Reservation, Colonialism, Inertia and Fairness

The phenomenon of positive discrimination for castes is oft debated. For anyone who may not know of it, I will summarise here: Indians (and not only Hindus) have followed a system of caste for a very long time. The constitution of India recognises the caste system as an evil of the society but to counter the effects of long standing discrimination also forwards some measures of positive discrimination for the long ignored and downtrodden castes. Two schedules (or lists) were made, one of castes and other of tribes, chosen for positive discrimination.

Now it is ironical that in an intention to remove the caste system this positive discrimination actually bolsters it. It does empower the castes that were considered lower than others once (and still are not doing comparatively better) but the concept of castes is bolstered, whereas it should have been reduced through education and equal opportunity based on merit. It's a complicated debate whether religious groups such as Muslims and Christians which claim to be casteless, should get any such positive discrimination, since in reality the caste systems prevails across religions in India.

The hard working and fair playing, even non-partisan and secular youth of India has to bear the incremental disadvantage of limited resources such as opportunities of education and work which is forwarded towards the scheduled groups of lesser merit. It is argued that lesser merit is accrued due to lesser resources and more severe disadvantages to begin life with.



During the second world war officers the Third Reich plundered the wealth of other people, especially Jews. The wealth from such exploitations still sit in the Swiss Bank accounts and there are many claims made towards these in many different manners and forms by the descendent who now live in USA, Israel etc. The most interesting form I came across was when Michael Moore dressed one of his actors up as Hitler and sent him into the bank to claim that he has come to collect the money and redistribute it to those that rightfully own the wealth, instead of the bank and ultimately the Swiss govt that taxes it, and make gains from investment and reinvestment. Hold on to this thought.

A few days ago, I had a heated discussion with someone who is not an Indian but has lived in India for a long time, when they were pointing out how they hate the Indians who litter, and in general care only for themselves. Without much reason and provocation, my patriotic side woke up and I started a long tirade about the mentality of grab-and-hold-on due to very limited resources and large population since the birth of the nation; the severe lack of public education infrastructure inherited by this recent post-colonial nation; and then the whole culture of bad governance inherited.

I am guilty of bad reasoning in blaming it all to colonisers, I know. But something did come out of that practice of free speech, I realised that I was the disadvantaged group in this case. and wouldn't it be fair if there was more identification of the exploitation of my people for over 200 years? A systematic pay back, a monetary compensation for the colonial nations to make towards us would be a good start. As a right, not in the form of aid as if they are helping us out. If the Jews deserve to get their money back, the colonised nations surely do. And since there may be no listed people the money should be repaid to the governments. Only fair, right? Like the tax payers money and future opportunities going towards the scheduled people.

Such a claim may seem unfair, because the people of England who will be making the payment are not the ones who colonised us. But did they inherit only the advantages of wealth or also the responsibility towards the acts through which such wealth was amassed? In case of an individual it seems fair to ask the innocent descendent of a king (unscrupulous or any other kind) to give up almost all their wealth, as did happen at the birth of all democracies, I am familiar with the case of India and Pakistan where selected representatives went with a standing army to reclaim the property and wealth that belonged to the erstwhile kingdoms and fiefdoms. Why can't it work between nations?

Good idea if I am the nation that gets paid. But I think our world cannot function on historical fairness. The temporal limits to fairness will be very tricky. If we were going to go back in time to settle issues fairly, where, at what time, will we stop? We might have to go back all the way to the beginning of the recorded history. Maybe a life time - 60 years, about the time since reservation exists is a good enough time. How about a few hours?

If the claim of a few hours seem very unfair, imagine a hypothetical passing of a new bill of law in the parliament of your country. And that such a news reaches people only through a news paper, the earliest one published is in the evening, a few hours after the session is closed. A few hours before people could have picketed against a possible passing of the bill, which seems so much easier to do, compared to repealing of a law which (like the making of a new law)  needs 2/3 majority in the house and other harsher measures. A policy window has passed by in a few hours. History has moved on with all its inertia.

Fairness, then, is only a matter of coincidence. We can only move ahead within the framework given to us - laws, conditions of existence, values, religions, and on and on. Many agencies will collide for the next possible change. Which is exactly it is, a collision and a next. There is no going back and in such a movement of time, there is no 'justice' - a vague concept that we were given through the idealistic sources such as religion, fables etc. And books, such as our constitutions. Even though some give us clues to the true nature of fairness:

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air. 

- Shakespeare, Macbeth

And I hover over a given distribution of fairness and foulness over the mass of all individuals. Its density around me changes every moment.

Globalisation

I was driving back from work on a motorcycle, and standing at a traffic signal, looking at girls driving by, dreaming of doing one or more of them one day, you know the usual stuff single men do standing bored at a traffic light. And enter two guys on a big huge motorcycle.

The rider has a very macho hair do, and a macho beard. The pillion rider has long hair. They are not above 20-21 of age. They are absorbed in a serious conversation with each other with the loud carelessness of Hindi speakers in the Tamil speaking part of the country.

Pillion Rider, PR:
Isliye main Narendra Modi ko hi support karunga. Banda logon ke bare main sochta to hai.
[So that is why I, support Narendra modi. He at least cares about the people.]

Rider, R:
Manmohan ka to bas naam hi hai, ch****ya sala.
[Manmohan Singh just has a big name, stupid person.]

PR:
Tujhe pata hai log uska naam itna kyon maante hai?
[Do you know why Manmohan Singh is so popular?]

R:
Uske paas koi badi degree hai na...
[Because he has a big degree...]

PR:
Uske pass badi degreee toh hain par sale ka bheja uski g**d main hain.
[That is not the only reason, he does have a big degree, but his brain is in his a*s]

R and PR laugh in unison

PR:
Abe, sirf isliye hi nahin. Tujhe pata hai jab 1991 main desh globalise ho raha tha, tab Manmohan Singh vitt mantri tha.
[Not only because of that (big degree). You know when India was globalised, Manmohan Singh was the Finance Minister.]

The Signal turned green, and they moved out of earshot. By the look of it they continued the discussion. The only English words they used in this conversation were: Degree and Globalisation.
[Academic] Degrees, they don't care much about. It does not seem to have correlation with intelligence, innovation, entrepreneurship, or leadership.
Globalisation - they got almost right. The idea in 1991 was economic liberalisation. Of course some people may argue liberalisation leads to higher degree of globalisation.

I was indeed very happy to see the use of Hindi words such as vitt mantri. Of course some other words titillated me. I wish they could carry out the whole conversation in Hindi, or at least had a good enough English Vocabulary.

The Good Doctor

The Good Doctor was performing an experiment on me.

I went to see a performance of the play written by Niel Simon, performed by Barking Dog. The play has been doing rounds in my second thoughts, in between of course the more important  thoughts of women and ravaging them in different ways, exactly as expected of Indian males of my age and marital status. That would be separated, if you cared to know.

The joke was on me. Not only mine, Niel Simon's too. I have read, seen, and acted in dark comedies. But the Doctor is a doctor: he does not hide his intentions as he makes a claim of wanting to find out what makes people laugh, describing excruciating pain and asking why should that be funny for us at all, before the scene of the pulling of tooth begins.

And then it goes completely out of hands. Not in any particular order -
Frustrations of class divide, exploitation;
Mental illness of a close loved one mixed with the agony of poverty and gruelling hard work, not to forget Gout;
Son and father discuss prostitutes, bargain, and then finally the father cheats the son of the opportunity; Seduction of a wife, using the husband as a medium;
Death, to top it all. By drowning. One of the most horrible kinds of death, for nothing more than 60 kopecks.

It was a laugh riot and performed very well by Barking Dog, don't get me wrong, but that is the point isn't it?

He comes and sits among us during the scene of audition, in which he makes it clear that The Death Of The Clerk (the opening scene) was not meant to be funny. He looks on at us seriously. He makes notes about us, we even catch him off guard once or twice doing so. The Seducer of the wife presents a flower to a married woman with her husband in the crowd, or anyone closest to the description. I bet that couple, or the husband at least, did not enjoy that scene very much.

I can see it clearly now: the actors go into the green room and they laugh at the poor buggers that make the audience.

Pencil and Light

19-08-2012 or Banaras

12-08-2012a 

Some More Pencil Drawings

(will add more later)

08-08-2012

05-08-2012

A Good Consumer - Poetry

I am a poet, I am not a poet. I think the former some times and the latter others. But most of the time in my life I do not think about poetry at all. And it is this last bit that led me to read the book How Poetry Works.

The author Phil Roberts has a very interesting agenda in this book. He wants people to realize and think about what poetry is supposed to do. In the most scintillating times, print was expensive, and poetry was mostly to be read by one person for the benefit of many. And thus the way poetry evolved was the way it sounds. Of course with print becoming more accessible many times more people can access poetry, but now poetry is something read. And many times read in formats such as the internet and computer screen, where glancing, scanning, and “speed-reading” are the ideals and norm.

I am glad I live in today’s time because I will not have read the book or be able read poetry. Or have the system, discipline, or motivation to write poetry. But this is something to think about. I know most of my readers will take it as an offense when I say it, but many times more people will watch movies over read a book. And the idea is simple: someone is reading and enacting the book for them, naturally so much more interesting. But, many of us who read books before we watch the movie version of it, will often come back dissatisfied and read the book once again in an attempt to appease the author (and the book).

Most poetry, Mr. Roberts claims, is in the sound form. It is in the sound form that they take form, over meaning and syntax. I will not say songs, only because I am not sure about the technical differences between songs and other metric forms of poetry. But most poetry is to be read aloud. And slowly.

Of course I knew of the rhythm and understand syllables. But most poetry is in sound form? My first reaction was of disbelief and disdain. These fantastic authors want to go back to times of queens and barons? I went back and read some of the poems I have liked recently, and many of them are in very systematic stress or metric format. I went to read my own poems and lo! I was writing in metre too (or at least was trying to use metres for effect) without meaning to or wanting to. [I am sure now that I will think more about these things writing poem will get more difficult for me]

More interestingly free verse, he claims, has only a shocking value (as poetry) for people whose ears are well-versed (ha!) with the sounds of metric forms, almost expect it. I differ. As someone who is not a very good writer, does not care too much about getting work published, I only write free verse as a medium of self-expression, and as a connecting hook to the authors whose writing fascinates me.