Science of Seduction

This article was written some time back for a web magazine ViewsUnplugged. com (now extinct)

It also appeared in a local news paper. The stem-cell debate was raging across the world and my light hearted treatment of the subject met with some spirited rejoinders from serious minded American Professors. I was compelled by my editors to respond with a seroius - and I believe, a boring piece. This  old  article  of mine  caught my fancy while I was rummaging thorough old papers. So here it is for those who may like it.

---

The sedulous serpent, who urged Eve to taste the fruit of knowledge, is an unrepentant monster. After having engineered the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, he didn't look back in remorse, nor did he return to his abode in the tree of the primeval garden. In fact, he has pursued the human race with even greater energy and determination. Now of course, he is more persuasive in his respectable vocation, as the man of science. Instead of whispering in the ears of Eve, he now seduces statesmen, power barons, captains of industry and owners of capital. Knowledge leads to power, knowledge leads to wealth, and knowledge leads to happiness. And he himself? He is just a disinterested seeker after knowledge.

But be forewarned, he takes no responsibility as to the consequences. If Eve tasted the fruit of knowledge, well! She had the freedom to ignore the serpent's advice, says the Devil. If it led to her expulsion, it was no fault of his. This line has been the standard defense of Science, as well. Only now it has been codified, and made respectable, as the scientific neutrality thesis and the scientist would mount this highest hobbyhorse when in the firing line. Science is no more to be held accountable for its misuse any more than a piece of bread can be accused of murder. It can feed, but if it sticks in the throat, it can also cause asphyxia.

Jacques Monod's - of Chance and Necessity fame - remark can be taken to be the official view of the scientific establishment. "Science rests upon a strictly objective approach to the analysis and interpretation of the universe, including Man himself and human societies. Science ignores, and must ignore value judgments. Knowledge discloses and inevitably suggests new possibilities of action. But to decide upon a course of action is to leap out of the realm of objectivity into that of values, which by essence are non-objective and therefore cannot be derived from objective knowledge. There is strictly no way of objectively proving that it is BAD to make war or kill a man, or to rob him, or sleep with one's own mother".

Dr. Louis Fredrick Fieser was in charge of the team of scientists at Harvard University, which developed the Napalm bomb. He is reported to have said that he "felt free of any guilt". "You don't know what's coming, that wasn't my business. I was working on a technical problem that was considered pressing".

The tree of knowledge is laden with luscious looking fruits, ready for picking, promising a way out of the vale of tears. The information technology is egging the human spider to make a killing on the World Wide Web. Bluetooth technology is determined to usher us into the realm of science fiction. But foremost among them all is the entire gamut of research, designed to take charge of the orientation and control of human reproduction. Cloning and the stem cell research promise eternal youth. No more geriatric disorders. Good-bye to Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease, cardiomyopathy, vascular diseases, stroke, cancer, craniofacial disorder and all that.

25 years back cloning and stem cell research was visible in the outline on the scientific horizon. At a seminar, Biology and The Future of Man, held at the University of Paris some of the kindred issues were discussed in their largest perspective. The issues that were debated were seminal, and it seems, the multiplicity of views made it still more difficult to arrive at any conclusion. The wisdom of Jacques Monod, Gunther Stent, Cyrus Levianthal, Theodosisus Dobzhansky, Prof. Lasagna and all such savants of the biological science could lead only to tentative formulations. The seminar concluded with the pious declaration a, universal Movement for Scientific Responsibility.

What constitutes human life? Is it a process, a succession of ordinal organization, a coded macromolecule, an unfertilized egg, an oocyte, a fetus which has become "quick", or a neonate that can survive independently? Or is it that at some point - some arbitrary point - in the succession of events it becomes life and continues to remain so until its termination. (Any views there Dr. Keruoc?) Is there a threshold, a magic line that divides the boundary of life and non-life? Is there a no-man’s-land? And who had the authority to eliminate it to decide the threshold?

That was in 1976. Exactly 25 years later those questions seem to have been decided by relegating them to the realm of the non-issue. The world Medical Association declaration of Helsinki had cautioned against research on identifiable human material. But the Donaldson Report winks at the recommendation and justifies the research in the interest of potential benefits to human beings, science and society. Which is perhaps just as well. Any idea which promises utopia can never be put on the back burner. The technological imperative takes over. If a thing is shown to be possible then it will become possible. But in the meanwhile, one may ask the question. Why was Jonathan Swift, in a manner of saying, carted away to the lunatic asylum for having put forward his proposal, that the rich could have the babies (of the poor) for breakfast. Why is cannibalizing for protein ethically repulsive but raising human embryos for organ harvesting a medical necessity? Dr. “Miracle” Severino Antinori may justly accuse me of being “intellectually Talibanised”. Perhaps I am speaking out of turn on matters of such arcane knowledge as stem-cell research, but even humbler folks have opinions. They experience the world as it impinges on them. In troubled times, and in times of doubt, they dip into their racial memories and myths.

The Indian tradition relates the story of the gods and the anti-gods churning the Ksheer Sagar for the elixir of youth and immortality - Amrit. Amrit they did get, but the unforeseen by product was Kalkut Vish, the poison which could annihilate death itself. Shiva, the great god, in his compassion, ingested the poison lest it destroy Creation. But even then the other problem of sharing the Amrit with anti-gods remained. A lot of ungodly deceit and chicanery was used to get out of the mess. This metaphor for the endless search of utilitarian knowledge and the disastrous consequences energizes the comparatively recent cultural myths of Faustus and Frankenstein.

The consciousness of the flip side of knowledge is implanted in the human memory like a bad dream. Many of us have learnt to distrust science and technology. But if myth is considered too old fashioned and dated, let us look back to the history of the last hundred odd years. When the allied powers - the self appointed guardians of freedom, democracy, human rights, harnessed the power of the atom to make the authentic thunderbolt of the Gods to vanquish the absolute evil of Hitler, did they but know that 50 years later the same authentic weapon will become the scourge of civilization in the hands of Bin Laden and his ilk. You can bring technology into being for very pious, very humanitarian, very utilitarian reason, but how can you deny access to people who want to use it for precisely the opposite reason. How do you prevent small minds getting hold of, and abusing these big secrets of nature? You can clone Mother Teresa, but there is a countervailing risk that the Ladens, Hitlers and Jack the Rippers may be crawling over the surface of the planet, through this same technology.

So let us tarry a while. Let us have a wider debate. Let us not put blind faith in a body of people who can’t decide for us whether it is bad to make war or kill a man, or to rob him, or sleep with one’s own mother. I for one, am prepared to terminate my subscription to eternal health and happiness, considering the risks. I know I am exposing myself to the charge of intellectual Ludditism but that shouldn’t deter humbler folks like us from asking silly questions, stupid questions, even inadmissible questions. It is a lot better than being dumb, driven, and mute.

Fathers’ Day

This piece was written for the Patna edition of the Times India and it appeared in its magazine section on 28 June 2009.

---

My children had already called me to wish “Happy Father’s Day”, when I was invited to write this piece. I was still wondering about this new convention, awkward as I feel, even accepting birthday greetings. But I guess we must be devoted consumers; must go and buy the greeting cards, flowers, short mail each other messages, Twitter all the time, see and be shown on Facebook. Which is perhaps just as well! It is a good idea to set a day apart for the old man, another one for the dame as well, who is very affectionate but sometimes insistent to the point of being obtrusive. The poor overworked creature, his mind bristling with a multiplicity of agenda, hauling his body from one meeting to another, navigating the traffic, always late on arrival, always late for departure, can not be bothered with filial concerns on a daily basis!

People of my generation - I was born in the 50s - celebrate Gandhi Jayanti, Prohibition Day, Vigilance Day (or week) etc. with the same meticulousness and in the same spirit. We remind ourselves, and each other, that we have not forgotten who Gandhi was, why is it important to shun corruption in public life etc. At the same time we go about our business, recognising that the claims of the real world have to take precedence. The younger generation have different sets of icons and rituals to lift their self esteem. They have their Father’s Day etc. The next generation - produced through IVF and cloned, may be - would perhaps wonder what parents are.

But remember him or not he lives there. The biological memory lurks secretly, in your bones, blood, and grey matter. He is there in every thing that you do, in your failings and your success. Nature and nurture together shape your character. But even otherwise, at the conscious level he is never too far away, and a trip to the ice cream parlour with your children triggers the memories of how it used to be when you were a child. “Memory is the zest of life.” The Nobel Prize winning novelist I.B. Singer once said, “It keeps the years together.”

However the memory that lies stored in the layers of your cerebral cortex is not available simultaneously, ready for instant recall. There are others consigned in some neglected corner in the attic of your brain. Still others are like a subterranean spring flowing just below the conscious stratum but scratch it a little and it breaks forth like a stream undulating and gushing forth.

The years spent with my father – he died early by current standards – telescoped into one brief instant and provided me with a bench mark to judge my own experience as father. Anger, disappointment, frustration, disapproval of the ways of the children as well as undue pride in their achievement, the inclination sometimes to believe in them despite evidence to the contrary, is perhaps generational, and we play these twin roles in succession, speaking almost the same cue lines. My father would never tell me what to do. He was neither direct nor didactic. A trained lawyer who did not practice, he had nevertheless the reasoning skill and persuasive ability of the best in the business. His world of sober reflection and my world of cocky self assurance came into regular clash. He would never take me head on. He was a great admirer of Liddelhart, the British military historian, and followed his strategy of indirect approach. Gradually, insidiously he would immerse me in his moral, cognitive world. Sometimes there were arguments, shouting matches, but at the end of the day I was following his advice convinced that this was what I had wanted all along. I wanted to study Physics. My father said it was my fad; I would do much better in English. Several sessions, later I was wondering how I ever thought I could cope with regular classes and long hours in the laboratory! My father encouraged me to believe that I had taken the correct decision by opting for English.

The scenes were revisited a few decades later. Two of my children chose the career they wanted to pursue. We had as many sessions of discussions, perhaps a few more. There was less heat, more illuminating insights. Children were politely persistent. Their arguments were backed by compelling reasons. They had facts on their fingertips.

At the end of the day my children are doing what they wanted to do, but I am still convinced that they are doing my bidding.

Is there room for honest politics?

The citizens are related to their governments in three basic ways. It is they who choose-and boot out - the governments and are thus theoretically the masters. But should the government prove to be irresponsible, inefficient or influenced by criminal elements, they become the victims. If the quality of the various public services and development activities is poor because of the inclusion of corrupt elements they are made suckers of. Whether the citizens shall remain masters, victims, or suckers depends on the correctness of their choice.

Politicians were subjected to a campaign of slander and calumny, in the wake of 26/11, like they had been never before in the history of independent India. The media amplified these voices several times over to make every household reverberate with the message “enough is enough”. It seemed that people would now take charge of their destiny and undertake a radical reform of the political system. But we are almost half way through the elections but if the low percentage of voting suggests anything we are more indifferent than ever. Many of the soldiers of the civil society of the ‘Mumbai march’ variety appear to have departed. Departed and have left behind no addresses. It is pretty much business as usual, and from the looks of it, this election is going to be no different from the many earlier ones. Criminal are as much in vogue as is the power of money and muscles. The manifest centrality of the primordial loyalties- of caste and religion- is very much in evidence. Those who have mastered the instrumentality of the electoral process, the social engineers who can graft, transplant, and repair fissures in the social groups for purposes of electoral mobilization continue to be leaders as they always were. As for their manifestos one can not tell one form the other.

Quite a few serving officers have sought voluntary retirement to join the fray. It would have been a bilateral issue between the political party and the civil servant, were it not for the fact that it leads one to make, mentally, a backward integration of his stay in the civil service. What led the civil servant to believe that a particular political party would chose him as a candidate in preference to a hundred other more committed, long serving grass root party workers? Was he, while in service, acting like a mole for that political party, while enjoying all the securities, immunities and privileges available to a civil servant. And how can a civil servant who earns just enough to keep the body and soul together hope to compete in an arena where the average electoral expenses would be more than the entire salary that he would earn during his career? Democracy is, above all, about equality. If money or caste or a privileged perch in the positions of influence becomes the deciding factor, then, per se, the election ceases to be representative and the inequalities deepen. The entire polity is seized of the fact that political use of money is eroding the solid ground under the electoral democracy and, with every new election, the cost of campaigning rises dramatically. But several utopian drafts to curb and regulate it have failed to see the light of the day

Proximity, nearness, approachability and ready availability of the elected representatives are the hallmarks of electoral democracy. In India, where local government is but fledgling and in formative stages of its evolution, a parliamentary or legislative representation commands great premium and clout in the power system. In this media- soaked age every glamorous toy- boy , dumb doll or smart alec, every well heeled political mercenary or power hungry capitalist feels he is ripe for this last privilege. He may mesmerize the voters by his charm or money but if he wins the seat he is bound to go back to his hugely profitable vocations only to play a few cameo roles in the parliament but leaves his people voiceless and powerless.

Why should a country of young men- people belonging to the 15–35 consist the largest group - be ruled by a geriatric leadership. Age not only leads to the weakening of muscles and arteries, but also the hardening of attitudes, fixity of opinion. The old tend to fight tomorrow’s war with weapons forged yesterday.

Consequently they seem better prepared to handle crises long past than coming challenges. The people of my generation put up with all this since they must, but how do the young take it?

The reasons for disappointment with contemporary politics are so many that it becomes difficult to see the way ahead. More than 50% of the voters abstained from registering their choice is the extreme gesture of withdrawl. Occasionally one may express enlightened opinion, on others, plain disappointment or impatience or some defeated mutterings in the approved manner of the times but rarely does this awareness take the shape of serious and sustained engagement.

The notion that politics is not what it ought to be has led many to cultivate a gentlemanly distaste to engage in this messy activity. The message has been in the air for quite some time that now is the time for all sane, right people to retire to the wilderness of passive armchair contemplation. Someone else must do the clean-up before we can engage in this. Therefore, a large number of us have opted for the role of mute spectators, like ladies up in a pavilion, watching the gladiatorial contest.

One has to be naïve to the point of stupidity to demand absolute honesty from politics and politicians. Granted, there may be some, but you would have to dig for them like an archaeologist or look for them like deep sea divers. So, the search for an absolutely honest politician is in itself a variety of escapism, an excuse for passivity and social disengagement. Talleyrand, the well known French politician, was no paragon of virtue. He was a mountebank and a mercenary; he befriended people only to betray them. An apocryphal story has it that he did not sell his mother only because he could not get the appropriate price. But, he put his country France, beyond the pail of contentious and partisan politics. One may not exactly deduce a set of high principles from his politics but one can certainly arrive at boundary conditions.

A politician is expected to provide sinecures for his caste men and cronies, even bless complete strangers form his constituency, or settle scores on behalf of his supporters. So in a situation like this the question that needs to be asked is not whether politicians are honest; the relevant question would be whether they would be allowed to remain honest, once they are elected to office. One may be accused of moral relativism, even cynicism to suggest that politics is a most precarious vocation and we must not grudge the occasional rewards he picks up, provided his moral and political compass is fixed in the direction of the goals that the nation sets for it. While indulging in small compromises or making course correction, it must always have the ultimate goal in mind. Abraham Lincoln, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves , I would do it; and if I could save the Union by freeing all the slaves I would do it; if I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving some alone, I would do even that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe that it helps save the Union and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union …” We, as citizens , must set the ultimate goal and then judge the performance of our elected representatives with reference to these goals. But can we arrive at a consensus even on a basic minimum of issues? It would be interesting to have a peep in the minds of gen next on this issue.

Politics and political afflictions

A former Chief Election Commissioner observed sometime back that “politicians are the cancer of society”. It is indeed possible to build further on politics as a metaphor for the disease - a familiar literary device from Homer’s Iliad to Camus’La Peste –that is responsible for the many of the dysfunctions of our society.

Politics owes its current morbidity to the original sin of cohabitation with crime in order to gratify its desire for electoral success and subsequent generations have acquired this illicit lust, which is both indiscriminate and indiscreet. The criminal element in politics has metastasized over the years and has now become firmly implanted in the bone marrow of politics. Cancer evokes a feeling of helplessness, of resignation and an existentialist terror in those who are condemned to watch it take its toll of their loved ones. Despite our ritual expression of horror, people accused of murder, rape etc are being courted by all the political parties for the forthcoming parliamentary elections. The civil society finds itself less and less able to count on its antibodies – the institutions, whether formal or informal- because the sentinels themselves have deserted or stand compromised.

On the eve of elections to the various legislative bodies the political arena almost presents the scene of an asylum for victims of senile dementia. Old friends pass each other by as strangers, while implacably hostile enemies hug each other; promises of eternal friendships sours in three days flat, and alliances are made and unmade several times during the course of one electoral season. The consequences of this promiscuity could be perceived as comical were it not for the fact that it concerns such a vital aspect of our lives. In the manner of seasonal transfer of players of the professional soccer league, newly inducted political players are inaugurated on the prime time. In its naiveté or diabolic crookedness –politics believes that the itinerant travelers of the whole political landscape – many of them have traveled from extreme right to leftist extremism and vice versa -are like so much malleable putty, capable of being moulded into any shape, or so many tabula rasa on which you could inscribe any ideology. Like so many robots they are programmable for any performance. The baptismal waters of their new faith debugs them instantly and their memory is erased for being formatted anew.

When confronted with basic issues politics tends to look side ways in an uncomprehending manner or ramble in an incoherent muddled sort of way. How does politics justify the expenditure of such astronomical sums of money on these gladiatorial contests called elections, seasonally and sometimes unseasonably as well, while 300 million of our people live below poverty line? Where do the funds come from? The financial status and criminal antecedents of the contestants, the performance report in respect of earlier promises are issues that are recognized but evaded with cunning and disingenuousness that sometimes characterizes the patients of schizophrenia. Or it resorts to some singularly idiotic arguments. Charged with financial misconduct or corrupt practice its stock response is that worse immorality has been seen. Popular verdict is accorded a sacerdotal value and electoral success is touted as exoneration from guilt as well as investiture with civic virtues.

Political discourse, consequently has itself acquired a hothouse atmosphere. Critical debate has given way to bellicose gestures. Incantatory formula does regular duty for a detailed and rational exposition. Insinuations, innuendoes and invectives are the weapons freely used to occupy the moral high ground. Each one of them has a “secret plan” which the other is somehow aware of - whether to destabilize the government, fracture the unity of the country, or subvert the cause of social justice; (Foreign hand is a flavour that is out of favour this season! ). It is impossible to list out all the insecurities of a paranoid mind. Unsure about the most vital points of their self-definition they define themselves in terms of opposition to the other. So a secular alliance is the one, which does not have anti-secular elements in it. Some other alliance may declare itself to be the sole custodian of both ideology and memory precluding the possibility of any debate. Very often no party is in a position to frame clear issues of public policy, which can be debated without reference to the a priori culpabilities of the Other, or categories of exclusion. It is much easier to catch people’s attention by appealing to their prejudices ignorance or insecurity rather than their reason. So these weaknesses are not only pandered to but also systemically inculcated in its particular constituency. The illusory, irrational quality of political debate becomes deathly real only when elected representatives sometimes get physical in the august precinct of the house.

Myopia again is the easiest affliction to manage. One can get a suitable pair of glasses. But the debilitated contemporary politics, finds itself unable to walk to the nearest optician. Instead it chooses to reduce the world to its myopia. The perspective on future is condensed to the next election and on many an issue of grave importance, its thinking shows the same tawdry, Lilliputian character. No wonder that politics fails to read the writing on the wall, clear to even someone with a vision of 6/60, that prohibition against cohabitation with crime is no longer a moral injunction but a medical necessity.

The Age of Reason recognized the relation between social environment and physical well being which revolutionized our thinking on hygiene and cleanliness in our personal lives as well as our physical environment. It is to be hoped that the widespread disaffection with criminal politics will be similarly translated into some activism in the realm of moral and intellectual hygiene in the public sphere. The hundreds of millions of the voters of the country could certainly impose an effective quarantine against crime, fumigate the contaminated public spaces and start all over again. The new millennium justifies this millinery hope.

Bihar – the siege within

Migrants from Bihar have been served urgent notices from time to time, in many states of their own country, to pack up and go home. After Assam, Maharashtra, Punjab, Delhi, Goa and Tripura which other state is going to discover that it is these Bihari migrants who carry the bacillus of dirt, filth, disease and crime and infect the host state and hence it is not safe to have them with in their borders?

The Biharis are subject to persecution which is both random and routine because the mere label of Bihari seems to have become a necessary and sufficient cause. Snide remarks if they are lucky, and savagery if they run out of luck, are constantly at their heels. They are the Jews without the redeeming and comforting assurance that they are God’s chosen people. George Steiner once said, “When he is pelted in Argentina or mocked in Kiev, the Jewish child knows that there is a corner of the earth where he is the master, the gun is his. ”

But Biharis know that they have severed their umbilical chords with their homes. They must rough it out and resist the strong emotional tug, especially in times of crisis, to go back home. Because for many of them their home is only a country of the mind, without the wherewithal to sustain all its inhabitants.

Migrants in search of livelihood or better opportunities are often viewed with suspicion, because they do not fit the cognitive, linguistic or the cultural map of the world they migrate to. They also compete for jobs, sometimes drive down wages and hence arouse hostilities of the local people. But in our times, the politically produced xenophobia by parties like the MNS is the most common threat. Mumbai has seen sporadic campaign against outsiders and currently the north Indians are at the receiving end. One does not know how real is the threat of cultural inundation but in view of the recent delimitation of parliamentary constituencies the concentration of migrants in urban areas does raise anxieties of the political kind. Levi Strauss who has spent a lifetime studying the strategies of various groups in coping with the threat by groups designated as the ‘other’ or ‘stranger’ suggests that alternative but complementary strategies of assimilation, exclusion or extermination have been resorted to in order to tackle the problem of aliens, and strangers. The Biharis have seen a mixture of all the three strategies resorted to against them.

In the cosmopolitan Mumbai, it is being decreed that the bhaiyas must now adapt themselves to the local ways, learn the local language, and adopt local customs. The topical bone of contention is the festival of chath, which is celebrated with great devotion and fervour by many Biharis. In short amnesty would come their way only on condition that they cultivate voluntary amnesia; abdicate their right to be themselves, slough off their Bihari identity and grow a new skin. So when a couple of hundreds of them are harassed, or dozens of their taxis are burnt, even a few of them are killed to feed the media beast, the mobs goaded by the upwardly mobile politician are only advancing the cause of cultural assimilation. If the bhaiyas do not deliberately court amnesia of the mental kind, the amnesia of the physical kind can be induced by obliterating and consigning to the memory hole the means of their meager sustenance, be it their taxi, their thela or small shop.

Those who are spearheading the campaign know it only too well that it is these migrants, who live cheek by jowl in the congested areas, who are so undemanding and are largely cut off from municipal services, keep the city going by their taxis, thelas, khatals, and dhobi ghats. But the political mind is also aware that the mob impulse of hatred is the surest glue to keep their flock together, as also the easiest method to enlist many more to their fold. So long has it occupied itself with the mathematics of fracturing society into viable total of fractions that the political mind has become obsolete and incapable of devising capacious and inclusive policies. On occasions like this a call to solidarity against the common enemy helps displace the awareness from intractable problems. The misfortune of the migrant Biharis serves to keep the political pot boiling for their reluctant hosts, as well as well as their champions back home. Ideally such occasions should compel deep and honest introspection in Bihar, and reinforce the determination to pull Bihar by the bootstraps. But all that it does is to unleash jingoism of the worst kind and we tend to overlook the fact that the poor cannot afford to have too much pride. The fragile political consensus witnessed in the aftermath of Rahul’s killing was but transient and spent itself in a mindless agitational violence. In the end all that it achieved was the destruction and vandalisation of its own meager resources instead of some constructive activism.

The civil society in Bihar appears to have abdicated all responsibility towards it self by delegating power in the hands of politicians. The more there is a perceived need for concerted action in the realm of civil society, the more socially disengaged we seem to become. To take just one issue which has become a trite and timeworn cliché –the creation of a Bihari identity- would indicate our commitment to our state. It has been in wide currency for quite some time now and yet how many strides have we taken towards extinguishing all other loyalities to forge this identity?

The Bihari fleeing from his persecutors is reduced to his casteist identity no sooner than he enters his own home state. It seems that the landscape of Bihar itself, the cultural environment educes a different but deeply internalized sense of identity and belonging. It is the caste, which is the whetstone upon which he sharpens his sense of himself. Neither distance, nor cultural separation could obliterate it. Even in distant lands and foreign countries the Biharis are reported to have separate caste associations. For in the view of a large part of Bihari society, the existential question is defined solely and squarely in casteist terms: who are you and what is your justification for being? To answer this question means that you recognize not only your privileges and obligations, entitlements and opportunities but also position yourself in, however subtle a manner, on the chessboard of caste alignments. There are no exemptions from this fate, whether you are a career politician, academician, doctor, or a civil servant. It must be reiterated that in Bihar the ‘political” necessarily means a no holds barred competitive casteist struggle. In its wake it has brought the political way of doing every thing. So it is no surprise that universities and colleges turn out to be casteist outposts and the struggle to wrest them out of the control of rival groups witnesses the whole hearted involvement of every appurtenance of the polity. (The author had an occasion to investigate, under the orders of the Patna High Court the award of a fraudulent and bogus degree to the wife of a senior IPS officer. His report running in more than 70 pages, which deals with the rot in universities, is available in the Patna High court library. Brief references can be had in the following

http://www. indiatoday. com/itoday/20010806/education. shtml

http://www. liberalsindia. com/freedomfirst/ff457-03. html

Recruitments to public services often carry vague insinuations of casteist preferences. If the various reports that appear, from time to time, in the local news papers were to be believed, the caste composition of officers is also delicately factored into their transfers and postings and requirements of professionalism sometimes take a back seat to maintaining the caste balance. There is a popular perception that the administration in Bihar during particular regimes has been characterized by a colossal waste, because in these dispensation there are always some elements who have to be suffered but kept out of action. A deliberate retrenchment of the available human resources is by now an accepted method of personnel management. So at any given time there is a significant body of public servants, - sulking, alienated and withdrawn- because they think they do not belong to the winning combination, therefore, are either indifferent to the prospects of project Bihar, or are secretly longing for its failure. When the administration becomes so polarized, public policy problems get bogged down in a mental swamp, and a severe governance deficit is the inevitable outcome. The traditional merit based methods of governance faced with a problem like this, finds itself stumped, because these have not been dealt with in the standard literature on public administration. To break this impasse a new public sphere needs to be created where non-partisan, apolitical body of people could engage in critical debate, build mutual trust and a sense of commonality to counter this pre modern mindset. The point needs considerable elaboration and shall be taken up some time later.

But should these proposals appear to be too optimistic or too impractical to carry out, it would be well worth referring to the original provocation to the MNS- the celebration of Chath by the Biharis in Mumbai. Those who have observed the Chath celebrations in Bihar would agree that it appears as if human nature had changed on those three days. The mutual good will, fellow feeling, spirit of volunteerism and the culture of compliance shown by the people, transports Bihar into idylls of an existence where police, municipal services, and even the government seem to have become dispensable. Only if the Biharis could learn the formula for this magical transformation, and make these three days last three months or even thirty days! They would then have people queuing up to come to Bihar and not otherwise

The Letter From The Grave is a compelling document .Lasantha is-was - not such a well known figure outside his own country, but this one letter has become a testament of courage- whatever his politics or affiliation.A reaction to his letter. The link to LETTER FROM THE GRAVE is provided below:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2009/01/letter-from-the.html#entry-more
DESTROYED BUT NOT DEFEATED
With all the violence and counter violence, taking place in Sri Lanka an uninformed bystander is hardly in a position to judge the case. Lasanta Wickramatunga’s letter published posthumously states the truth of the Sri Lankan situation, as he saw it. What he says is pretty much the standard critique of regimes caught up in the sorry spectacle of fighting terrorism on their soil; his absolutist defence of freedom, human rights, his mixing up of ethical concerns on issues related to war and peace, run counter to the global culture of common sense which insists that liberal democracies can not fight terror through a strict and legalistic adherence to the liberal values. But Lasantha’s words bear the stamp of a rare authenticity and sincerity; their truth is attested, by the extraordinary career of the man, who lived and died for what he stood for. He played his part with great conviction and élan. By courting his death the man himself towers so much above the controversies that he created that it would be impertinence to quibble about them today.


The Letter From The Grave is bereft of any rhetoric. Stark in its simplicity, frugal and almost pared to the bone, it betrays no trace of emotion, there is no straining after effect, no dramatization of self pity, even though the occasion provided for memorable last lines. His account as to why even the President, who is his personal friend, would be compelled to connive at his death is stated in a deadpan tone of reportage and is almost sympathetic in its explanation of his motive and compulsions. Lasntha’s stoicism in face of the imminent death- the two abortive attempts on his life had left him in no doubt- and the quiet certitude and detachment with which he pursued his normal vocation, reminds us of Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, waiting for his assailants to come.
“Death will come to me when I am worthy,
And if I am worthy, there is no danger
I have therefore only to make perfect my will.”
T S ELIOT: MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL
Bravery in face of death is a rare attribute .The brave warrior who casts derision upon death is always chancing his courage and his combative skills against the opponent, where should he succeed, power and material gains are on offer. If not martyrdom and a pace in the hall of fame is always reserved. The jihadi terrorist courts death and thereby nullifies the strategy of counter terror. What kind of a threat do you hold out to some one who himself comes seeking it, in order to advance his goal of hatred and polarization of opinion .The Jihadi is no longer a conscious, rational, moral agent but an automaton who is controlled by his handlers. He seeks his reward in the hereafter. In both the cases there is something in wager. The one is pursuing power the other glory.
The friend of none other than the President himself, Lasantha certainly knew the rewards of conformism and the perils of independence. But he chose to wage a relentless campaign against the establishment, heeding to his call of “conscience” , because, “if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted.” Lasantha reminds us of the deep alienation from our own truths, because in a world concerned exclusively with power and advantage, our consciences have long since become equal shares, or at least a sleeping partner, in all our activities. The poignant urgency of the letter and its disturbing import, is on account of the fact that Lasantha makes it appear, as if renouncing a life of power and advantage is the easiest thing to do and dying in the defence of these cherished values is only normal human decency, thereby denying us the comforting thought, that heroic deeds are not for every one. His courage, commitment and public spiritedness have to be measured against the petty concerns for security and self preservation, the extraordinary passivity and indifference of many of us, in face of issues of urgent concern. It is the death of people like Lasantha that keeps the human enterprise going, sustains our belief in the values that we cherish, and renews our belief in the profession of journalism, as one of the most important, in an open society.

Intellectual Terrorism

These are the first thoughts on reading Ms. Roy's article 9 is not 11 .

---

Every time the Indian state is in the cold glare of international publicity, whether it is its nuclear explosion, its difficulties in Kashmir etc, or the massacre in Mumbai, Ms Arundhati Roy author of God of Small things and intrepid writer of polemical essays discovers her moment of glory. Predictably enough she has chosen to engage in her favourite pastime of berating the Indian state on the Mumbai terror; to remind us that the comeuppance should hardly surprise any one. Ms Roy locates the root of the problem in the specific policies followed by the Indian state, the injustice and discriminatory treatment of its minorities, its callousness towards its own poor etc. As a creative writer of repute she brings no original insight into the unyielding dilemma of terrorism but only "restate(s) a case that has, over the years, already been made …. passionately, eloquently and knowledgeably" in several thousand words. Ms Roy knows "it's all been said and done before" yet she feels compelled to "say our line". Before we engage with her Mumbai Was Not India's 9/11 it would be useful to locate Ms Roy herself in the context of the global discourse on terror and why she says the things that she says. "If protesting against having a nuclear bomb implanted in my brain is anti-Hindu and anti-national, then I secede. I hereby declare myself an independent, mobile republic…. I own no territory. I have no flag. I'm female, but have nothing against eunuchs. "(The End Of Imagination). So Ms Roy is not speaking as a sympathetic Indian grieving at the things that have gone wrong and need to be righted, but as a secessionist, as a hostile alien indulging in virulent propaganda. No wonder there is such a congruence of views between her, the Lashkar-e-Tayaba and the hawkish opinion in Pakistan. She marshals pitiless evidence only to subtly, subliminally degrade the fetish objects of her hate-the Indian state, its security apparatus etc. But at the same time she provides a platform for the views of people like Hafeez Saeed, and goes to great length to explain the extenuating circumstances for the diminished responsibility – if at all they are responsible for their acts-of the fidayeen destructive and self destructiveness of the terrorist and their handlers. "What we are experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds". The Mumbai attack has ushered in a new civilizational threat wherein soi disant stateless intellectuals, take it upon themselves to explain and contextualize the acts of mass murder and wanton destruction of terrorists disowned by their own state. There is another reason why Ms Roy can not find herself at peace with herself. The self confessed "fame junkie" that she is, suffers from withdrawal symptoms, if she is denied "the applause, the flowers, the photographers, the journalists", for any length of time. These essays which stir a great deal of controversy act as the much needed 'fix' for the publicity addict. But we still have this essay to contend with. The ugly communal incidents of the recent past have certainly been some of the worst in our political history. But these are local environments of oppression and injustice and can not be conflated over the whole body politic, to tar by the same brush the entire country to an extent that we have even "forfeited the right to our tragedies". Justice to all its citizens and the protection of their human rights are worthy goals no doubt for every state to pursue, and our record has certainly not been flawless, but which state as a model has she in mind while handing her damning indictment. Does she fancy the standards set by the Taliban, the achieved utopia of the army of the pure, where decapitating and dismembering people according to whatever jurisprudence is in vogue, or the summary punishment of death, decapitation, or externment handed out by the left extremists in the areas –liberated – they hold sway, to the "class enemies" Chastised perhaps by the example of Mohan Lal Sharma, Karkare and the two other police officers did their dying in the full public view under the eyes of the camera. But in her secular enthusiasm Ms Roy exchanges one form of extremism for another and insinuates some foul play because Karkare had unraveled the Malegaon case against Hindu terrorists. A rhetorical shape shifter that Ms Roy is, she has one voice for the terrorist and the other for the defenders of the Indian state. Justly proud to be a woman, she has nothing against the eunuchs but does that lead her to harbour such a deep seated prejudice against all the brave and committed members who bear arms to defend the state and society to take on these apocalyptic terrorists, so as to deny them their humanity and all that goes with it – the dignity of an honourable death, the glory of martyrdom.

Ms Roy will not give up though. "So already the neat accusation against Pakistan is getting a little messy ". The problem lies not with the evidence but her disposition because she can not bring herself to believe that the Indian state has a case or that its enemies can ever be wrong.