levels. What has gone wrong with India ? There seems to be so many divergent opinions. Some point to the huge population and some point to corruption in public life. Some point to Nehruvian socialism. And some point to mis-directed capitalism.

The development is so slow that it paralyzes the hopes of best optimists. It generates a sense of skepticism and helplessness in the minds of population. The Indian culture is already predisposed to concept of fate/karma; the current state of affairs reinforces a dis-empowering mode of thought: "Nothing happens in India." This kind of fatalism and acceptance of failure feeds into the system which discourages/penalizes even the people who genuinely attempt to change the system.

What is the root cause of the India's insufficient development ?

It is not the corruption

At first glance, corruption looks like the most probable root cause. But in my opinion, the corruption probably contributes or aggravates the situation but it is not the root cause.

Corruption irritates. And corruption does skew the system. It may favour an unoptimal agent of production. It may give a chance to corrupt contractor with dubious track record. But I believe, the corruption is not a root cause but one of the aggravating factors. Some times, it looks like that the under-development is root cause of corruption, rather than being other way around.

I am not saying that stopping of corruption would not help the system. It sure would help. I am sure all those funds which are channeled into unproductive pockets of corrupt officers and politicians would help towards the development. But getting blinded by the hope that the corruption would fix all the problems is wrong too.

For example, on a road project, assume that we eliminate 100% of corruption and channel all the funds to actual building process. Even then, the funds wouldn't be sufficient to build enough roads to the western standards of development as long as we are still stuck with low per head productivity levels.

It is not the huge population either

And neither the population is the root cause of under-development. More the population means more teachers, more police, more doctors, more janitors, more working hands, more production, more goods, more services, more jobs (and even more politicians).

Most of the people get stuck with the question: how do we provide education for such huge population ? Or how do we feed such huge population etc.?

The huge population becomes a liability only if we start putting pressure on land and resources. We did pretty well on the food sufficiency and we could do better. One could argue that the natural resources are not in proportion to such huge population. But which nation on earth does have all the natural resources abundant for its needs ? Look at Japan; the population density of Japan per square kilometer is much more than that of India. The land is not a problem at all as has been proved by Japanese experience. In my opinion, the big population is an asset rather than being a liability.

It is the productivity

In my opinion, the real problem is the insufficient growth of productivity. What is productivity and how is it the root cause of poverty ?

Productivity is the amount of goods & services produced per head (per capita). Looking from a different perspective, it also means the amount of goods & services consumed per head (per capita).

The reasons for slow productivity gains are too many: probably our mis-directed government policies or inherently unmaterialistic & fatalistic Indian culture.

Try to compare three three systems: an African rural village, Indian rural village and a Western urban setting. These are three gradations in productivity landscape. One can see generally that African village is using more manual labour with low productivity while an Indian village is little better off.

So now the question is whether the African village can jump to western levels by pumping technology and capital into it? Apparently so far the conclusion is that the development is mostly incremental. An incremental productivity raising tool/practice is accepted which in turn makes the road for next level by enriching the demand through creation of better purchasing power. If you want to skip the middle level and directly jump to highest level through pumping more capital and technology, it always fails because of low absorption rates in the system; most of the time this results in destroying the traditional livelihood and endangering the whole path itself.

The productivity growth is not always linear incremental; there are possibilities of huge jumps in productivity levels with judicious planning and vision. For example, better and relevant education/information will do a lot to productivity level.

The productivity gains happen because of better processes, better tools/machinery usage, better technology usage and some times these requiring employment of more capital.

The main reason put forward by lot of skeptics is that we have so much of surplus labour and won't the usage of machinery render the labour force out of work ? This is a complex issue to understand.

I don't think, I have a sufficient evidence to refute it; the incremental addition of machinery will put some pressure on labour but the additional productivity gained in the process is going to create more avenues for the replaced labour else where. I have an example of such scenario from rural experience from Andhra Pradesh. Ten years back, most of the agriculture in Telangana has employed pure labour. But over a period of time, the tractors, machine ploughs, xxxx have been introduced. I used to get scared every time some new machinery got introduced into system fearing that it is going to damage the labour force. But what I witnessed was that all along this transition, the labour wages have been climbing up and the labour is productively employed in some other sectors outside the agriculture.

Other argument people raise is what happens when the productivity levels are so high that one capitalist can produce enough for the whole of population with the help of tools ? Won't the rest of the population lose the means of economic power ? There is a fallacy behind this argument; the false assumption is that the human needs (demand for goods & services) are finite. But in reality, human needs are infinite. As Gandhi pointed out that "there is enough for every body's need but not enough for every body's greed." The human greed for better life and luxuries is infinite and those previously unimagined needs are going to keep industries and labour force employed in those sectors.

There is another subtle point to observe along with the gain in productivity levels. The thing that balances the production and consumption is the distribution of wealth created. It is the responsibility of government policy which should take care of proper wealth distribution. But government should not achieve this by regulating the production & consumption but by creating forces to channelize these activities into a better balance.

Some Misc Notes on the subject

Another general complaint we hear is that there is not enough purchasing power in the system which rewards the entrepreneurs to create new products & services. This is a chicken and egg problem. Arguing the other way around, there is not much of purchasing power in the system because there is not enough of production which employs those labour.

I think, the fine balance is always to go at incremental steps where the incremental gains obtained in the system helps offsetting the shifts in labour force.

The other thing to be careful is of falling trap to copying the western style of production means. The western economies didn't advance to their current stage in one huge leap but through many incremental shifts. Since currently the western countries are advanced way beyond our levels, the structural changes resulting from blind copying of western models will be painful to adjust. It doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel but sometimes we may have to do just that.

Posted by nachiketa at 05:25 PM | Comments (1)