Captain Takes the Team to Finals

And the semi-finals threw up results along expected lines. Congress was decimated in all four states of the Indian heartland. The total rout is sure to shake the foundations of its weak government in the Centre to the core. It is once again clear that dynastic policies are no more relevant in India than some of the burning day-to-day issues. And Rahul Gandhi is not equal to the caliber of his grandmother or great-grandfather, though it may be comparable to his father!

A dangerous trend seen in Delhi is the phenomenal rise of the Aam Admi Party (AAP – Common Man’s Party). Formed barely a year ago, the party cornered 40% of the Assembly seats there, advocating the slogans of transparency and corruption-free polity. Both these concepts are worthy to be enshrined in a society, then why the rise of AAP is construed as dangerous? It seems that being a baby among political parties, AAP is not yet mature enough to chart out a pragmatic course of action. Corruption must be rooted out, but the party’s suggested modus operandi is childish. If you follow it, governance will grind to a halt as you can’t put all the officers under the cloud of suspicion. Also, its militant posture towards increase in commodity tariffs like power that is warranted for the sustainability of the power companies belies the party’s claim to be a responsible partner in the nation’s politics. And it is indeed lucky for them not to have won power this time. If such was the case, people would’ve immediately got disillusioned with them and thrown them out at the next available opportunity. Now that they are sitting in opposition, they may have a better longevity to have a go at the next election. It is easy to sit in opposition and blame the government for all troubles. The toughest thing is to rule and be accountable. Any society gets the government they deserve. Corruption is rampant in India only because people tolerated it since recorded history. Even now, the only grouse most people harbour against corrupt officials is that they themselves are not able to indulge in making some extra bucks. Ask any parent about his plans for their children, and the invariable answer is to make them government officials. What for? Isn’t it naïve to assume that these people strive to enter public service only to ‘diligently’ serve the people? So, in a country where parents are rearing their children to have a share of the booty, corruption is the natural thing. The attitude of the society need to change.

Many people go far too much away from the mainstream to deny Narendra Modi any credit in BJP’s spectacular win. The victory, according to them, rests with the state leadership of the party and not to Modi. Notwithstanding the stature of leaders like Shivrajsingh Chouhan, what kind of reasoning is this? Everybody understood and anticipated this contest to be the semi-final of the final match, which is the General Elections in 2014. Everyone was anxious about the impact Modi could obtain on the populace. The team made a brilliant victory and the critics say the captain had no role in it! Suppose the BJP had lost the elections, would these same critics have trumpeted from their rooftops that the Modi factor failed to take off? This Lose-Lose argument exposes the prejudice of these observers.

But Narendra Modi should not get carried away by the results. True, he had credited teamwork for the success, but should not lose sight of the fact that the finals are yet to come and it would take much stamina to reach all the way to the Lok Sabha. Nobody should overlook the realistic fact that the NDA has not much clout in the three states of Odisha, Seemandhra (when AP is divided) and Tamil Nadu. With a total of 91 seats among them (21 in Odisha, 31 in Seemandhra and 39 in TN) these states may decide who would rule from Delhi in 2014. And all the three states are so winnable for the NDA! Who would doubt that the Congress will be trounced in Seemandhra this time? They may sweep Telengana, but that’s only 11 seats! The BJP doesn’t have any partner in these states, even though the AIADMK, BJD and Telugu Desom may not be averse to have an understanding with them. Chandrababu Naidu may strike the pose of a principled leader who would have no truck with BJP, but having been out of power for more than a decade must have chastised his enthusiasm a bit. Jayalalitha would be friends with anyone who would oppose Karunanidhi. A little nudge may prompt Navin Patnaik to come back to the NDA. There is a very good chance for the BJP to ensure the support of up to 75 – 80 seats in these three states, if it plays its cards right. The party should not overlook this crucial aspect if it is to win the finals.

Non-Stop Till Full Stop

The life expectancy of an Indian had gone up – impressively – from 42 years in 1960 to 66 in 2011. This is a commendable achievement, coming within half a century. Many factors have contributed to this – education, better medical care, increase in level of hygiene, awareness of health issues, and most important of all, increase in the nation’s wealth. India’s per capita GDP leaped from $84 to $1159 over the same period, a rise of 13 times and that too, adjusted for inflation.

This simple statistic is not understood in its true perspective by a lot many people, even influential ones. Today’s average person is much more healthier, happier and prosperous than his grand father was, at his age. Alarmists cite a lot of cases trying to prove otherwise – atmospheric pollution, radiation from mobile phone towers (!), fast food, slow food contaminated with chemical pesticides, occupational hazards and increased incidence of fatal diseases like cancer, cardiac and neurotic cases. Of course, these monsters are with us, but haven’t we learned to live with them? Even with all these meddling issues, we are living longer than the previous generations who lived less, even without any of these modern debilities to trouble their way. Don’t forget even for a moment that most of the deadly illnesses afflict aged people and as the number of the aged rises, the absolute number of sick people definitely goes up, but as a percentage of the total population, they are far fewer than it was 50 years ago. Increased and early detection help to save many lives, even though it contributes to the number of patients shooting up.

This is the background. But do everyone need to faithfully follow every health advice to the letter? Say, you are a middle-aged man and a medical examination shows that you have a cardiac or diabetic complication. Naturally, you are condemned to alter your life style, diet, exercise habits, and the entire way of life. In short, you transform to another person in a vain bid to prolong your life expectancy from say, 66 to 71. What is this really worth? When you change one of your ingrained habits like the diet, the ‘you’ inside you have died at that moment and a totally new person is the one trying to live out a few more years, ready to accept any compromise. Isn’t it better to continue as before, and live life to the full – in your own way – and perhaps surrender to the inevitable when it comes?

Our lives are ruled by a combination of chance and our ability to take risks. The process of birth itself is the result of pure chance alone. We, or at least the brain cells dictating these lines, could have originated in one of the lawless states in the under-privileged part of the world and died an early death fighting enemies or diseases. Or, we could have chosen a riskier profession, like the military, where the life expectancy is shorter than the general population. Any of these factors could’ve cut back our life span, so why fret over a disease that threatens a few years at the fag end of life?

Be yourselves and face the situation with courage.

Or, shall we say, non-stop till full stop?

Terrifying Assault at ATM Counter

The assault on the helpless woman

The nation, and especially anyone who has ever used an ATM machine would’ve recoiled in horror at the brutal attack on a woman bank officer by an unidentified (as yet) assailant in Bengaluru yesterday, caught in excruciating detail by the surveillance camera. The video shows the lady entering the chamber and is soon followed by the assailant who downed the metallic rolling shutters of the cabin, probably to convey the feeling that the machine is down for re-filling cash. He then turns to the terrified woman with a pistol and a machete demanding something from her, possibly her ATM PIN. She might have refused (credit be to her!) and then we see him furiously attacking her with the machete, inflicting serious wounds on her neck and upper torso. After a brief scuffle, she is seen collapsing on the floor, mercifully unconscious. The attacker soon left the cabin and it was only some time later that people noticed blood trickling under the rolling shutters and the police was informed.

This gruesome incident must wake up the concerned authorities and the society as a whole to focus on the security of ATM machines. Till now, the limited security cover wherever it is provided, is only for the machine and the users are left to fend for themselves. Very few machines are guarded, particularly if they are attached to a functioning branch of the bank. There are many locations where an unguarded ATM is installed in a remote location. Since every machine is now placed under video surveillance, the banks are content to leave them undefended, in the sure hope that they can zero in on the miscreant based on video footage. But such incidents like what happened yesterday in Bengaluru can’t be prevented by such measures.

Everyone would agree that assigning guards at every ATM is not an economically viable proposition. Should the banks be coerced to ensure such protection as a result of misguided public ire blown out of proportions against the gravity of the incident, it would end up as an unnecessary cost to be borne by the customers. Are there any alternate, but easier options left?

New lock mechanism

If we re-examine the video, we would realize that the incident appears so frightening after the assailant had downed the rolling shutters confining the victim and the attacker to a small cubicle out of public view. This action immediately transformed the benign cubicle into a claustrophobic cavern where one subconsciously surrenders to a primal fear arising from slumber deep inside our minds. The tiny, closed room in which the attack takes place awakens a sense of futility at resistance whether it is a man or a woman. For the onlookers, it surely evokes concerns about the safety of our loved ones who may find themselves in similar circumstances. Probably, the incident might not have provoked such alarm if it had happened in a public place.

A simple, but efficient deterrent seems to be providing a lock on the rolling shutter door in the fully open position. Normally, these devices could be locked only in the fully closed position, and only some minor welding work should be enough to lock it in the open position too. The maintenance guys only need to possess the key to temporarily down the shutters at the time of re-filling. If such a locking arrangement could be provided, the enclosure would be visible at all times, ensuring safety through transparency, so to say!

This modest mechanism shall serve to deter a quite few of the miscreants.

Advice to Young Electrical Engineers

Electrical engineers normally find pleasure in residing in deep wells of their own discipline, with no awareness of what is going on around them in other fields. There will definitely be a few exceptions, but the rule fits most of them in a well-settled organisation. Young engineers should strive not to fall victim to this false sense of disregard as far as other disciplines are concerned. This attitude handicaps them which they don't realize at the time, just as a riding horse doesn't feel constrained by its blinders. This specializing attitude would harm them in the long run and it is no wonder that in almost all organisations, the top posts are garnered by Mechanical guys. Only when the Electrical guys venture out of the confines of the well in which they've placed themselves, do they experience the sunshine they were missing all along!

A Curious Linguistic Coincidence

Japanese is really a nice language to learn. Not only that it will open a window to the hearts of one of the world’s most hard working people, and also it convinces you of the constancy and invariability of human needs of communication. Man is the same everywhere. If you allow for the sophistication brought about by technology, you’d also realize that he is the same, over the ages. But this does not deny that etiquette and manners had tremendously improved as time progressed. We live in a far better place than our ancestors did and our descendants will obviously live a happier and better life. What caused this? Technology did it, as I will explain.

Noble ideals like altruism, charity, social help and support of the weak do not come about naturally. Evolution is all about survival ensured through success in the competition for limited resources. But explicit competition over food or mates is frowned upon in modern society. So what should be the alternative? Increase the resources so that there is no need to compete that would sometimes end up in the death of one of the rivals. You willingly hand over the first cup of tea in restaurant to your friend with the full assurance that another cup will follow soon. If that self-confidence is lacking, and you grab the first cup, you’d end up as an anti-social person in a rich, modern society, whereas you will be just another normal guy in a primitive society where food is scarce. In essence, we are able to live happily in a socially responsible way only because we had had technology with us for the last 10,000 years or so. In short, we owe our morality and principles to technology.

But that was not the observation I had originally planned to make. How easily one is swerved off the track! I was mentioning the Japanese language based on a brief exposure to it lasting hardly four months in 1999, fourteen years ago. We learned the alphabet in Katakana script which is sound-based, rather than the impossibly difficult Hiragana script which was pictogram-based. The alphabet is similar sounding to its Indian counterparts which is having the same sounds, but in different scripts. We found it much easier to learn the pronunciation of Japanese terms by transliterating it in Indian scripts rather than in English. However, there was a major difference between Indian and Japanese languages. There is no sound of ‘la’ in Japanese. They replace it with ‘ra’. This ends up in awkward rendition of English words like ‘hotel’ which is voiced as ‘hoteru’. Similarly, ‘link’ becomes ‘rink’. This had caused much amusement back then when pronouncing the participants’ names which contained the sound ‘l’.

 

A comparison between Katakana and Brahmi scripts

What I find now is that the transposition of ‘r’ and ‘l’ is not unique to Japanese. In fact, it was practiced in India itself, though removed 2200 years back in time to the Mauryan period. Here, the reverse happened, that is, ‘la’ is used in place of ‘ra’. Emperor Ashoka’s inscriptions in rock and pillar edicts are our main sources of epigraphic information about this period. We see two instances of ‘l’ replacing ‘r’. Ashoka’s Bhabra Edict contains the words, “piyadassi laja magadhe” (Priyadarshi, Raja of Magadha), while inscriptions of Dasaratha, Ashoka’s successor, on the caves in Nagarjuni Hills includes the words “dasalathena devanampiyena anantaliyam abhisitena” (given by Dasaratha soon after he was crowned by Ashoka). The language is Prakrit which was a vernacular dialect of Sanskrit. The script is Brahmi, which is widely assumed to be the forerunner of many scripts in south and south-east Asian languages. Who knows, there might have been a connection to Japan as well. A curious coincidence in deed.

Vigilance Meet

Attended a meeting of the Vigilance Study Circle, Kerala at the city office of BPCL at Kundannur. The study circle conducts its meetings often, and sometimes people like me get nominated to attend a program which is as taxing on patience as it is in vain to serve any useful purpose.

The program began with an address by the Chief Vigilance Officer of Cochin Ship Yard who astonished the audience with a suave confession that he does not understand a thing about ships or of building one. It seemed he stopped just short of continuing, “And I don’t care a damn”! So, this man, who doesn’t know anything about how the company earns its money to pay the workers which includes himself, is positioned in such a high point on the ladder to decide if or when his colleagues had gone wrong. Vigilance organizations are mainly concerned with four aspects of malpractice, namely,

a)    Violation of procedure

b)    Illegal gratification

c)    Both (a) and (b)

d)    Illegal gratification but with no violation of procedure (as in government offices)

Those people from the technical community who are burdened with the unenviable task of completion of deadlines in a project know that violation of procedure is one evil they must learn to live with, of course, without any illegal gratification. If such officials like the above vigilance officer lead the watch hounds, how could they even hope to get a sympathetic ear to explain their conduct? It must be repeated here that there is no counter argument to the notion that any illegal gratification must be strictly punished.

The central item on the agenda was a talk given by Shri. P C Cyriac, IAS (Retd) who was the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes in Tamil Nadu and a former collector of Madurai district. I must concede that all of his anecdotes not related to vigilance were interesting and made the talk lively for a few flickering moments! But it soon became apparent from his own words, that he never stood bolt upright against the corrupt. His actions always seemed to be to deny the chances for wrongdoers to take bribe rather than imposing punitive action against the venal. In fact, he cited an example which was unfortunate for his argument. He narrated an innovation he implemented in the tax department of Tamil Nadu. Shop owners were invariably required to submit their account books before the assessing officers for verification while presenting annual statements. Naturally, this was an ideal hunting ground for the corrupt officials to fleece the vendors. And, what did Cyriac do? He put forward a stipulation that people having a turnover of less than Rs. 1 crore (which at that time comprised 90% of the dealers) need not submit their books for verification at the time of presenting statements. The tax department then checked in detail 20% of the people selected at random. He claimed that his exercise resulted in an increase of 50% in the revenue. Of course it might have, but what about the corruption which might invariably have accompanied it? Instead of standing firm against the unscrupulous, he simply sought to avoid the occasion for profiteering by denying an opportunity for the dealer and officer to see face to face. It is definitely true that the officers would have more than made good what they have lost, on the hapless 20% allotted to them for verification!

The food was good, particularly the tea. The most difficult part of decision making was to determine which items should be left on the plate as a matter of good manners. Lunch was also sumptuous, but not of the high caliber expected from the ilk of BPCL. The hosts were generous in supplying a very good ‘Add Gel’ pen too. But the pen was blue, and for me, handling a blue pen is like having a piece of bacon in the hands of a strict vegetarian. The meet ended at 2 pm leaving many people including me wondering why we were invited to a seminar which was not in the least relevant for our work.

Raghuram Rajan Eyeing the Nobel?

Raghuram Rajan, the new RBI governor is at it again. Famous for his unconventional thinking, some of the comments he let out at Frankfurt yesterday arouse suspicions that he is eyeing the Nobel for Economics after or during his stint at RBI. His comments come when he was in Germany to accept the Deutsche Bank prize in financial economics.

It is part of established financial wisdom that low interest rates spur economic growth of the national economy, especially after a meltdown such as those we witnessed around the end of the last decade. It works this way – when the lending rates go down, more money is available for entrepreneurs who could invest them on new projects and schemes. It also prompts people to park their savings in stock markets instead of banks where the interest on deposits would also be low. In fact, the rate of interest is a distinct marker of the health of the economy. Industrialized nations possess a razor thin interest rate while the developing ones slug it out with a big rate. Though it may superficially appear to be beneficial for small investors in banks, that is not really the case. High inflation always accompanies high interest rates thereby wiping out the additional amount claimed as interest. So, the trusted equation goes – high growth, low rates.

The RBI governor now asks whether there were better tools than the rock bottom rates used by major central banks. He also said that low rates could have unidentified consequences, for instance that they could encourage people in their 60s to save instead of spend because the low returns mean they were unable to reach their retirement savings goal. However, he conceded that he did not have the answers but said it was time to ask, “Are ultra low rates the solution or part of the problem?”

So, what does it tell us? Is Rajan trying to explore less trodden paths in his all out efforts to shore up the rupee and to kick start the halted economic reforms? Unconventional it surely is, but are such policies enough to save the day? There is no doubt that in case what Rajan has in mind comes to pass, it evidently merits a Nobel. Will it be Rajan, after Amartya Sen?

A Piece of Wisdom

Husband asks his newly employed wife, "It is time for you too to save some money instead of spending all your salary on worthless things".

The wife retorts, "Why I should save money? You do the saving and I only need to save enough to hire a good lawyer!"

Star-Rise at RBI

Raghuram Govind Rajan

Remember the height of public expectation when Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam assumed office as the President of India? Though everybody knew that Kalam was being called upon to perform something that was not in the direct line of his professional expertise, we the ordinary Indians rejoiced that an intellectual of international repute was about to assume a public office of such immense clout. In the end what did Kalam give back to the people? The inspiration and moral exemplar he provided to the impressionable minds of the land is undeniable. What else could we expect from an aeronautical engineer assuming the presidency of a parliamentary democracy whose topmost seat is mostly titular?

                                                                                        

A similar scenario is brewing now, though for a lesser position, but which tend to assume great significance in light of the country’s present economic hardships. Dr. Raghuram Govind Rajan is set to step in as the youngest governor of the Reserve Bank of India on the 4^th of September, when D Subba Rao vacates the post on superannuation.  Rajan is noted for many astonishing things about him. He has no academic background in Economics. He was born in a Tamil family and had his schooling in India and abroad. He graduated in Electrical Engineering from IIT, Delhi in 1985 with a gold medal and took PGDBA from IIM, Ahmadabad. He was awarded PhD in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and employed as professor at Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Dr Rajan has served as the visiting Professor of the World Bank, Federal Reserve Board and was the Chief Economist at IMF. He was invited back to India as an honorary economic adviser in 2008 to the prime minister and as the Chief Economic Adviser in 2012. His reputation came when correctly predicted the American economic meltdown of 2008 in 2005 itself. He began his series of critiques against the prevailing Federal Reserve Policy in 2005 at a function honoring Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of Federal Reserve who was about to retire from service. Though widely ridiculed at that time, the world eagerly listened to his words when it came true in exactly the same way he feared. He is also a member of the group of 30 (G30) an international body of leading Financiers and academics. Rajan is the author of a few books, of which I happened to read Fault Lines – How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, two years back and was greatly impressed by the clarity of thought and required action envisioned in it. A review may be found in my book review blog.

However Rajan may not find the Governor’s chair a bed of roses. The economic scenario of the country is bound to cause some loss of sleep to policy makers before it starts to deny sleep to ordinary shareholders like us in India’s downward-going share markets. The exodus of Foreign Institutional Investors are causing bloodbath in the markets on most days. The currency itself is in dire straits, which have plunged to its historically lowest levels. Unless the Reserve Bank intervenes in an effective way, our rupee is going to be a worthless currency. The widening Current Account Deficit is perplexing financial administrators in the government and statutory bodies alike. And the common man is biting his nails at the woeful inadequacy of sustaining measures. Their hope is in Rajan who needs to show his mettle as an economist. Being basically an engineer, the nation expects quite a few unconventional but effective initiative from him.

There are some interesting policy decisions to watch for in the coming months. Raghuram Rajan was instrumental in proposing an overarching Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) was meant to supervise RBI itself. Bureaucrats at RBI exerted their utmost pressure on the then Finance Minister, Pranab Mukharjee to dilute the provisions of the idea. We need to see what Rajan does to his own pet idea. Also, it was Rajan’s suggestion that RBI should confine itself to inflation rate targeting and let other authorities to do the task of regulating banks and the spectrum of activities in which it involves energetically at present. Again, RBI officials were successful in maintaining the status quo. This demands a curious watch on how Rajan will go about to implement his own proposal which would curtail his own powers in the new position.

Once again, we come back to the original idea. A renowned intellectual is about to ascend to a very responsible job in the country. The comparison of Rajan with Kalam is natural and hardly to be missed. Both are Tamils, engineers and men of international renown. Let us wish Rajan a lot of good luck. He needs it badly now! Really!

Rediff blog

I started blogging on Rediff. Today, I just visited that site and it showed June 9, 2006 as the date when my first blog post was created. When Google started providing the facility to its account holders, I switched over to it. I found a post in Rediff written in Oct 2006 against the government's proposed decision to effect strict measures on the functioning of cyber cafes, which is attached below. This was in the aftermath of a guy sending threatening letters to the President of India to implicate his lover who deserted him.

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Kerala proposes law against cyber cafes

The Government of Kerala plans to introduce a new law curbing the operating freedom of internet cafes in the state, as reported by The Hindu on Oct 28, 2006. The finer details are being worked out, but the salient provisions are

1. The browsers have to produce a photo identity card or be willing to be video-graphed.

2. Children should be accompanied by an adult

3. A register containing the details of customers should be maintained by the establishment

4. An operating license from the City Police Commissioner to be mandatory

5. The Commissioner will have the right to impose any condition on the cafe owner, subject to changing circumstances and development of technology.

6. The cubicles to customers should not be more than 4 feet high

7. The computer screen should face the common area inside the cafe

8. No cyber cafe would be allowed within 500 metres of an educational institution

9. Customers would not be allowed to attach any device brought from outside (such as pen drives)

One might wonder if these provisions will safeguard the country from seditious and anti-national elements! The provisions are ridiculous in the least, if not outright lunatic. How can a democratic government impose restrictions on its free citizens in sending and receiving data? What purpose would it serve to demand photo ID cards just for sending e-mail? Under the pretext of a prankster sending threatening mails to the heads of state and government, the bureaucracy is trying to stifle the freedom of thought and expression as enshrined in the Constitution of India. Consider the scenario for example, that this prankster, instead of sending e-mails, decided to send threatening letters. Will the government then bring in a law which would make it mandatory to show photo ID cards to post a letter at the post office? The post office, in fact provides far greater anonymity than the cafe! The post boxes are located in an outside public place and the postal staff have no clue about the customers, where as in an internet cafe, you are likely to be remembered and identified later by the staff. 

Thinking about mail warnings and threats, how many of it would prove to be harbingers of actual events? As far as I know, there were no warnings about the attack on parliament, the Mumbai bombings, Rajiv Gandhi assassination, 9/11 attacks, 7/7 attacks etc etc. Actually, the investigating agencies can glean valuable information from anonymous e-mails claiming moral responsibility about events afterwards. In internet, you can't be anonymous and most of the people don't realize this fact. Why the Police should fear e-mails when they can easily go through ISP logs, traces of IP numbers and home in on the cafe in a matter of hours, if not minutes? 

The attempt to impose restrictions on the usage of internet is a clear attack against freedom of expression and thought. The internet has been a head ache to authoritarian governments world wide. Now the government of Kerala is also going the same way. There are some more options it can contemplate to eliminate such nuisance, such as

1. The postal mail boxes would be placed in the clear view of the postal staff and all outside boxes would be removed

2. Photo ID cards would be required to post a letter

3. The postal staff shall maintain a register of the customers buying stamps and posting letter

4. In order to post a letter to a government official, a sanction from the police commissioner is necessary

5. The people would not be allowed to write mail in public. All mails should be certified by the notary. If notary is too busy, giving 500 bucks to his office staff will not harm you.

6. The police commissioner has the right to open any letter and peruse its contents

Think it over, political fools and bureaucratic rogues! You can at last curtail those freedoms which constitute the other nuisance that is overarching above your stubborn heads - Democracy!!!

Reply to Anti-Reservationists

The following is the reply I gave to a friend's comments in Facebook opposing caste-based reservations.

First of all, a friendly reminder to Mr. P not to take anything I am going to say on a personal level. What we are discussing here is a matter of general interest only.

The comment from Mr. P is shocking and needs to be countered. Even though I had suspicions that this is exactly the kind of thinking nurtured by many upper castes, this was the first time I saw it crystal clear. The essence of the argument is that even in this 21^st century, people should follow their hereditary vocation adjusted to modern requirements. As you say, “a blacksmith’s son should become a mechanical engineer and a carpenter’s son should be a civil engineer because that is in their genes”. If everybody followed this ‘nugget of wisdom’, Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam would have been a fisherman, Dr. C V Raman would have a become a priest in the local temple and Gandhiji would be nothing more than a market trader. And no, the Germans are not crazy enough to follow this system. This attitude is simply racist and far from the truth. Albert Einstein’s father was a businessman, Max Planck’s father was a lawyer and though not a German, Isaac Newton’s father was a farmer! Caste is not in the genes. It was this same argument that squeezed the majority of Indian people dry in its vice-like grip for centuries.

And what profession should the sons of Brahmins follow? Teaching and priestcraft are prescribed for them and they are not allowed to cross the seas. Does it mean that those Brahmins who excelled in management, administration or commerce are incompatible with the ideas of good behaviour? And what vocation should the Dalits follow?

Once again, caste does not run in the genes. What good were the Kshatriyas in battles that raged for a thousand years? They lost their land and wealth in battles. The Rajputs proudly guarded the entrances of Mughal forts where their women were shared as slaves. Do you want those Kshatriyas to run the army now? It may be remembered that the first major war won by India was in 1971, after a gap of nearly 1500 years. The victory came only because the Kshatriyas’ share in the army came down greatly.

Caste does not run in the genes. Any downtrodden person, with sufficient talent and attitude can attain any position he seeks – with a little support from the society. You can’t expect an illiterate farm hand’s son to excel on the same level as the son of an educated government official. That’s where the need of reservation arises. It is not for all eternity. After 3-4 generations, the downtrodden people will be absorbed into the main stream and reservations may be revoked, but not till that great dawn arrives!

In the meantime, let no false notions of dharma stifle the nascent talent in children. I am reminded of a famous song by Vayalar Ramavarma, penned in 1973.

പ്രപഞ്ചസത്യം ചിതയിൽ കരിയും ബ്രഹ്മസ്വങ്ങൾക്കുള്ളിൽ
ദ്രവിച്ച പൂണൂൽ ചുറ്റി മരിക്കും ധർമാധർമങ്ങൾ
ചിറകു മുറിച്ചൊരു ഭാരതജീവിതമുണരാൻ
പ്രകൃതിച്ചുമരുകളോളം സർഗപ്രതിഭ പറന്നു നടക്കാൻ
പദ്മതീർഥമേ ഉണരൂ, മാനസപദ്മതീർഥമേ ഉണരൂ .....

Suggestion to William Dalrymple

Dalrymple should choose Tipu Sultan for his next book

Reading William Dalrymple is a delightful experience. As a writer who has mastered the rhythm of Indian social life and felt the heartbeats of the country, his extraordinary faculty for historical narration with the right amount of pot-pourri ensures wholehearted acceptance of his works in any corner of the subcontinent, not just India alone. I’ve just completed his ‘Return of a King’ which details the First Afghan War (1839 – 42) and the disastrous British effort to hoist a puppet king, Shah Shuja on the throne in Kabul. The author gives a vivid account of life, for the royals and camp followers in India in the first half of 19^th century as the management of the war was handled from the newly built hill station of Shimla, the East India Company’s summer capital.

I felt really sad after completing this book. Not that it was disappointing – on the contrary, it is an enchanting work, as usual. But what dampened my spirits was the realization that I had gone through all of Dalrymple’s books by now. It was an eye opener to read ‘The Last Mughal’, the first book I read a few years back and instantly became his fan. Then came White Mughals, another influential work. After that, The City of Djinns, The Age of Kali, From the Holy Mountain, Nine Lives and In Xanadu came one by one. Of these, only Nine Lives was a disappointment and those who cherish Dalrymple’s syle need not look further to see where it flopped. Return of a King came out last, in 2013 and I was on the lookout for it from the day I saw it announced. When the book presented itself quite unexpectedly in the Public Library, I jumped on it and it provided a few days of very happy reading.

Return of a King took nearly three years of research and publishing chores to see the light of day. It does mean that for at least two more years to come, no new book might be coming out of the author’s deft pen. And what will he write about next? The author had made India his home for most of the year, staying near Delhi – understandably, he spends the summer back home in Scotland – and prefers the Islamic tradition which forms a main stream of the country’s historical past to pick his subjects from. Indian heritage is really like an occasionally malfunctioning zipper where the slider sometimes fail to properly align the Hindu and Muslim teeth.

I would suggest Tipu Sultan, also called the Tiger of Mysore, to Dalrymple as the focus for his next work. Tipu, and his father Hyder Ali were two great rulers of Mysore in the 18^th century. Tipu was the last of Indian kings who could dictate terms to the British. He still evokes currents of hatred or admiration in the populace, whose opinion is divided on religious lines. He defied the British and hence sometimes termed a freedom fighter. But he strived hard for an alliance with Napoleon and the French as a junior partner, but that power couldn’t save him from disaster in the end. He is sometimes called a secularist, pointing out the temples in his fort complex and the peaceful lives of his subjects of which Hindus formed the majority, as also many of his military leaders who were Hindus. But there is no denying that he attacked temples and employed forced conversions on his invasion of Kerala. People behave like the scars have still not healed completely which is conceivable as South India had not witnessed massacre, plunder and rape in the scale it accompanied wars in the North waged over differences in religion of the concerned parties. As a consequence people love to hate him to the core – still many a house dog in Kerala is named after him. Others find in him attributes worthy of adulation like his drive for social reforms, aversion to foreign intervention and adoption of new technologies in warfare like rockets. To add colour to the already vivid picture, the full implications of the issue could be comprehended only when it is examined in the backdrop of the rivalry between the French and English back home and in their colonies in the second half of 18^th century. South India was the battleground to stage the war between two foreign powers and its rulers were often caught in the diplomatic crossfire. So, Tipu Sultan would be a fitting subject for Dalrymple’s deep and profound research which will end up in a fine historical narrative.