My reflections on Indian Elections 2009

[Partly inspired by Vikram's blog on the same topic.
Check it out here -> http://vikrams3.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/return-of-the-economist-my-reflections-on-indian-elections-2009/
The same disclaimer applies here as well. All the ideas expressed below are solely my own personal opinions and you are welcome to disagree. Well, see the previous post if it helps - Celebrate the differences. I am not a an expert in Indian Politics. So kindly pardon any factual errors. Take only the spirit of the article.]

I am happy that a stable Govt. is being formed at the centre. But is that the end of it? UPA can surely put some progress on its report card but I don't think it can do anything radical to change the face of India for the good. UPA has good(!) administrators but no great thinkers. They don't have the out of box thinking. Two examples to reinforce this view. The UPA CMP says it all. UPA has a common minimum programme and sticks to it. That is what anybody would do. Any sane average person given the power would do whatever is listed in CMP. What is so great about UPA then. It is just a middle class head of a house who manages things so that there is no unhappiness and the standard of living improves gradually over the time. This is perhaps one reason why most of the other parties would have no ideology issues with congress. This is also the reason why any party could go straight and give unconditional support to UPA. Another "out of the box" example - Most of the other parties gave out radically different speeches in the least (may it be Varun Gandhi or Mulayam Singh - what they said may be absurd - but nonetheless they thought differently) while Congress remained silent hiding under the same old CMP kind of manifesto.
The most recent problem of terrorism (or is it not very recent?) has been handled in the most sluggish way. When there is someone attacking our home, we should not form committees to discuss the issue. Sama, Bheda and dana are for the human beings, not for the Rakshasas - danda is the only way (the way in which Sri Lankan Govt. dealt with the LTTE, of late).

Congress doesn't do anything radical. Congress has its own 50 year old ideas and pushes them at the slowest pace. The leaders at Congress have learnt to govern the country purely by experience, no skills there. Just as a carpenter son/daughter learns it from his/her carpenter father/mother. (Perhaps Rahul Gandhi has not learnt it very well yet and hence doesn't get to be the PM this time!) Astonishingly they do it quite well, as long as we are satisfied with only a marginal growth and development.

Only hope is that the "sustained progress" is sustained and pray that no new problems come up with the UPA on for the next term. However, progress is definitely assured as Dr. Manmohan Singh continues as PM. Yet another hope is that he would be allowed to think and make decisions on his own this time.

India is blessed.

PS: Sama, bheda, dana and danda are four of the seven diplomacy techniques kings were supposed to use in ruling their kingdom.
PPS: Rakshasas are demons, or the present day terrorists (Rakshasas were in fact, better!)

The present day "Joint family"

My intention in this post is to put down my views on the joint family system for the present day world with a personal example. Family is the smallest social unit, though people opine that families can be broken down into individuals (I disagree). India has a long tradition of joint families with three to four generations of family members living together. Live examples can still be found in Rajasthan where there many joint families with over 300 members each. Joint families have a huge number of advantages. The social support, value sharing, responsibility, mutual respect and resource sharing being the main ones. The support from our family is first and foremost for whatever we do. Mr. Venkatesh, (a notable Indian economist), in one of his lectures, claims that it is the Indian family system which holds Indian economy fairly stable. He also claims that the current resource crunch can be avoided if everyone lives in a family - sharing of resources.

All said, a joint family is what I would love to live in. But how practical is it in the present India?

Joint families are a rarity in Indian cities now for known reasons. "Nuclear family" is the keyword. But the concept of a joint family can be extended to the present day. That is what I would call a "Non-physical" joint family, as could be contrasted with a joint family with everyone physically living together. The abstract notions which bond the family is still there, except that the members are now not together in space.

My own example: Our family is one such well knit unit. Though all of us do not stay together, the entire family is one unit for all purposes. All decisions are taken together. With the current information age, there is no communication barrier. My mother speaks to her sister atleast for an hour each day - There is no barrier at all. We meet very often whenever possible. We celebrate festivals and other occasions together. So it is effectively a single family - but spread out in space, hence my notion of a joint family. It has all the components of a joint family.
The level of support and bonding in my family is best shown by the following incident. I had my B.Tech convocation on 31-01-2009. My entire family was present at my convocation. Two nephews, two mothers (my mother and my big-mother), two sisters, two mamas(uncles - I dont call them uncle!), my father and my brother. My sister's family had come down from Belgaum just for the convocation. This enormous family support can be expected only from a well bonded joint family. Proud to be in a Joint family!

Concluding, joint family system at the least helps us lead a value based life and develop mutual respect, in spite of differences - an absolute necessity in today's world with so many differences. A practical joint family model for the present day might make some positive difference to the world if adopted. Finally, its all in the mind and the heart.

Ajay

The Indian Identity - Part 1

This series of posts is inspired by the talk I attended on 1st October at IISc on "U-Turn Theory: How the West Appropriates Indian Culture" by Shri. Rajiv Malhotra. It provided an insightful and glaring picture of Intellectual plagiarism by the West. The speaker is the Chairman, Center for Indic Studies, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and the Founder-Director, Infinity Foundation, Princeton New Jersey.
More details on Shri. Rajiv Malhotra can be seen here.

The abstract of the U-Turn Theory-(Source: http://www.deeshaa.org/2006/02/16/rajiv-malhotras-u-turn-theory/):
Westerners appropriate Indic ideas through a process which Rajiv Malhotra has called the U-Turn. In its basic form the U-Turn Theory states that a member of the dominant Western culture first whole-heartedly learns the Indic tradition. He or she, for a variety of reasons, then repackages it and projects the knowledge gained from India from within his/her own culture. The next thing you know is that s/he claims these ideas were always an integral part of Western culture. Some, but not all, also start demonizing the source Indic traditions using a lot of pretexts, such as calling them “world negating” or accusing them of “human rights” abuses. As an example, Malhotra has examined on how Jung appropriated much from Indic thought - including key ideas of collective unconscious, archetypes, and synchronicity - but did the classical U-Turn from Indic thought. In all, Malhotra has done 50+ case studies of such U-Turns, and each has its own story as to why and how it was done. U-Turns have played animportant role in shaping Western ideas, literature and popular culture; yet they are typically ignored in discussions on the history of ideas. The U-Turn Theory also explains that many Indians internalize the Western adaptations of Indian culture and re-import them into India: For instance, Tantric healing is more fashionable as “energy healing” or as reiki; yoga’s return to India’s Westernized middle class owes a lot to the West’s adoption of it; and Western research on cognitive science and neuroscience includes yogis who are mere “subjects.”

He went in detail explaining several examples of such a U-Turn and what should "we" do about it. The areas he covered mainly are:
- Cross Cultural Dynamics, Asymmetric Cultural Exchange
- How Indian Ideas get "Westernised" - The process
- Mainstream Press Examples
- Civilizational Darwinism
- The U-Turn Theory
- Stages in the U-Turn Theory
- Case studies of U-Turn on Ayurveda and Yoga
- Why People U-Turn
- What can we do about it
He ended his talk with a comparison of the state of India under the British Raj and now under a similar Intellectual onslaught from the west.

Each of these topics need a long discussion. I would post my comments on these topic after some thought. Meanwhile you can think too!

He is working on a comprehensive book on U-Turn theory which is scheduled to be released by mid-2009. Another book titled - "Invading The Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America" is also available.

More details on this book here.

He stressed the significance of such U-Turns to Indian Civilization. Such an appropriation, if continued for a long time, will even lead to the complete destruction of the Indian Identity.

More on it shortly.

भवदीयः अजेयः