Dressing up and down

There are a number of things that we simply take for granted and never think about. For instance, when we dress to go to work, we normally follow a pattern, a certain kind of dress, maybe we have selected items of our attire that are kept for the purpose. We dress differently when we go for, say, a wedding. It will be different for, say, an outing. We do take a lot of care about our dress, even if we are not generally very careful about dressing up by the standards of our society. I wonder how many people have thought about the need for being so choosy about our dress. Have you?

What I am going to ask here may shock you. So be prepared. Keep your thoughts about conformity, norms, social customs and so on far away from your mind. Done? Ready? Here goes:

Why do people wear clothes? ..... I mean, why do we at all wear clothes? Did your face change colours? Yellow, red blue ... ? Now you know what I meant. Hope the explosions are over. If so, just think of an answer.

Of course, the standard answer is there: How can we move about in society without clothes? That is preposterous, indecent, unlawful, atrocious, shameful, ... blah blah. Well, I am not interested in these answers. If all other animals in this world could get along pretty well without clothes, why should we, humans, homo sapien sapiens, have to wear clothes? Why do we have to hide our bodies from others?

Now, think of the consequences of wearing clothes. Clothes are used to project an image of oneself on others--an image that is not truly that of oneself. Think of how a rather ordinary looking girl/woman can make herself appear like a real beauty with the help of very pretty clothes (and, of course, makeup). Think of how a person can look imposing with the proper kind of clothes, and how some professors (very knowledgeable person, quite possibly) look like tramps because they do not care to take care of their clothes. And so on, and so on. Just think of how often clothes deceive us.

Think of how it might have been helpful if we were not wearing clothes. For example, someone would notice that there is an unusual discolouration behind one's neck, and the person would be able to meet a doctor before the discolouration developed into something bad. Some of us would also get rid of allergic reaction to synthetic fibres. Or escape the consequences of sweat remaining for a long time at some places. With all those disadvantages, we still wear clothes. Why?

Does anyone have any answers? Let me see. I will wait for some time and see what responses I get. Then I will give my reasons. Scientific reasons, believe me.

Ignorance of Science

Perhaps because I had always been interested in science, and was a researcher till recently, I find it astonishing that many apparently well educated people have a lot of misunderstanding about natural phenomena that have been more or less understood by science. Interestingly, some of these things are taught at school level, and some at college level. Somehow, they don't seem to realise that these facts that they studied are really related to the world around us.

I remember a classmate in M.Sc. whom I met again after about three years or so. Learning that I was doing research in atmospheric physics, he asked me a question about the atmosphere (something like why the sky is blue). I told him that he should know because we had studied this in our M.Sc. class. After listening to my answer, he gazed at the sky for a few seconds and said, "Oh, so all that is real?" I was shocked to say the least. Apparently, many students think that what is taught is just for the examination. I hope things have improved now.

I have had the experience several times, while speaking to school students, that they say that thunder and lightning are caused by two clouds colliding. Some of them have even told me that their teachers told them this. Of course, a couple of school teachers too have told me this. In these situations, I have asked them about their concept of a cloud, and also how they think that there can be two winds from opposite directions that cause the clouds to collide. These have generally led to doubts in their minds.

Now let me explain briefly, for those who do not know, what we believe causes lightning and thunder. There is a type of cloud that stretches from close to the ground up to what is called the tropopause of the atmosphere. (The tropopause is at a height of about 18 km at the tropics and comes down to about 6 km at the poles.) This type of cloud is called cumulonimbus by meteorologists and is popularly known as thunderstorm. Because of its nature, it has strong circulation inside and is therefore avoided even by large aircraft. Since temperature decreases as one goes up, ice crystals exist in these clouds above some height. Though the process is not exactly understood, these ice crystals help to generate electric charges inside the cloud. The top of the cloud is generally positively charged and the bottom negatively charged. As the charge builds up, the voltage increases and eventually it becomes possible for the charge to flow and neutralise. This can happen either from the bottom of the cloud to the ground, between charge centres within the cloud or, if two clouds happen to form close together, from one cloud to the other. This is just like an electric spark that forms when the positive and negative terminals of a battery accidentally get short-circuited or power lines sometimes come close together in strong winds. Thus, a lightning discharge is a huge electric spark and thunder is a huge crackle that is produced in an electric discharge. As electric current passes through air, it heats the air suddenly. This leads to the sudden expansion of the air, which creates a wave that we call thunder.

Recently, I met a well-educated elderly person, with degree in science, and employed in a senior position. He told me that he had always been wondering about how clouds can cause such a huge sound and recently found the explanation in a general knowledge book. He told me that the sound is caused when two clouds collide because there are millions of ice crystals in them. I told him what I know but I am not sure that he was convinced. But then he came out with an astonishing observation. He said that if we go to some height, there is no gravitation, and therefore we can float in the air! He had apparently seen visuals of skydiving and thought that the people were actually floating! Again, I tried to tell him that they were not floating but were actually falling. But again, I am not sure he believed me. He asked whether it is not true that there is no gravitation on the Moon. He had seen people leaping over long distances on the Moon in Apollo videos. I tried to tell him that the gravitational force on the Moon was one sixth that on the Earth, but again I doubt that he believed me.

It is unfortunate that our education system fails to convey scientific facts to the students. This makes people easy targets of charlatans who make a living out of cheating such gullible people.

The Ten Commandments of Mathematics

While I was rearranging my books and papers, I happened to come across this sheet of paper with the Ten Commandments of Mathematics written down. I thought this may interest others too. So here they are:

1. Thou shalt not divide by zero;

2. Thou shalt not multiply any inequality by zero;

3. Thou shalt not mix up different values of a multiple valued function;

4. Thou shalt not invert the order of operations unless inversion is valid;

5. Thou shalt not proceed to determine a quantity unless thou hast established its existence;

6. Thou shalt not generalise from particular cases;

7. Thou shalt not employ divergent series and divergent integrals;

8. Thou shalt not believe by seeing;

9. Thou shalt not depend on intuition alone; and

10. Thou shalt not mix-up the two-way implication and the two one-way implications.

Hope you find these useful!

The Plight of Mental Patients in India

We call a mentally ill person "mad" and throw him/her into an "asylum", and then forget about the person. I don't mean that everyone does that, but a lot of families do that. We think that mental illness is something very different from physical illnesses, something that is probably caused by some "spirits", something incurable. And many people find this a way of eliminating a claimant for property. And some even find this an easy way to get rid of an unwanted spouse. Remember the case of Anjana Mishra, who was put in a mental hospital without even her knowledge, apparently to get rid of her. Fortunately, she found her way out, but how many other women might not have been so fortunate? Remember Ervadi where several mental patients charred to death because they were chained to their beds? We and our hospitals often tend to treat mental patients as though they were not human. This has to stop.

Some time back, when the daughter of a mental patient went to meet her mother in the hospital (Pavlov Mental Hospital, Kolkata) along with a doctor of the hospital, they found all the women in the ward totally nude, as I have explained in an earlier post. Recently, in another hospital, when a patient asked for some more curry, she got a rap on her wrist instead. (Remember Oliver Twist?) These are really nothing compared to what Anjana has written about her stay in the hospital (see the magazine Manushi, issue no. 120). Just a short quote: "The dining hall, situated a little away from the wards, constitutes the most unhygienic part of the entire establishment. Dirty wooden tables line the wall, with the remnants or leftovers of earlier meals, especially, rice and dal particles. Almost a dozen dogs loiter around. The afternoon meal consists of coarse, half-cooked rice, watery dal and a tasteless, odourless curry. All of this put together can kill the appetite of even the hungriest human being. Again, privileged patients, like myself, were entitled to a piece of fried fish, a little curd and a pappad. All the patients eat in a child-like fashion, hogging a mouthful and then taking a walk, then coming back for a second mouthful. The dogs happily lick the plates in this interval. ... Some of the very ill patients even put their food on the floor and have it along with the dogs, while the ayahs in charge exchange gossip." Hospitals give Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT), what we call "shock treatment" without following the norms laid down for it. ECT is supposed to be given only under anesthesia, but then, many hospitals have no anesthetist. ECT is sometimes used as a punishment for not obeying instructios. In most developed countries, ECT is banned. Even the so-called modified ECT is not used in most of Europe and America. Because adverse effects of ECT are reported. There are doctors who admit people without even seeing them, for a consideration. Some time back Tehelka exposed one such doctor. In short, while the condition of mental patients is very bad inside or outside a mental hospital, clever people use these hospitals to get rid of people they don't want.

On the other hand, the social stigma of mental health is so strong, families refuse to accept even relatives who have been cured. Once out of the hospital, former mental patients have often nowhere to go. In most of the cases, they cannot get back to their former jobs, and they cannot find a new job either. Their only recourse most of the time is to go back to the hospital and live the rest of their lives there.

All mental hospitals are overcrowded. The budgetary allocation for mental health is much lower than the need. It is a small fraction of the health budget, but mental patients form a significant fraction of all patients. Many hospitals in the country have no nurses. Sometimes, the hospital Superintendent is not even a psychiatrist.

All this is a big tragedy, and all this has to change. But who will take the initiative? Political parties cannot be interested because mental patients cannot vote, anyway. The hospital staff, doctors, nurses and others, are not interested because the present set up is good for them. The public does not get to know about the issues because hospitals are out of bounds for the ordinary public. But there has to be a change, and the earlier the better. This is a blot on our country, our civilization.

The Story of Stuff

Where do all the stuff we use come from? What happens when we throw them away? For an interesting insight into these questions, take a look at www.storyofstuff.com. Though the story is meant for the US, I think it would be good for every human being to see it, and be sure to watch the entire show. It taught me a couple of things that I never knew. You, too, may gain something. So do not miss it!

Sanal Edamaruku refuses to be killed!

Sanal Edamaruku challenged a senior tantrik, Surinder Sharma, to kill hum using tantra. The encounter was telecast on India TV and the video is now available on YouTube. Be sure to watch all the three parts and spread the word. The tantrik tried four times, every time promising that his victim will feel pain and lose consciousness and finally die. However, Sanal refused to oblige and was finally seen laughing. Interestingly, the tantrik was seen pressing Sanal's forehead, doing something with his hands, moving his head around, and so on. If the tantrik needs physical access to the person, then, I guess, the easiest way is to poke a sharp knife (which the tantrik was seen brandishing at one time) into his heart! Congratulations to Sanal for this feat! I am pretty sure there would be people who would explain this off. They are sure to have excuses. The presence of the camera disturbed the tantrik, Sanal was protected by his god (an excuse the tantrik himself gave, to which Sanal said that he did not believe in any god!), the tantrik was not given sufficient peace to be able to concentrate, and so on. I am sure there would be many to believe these excuses, too.

Every few days or so, we see news about some tantrik killing or injuring someone in the name of revenge or treasure. It is pitiable that in this age we still have in India people who blindly believe such things. Recently, a woman was tied up and beaten on the excuse that she is a witch! All this is due to the failure of our economic and educational system. People resort to such things, I guess, mainly due to a sense of insecurity aided by ignorance. Can we hope that this episode will bring some relief from such exploitation? I wonder.

Incidentally, Sanal is the son of Joseph Edamaruku, who was a leading rationalist in Kerala. Joseph, I think, was the person behind the Rationalist Association and the magazine Yuktivadi.

Female Mental Patients kept Naked

Female patients at the government-owned Pavlov Mental Hospital in Kolkata were found to be kept naked. This was found out when the daughter of a patient was taken to the ward to see her mother. The excuse given was that the clothes had gone for wash!! This is shocking, by itself. But what I found really shocking is something else. When the patient's doctor, who took the patient's daughter to see her mother, reacted to the treatment meted out to the patients, the employees there protested and started an agitation against the doctor!! The doctor refused to apologise. Peace returned only after the Superintendent apologised on behalf of the doctor! Apparently, the nurses thought that keeping the patients naked was not a big issue!!!

I am not going to discuss what happened. Information is available from several websites such as The Hindu, the Telegraph, FRIDA and so on. But I would like to look at the reasons why such things (which are not all that uncommon) happen.

When something like this becomes known, what the government does usually is to order an enquiry (which has been done in this case too). However, no one seems to look into why such things happen. I think this is more important than understanding what happened. How can some employees leave some helpless women patients totally naked? In fact, how can hospital employees leave any patient naked? How can women employees feel that there is nothing wrong in this? How come people become so insensitive? What is happening to our society?

I have to give special emphasis to these questions since people go to hospitals because they have problems, not for a holiday (though, apparently, there are hospitals where the wealthy go for a holiday). And what they expect are solutions to their problems, not more problems. And answers to these questions are essential if we are to ensure that such things are not repeated.

I have a few possible answers, one or more of which could have some truth. The first is that the hospital does not have enough money or manpower for proper functioning. This is a possibility since this is the condition in many government institutions.

Another possible answer is that the employees are not given proper training to handle patients, real people with real problems (mental or physical). In the case of mental patients this is particularly important since they are unable to react or demand their rights. Their situation is worse than that of criminals in prisons. No one takes what they say seriously. Therefore, nurses and other staff in mental hospitals need to be trained especially to be sensitive and empathetic to the patients and not treat them like objects, like just names in the register, like numbers in a roll. Are they trained for that at the nursing schools or after recruitment? This has to be ensured by the government. Ill treating mental patients is not going to help bring cure, even if they are given medicines.

But a question may be asked whether people can be trained to be empathetic, to be sensitive. The question is very appropriate, since these qualities are often imbibed or cultivated over a number of years. And this leads to my third explanation: Is the recruitment process appropriate? Does it select people who can handle this kind of a job? It is heartening to see that a doctor protested the treatment to the patients. We sometimes (often?) see doctors behave without empathy to their patients, doctors who behave as though their patients are just like the cadavers they have operated upon in their medical school. I have heard of doctors who wait for their bakshish to reach them before fixing the surgery of cancer patients who are suffering, whose relatives are running from pillar to post to save their bread-winner. This happens because individuals who have no aptitude for service (after all, treatment is a service) become doctors due to various reasons. What the government should do is to ensure that the selection process weeds out such individuals. This may not be as easy as it sounds, but I feel that aptitude is not one of the considerations in recruiting people for jobs, especially such jobs.

Will the government of West Bengal consider these aspects in the enquiry they conduct? Or will the enquiry remain a fact-finding mission and some scapegoats be found to tide over the present problem? I hope they will not, though my mind tells me they will.

Richard Peet---Geography against neo-liberalism

This is an interview I had with Prof. Richard Peet at Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, when we met during the International Conference on Critical Geography in December, 2007, which no one wanted to publish.

Prof. Richard Peet is a well-known Marxist Geographer. He has a B.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics, an MA from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He works in the Clark University in the United States. His areas of interest include: social and economic geography, political ecology, liberation ecology, development theory, geography of consciousness and rationality, philosophy and social theory, iconography, semiotics, and critical policy studies. He has published several popular books including Geography of Power, Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO, Liberation Ecology and Theories of Development (with Elaine Hartwick). A very friendly and sensitive individual, he speaks with a lot of passion especially when he talks about poverty and neo-liberalism. He was recently at the Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, to participate in the 5th International Conference on Critical Geography. In this interview that was started in Mumbai and completed through e-mail, Prof. Peet speaks about poverty in India, neo-liberalism, the Indian left and so on.


Q: Prof. Richard Peet, Welcome to India. Is this the first time you are visiting India?

A: Yes, it is. I have been in India only five days.

Q: How do you find India?

A: India has made a deep impression on me. I have never seen the depth or extent of poverty I have seen here anywhere in the world. I have visited many poor countries, and lived in such countries, as for example South Africa, one of the most unequal countries in the world. But nowhere have I seen so much poverty. I was in Delhi before I came to Mumbai, and one moment stands out. When traveling in Delhi by car, beggars come up to you when you stop anywhere, especially when they see a white person. This has happened many times. But one moment stands out. A little girl, about 5 years old, came begging in the usual practiced way, mournful face, hand pointing to mouth, and
everybody rejected her. I did too. She was talking to herself as she went from car to car. She has lost her childhood in this way. I was thinking what it must be like for a child to grow up being rejected a thousand times a day, instead of being re-inforced, told she is wonderful, hugged and kissed by her Mum and Dad. That night I called my wife and tried to tell her about this. I could not complete the conversation because I became so emotional. And here in Mumbai, along the road, little naked kids play inches away from trucks, cars, taxis. I even saw a couple of boys flying a home-made kite over the traffic. What a mess. India needs hundreds of millions of new houses, with good services, in pleasant places, so its children can grow up ... happily.

Q: That leads to a very important question. Why do you think, after sixty years of independence, we have failed to effectively address the question of poverty?

A: I think it failed because the development model that has been used has been totally inadequate in meeting the problem. What we need is to be able to generate a large number of productive jobs, you know, to make most of the people productive in society making useful goods and useful services. There were some indications of that in the early days when there was still some degree of socialist commitment in India. But that has dissipated. And now we have the neo-liberal model but it's never going to do it. That model will never be able to produce the number of jobs necessary to end poverty. Even China, which has been supposedly successful using this development model for the last fifteen years, is ridden with inequalities to the extent that, even in difficult circumstances, there are eighty thousand major protests each year. And protesters in China are not only beaten with the cane, as with India, but also imprisoned, tortured and shot for taking part in those demonstrations. So even the most successful case of using the neoliberal model has produced that level of inequality. It just shows the whole neo-liberal model to be completely inadequate to solving the kinds of problems faced by the masses, the peasants and workers in China, India and elsewhere in the Third World.

Q: We are standing in Mumbai, which is possibly the most industrialised city in India. But we find abject poverty also here, with people living even inside concrete pipes meant for drainage. Why does this happen?

A: It is because this model deliberately siphons income to super rich people. It disguises this by saying: "Look, to develop we need people to invest. For investment to happen we need people with money. So rich people should have large incomes in order to raise capital. They are the people who are going to invest and create jobs.'' This is a corrupt idea. Rich people may or may not invest, may or may not keep their money in India, and so on. There is nothing that forces them to invest in productive jobs for people. They can invest in movie production, they can gamble on the international market, all they want to do is make a profit. So siphoning income to super rich people is a totally inadequate way of producing jobs for the masses. What you need instead is more a bottom-up model of development, where you subsidize co-operative production, small scale production, medium size industries, where you have land reform to enable the peasants there to use their surplus in increasing
productivity capacity. And in the end what you get is a more productive agriculture leading to smaller scale industrialisation, the two sectors interchanging goods with each other. To generate an internal field of this kind of productive exchange you need protection against competition from the global market, at least for a while. Economics emphasizes competitive efficiency far too much. The more important thing is for the economy to produce jobs that bring
income and dignity. "Efficiency'' needs rephrasing to mean efficiency in generating income for poor people.

Q: As you said, there was a socialist approach in the initial days after the independence. The left was very strong then, though not in a position to influence the government since the ruling party had a large majority. But now the left is split into several parties. And some people believe that the split has actually helped its growth. What do you think about that?

A: I think you can have very productive discussions among people in the left that do not splinter the left. It's difficult I know. But in the case of dialogue among the far too many Communist parties in India, we have to remember that Marxism is not some dogmatic doctrine that forces you to think along a certain line, though it is often interpreted to be exactly that---as though its been learned by heart, through class recital. It is a way of thinking creatively on behalf of the working class. If you are an intellectual, you are well educated, you can think generally, you can think theoretically, then you should be using that capacity to think on behalf of the people. Not that you just impose your views on people. But you take their ideas and help restate them in a more theoretical and general way. Then, of course, you have lots of discourse among people who hold different kinds of opinion. Because all these ideas are extremely creative. But don't let that split the left. There is a difference between discussion and splitting into factions. Splitting is just selfishness.

Q: We find the left parties coming out and saying something like "We made a mistake when we did that. We admit our mistakes.'' This is good, in a way, that they admit mistakes. But this seems to happen rather frequently. They seem to continue to make mistakes. One would have expected them to learn from the mistakes and take care not to make new mistakes.

A: You would think that the left is the most pretentious, egocentric and split-prone group of people in the whole world! All that they want to do is split and form splinter parties. This has always been a problem, it seems almost to be a natural characteristic of the left. However, we can learn from the past, without being imprisoned by it. The differences among left parties are insignificant in comparison with the tasks faced by the left, by anyone who has a conscience, in India. This country is ready to explode! You cannot have such a degree of inequality in a country without having major uprisings. Be the spokesman of those people, say it eloquently, concentrate on your real enemies, don't dissipate energy on inter-factional in-fighting.

Q: Yes, it is a wonder that, with so much disparity, this place has not exploded.

A: Neo liberalism is actually a very effective ideology. Somehow it gets people to think that maybe they can be one of them, one of the rich and powerful. A lot of new capitalists have come up. But it does provide also a very nice entertainment system---I have never in my life seen more people dancing on TV. So the misery of the masses is reflected at the utter opposite pole in the super happiness of the movie idol. I have never seen an entertainment system that is more opposite to the conditions faced by the majority of the population than I have witnessed in India.

Q: It sometimes appears that the left has vacated spaces that one would think should have been naturally theirs. The first thing that comes to my mind is the environment movement that the left rejected as a conspiracy of the developed countries. Some of the environmentalists were even branded as CIA agents.

A: Let us take the environment movement. I was a socialist when I heard the first environmental discourse. I thought it was a diversion, you know, from the main issues of class, power, poverty etc. I didn't realize the connection between capitalism and the destruction of nature and I didn't know the extent to which the damage has already been done, to the point of being irreversible. Climate change is a massive transformation in the natural system. Even now, with the
little bits of realisation we've achieved experiencing "natural catastrophes'', we go on doing the damage. Even when people realize what they are doing to nature, they still consume and produce in careless ways. This resembles some kind of mass suicide which says, "I know I am destroying nature, but let me get my bit in first''.

Q: Interestingly, our conversation almost appears like a conversation with an economist or a politician. However, you are a geographer. You have also written that you do take a definite political stand when you teach geography. We understand geography as something related to the surface of the Earth, distribution of people and so on. How is politics involved in this?

A: I think, write and teach as a social scientist not encumbered by disciplinary limits. But I emphasize issues of space and nature more than, say, an economist. For example, my recent book Geography of Power looks at concentrations of power in hegemonic global cities and the outward diffusion of power as policies, the re-shaping of these in sub-hegemonic centers, like New Delhi, and the interactions among different power centers, as with Mumbai (financial power) and Delhi (political power center).

Q: We are now in the middle of a conference on Critical Geography. Most people have little idea about this subject. Can you please explain what Critical Geography is?

A: Once you understand what Geography is---for example, the study of power in global space---the notion of a critical geography becomes easy to realize. We are critical of the existing globalization. We want a different kind of globalization. We stand for the oppressed in this globalization. We want to help in a political process that might be summarized as; "Poor people of the World, Unite ... you have nothing to loose except your Chains''.

Q: Can you say something about how popular is Critical Geography in the US and in other countries?

A: We call it radical geography, and it appeals to students and the public on a wide scale. In the US, students have a lot of freedom to take classes that they are interested in, rather than just courses that are prescribed. They come to radical geography en masse, and leave ... changed for ever.

Q You have written that you take a Leftist stance when you critique geography in your classroom. I would imagine that you would have to face quite a bit of criticism in the US for doing that. Have you faced problems because of your Leftist ideology?

A: Not really in the sense of censorship. I say what I want, in and out of the lecture theater. The students protect me. Where they get you is by not awarding grants to openly Marxist faculty, not appointing you to endowed ``chairs'', not giving you pay raises. But who cares? Contributing to the global struggle is satisfying at a level far above these petty punishments. We live our lives saying interesting things to interested people. They live their lives doing
petty things, going to boring meetings, writing memos, reading trivial texts, and so on. I feel sorry for administrators, for powerful people in general. They have no meaning in their lives.

Q: Hope you will be coming to India again, sooner rather than later. Are you thinking of any work in India?

A: I'm going to write a couple of things based on my experiences here, and I will send you copies. I will return if I'm invited.

(This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribute No Derivatives 3.0 Licence. The article may be published in any media provided this note is also included. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/)

Eudcation --- What for?

What are the objectives of education? This is a very important question, though it is a question that has been discussed possibly hundreds of times in various parts of the world. Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives is possibly the most popular. He identifies six categories in the Cognitive domain, namely, Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation (see, for instance, Wikipedia), five categories in the Affective domain and the Psychomotor domain (for which he did not create categories, but others have --- see, for instance, http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html). While this is so, what I wish to address is a very different kind of question. I wish to ask: What does society expect to get by sending their children to educational institutions? In other words, what should be the ultimate objective of the education system? Should it be to prepare people for employment? Or should it be to impart knowledge about the world so that they can use the knowledge in life? Or should it be to make them aware of social and political histories and realities so that they can become good citizens? Or should it be to create sensitive and thinking individuals who can live peacefully in society and contribute to its well-being? Or ..... something else?

This is a question every society should ask and ensure that their educational system meets the objectives. This is very important since that decides the fate of the future generations. Though school education in Kerala is among the best in the country (if not the best) I have not seen a debate on this matter. Shalini Advani raise some important issues in The Hindu that are related to this, though her concern is about how corporate involvement in education and how education is becoming just a mechanical process and is losing its soul. I hope the questions I am attempting to address here at least partly includes the issues she has raised.

Education for Employment?

Should education prepare a person for employment? Of course, it should. A person needs an employment to earn his livelihood, and where else can he get the skills required for that? But that leaves the question of how. How should education prepare the person for his employment? This is a rather dificult question to answer, as I show now. How can this preparation be done? By giving him all the skills he require for the job? What job? During studies, there is no way a person can know what job (s)he is going to do, except in very few cases. So how can education prepare people for employment? Obviously, the special skills required for a particular job has to be provided by the employer and not by the education system. However, employment does not mean just doing some work. It also means living peacefully with your colleagues, helping each other, doing the work in a responsible and sincere manner, even fighting for employees rights. In other words, these are the very same skills one needs to live in a society. Therefore, a good education system should provide part of the skills required for any job.

Education for imparting knowledge?

Of course, education has to impart knowledge. That is one of the major functions of education. In schools, children need to learn a lot of things about the world so that they can use the knowledge in their day to day life. The question whether someone can impart knowledge, or whether children need to build knowledge on their own, is relevant but we shall not take it up. Another question is what this knowledge should be, or what all should be taught. I would say that whatever basic knowledge is required for life should be covered, and what exactly that consists of has to be decided by the particular society. This could vary from place to place and there is always the problem of to what extent local knowledge should be included in the syllabus. It may be somewhat difficult to arrive at an objective conclusion in this matter, but there could be an overall understanding in each region or state. In any case, acquisition of knowledge, such as science, mathematics, history and languages, is an essential part of education.

Education for creating good citizens?

Is the creation of good citizens one of the purposes of education? If yes, then how does one define a good citizen? I would say "Yes" to the first question. Since we live in a democracy, and a democracy is only as good as its citizens, we need good citizens if the democracy is to succeed. Citizens do have a very important role in a society and it is not just that of voting. While voting for the party or candidate you believe in is important, it is also important to make the right choice. The citizens need to be politically aware, and also capable of evaluating the good and bad points of the party and/or candidate. If this has to happen, they should be aware of the history of the land and the parties, the policies the parties have been pursuing and promise to pursue if elected, and consequences of different kinds of policies pursued by these and other parties in their land and abroad. They should also be capable of understanding the nuances of governance and of seeing through misleading statements that parties may make during election time. In addition to all this, citizens need to be capable of reacting to situations even after the elections and not just wait for the next elections. Thus, citizens should take upon themselves part of the responsibility of running the country. They obviously need a great amount of training for this. We shall not go into what the training should be since we are discussing something else.

Education for creating good individuals?

I believe that education should also help in creating sensitive, thinking and active individuals. This is certainly necessary for living in a society peacefully and for bringing individuals in the society closer together. Why sensitive? To understand the problems of others and to be able to empathise with them. Why thinking? To be able to identify problems and to come up with solutions, possibly innovative. Why active? To be able to get involved in social issues and be willing to work towards solving the problems. So, in my opinion, education should help in creating sensitive, thinking, active individuals.

Conclusion

So let us get back to the main question: What is the purpose of education? We find that it should prepare people for employment. But that, in turn, means that it should impart knowledge, it should help individuals to become good citizens, it should help to make them sensitive, thinking, active individuals (though the second point may be debated). All these qualities would help to prepare people for employment and for life. In fact, I think what would help people in life is largely what would help them to get employment. At least, that is how it should be.

Does our education system measure up to this? I do not think so. Our education system is primarily geared to enable the children to pass the examination. Whatever else the children gain is actually unintended. But isn't all this too tall an order for our education system? Perhaps. But let me look at it from another point. Very long ago, children used to learn the skills they required for living from their parents and peers. The extent of knowledge required, why the entire knowledge mankind had, was limited. Now things have changed dramatically. The extent of knowledge mankind has today is more than what a studious person can learn in a lifetime. And parents are often so busy with their own professions and/or with other matters that they are unable to impart any amount of education. In fact, that is probably how formal systems for education came up in society. Very often there are no other avenues for the children to acquire the capabilities discussed above. Therefore, our school system simply has to take upon itself these functions.

Let me conclude by mentioning another kind of concern that Shalini Advani discusses in her article. This is about the changing purposes of education with time. As she says, "...there is one crucial question which is insufficiently discussed. And the question is this: What is the purpose of education today? At various times, over the past 100 years, that question has been answered differently --- in colonial India, the official answer would have been, 'To create a cadre of clerks and officials to run the colonial state' while in a newly decolonised India, the official answer could be, 'To create a nationalist sensibility and the national citizen' ... Today, I suspect the official answer to the question about the purpose of education would be: 'To give people jobs.'" In its broadest sense, this is what would also help them lead a good life and be helpful to society. But when it is seen just as "giving people jobs", I fear the objectives could be limited to just acquiring a limited set of skills. This should never be so.

Knowledge should be Free

This is an editorial I wrote for the March 2003 issue of the magazine Science India that I used to be associated with. I think what I wrote then is equally valid today also. But first, here is what I wrote:

The Columbia Tragedy

The month of February started with a tragedy in the sky, a tragedy that could have been averted, like most others, if human knowledge had been more complete, or perhaps, if some individuals had taken more care. Science India pays homage to the seven space travellers who lost their lives as the space shuttle disintegrated high in the sky. We can add thier names to the seven others who died when another space shuttle, Challenger, blew up on the launchpad, or to thirteen others who died in various accidents involving spacecrafts. Let us remember the hundreds or thousands of others, known and unknown, who had their lives prematurely terminated in our quest for the kind of technology that makes it possible for us to go beyond the atmosphere. And a similar number of people who helped build up the scientific knowledge base for the development of technology. And, indirectly, the millions upon millions who helped all of us (scientists) lead a life devoted to science and technology by providing us the basic amenities of life. Let this remind us that knowledge is a product of social activity, contributed by one and all, and, as such, everyone is heir to all knowledge. Let this also remind us that knowledge is to be used for social good, and not for personal advancement. If the lives of the seven astronauts can remind us of this fact, they would have achieved far more than what they went to space for.

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Experiments conducted in Columbia were intended to study about the benefits of zero gravity in manufacturing certain materials. The knowledge gained from these experiments would have become the property of the companies that sponsored the study. The companies would certainly have paid NASA for the experiments. Does that really compensate for the knowledge they acquired? Can they ever compensate for the lives of the astronauts? I write about this tragedy because the news spread the world over. But how many such accidents would have taken away lives without any of us knowing about them? How many people had to give up their lives in the pursuit of knowledge at least some of which has helped companies to build successful businesses? Can these companies compensate for these lives? I believe that knowledge should not be proprieterised, whatever the law of the land may say. I believe it is unethical and immoral to do so.

The Other Golden Temple

Everyone in India, at least everyone who reads newspapers or news magazines, would have heard of the Golden Temple in Punjab, the most holy place of Sikhs. But how many of us would have heard of a Golden Temple in the south? "Golden Temple in the south?" I can almost hear you asking. Yes. There is a Golden Temple in the south. But this is not a temple of the Sikhs. This is a temple of the Buddha -- a temple of Tibetans. And this is situated inside the Namdroling Monastery, inside the large Tibetan settlement-- one of the largest Tibetan settlements in the country -- at Bylakuppe near Madikeri, on the way from Bangalore to Kudagu (formerly Coorg). You turn east from the road to Kodagu, about 30 km before Madikeri, and drive along the beautiful countryside for about three kilometres to reach the Monastery and the Golden Temple. The place has a good parking space with bathrooms and toilets. Park your vehicle and just walk up a few tens of metres to enter the gate of the Monastery. Walk across the courtyard and go through another gate to face one of the two temples there. You cannot enter this temple. You can only gaze at it from the outside. Leaves of eucalyptus are burnt in two containers near the temple. Helps to keep away the ubiquitous flies, at least in the vicinity of the urns. But this could really be part of the rituals. The roof of the temple itself has some parts covered in gold. The design is typically Tibetan. If you reach there at a suitable time, you should hear chanting inside.

Turn left and walk a few yards to get near the main Golden Temple. There you have a counter where you can deposit your footwear. Really convenient and being run well. After you get rid of your footwear, you can enter the temple. You find yourself in a large hall, facing three huge golden statues. The one in the middle is that of Gautama Buddha. This is supposed to be thirty feet high. On either side of the Buddha are idols of goddesses. The one on the left is supposed to be the goddess of war and destruction, and the other, the goddess who gives. These are supposed to be 28 feet tall -- possibly to keep them smaller than the Buddha. On either side of the Buddha are pillars on which the typical Tibetan dragons are entwined. The entire hall is decorated in paintings that are typically Tibetan -- very colourful, out-of-this-world images. Tibetan monks, young and old, scramble about in brown and maroon dresses, cleaning, carrying things, and generally moving about to fulfil their duties. You also see small children in the same kind of dress running about, though only occasionally. The living quarters are also busy with activity, but strangely quiet. The place is much quieter than any other place where so many young men live.


The whole place is very clean, as a Monastery should be. The lawns are well kept. The gardens are neatly neatly maintained. The only thing that upsets a visitor is the large number of house flies that are seen everywhere. One would wonder where they came from. This is a safe haven for them since Buddhist monks wouldn't kill any form of life. But one wishes that they at least kept the flies away.

I happened to visit the place with Ayesha, my daughter, and Rajaram (or just Raj), her fiance, when we went on a tour to Kodagu (formerly Coorg) in June 2007. It was raining lightly and we found a well-kept parking space. We parked our vehicle there, went to the toilet and walked into a restaurant in the adjoining building. The restaurant was also clean and well kept, though there were too many flies for our comfort. A fly actually committed suicide in one of our cups of coffee which we got replaced. The restaurant, it turned out, was run by Keralites. There were shops that sold Tibetan curios, though we are not sure that they were brought from Tibet. It hardly matters. We visited the temple and went on our way. I was sorry that we did not have the time to talk to the people and find out more about the place, the monastery, the temples and their life. I hope I will get to go there again.

Kodagu

The Golden Temple was actually an unscheduled stop. Soon we were on our way to Kodagu and the Honey Valley Home Stay Resort. There was continuous rain and we had to halt a few times to find our way. Raj called the resort on a few occasions to get guidance. At one point, a jeep approached from the other side and stopped near our vehicle. A greying gentleman in water-proof clothing, who was driving the vehicle, asked us whether we were going to Honey Valley. When we replied in the positive, he said he was coming to pick us up. He turned the vehicle around and we followed him. At one point, we turned right and he took us up a steep slope into a small compound with a house. We parked our vehicle there and shifted to his jeep. The rest of the journey was through a forest track that cannot be called a road. There were signs of trees having fallen across the track, which had been cut and removed. The track had just enough space for the jeep to go and I wondered what would happen if another vehicle came down. But, apparently, there was little chance of that happening. The drive up the slope was tough, though it was not totally new for me since I had had the occasion to travel through a forest track in a jeep. The jeep swayed from one side to the other and the driver had to engage the four-wheel drive more than once.


At one point, I asked the driver whether it is not tough to go up and down this track every day, perhaps more than once a day. His answer was of the kind one expected from an ex-military person. He said, "No, if it has to be done, it has to be done, that is all". His English was flawless too. So we thought he must be an ex-service man, which eventually turned out to be wrong.

We finally reached a part of the track that was cemented and less than a hundred metre away was a level ground on which were a few buildings that looked like unplastered brick structures. One of them was a single-storied house and another was double-storied. We were invited to occupy the first room upstairs. All the buildings had traditional sloping roofs with tiles. Our room was neatly kept, with four beds covered by white sheets and blankets neatly folded. The room had terracota tiles on the floor, which I liked and so did my daughter. We later found that all rooms, except bathromms, had terracotta tiles, and bathrooms had glazed tiles.

We must have reached the resort after 2 pm. They told us that lunch will be ready soon and we could go down to the mess. We arranged our things in the room (see photograph) and went down for lunch. The lunch was good -- not the formal kind of thing you get in expensive hotels, at least not the kind of food that I thought they would serve, but good tasty food of the kind you eat at home. They had chappathis with two side dishes -- one made with jack fruit seeds was very tasty -- and steamed vegetable. Then they had rice and dal and papads and curds. Some nice bananas as dessert. I asked if they could give me some tea or coffee and they immediately obliged. I started beginning to feel at home. Although it was raining and very windy, it was not uncomfortably cold. There was a thickly forested hill right opposite to us and it looked very beautiful in the rain. The picture below shows the balcony before our room from where we could get a nice view of the forest.


The people there were talking in broken Malayalam to me (the driver had asked me, before we started our way up to the resort whether I was from Kerala, and even commented that Shetty (Raj's surname) was not a typical Kerala name to which Raj replied that he was from Mangalore). So I started wondering whether they were Keralites. I found out slowly that some of the workers were originally from Keala. The greying gentleman who was our "driver" turned out to be the owner of the resort, and an elderly lady who was present in the mess most of the time turned out to be his wife. They were from Kodagu itself but learnt Malayalam because Kodagu has a lot of Keralites, being adjacent to the districts of Kannur and Wayanad in Kerala.

The owner, Suresh Chengappa, I learnt, was the eldest of four brothers and two sisters. When their father passed away at the age of 54, all the responsibility of the family fell on him. Later, when they had to partition the property, no one wanted the land in the forest on top of the mountain. So he and his wife moved into this land. There was no proper road, no electricity and so on. There was a small dwelling, which consisted of one room, and the floor plastered with cow dung. But there were wild elephants and leeches. The wife had to live there alone occasionally when the husband went out for getting provisions or for other work. They grew honey bees and sold honey for an income. As the wife told me, they had thirty rupees with them when they came to this land. As a person born and brought up in the country side and towns, I could not even begin to comprehend the problems through which they had successfully come through. It explained the "driver's" statement -- "if it has to be done, it has to be done. That is all." I thought of the many people who complain about facilities even in cities. Suresh, his wife and son look after the resort and the estate. They have coffee planted in most of the estate, but they also keep honey bees, some cattle and three dogs who went with Ayesha and Raj when they went on a trek to a nearby waterfall and showed them the way. You can see me trying to get friendly with one of the dogs, Gundu, in the picture. They produce their own electricity using a small hydroelectric plant that has turbines from Switzerland and locally made generators. Ayesha and Raj went to see an waterfall (see photograph) and also on a trek during which time they got to donate their blood, to leeches!


Suresh is a very interesting character. He has a good collection of books on various subjects, including Bertrand Russell's Impact of Science on Society, Mohan Pai's Western Ghats, and the Mir Publishers' Physiology for the Layman. Along with the Danish scientist mentioned earlier, he developed a new technique for honey bee cultivation which has been approved by the International Centre for Bee Research and is now recommended by them all over Asia. He says he has not been able to publish his studies, but he is happy that a lot of people are using the technique. He asked me about my work, about cloud formation, types of clouds, why it rains more in some places and why Doordarshan's coverage of weather is so bad. He said that he is not religious, does not believe in rituals and that he is not bothered about death or the life after. I found him to be a nice person, contended with life, and ready to face whatever life has to offer. And also ready to help. My impression is that he behaves in the same way to the workers. Mrs. Chengappa is also very friendly and concerned about the people around her. She looks after the mess, prescribes the menu and even helps in cooking. But she is aware of what exactly is going on, and, as Suresh said, "If I just conk off one day, the family knows what exactly is happening in their establishment and they will have no problem in running it." In fact, his son, Sarath, is a graduate in Hotel Management from Mangalore, and he intends to start another resort somewhat down the hill. Suresh has two daughters, the elder of whom is married and the younger one is in school.

We had a long chat spread over two days, about clouds, weather, meteorology and so on, which moved onto religion, god, and apparently supernatural phenomena. He concurred with me on my belief that the mind appears to have the ability to do things that seem to be "supernatural", or inexplicable. He mentioned that he knows one Dr. Soanes (my spelling!), who is a biologist, but learned to do some things that can be classified as "supernatural". He said that once one of their guests had lost their camera, and they suspected that one of the servants had taken it (which the servant denied). But since they could not do anything without proof, and since the Inspector of Police was not available on the telephone line, he contacted Dr. Soanes, who said that the camera was in the cottage itself. But they could not find the camera anywhere. Later, after returning home, the visitors found the camera inside one of the bags and informed Suresh. Suresh said that Dr. Soanes started with water divining, which he learnt when he had to call a water diviner after the government agencies failed to locate water in his land through scientific means. Having convinced himself about this power, he developed it further and thus became able to locate missing objects. Soanes, incidentally, is a Canadian.

That brings us the the last people we met before we left. Unfortunately, it happened to be just hours before we were scheduled to leave so that we could just talk for a few minutes. In fact, they were staying there when we reached there, but, for some reason, we never got into any conversation with them. They were a young couple. The man was tallish and broad, and even somewhat fat. He had long hair, that appeared like ropes since bunches of hair had got stuck together. I don't know whether this was done deliberately. The lady was small built. It looked as though her hair had been shaved off and was starting to grow again. To be frank, the couple looked strange, and that is possibly the reason that we did not get friendly with them earlier. But the day we were leaving, I was in the mess before my daughter and her fiance and just got talking to them. It was purely accidental. I saw them petting the dogs and speaking to them and said something to them (incidentally, I am also fond of dogs and most dogs also tend to like me). This soon developed into a conversation that had to be cut short since it was beginning to get late for them to leave. The husband said that he had a tattooing business in Bangalore, and that the lady did various things including predicting the future using tarot cards and also by sitting with the subject and doing some meditation. She said that she had developed some kind of ability to detect a lie when someone spoke to her. She used to immediately ask why (s)he was lying and this caused some relationships to break. She then stopped doing that and decided to get involved in another person's life only when the person asked for help. She too turned out to be non-religious. She said her god was only nature. She said she was a follower of Osho and had spent one year in the ashram. She also agreed that the mind seems to have some powers that are not normally developed, but would appear "supernatural". We agreed to meet again and share our ideas, since it was already late for them to leave. We too left in the afternoon, with memories of a wonderful time we had in the middle of the forest and the very interesting people we me there.
Raj, Ayesha, Mrs. Chengappa, Suresh, me and Sarath.

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To reach Honey Valley, you go to Madikeri, which is a rather well-known place and proceed towards Bettagiri. To reach Madikeri from Bangalore, you go along Hunsur road bypassing Mysore. From Madikeri, take the Mangalore road. After 3 km, turn left at the fork and enter the Bhagamandala road leaving the Mangalore road. Again turn left after 3 km and drive about 11 km to reach Bettagiri. About 6 km along this road takes you to a place called Napoklu, which is a rather big town. Another 10 km or so will take you to Kakkabe, but be sure to find out the exact route in advance since you may not find someone to ask on the way. The Kabinkad Junction is just about 3 km away. You should have informed the resort in advance so that they can come and pick you up from Kabbinkad. Though the resort is just 3 km away from the junction, you need a four-wheel drive vehicle to reach there.

Misusing Science

Science is a powerful tool to understand how the world behaves, and, to a certain extent, why it behaves as it does. People generally give a lot of value to what scientists say, and anything that is said to be scientific. However, most people have only a hazy idea about the basic principles of science and what even some of the common scientific terms really mean. This situation can be exploited by those who wish to mislead others, either for monetary benefit or to convince the gullible people that what they are telling them is true. Let me try to explain this by describing a few experiences that I have personally had.

Once I happened to see a beautifully designed vessel at a friend's house. Since I found it very attractive, I was examining it when I saw something written on its lid. The words said something like "Scientifically designed for loose fit". I noticed that the lid was not very tight, but at the same time, it was made such that the lid fitted neatly on the vessel. However, I was baffled by the word "scientifically". I could not understand what science was there in the design, though it was obvious that it was carefully designed. I suspect that the word "scientifically" was introduced just to impress the unsuspecting customer. The same statement was rather prominently displayed on the carton in which the vessel came too.

Another interesting instance was the attempt by a salesman to sell me a device that he claimed could save 5 to 10 percent fuel on my motorbike. The device was simpe. It consisted of a cylindrical object with tubes extending from both ends. The salesman told me that I only need to connect it to my fuel line, between the fuel tank and the carburettor, and I could save a lot of fuel. I asked him how it worked. He told me that it contained a magnet that would force the fuel molecules to align so that their combustion would take place more efficiently. He had no answer to my questions about how the molecules would stay aligned as the fuel moved through the carburettor, got mixed with air, and was pulled into the engine. This happened years ago, when I had no access to the Internet, but today the Internet tells me the whole story. For instance, just take a look at http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99199.htm. I quote:

"Magnetic devices that purport to miraculously save fuel by aligning the fuel molecules have been around for many years. ......In tests of many similar devices for automobiles conducted by the EPA, none has ever shown one iota of benefit when carefully tested. Additionally, the underlying theory of these devices is not supported by scientific evidence."

The salesman could probably convince a number of people about the efficacy of the device because he used scientific terms like molecule, magnetic field, combustion and so on. Most common people tend to believe that those who use such terms probably know what they are talking about! They get cheated.

An interesting incident was an attempt by two young men to get me to buy some clothes that they claimed could cure me of various diseases inlcuding hypertension and arthritis. I asked them how these pieces of attire could cure diseases. They explained that the material was impregnated with a special kind of clay. This clay could absorb infrared radiation emitted by the body and reradiate it, which could cure these diseases. Since they were students of engineering, I asked them whether they had any idea what infrared radiation is, and what objects emit radiation. I had to remind them that every object above the absolute zero temperature (about -273 degrees Celsius) do radiate and that the spectrum of the radiation depends on the temperature of the body. At temperatures close to human body temperatures, the radiation emtted is infrared. So we are immersed in a sea of infrared radiation all the time. I asked them what was special about the radiation emitted by the clothes they were trying to sell, and how it became special. Of course, they had no answer, and all they could say was that this is what the had been told in the marketing class. Here also, some scientific jargon is being used to confuse people and get them to buy the clothes. Let me point out here that I have no idea whether the clothes had any beneficial effects, as some people who had used them told me. If at all that is true, the effects obviously were due to something other than radiation.

The most dramatic statement I ever heard was in a discussion in one of the local television channels. One of the participants in the discussion was a well-known neuro surgeon. He was trying to show that women had some strange properties during their menstrual periods. He told a story about women who were employed by a company that was manufacturing diodes. According to him, the company found that 95% of the diodes manufactured by women during their periods turned out to be rejects. This, he explained, was due to some electromagnetic radiation emitted by them! For me, it was news that diodes were manufactured by hand, rather than by machines! And that some strange electromagnetic radiations could be emitted by women at during certain days! If that is true, husbancs need to beware!

But that was nothing. He went on to tell another story that was much more astounding. He said that during the tsunami of 2004, sea water did not enter a particular temple, though it was on the coast and on low-lying land, because of some electromagnetic radiations that were emitted from the temple! Wonder of wonders! Electromagnetic radiations can stop sea water in its tracks! Why waste money on sea walls and other structures to prevent coastal erosion? Just install some devices that emit suitable electromagnetic radiations!

Coming from a well-known surgeon, people would tend to believe what he says. I wonder whether he really believed these stories himself. I cannot believe that he does not know what the term electromagnetic radiations means. To become a doctor, it is not sufficient to study biology alone. One needs to study some amount of physics and chemistry too. So I am forced to think that his statements were deliberately made to decieve people. Either way, it is a shame.

But what was most tragic was that there was no one, not even one single person, in the panel or the audience who could get up and call the bluff. There were many who possibly did not believe what the doctor said, but no one had the basic scientific knowledge to ask how human beings or temples could emit some special electromagnetic radiations at specific times, and how these could cause damage to diodes or stop tsunami waves. They were simply stumped by the jargon.

What all this points to is the need to educate people about what science is and explain to them some of the basic concepts of science--at least so that they do not get cheated by charlatans like these.

My new blog on Freedom

I have created a new blog to write about freedom -- freedom in general, and free software in particular. You can read this at http://swatantryam.blogspot.com. Since freedom is the most important thing (at least for most people), I hope you will be interested in my new blog.

The Blame the Politician Game

Elections are here in many states in India and the political machinery is getting into full swing. Election manifestos are released and promises made to the people - promises that are forgotten as soon as the polling is over. This is nothing unusual in India, or, for that matter, in any country. People have no option other than voting for a candidate, or a party, knowing fully well that it often hardly makes any difference who they vote for. The so-called 'verdict' of the people is often a response to the misrule of the party that has been in power, and hence the important place given to the incumbency factor.

On the other hand, we often hear people and the media blame the politicians for being dishonest and insincere. There appears to be very few gentlemen and ladies in the political arena who have been spared such branding. I think we need to look into this problem closely, if only because it is something that can affect our lives and that of our children significantly. Other than lamentations in the media, there doesn't seem to have been many serious efforts to understand the problem and find solutions. In this situation, it may not be totally out of place for me to give some ideas, though I am very much ignorant of history and politics.

I would like to look at the issue from a different point of view. Admittedly, a good number of politicians today are insincere and dishonest. I take this as a given (basic premise, or whatever) without bothering about its truth. Though this may not, strictly speaking, be a correct approach, I am sure many of you would agree with me on that. I then ask the question: Why? Why are today's politicians 'bad'? Is it because the parties have promoted all rotten people, and ignored the genuine ones? If so, again, Why? Is it because, as they say, Power Corrupts? Then what about the young leaders who have not tasted power? How come so many of them are also branded as insincere and dishonest?

I would like to go back by a few decades and take a look at the leaders who led the political parties of the time - be it the Indian National Congress or the Communist Party of India or any other. We see a number of outstanding individuals who could have landed good positions in the British Indian government before India got independence sacrificing all that for a life of uncertainty and, sometimes, great personal difficulty. You and I may or may not agree with their policies or actions, but it is rarely that we brand them as dishonest or insincere. Where have such people gone? Is it that today's people are all selfish and dishonest? I find it difficult to believe that, somehow, the character of the entire population has undergone a drastic change. On the contrary, could it be that honest and sincere people no longer come to politics? If that is the case, then, I guess, it is high time that our society did something about it, rather than simply blame those who are currently in politics.

"Oft-repeated Johnson's definition that politics is the last resort of the scoundrel holds good even to-day." says The Modern Rationalist. It goes on to say, "Why Thanthai Periyar shunned politics is also due to the same reason." This is not an isolated case. Pakistan's Daily Times ran an article by J. Sri Raman in its issue dated July 29, 2004, in which he wrote, "“Politics is the last resort of the scoundrel.” I suppose a computer-aided quantitative analysis can give a more precise finding; but, offhand, I will say that not a week passes without someone or the other citing this maxim in the Indian media." "It seems to be the nature of politics that ignorant racist boors often end up as "leaders", whether in the USA or Iran or anywhere else. It's not for nothing that the phrase "politics is the last resort of the scoundrel" was coined. We are best off ignoring these people and their ugly beliefs." goes a comment on, of all things, a review of a new GNU/Linux distribution at distrowatch! But can we simply ignore them? In an article by Ashu Pasricha in The Tribune dated January 30, 1999, she says, "Today the decent people in politics are a fast vanishing species in our land. This leads to the question why more decent people are not entering the fray? This is proving the dictum that “politics is the last resort of the scoundrel”. Today politics has undergone a sea change. Now it stinks. Politics has degenerated to the level of corruption, dishonesty, rank opportunism, expediency, manoeuvrings and manipulation of all kinds and above all, greed — devoid of moral fabric." Although she raises the question of why decent people are not coming to politics today, she does not try to answer it. Of course, the article was meant to be on Gandhiji, so she may be excused for not delving more deeply into the question above.

I too do not have a ready solution. In fact, I do not think that there could be any easy and quick solution anyway. But I think this is something our society needs to ponder over with more sincerity and seriousness if we expect to have good governance in the not too distant future. And, having raised this question, I feel it is also my responsibility to place a few suggestions here. So here they are, for whatever they are worth:

1. As a society, we need to repeatedly tell ourselves that running a government is one of the most difficult of tasks. Instead of repeating the Johnsonian quote given above, we need to spread the word that we need the best of individuals to run the government. Politics as a profession needs to be given a pride of place so that we attract the best of talent.

2. Politics should be taught right from school and there should be serious political debates from high school or higher secondary school onwards. These debates should be moderated by the teacher (who also may have his/her opinion). Children should be encouraged to delve deeper into current political issues so that they learn to discriminate between the superficial statements of politicians and the equally superficial analysis often dished out by the media.

3. We seem to expect the politician to give up everything and serve the people. I think this is absurd and counter-productive. Politicians also are human beings (in case you did not notice) and they too need families whom they have to support. In other words, society needs to find ways in which politicans can feed, clothe, educate, their families without having to collect money on the sly from whoever is willing to offer. I am strongly in support of allowing all employees to involve in political activity (which is banned now, though it is a public secret that almost every government employee has affiliations with a party). The employment gives them an income, and this brings into the political arena a large group of people, many of whom could be capable, honest and sincere.

Ladies and gentlemen, the topic is open for debate. Advance thanks for your contributions.

April 7, 2006. Let me add something that I missed last time.

People are often told that it is their duty as citizens of a democratic country to cast their votes. Voting is considered to be the most important responsibility of a citizen -- almost the be all and end all of democracy. I think this is a very wrong idea that should never be spread. Admittedly, every citizen should cast his vote for a democracy to function properly, although even that could be circumvented. For instance, at least in principle, if a survey is planned and executed very correctly, it should tell which is the party or the candidate that is most popular. The increasing accuracy of pre-election opinion polls is one sign of how the techniques are improving.

The problem is that we tend to see political parties as separate entities, one of whom we select to rule us for the next five years, almost like we select a contractor to build a bridge. In this process, we tend to forget that these parties are composed of people from among us, and that each one of us does have a role, however small, in deciding what these parties are and how they function. In fact, I think it is more important for every one of us to be involved with a political party and influence its functioning than to vote. Let me hasten to add that this is not at all to take away the importance of voting in the elections.

Let me narrate an incident which may give a clue to what I am trying to say. We have a Residents' Association in our colony, the responsibility of running which is put on someone's head at every General Body. Sometimes people protest, but usually someone takes on the responsibility. It so happened that the office bearers once elected did hardly anything for two years. There was none of the usual activities like cleaning the premises or arranging a family get-together once a year. They did not even bother to collect subscription from members. Eventually, some people got together and called for a General Body meeting to elect new office bearers and to revive the activities. Someone suggested that the dues from members should be collected first and a family get-together arranged. Then one elderly gentleman said that there was no rationale for collecting the subscription for the previous years because, as he said, "We did not get any service"! This was such a ridiculous statement because the Association is not a private agency whom we, the residents, are paying to get some service!

In a similar manner, we should not consider political parties as organisations external to society whom we select for a five year term based on the kind of service the previous party provided and the "quotation" (Election Manifesto) given by the different parties. These are structures built by us, for us and among us to carry out certain jobs. If these structures are not functioning properly, there is no point in blaming them. This is not like a class where you can blame the teacher if (s)he does not teach properly, or like your autombile workshop which you can change if you find that one fellow does not do his job properly. Political parties are organisations created by society, composed of individuals who are willing to work for them, and are required for a democracy to function properly. If they are not functioning as they should, let us get involved and do something about it, rather than just complaining. But, unfortunately, that has become our national habit -- complaining about anything, but doing nothing to bring about a change.

Any comments?

Lest we Forget

India has had many great sons and daughters. Many of them earned our respect and we cried when they passed away. We forgot some of them soon, and some we remembered on specific days only because we thought that was the appropriate thing to do or because it brought us media attention. There are others who quietly, and in their own way, attempt to bring about a silent revolution. They are often far ahead of their times and society is unable to catch up with them. Such people are often forgotten even when they are alive. Sure, they are sometimes used by careerists for their selfish interests. And that is a tragedy.

There still lives a person among our midst who has all along tried to put some sense into our heads in matters related to environmentally sustainable planning and development. He has repeatedly pointed out how much of our traditional knowledge can be of help in designing and constucting environmentally and financially cheap, but safe, beautiful and highly utilitarian buildings and towns. And he is not even an Indian by birth. Yes, I am talking about Laurence W. Baker. We have largely ignored him (although a certain type of buildings are known by his name) and we are sure to forget him soon.

Laurie Baker is known for his 'low cost' houses. And that is another tragedy. When we say 'low cost', we tend to focus on the low financial cost of his buildings. While it is true that his buildings cost much less than 'conventional' (the term itself is a paradox -- what is conventional, traditional Indian architecture or the concrete matchbox monsters that started appearing a few decades back?) buildings, branding them 'low cost' misses out on everything that Bakerji stands for. Low cost is only one of the many aspects of his buildings that set them apart from the monsters other architects impose on us. His buildings merge with nature and do not stand apart like a sore thumb, are environmentally inexpensive, make best use of the space available, are designed with the needs of the client, and not just the external appearance or some design trend, in mind, makes best use of available sunlight and winds, thus reducing the need for artificial lighting and fans, just to mention a few. This in a society which discusses environmental issues in large rooms with tall windows, all of them shut tight with thick curtains, artificial lighting and air conditioning, with tea and snacks served in disposable plastic cups and plates. Come to think of it, it is no wonder that we don't take Bakerji seriously!

And Bakerji is not just a proponent of a building style. He has developed refreshingly innovative plans to rejuvenate the choking Alapuzha town and to solve the traffic problem in the heart of Thiruvananthapuram city. He has drawn very insightful cartoons - one on Gandhiji and a nuclear India, and another on Malayalee's mundu come to mind. He is a very creative designer. As my friend Sundar says, Bakerji has never repeated a window design! He is a person with a great sense of humour, something that anyone who has met him would never forget. In spite of all this, he is a person with great humility. Again, as Sundar has recounted, Bakerji never thought twice about picking up the worn out slippers that Sundar had left outside and placing them before their owner's feet.

How have we treated this person? The first time I went to Bakerji's house, I stopped at the junction near his house to ask for directions. I spoke to a few well dressed gentlemen, who appeared never to have heard of Laurie Baker! Bakerji was invited to design houses for some of the earthquake victims in Latur. He realised that the villagers have no need for matchbox houses of the kind the Public Works Department or any of the 'conventional' architects would design. So he set about studying their needs and the houses that they traditionally build. In spite of his advanced age, he went about the job with all sincerity. One year passed, and no design was ready. The sponsoring agency then replaced Bakerji with a 'conventional' architects. The design was done quickly and the houses were built and handed over to the people. A year later, if what I hear is true, the people put their cattle inside the houses and live outside!

The term 'low cost' associated with Bakerji's buildings has done much damage. Many wealthy people feel that it is below their dignity to build such houses or even use technologies that Bakerji has suggested. When I saw tiles piled at a building site, I was excited because I thought they were using the 'filler slab' technology that reduces the weight of concrete slabs and thus reduces the amount of steel needed for reinforcement. When I asked the owner whether they were planning to use this technology, he replied that he did not have to use it (aparently because he could 'afford' not to). But the object of using the filler slab technology is not just to reduce the financial cost, but also to reduce the environmental cost by reducing the energy consumed to produce the materials used in construction. Environmental cost, unlike financial cost, affects the entire society, and hence a person can take credit if he does less damage to the environment.

Bakerji is almost ninety, and the age is telling on his health. Yet, no one has attempted even to build a good web page for him. He decided to stay on in India after he met Gandhiji, and like Gandhiji, he also may soon be forgotten for what he was. But some of us are sure to use his name for our own benefit. Maybe, that is the fate of every great person.

PS: 1. I found another blog on Laurie Baker, that gives a brief biography. To read it, visit http://arch-essays.blogspot.com/2005/01/laurie-baker-living-for-cause.html

2. Though not a blog, there is a nice piece on Abu Abraham here.

Finally, I have taken the plunge and created a blog for myself. As the name suggests, I plan to put my random thoughts here, on whatever I happen to be thinking about. It could be about science, literature, cinema, music, people, development issues, or something out of this world.

Having said that, let me say something that has always been close to my heart -- the way children are being brought up, the atmosphere they get in their own homes, and the mental or physical torture that parents often inflict upon these helpless individuals, knowingly or unknowingly. (This is particularly about the middle class families in Kerala, and possibly some other states in India. I do not have sufficient information about other countries to say anything about the situation there.) The simplest of these is the pressure modern parents, especially from the middle class, put on their children to earn high marks. This could sometimes become so powerful a pressure that the child eventually breaks down. The parents forget that scoring marks is not the most important thing in a person's life, and that even a talented child may not have the skills required to score high marks. The numerous suicides by students expecting their examination results that the media report every year is itself evidence for this. Thankfully, the change in the education system in Kerala, with grades replacing marks and ranks, can be hoped to reduce this burden to some extent.

Parents are capable of torturing their own children in many other ways. One example is the means adoopted to "discipline" them. This could mean a hundred things, including getting up, having their food and going to sleep at specified times, respecting elders, going out to play, watching television, whatever. Unlike in the case of scoring marks, many of these may actually be desirable, but the manner in which it is enforced often leads to the opposite effect. Adults often teach children undesirable behaviour patterns unknowingly. An example is the use of the stick to get the child to do something the adult wants. This effectively is equivalent to teaching the child that the use of physical threat is fully justified. And in today's nuclear families, the child often does not have recourse to consolation from any elder. In joint families, an uncle or aunt could act as a sink for the child's anguish.

I believe, a certain amount of serious counselling is essential before marriage. This should cover not only problems that may arise between husband and wife, but also child care and child psychology, including how to tackle problems that the parents may face as the child grows up. We often see an adult ignoring an accompanying child's questions or cries. This should never happen. The child's apprehensions or doubts may appear trivial to an adult, but they are very real to the child. The child should be given as much importance as any other individual -- after all, it is also an individual. Communication between parent and child should start right from the time the child is a baby. Parent should be willing to listen to what the child has to say, and to talk to it on equal terms and encourage it to communicate. Most of the problems between parents and children that we see today can be traced to a lack of communication between them.