Today, while sitting in the class and listening to Ranajoy Sir's enchanting lecture on international economics, a memory almost forgotten spontaneously sprung up.
I was in standard third at that time. Due to some event in the family, we had a jar full of toffees in our home. I was allowed to take 1 toffee per day from the jar. Now, there was this fair, innocent-looking and slightly taller than me boy Ravi in the class. Not so bright chap. I had made friends with him only recently. I used to like his company, we made good friends. He saw my habit of bringing a toffee and eating it daily in the recess. He bullied me into bringing a chocolate everyday for him as well. And, if i'm remembering correctly, it was a couple of chocolates more for our(his) friends also. I think this system continued for a week or so. Then one day, one of my unmarried aunts reprimanded me about the fast dipping level of toffees in the jar. I told her nothing about the business with Ravi. Next day, I confronted Ravi, our friendship was broken and he sent me to exile. I know you are following what I'm saying but if you are not sure then let me elaborate that this exile means neither he nor any of his friends would play with me in the recess anymore. I was well aware of this consequence. Ravi had bullied me not with the threat of fighting with me(had he tried that I would not have yielded!) but with the threat of boycotting me. And, boycott he did. After that, i had just a couple of friends in the class who would play with me. I constantly hated and cursed Ravi but i was content and happy with my act of honour and those couple of friends. I guess one to one-and-a-half month passed like this. Then it was the annual exams. One of the first exams was of Art & Crafts. Ravi was seated next to me. He had forgotten his colours. He requested me to share mine with him. Time was not a constraint and sharing was not a problem and i usually would have helped someone who had behaved with me rudely in the past but no- this guy was the leader who had ordered his squad to not to play with me. I decided hell with him. I never gave my colours and since talking in the exams was not allowed, he could not borrow from anyone else; a minor detail- we had 2 seater benches and i and ravi were seated together. I do not know what he did in the exam but he surely would not have failed. Anyways, i love that chance of revenge that dear GOD gave me and the memory of that revenge still leaves a good taste in my mouth. Ahhh!!
I think that this incident was one of the first incidents that really showed that I won't get bullied by numbers or by social pressure. The significance of this incident is not that i confronted the situation, the significance is that even when i was alone i was content because my self-assurance about the righteousness of my deed weighed more than my desire to have lots of friends and be a part of some big society. I have a need for socializing but that doesn't mean anyone can leverage that to his or her advantage at my expense. And here, a non-conformist is born.
Till date, the precedence that was set in standard 3 is bearing its effect as there have been many situations where i was a loner, and a loner by choice i was. One such spell was when i was in 10th class, another one in senior secondary high school and to some extent and for some time, in my undergraduate college also. And it was not always due to some righteous stand that i took, many a times it was for a profit motive as i believed that i could make better use of my time in my way and for my way to happen, i had to be alone. And can't say whether this strategy of being a non-conformist works or not because i know i have grown and seasoned for sure, but i'm not your conventional winner boy.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Saturday, April 10, 2010
India equation: Red is equal to White
My childhood was stolen from me. Wait, that's too dramatic and rather inaccurate. Now. I was driven away from my childhood. I grew up under the stress of studies. Excellence is good but achieving it is stressful. I was required to adapt continuously. And, adapt I did. From poem recitation and loud chapter reading to viva voce to Personal Interviews. From pencil to pen to keyboard. I was required to learn new things non-stop even as I never had the time to discover myself. The land mafia and city-municipality have taken away the open spaces and playing grounds from me. Note: some tribal slum dwellers also contributed to my plight by encroaching the land for a park in my colony. Industry and commerce have robbed me of my share of fresh air. Erratic urban development has led to a shortage of clean water for me and my family. Similar but yet grimmer situation leads to suicide by hundreds of students every year. Do we complain? No. But, I do have a grudge against a particular section of our society that wants a very special treatment for itself. They want to keep the natural resources to themselves. They don't want to adapt to the new situations like I did. They don't want to change, they don't want to learn. They want their daily incomes to increase in accordance with the country's increasing per capita daily income, but they don't care about their diminishing percentage share of the country's GDP. And, what's more? they even kill our precious tigers(just 1411 left!) so that they can have the land declared as wildlife-free zone and turn it to farming land. Yes, the group that I despise is the tribal people who feel that they are the only ones being robbed and everyone else's life is all milk and roses. And more than them, I despise their sympathizers. And, Mamta Banerjee also.
India is facing a lot of challenges today....like it always had. Was this not enough that now we have to also deal with and somehow appease the tribals aka Naxals? Naxals say they don't believe in parliamentary and democratic system, and it's their openly stated goal that they want to overthrow the Indian Govt. at all levels. The Naxal ideology is that democracy, judiciary, govt. etc. are all farce and they want a Mao-style communist rule in India. Well, here's a news flash- whatever form of govt. be it, communist, socialist or democratic, the ruling class can always exploit the public to some extent, remember Orwell's classification of population into classes A,B and C in his book "1984"? Well, then how's democracy superior to communism? Now, I do empathize with the tribals over how land and other resources are snatched from them for industrialization and urbanization but consider this- in China, not only the govt. officials suppress and exploit the public, they also rob them of their freedom of speech and other human rights. Just imagine, can Naxals create the same nuisance in China that they create in India? Had they done so, the Chinese govt. would have cracked down heavily on them with their army and without the international community even getting a whiff of it.
Now, let's stop this useless discussion about the form of govt. and get serious. Naxals are adept at the jungle warfare or guerrilla warfare. Now, should we, the civilized people, move back to jungle to learn the rules of fighting in a jungle? Has our modern, educated society spent its precious childhood years in studying science for nothing? Do we pay the taxes and maintain the armed forces for nothing? Nope. We have spent time, money and energy in mastering the sciences and in engineering weapons in all sizes. Let's put it to good use and show those Naxalites the advantages of getting systematically exploited in an urban setting over the sporadic exploitation in a jungle setting, and maybe they would drop their agenda and like to join us by building some new slums in our neighborhood. If they don't, let's do drop some serious bombs on them. And, by the way, hats-off to the India Air Force which despite losing its brave officers to plane crashes due to faulty planes which were purchased by the corrupt govt., still maintains a view that they are not willing to carry out lethal air-strikes against the tribals whose non-participation in the country affairs is partly responsible for the lax govt. that we are having.
India is facing a lot of challenges today....like it always had. Was this not enough that now we have to also deal with and somehow appease the tribals aka Naxals? Naxals say they don't believe in parliamentary and democratic system, and it's their openly stated goal that they want to overthrow the Indian Govt. at all levels. The Naxal ideology is that democracy, judiciary, govt. etc. are all farce and they want a Mao-style communist rule in India. Well, here's a news flash- whatever form of govt. be it, communist, socialist or democratic, the ruling class can always exploit the public to some extent, remember Orwell's classification of population into classes A,B and C in his book "1984"? Well, then how's democracy superior to communism? Now, I do empathize with the tribals over how land and other resources are snatched from them for industrialization and urbanization but consider this- in China, not only the govt. officials suppress and exploit the public, they also rob them of their freedom of speech and other human rights. Just imagine, can Naxals create the same nuisance in China that they create in India? Had they done so, the Chinese govt. would have cracked down heavily on them with their army and without the international community even getting a whiff of it.
Now, let's stop this useless discussion about the form of govt. and get serious. Naxals are adept at the jungle warfare or guerrilla warfare. Now, should we, the civilized people, move back to jungle to learn the rules of fighting in a jungle? Has our modern, educated society spent its precious childhood years in studying science for nothing? Do we pay the taxes and maintain the armed forces for nothing? Nope. We have spent time, money and energy in mastering the sciences and in engineering weapons in all sizes. Let's put it to good use and show those Naxalites the advantages of getting systematically exploited in an urban setting over the sporadic exploitation in a jungle setting, and maybe they would drop their agenda and like to join us by building some new slums in our neighborhood. If they don't, let's do drop some serious bombs on them. And, by the way, hats-off to the India Air Force which despite losing its brave officers to plane crashes due to faulty planes which were purchased by the corrupt govt., still maintains a view that they are not willing to carry out lethal air-strikes against the tribals whose non-participation in the country affairs is partly responsible for the lax govt. that we are having.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Critique of Liberalism
Many people associate liberalism with anarchy because of the misconception that liberalism means lack of rules and regulations. on the contrary, i believe, a truly liberal society needs a bigger and more complex set of rules than what a conservative society needs. Well, liberalism definitely means more freedom, and rules need not always curtail freedom.
i believe that at present, the society treats its individuals like 5-year old children. we don't allow our children to watch violent movies because we believe that this will make violence look trivial to our children and this may make them violent. on similar grounds, the lawmakers don't want cigarette-smoking scenes in movies, claiming that such scenes will popularize smoking among youth. the two cases have one thing that's common and one thing that's different. the difference in the two cases is that while children do have feeble minds and need rules, the adults are supposed to be mature and responsible. now, what is common in both the cases is that rules are acting as a deterrent and preventive measure. and this is my point of contention. i'm not against rules but i'm against rules that are designed as a deterrent. and, why it is so? it is so because it is preventive rules which curtail freedom. there is another category of rules, it is corrective in nature and it does not curtail freedom but such rules are so scarce in society that we hardly notice that such a category exists. here, i must clarify that the term- corrective does not mean reshaping a person's character(as in corrective punishment), rather corrective means something that rectifies the fallout of crime. allow me to explain.
our societies will not legalize drug-consumption and prostitution. now, we all know about the harmful effects of these practices, and i need not elaborate them, but what about the ideals of personal freedom and liberalism? should we simply dump these after championing these causes thousands of times at countless blogs, forums and newspaper columns? well, i do believe that there is a middle path which also happens to be more inclusive. not legalizing these practices is a deterrent, a preventive measure and as i have said earlier, we can design a set of corrective rules which can solve the problem without digressing from liberalism. for example, in case of drugs, the govt. itself can sell drugs through a public distribution channel. further, we can have a drug-license like the driving-license and we could rule that drugs would be sold only to the license-holders. now here is the best part. the problem under consideration is the harmful effects of drugs on the individuals and the society. so, we can make a rule that owing to the damage done to brain by drug-addiction, the voting rights of the drug-license holder will be revoked. the govt. can also share its database of drug-license holders with banks and the credit-rating of such individuals will be zeroed. medical insurance will also be revoked. perhaps, the driving-license can also be revoked owing to irresponsible behavior and addiction. finally, when such an addict becomes unemployed and a financial-zero, then he won't be eligible for govt. schemes for the unemployed and the poor(like subsidized food and fuel). all in all, if a person wants to go down, we uphold the principles of freedom of the individual by allowing him to go down but only after making sure that such a person does not harm others. actually, such an addict would have to pay to the govt. for the license and the drugs and this "revenue" could be used for the education and the healthcare of the deserving productive people.
Recently, in India, there were talks about making voting compulsory for all due to the low voting-turnout. now, this thing certainly is against the very principle of democracy and freedom but we should also have a way for the making the irresponsible and the lazy pay for their irresponsibility and non-participation. here again, the solution is not some childish preventive measure like making voting compulsory, rather it is to design a set of repercussions. consider this; every Member of Parliament is allocated a local-area-development-fund which he can use at his discretion for development within his constituency. now perhaps we can make a rule that the M.P. would be given only that percentage of fund what the voting percentage was in the last election.(albeit, we can have a more sophisticated rule like 100% fund for over 80% voting and zero fund for under 40% voting and an exponential function in the 40-80 range) this scheme can be further extended by assigning weight to the constituency itself and to its representative also on the basis of percentage voting in the last election. this means that the vote of a representative in the assembly/parliament will be directly proportional to the voting percentage. maybe, the funds allocated to all the schemes in a constituency can be made proportional to the voting percentage. all these schemes have the drawback that we are making the whole constituency pay for the non-participation of some irresponsible persons. so, we can design individual based laws also like we can maintain a voting record of every person and if a person misses voting for more than a certain number, then his eligibility for some or all govt. schemes would be revoked. it's simple carrot and stick policy.
the main point behind all these is that you allow every person to do what he like to but you make him compensate for his actions if they are considered to be irresponsible. this is the way to behave with mature citizens, not by making childish, deterrent laws. the bigger picture is that it is the conservative society which needs preventive rules, a liberal society can achieve welfare for all as well as freedom for the individual by using corrective rules. the even bigger picture is that you allow people(who have crossed a certain age and are now classified as adults) to make mistakes and learn from them. this is Evolution after all.
Now some final words on liberalism. liberalism is not just about what kind of rules and regulations you have. its about freedom. opportunities. its like you need to have space; space wherein the lazy can relax and grow fat and the active one can flex and build his muscle. education and opportunities through education is an integral part of liberalism. entrepreneurship and opportunities through entrepreneurship are an integrals part of liberalism. if you have a liberal society and the society is sharply divided into the rich and the poor, then that is not really liberal. in a truly liberal society, a person should have the opportunity to raise himself financially if he is capable and is ready to work for it. the birth of a person should not bound him. similarly, if an irresponsible person has inherited resources, then such a person should be given enough openings to vent out his energies so that he may not bully the masses. the stairs which can take you upstairs can also bring you downstairs. and yeah, in this sense the fiscal bailouts are against the sentiment of liberalism.
i believe that at present, the society treats its individuals like 5-year old children. we don't allow our children to watch violent movies because we believe that this will make violence look trivial to our children and this may make them violent. on similar grounds, the lawmakers don't want cigarette-smoking scenes in movies, claiming that such scenes will popularize smoking among youth. the two cases have one thing that's common and one thing that's different. the difference in the two cases is that while children do have feeble minds and need rules, the adults are supposed to be mature and responsible. now, what is common in both the cases is that rules are acting as a deterrent and preventive measure. and this is my point of contention. i'm not against rules but i'm against rules that are designed as a deterrent. and, why it is so? it is so because it is preventive rules which curtail freedom. there is another category of rules, it is corrective in nature and it does not curtail freedom but such rules are so scarce in society that we hardly notice that such a category exists. here, i must clarify that the term- corrective does not mean reshaping a person's character(as in corrective punishment), rather corrective means something that rectifies the fallout of crime. allow me to explain.
our societies will not legalize drug-consumption and prostitution. now, we all know about the harmful effects of these practices, and i need not elaborate them, but what about the ideals of personal freedom and liberalism? should we simply dump these after championing these causes thousands of times at countless blogs, forums and newspaper columns? well, i do believe that there is a middle path which also happens to be more inclusive. not legalizing these practices is a deterrent, a preventive measure and as i have said earlier, we can design a set of corrective rules which can solve the problem without digressing from liberalism. for example, in case of drugs, the govt. itself can sell drugs through a public distribution channel. further, we can have a drug-license like the driving-license and we could rule that drugs would be sold only to the license-holders. now here is the best part. the problem under consideration is the harmful effects of drugs on the individuals and the society. so, we can make a rule that owing to the damage done to brain by drug-addiction, the voting rights of the drug-license holder will be revoked. the govt. can also share its database of drug-license holders with banks and the credit-rating of such individuals will be zeroed. medical insurance will also be revoked. perhaps, the driving-license can also be revoked owing to irresponsible behavior and addiction. finally, when such an addict becomes unemployed and a financial-zero, then he won't be eligible for govt. schemes for the unemployed and the poor(like subsidized food and fuel). all in all, if a person wants to go down, we uphold the principles of freedom of the individual by allowing him to go down but only after making sure that such a person does not harm others. actually, such an addict would have to pay to the govt. for the license and the drugs and this "revenue" could be used for the education and the healthcare of the deserving productive people.
Recently, in India, there were talks about making voting compulsory for all due to the low voting-turnout. now, this thing certainly is against the very principle of democracy and freedom but we should also have a way for the making the irresponsible and the lazy pay for their irresponsibility and non-participation. here again, the solution is not some childish preventive measure like making voting compulsory, rather it is to design a set of repercussions. consider this; every Member of Parliament is allocated a local-area-development-fund which he can use at his discretion for development within his constituency. now perhaps we can make a rule that the M.P. would be given only that percentage of fund what the voting percentage was in the last election.(albeit, we can have a more sophisticated rule like 100% fund for over 80% voting and zero fund for under 40% voting and an exponential function in the 40-80 range) this scheme can be further extended by assigning weight to the constituency itself and to its representative also on the basis of percentage voting in the last election. this means that the vote of a representative in the assembly/parliament will be directly proportional to the voting percentage. maybe, the funds allocated to all the schemes in a constituency can be made proportional to the voting percentage. all these schemes have the drawback that we are making the whole constituency pay for the non-participation of some irresponsible persons. so, we can design individual based laws also like we can maintain a voting record of every person and if a person misses voting for more than a certain number, then his eligibility for some or all govt. schemes would be revoked. it's simple carrot and stick policy.
the main point behind all these is that you allow every person to do what he like to but you make him compensate for his actions if they are considered to be irresponsible. this is the way to behave with mature citizens, not by making childish, deterrent laws. the bigger picture is that it is the conservative society which needs preventive rules, a liberal society can achieve welfare for all as well as freedom for the individual by using corrective rules. the even bigger picture is that you allow people(who have crossed a certain age and are now classified as adults) to make mistakes and learn from them. this is Evolution after all.
Now some final words on liberalism. liberalism is not just about what kind of rules and regulations you have. its about freedom. opportunities. its like you need to have space; space wherein the lazy can relax and grow fat and the active one can flex and build his muscle. education and opportunities through education is an integral part of liberalism. entrepreneurship and opportunities through entrepreneurship are an integrals part of liberalism. if you have a liberal society and the society is sharply divided into the rich and the poor, then that is not really liberal. in a truly liberal society, a person should have the opportunity to raise himself financially if he is capable and is ready to work for it. the birth of a person should not bound him. similarly, if an irresponsible person has inherited resources, then such a person should be given enough openings to vent out his energies so that he may not bully the masses. the stairs which can take you upstairs can also bring you downstairs. and yeah, in this sense the fiscal bailouts are against the sentiment of liberalism.
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