Ten Issues - 18

Harvard professor Larry Lessig is one of our foremost authorities on copyright issues, with a vision for reconciling creative freedom with marketplace competition.



1- The Indian state of Bihar has long been a byword for bad governance. It was however governed particularly badly between 1990 and 2005, and has since experienced something of a ‘governance miracle’. How can we account for the 1990–2005 deterioration? Through this working paper - State Incapacity by Design: Understanding the Bihar Story, we will understand that the low state capacity is often a political choice.

2- La Grande Revolution, Encore? A comparison between France of 1787 with present USA as both had financed an overseas war with borrowed money.

3- The War Dogma: This article appears in the July issue of Agenda/Infochange for the theme on the ‘Limits of Freedom’. An insight on Dantewada and Operation Green Hunt.

4- Playing fast and loose by Pratap Bhanu Mehta : A overview of tussle on Janlokpal Bill - A morally insidious vacuum in government. A self-proclaimed civil society displaying its own will to power. A media age where being off-balance gets you visibility. A public whose mood is punitive. An intellectual climate that peddles the politics of illusion.

5- A weakness born of bad intent by Siddharth Varadarajan: - The UPA government's unwillingness to act against the abuse of political and corporate power has created a vacuum which others are rushing to fill.

6- Do you want to be watched? - The new rules under the IT Act are an assault on our freedom. A report by Sunil Abraham who is the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society.

7- "Tragedies darken when their victims refuse to understand the causes. Intellectual failure has thus been the principle deficit; which means the so-called men of intellect are to blame". Interview with Dr. Mobarak Haider, A political activist, scholar and renowned writer of English and Urdu.

8- Demystification of myths by Nadeem F. Paracha - In the last thirty years the number of people in Pakistan who pray regularly and attend collective prayers in mosques has risen three-fold. So have the number of mosques, madressas, Islamic evangelical organizations and religious programming on TV - and yet the rates of rape (including child rape), drug addiction, public humiliation of women has steadily maintained an upward trend.

9- Why dream borrowed dreams? - One of the most seductive myths that the Indian middle class and its elite believes in is that the 21st century is the Indian Century. A deep analysis of this myth by Shiv Visvanathan.

10- Disgust, Magical Thinking, and Morality : A short article on Morality and feeling of disgust.

State Torture

Few things reveal a nation better than what it censors. Human societies that allow the free expression of ideas do better than those that don’t allow new ideas. The evidence is all around for us to see and judge. The renaissance was the triumph of ideas over church power after a long struggle.

The ignorance and lethargy of the poor are the direct result of the whole economic, social and political domination. It is the failure of elites and policy makers that failed in creating inclusive growth.Hence, the violence emerge from the poor neighborhood or a specific region.

State can't arm people to fight insurgency, it will only lead to legalization of violence with state backing it. The order can't be maintained by violating spirit of law in the first place. Hence, they opt for torture technique to suppress the will of people.

The other strategy to deal with challenges to legitimacy of state is by promoting and reinforcing identity politics within a system of privileges where certain groups and individuals are favored over others. In a word: divide and rule. Best of all discrimination policies used by government !

In democracy, power goes to those who've got money or people. The weak and cynical power holder people are obsessed with their status in society. Abhu Gharib and Guantanmo are prime example of insanity and savagery of the people holding power.An enhanced interrogation techniques” probably have a flawed idea of whether this constitutes torture, because few have felt the pain these methods can cause.

Authoritarian regimes or Deep State are not known for creating space where alternative political leadership grows - for if they do so, they would cease to be authoritarian. The delusional and diseased symbiosis of a person with power.

In short term, the proclamation of reforms, positive changes and greater media freedom turned out to be nothing but empty promises. So there is no major change in the political, moral, psychological, social or economic position of the people. And the game goes on...

No economic system can over-ride the mandate to preserve our life and liberty.  Each country has to find is its own political cohesiveness to carry out very painful and ugly transitions. No country or state is exception of power tussle.There is always inevitable anger  in the people against such misuse of state power which can either spark like revolution or least possibility of reform from inside government.

The media also remain in the frenzy state. The very assumption behind security state is that civilians are expendable, that there is no need to build civilian institutions because they are permanently invaded and the whole world is their enemy. Yet, rarely are the political and economic system that sustain authoritarian groups in the position of power is questioned. That led only to revolution !

Background of the Arab Revolution

When the Rebels become the tyrants, Revolution takes on a new meaning. We can consider Libya a perfect example of that. Still, US government is backing Libyan rebels to achieve democracy and liberty in their nation while supporting Arab league authoritarian rule in Saudi, Bahrain or Yemen. Why ? Only vested interests in Saudi and hidden agenda in Libya !

As pointed by a journalist : Libyan assets are mainly in the US and Europe, and they amount to hundreds of billions of dollars: the US Treasury froze $30bn of liquid assets, and US banks $18bn. What is to happen to interest on these assets? The absence of any specific arrangement assets are turned into a booty, an interest-free loan, in this instance, to US Treasury and US banks. And the logic of western policy is permanent support for the Saudi elite and its guarantee of “stability” and "oil"in the region.

Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University, coined the term refolution to describe the hybrid form of change that had taken place. These transformations were non-violent and pointed to the emergence of a new approach to transformation that involves reform and revolution.

We will go through Ten articles to understand the change happening in the Arab region deeply :

1- The Student Movement in 1968 : To examine the Arab student movement in 1968, Egypt and Lebanon provide the best insight because both countries saw the most sustained student activities of the era while also proving influential throughout the region because their universities enrolled students from all over the Arab world. Betty S. Anderson gives an excellent piece which helps put current movements in a longer time perspective.

2- Egyptian transformations: Mohammed Bamyeh is a professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. Sociologist Mohammed Bamyeh was present at Tahrir Square throughout the Egyptian Revolution and was able to see the popular political will unfolding. Here he singles out key elements in the uprising and describes the social transformations they have brought about.

3- The West's 'double standards' in Middle East : Support for Bahraini government's crackdown on protests is a paradox as West supports Libyan rebels, activist argues.

4 - Don't Steal Our Revolution! : The Arab democracy movement sets great store by its independence and now fears that the intervention in Libya will come with a high price tag: it could rob their protest of its legitimacy. Layla Al-Zubaidi comments on the Arabs and the Libyan Intervention.

5- The Orientalist blindness and The Arab revolution and Western decline : Haaretz, A newspaper from Israel look in the matter with a new angle for most of the readers.

6- The Turkish Chimera :  Turkey's historical experience and political evolution differ in important ways from Arab countries'. As a result, the collapse of the old power structures in many Middle East countries is likely to be accompanied by considerable political turmoil and violence, writes F. Stephen Larrabee on Turkey and the ''Arab Spring'.

7- Imperial feminism, Islamophobia and the Egyptian revolution : An article by Nadine Naber who is an Assistant Professor in the Program in American Culture, Arab American Studies, and the Department of Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

8- A revolution against neoliberalism? : If rebellion results in a retrenchment of neoliberalism, millions will feel cheated. Walter Armbrust gives a detailed report. Dr. Walter Armbrust is Hourani Fellow and University Lecturer in Modern Middle East Studies at Oxford University.

9- Paradoxes of Arab Refo-lutions : A detail study on the possibility of various changes : ‘reformist change’, ‘insurrectionary model’ and ‘regime implosion’ by Asef Bayat. Dr. Asef Bayat is Professor of Sociology and Middle Eastern studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

10- Can “Leaderless Revolutions” Stay Leaderless: Preferential Attachment, Iron Laws and Networks : by Zeynep Tufekci.

"The one thing freedom lovers need is real community. Not just the community of Web yakking. Not just the community of common ideas and ideals. But a web of institutions that serve freedom's goals." — Would You Move to the State of the Free? (2001) Claire Wolfe

Ten Issues - 11

1- State legitimacy and resistance : State derives its legitimacy from its institutions. Its these institutions that give State credibility and roots to live in the society of hostile crowds.

2-The ‘Viral’ Revolutions of Our Times – Post national Reflections by Aditya Nigam

3- Interview to Devinder Sharma :- On Food Crisis and Corruption. An Interview with One World South Asia: "Corruption has fuelled India's economic growth.

4- Growth and other concerns by Amartya Sen

5- Comments and Responses by the author : Socialism of 21st Century : Author Sunil

6-  An Interview with Guernica Magazine. In the wake of sedition charges by the Indian government, Arundhati Roy describes the stupidest question she gets asked, the cuss-word that made her respect the power of language, and the limits of preaching nonviolence.

7- The multi-individual society By Pratap Bhanu Mehta - An look on liberalism and multiculturalism.

8- Reluctant heroes: International recognition offers a degree of protection to investigative reporters. But, writes Lydia Cacho, being in the limelight presents a new set of dilemmas.

9- Information technology and economic change: The impact of the printing press BY Jeremiah Dittmar.

10- All Religions are not same, but Fundamentalists Are By M J Akbar : The four principles of a modern society, which is a necessary prerequisite of a modern state, are gender equality, political equality, religious equality and economic equity.

Quote of the Day: People do not like to be treated like fools, or backward infants, or extras in some parade. There is a natural and inborn resistance to such tutelage, for the simple-enough reasons that young people want to be regarded as adults, and parents can't bear to be humiliated in front of their children. One of Francis Fukuyama's better observations, drawing on his study of Hegel and Nietzsche, was that history shows people just as prepared to fight for honor and recognition as they are for less abstract concepts like food or territory. --- Christopher Hitchens

Changing Times

A Day Trip to My Alma Mater : One of the best memoir and evaluation done by alumni on IIT system.

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education : Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers. - By William Deresiewicz

what do *you* want to do?! -- Author points correctly that forget science, everyone should be prioritizing their activities and asking themselves - is this *really* something *I* want to do?!

Amusing Ourselves To Death : PBH: Huxley Vs. Orwell: Infinite Distractions Or Government Oppression?

My Wishlist of Reading : Yayaver on Flipkart

Reality is both good and bad depending on our view. Torture, suicide and terrorism are the three blind mice of our era with no one knowing clearly which of them is leading us astray. And all of them are born out of religion. They have played a major role in the grisly battle between terror and retribution. Similarly, prostitution is only product of repressed sexuality and marriage without love.

What happens in the initiative of an individual to change society ? First people will ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they feel insulted and fight you, then you win.

Graveyard is a place is full of people who thought that the world can’t do without them. But the world goes on with new ideas and lives. It will go without me also. The black sheep was waiting for turning into suddenly the dark horse. The ambition disappeared and with that black sheep will remain true to its natural form.

Fierce critical interrogation is sometimes the only practice that can pierce the wall of denial consumers of images construct so as not to face that the real world of image-making is political - that politics of domination inform the way the vast majority of images we consume are constructed and marketed.

Communism, Revolution and State

The Communists say that there are the only two means of establishing communism. The first is violence. Nothing short of it will suffice to break up the existing system. The other is dictatorship of the proletariat. I quote here an old premise of political theory: for a state to be functional and effective, it must retain a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. I am in love with opinions of Emma Goldman on the goals, ends, means and values attached with the revolution. I am reproducing her views with the help of wikiquote.

What is Cause of revolution?

I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.

If I can't dance, it's not my revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.
If there won't be dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming.

Do the end justifies all means ?

There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another, This conception is a potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical.

This perversion of the ethical values soon crystallized into the all-dominating slogan of the Communist Party: THE END JUSTIFIES ALL MEANS. Similarly in the past the Inquisition and the Jesuits adopted this motto and subordinated to it all morality. It avenged itself upon the Jesuits as it did upon the Russian Revolution. In the wake of this slogan followed lying, deceit, hypocrisy and treachery, murder, open and secret. It should be of utmost interest to students of social psychology that two movements as widely separated in time and ideas as Jesuitism and Bolshevism reached exactly similar results in the evolution of the principle that the end justifies all means. The historic parallel, almost entirely ignored so far, contains a most important lesson for all coming revolutions and for the whole future of mankind.

The great and inspiring aims of the Revolution became so clouded with and obscured by the methods used by the ruling political power that it was hard to distinguish what was temporary means and what final purpose. Psychologically and socially the means necessarily influence and alter the aims. The whole history of man is continuous proof of the maxim that to divest one's methods of ethical concepts means to sink into the depths of utter demoralization. In that lies the real tragedy of the Bolshevik philosophy as applied to the Russian Revolution. May this lesson not be in vain.

No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society.

Its first ethical precept is the identity of means used and aims sought. The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and wellbeing. Unless this be the essential aim of revolution, violent social changes would have no justification. For external social alterations can be, and have been, accomplished by the normal processes of evolution. Revolution, on the contrary, signifies not mere external change, but internal, basic, fundamental change. That internal change of concepts and ideas, permeating ever-larger social strata, finally culminates in the violent upheaval known as revolution.

The period of the actual revolution, the so-called transitory stage, must be the introduction, the prelude to the new social conditions. It is the threshold to the NEW LIFE, the new HOUSE OF MAN AND HUMANITY. As such it must be of the spirit of the new life, harmonious with the construction of the new edifice.

To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare the future become its cornerstone.

It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that revolution is in vain unless inspired by its ultimate ideal. Revolutionary methods must be in tune with revolutionary aims. The means used to further the revolution must harmonize with its purposes. In short, the ethical values which the revolution is to establish in the new society must be initiated with the revolutionary activities of the so-called transitional period. The latter can serve as a real and dependable bridge to the better life only if built of the same material as the life to be achieved.

Nothing would prove more disastrous to our ideas, we contended, than to neglect the effect of the internal upon the external, of the psychological motives and needs upon existing institutions. 

Please also read through B R Ambedkar's essay on Karl Marx and Mahatma Buddha.

Revolution and State

I was reading Emma Goldman's view on revolution that are based on her observation on Russian revolution. They are indeed astute and written with intense understanding of the failure of the communist revolution to turn into just state.

The inherent tendency of the State is to concentrate, to narrow, and monopolize all social activities; the nature of revolution is, on the contrary, to grow, to broaden, and disseminate itself in ever-wider circles. In other words, the State is institutional and static; revolution is fluent, dynamic. These two tendencies are incompatible and mutually destructive. The State idea killed the Russian Revolution and it must have the same result in all other revolutions, unless the libertarian idea prevail.

Revolution is indeed a violent process. But if it is to result only in a change of dictatorship, in a shifting of names and political personalities, then it is hardly worth while. It is surely not worth all the struggle and sacrifice, the stupendous loss in human life and cultural values that result from every revolution. If such a revolution were even to bring greater social well being (which has not been the case in Russia) then it would also not be worth the terrific price paid: mere improvement can be brought about without bloody revolution.

In its mad passion for power, the Communist State even sought to strengthen and deepen the very ideas and conceptions which the Revolution had come to destroy. It supported and encouraged all the worst antisocial qualities and systematically destroyed the already awakened conception of the new revolutionary values. The sense of justice and equality, the love of liberty and of human brotherhood — these fundamentals of the real regeneration of society — the Communist State suppressed to the point of extermination. Man's instinctive sense of equity was branded as weak sentimentality; human dignity and liberty became a bourgeois superstition; the sanctity of life, which is the very essence of social reconstruction, was condemned as unrevolutionary, almost counter-revolutionary. This fearful perversion of fundamental values bore within itself the seed of destruction.

Witness the tragic condition of Russia. The methods of State centralization have paralysed individual initiative and effort; the tyranny of the dictatorship has cowed the people into slavish submission and all but extinguished the fires of liberty; organized terrorism has depraved and brutalized the masses and stifled every idealistic aspiration; institutionalized murder has cheapened human life, and all sense of the dignity of man and the value of life has been eliminated; coercion at every step has made effort bitter, labour a punishment, has turned the whole of existence into a scheme of mutual deceit, and has revived the lowest and most brutal instincts of man. A sorry heritage to begin a new life of freedom and brotherhood.

My idea of the revolution is to have individuals as free as possible and responsible. Neither need of law nor of any law establishing agencies. It will be academically wrong to quote Osho here but he pointed very correctly about authoritative nature of state and rebellious nature of revolutionary in the case of Russia.

Trotsky and Stalin were enemies, enemies in the sense that Joseph Stalin was never a revolutionary. All he wanted deep down was to replace the czar and become a czar himself -- and he became it. He became the worst czar that has ever existed.

In Russian history the worst czar was Ivan the Terrible, but he was nothing compared to Stalin. He poisoned Lenin, he killed Trotsky, and he went on killing other great revolutionaries. He was satisfied only when all the great revolutionaries who were responsible for the revolution were finished. He replaced them with people who wanted law and order, and society and organization. He created the greatest establishment ever created, and with such strength that the whole country became a concentration camp.

It is very difficult for rebels and seekers to remain rebels and seekers. They will be rebellious even if the revolution has happened. Any revolution is bound to create another kind of establishment, and the authentic rebellious man will again revolt, revolt against the revolution he himself has created but had never thought would become an establishment. The authentic rebel never becomes part of any establishment.

The problem is that the rebels are very few, and the retarded masses are so many that unless every individual is a rebel, an establishment is bound to follow. The rebel is bound to fight against his own revolution, which is turning into a new establishment. Up to now no revolution has been able to succeed because the moment it succeeds it starts becoming another establishment. The people who had power change, but the people who come in their place are more powerful. And it is more difficult to change them, because they know all the strategies that they have used in changing powerful people. So they will not allow any of those strategies.

For seventy years in Russia there has not been a single rebel, because you cannot just become a rebel in a single moment. To be rebellious needs a certain understanding, a certain alertness, a certain unprejudiced mind. Russia is the only country in the world where revolution is impossible, and this is a very strange situation. It is the country where revolution succeeded on a great scale. But the moment it became a success, suddenly the water turned into ice; it became the establishment. And the rebels who are authentic cannot be tolerated anymore by the same group who changed the whole society.

I now understand meaning of the popular slogan 'Be a Rebel'. Rebel spirit can't be enslaved by false prizes, consolations and medals. Rebel seeds for future generation and always is crucified by society for freedom, for individuality, for expression, for creativity and for not becoming part of the establishment.

Blind Faith - Denialism

Continuing our exploration of the blind faith, this part of essay will focus on Denialism. First part of the trilogy was on Prohibition. Generally, Denialism is taken as choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth. It is much more than that. Denialism is not simply the knee-jerk refusal to accept the truth, it is a deliberate and often sophisticated attempt to create a kind of pseudo scholarship.

Attacks on scientific consensus employ the simulacra of scholarship and a deceptively readable idiom. Those who debunk the deniers tend to be old-fashioned rationalists or committed activists. Neither group are particularly well suited to looking at the deeper reasons behind denialism, warns Keith Kahn-Harris. We can better read about denialism in this essay Unreasonable Doubt in much precise analytical way. Just quoting one paragraph here -

But one of the most serious failings of a rational, scientific enlightenment is its propensity to be turned against itself, as when a firm scholarly consensus is attacked in the name of scholarship. You can find this subversion of enlightenment in quasi-academic claims that there was no Holocaust during World War Two, that other genocides such as the Armenian genocide never happened, that man-made climate change is a myth, that HIV does not cause AIDS, that evolution is a lie. More broadly, you can find it in the attempts of vested interests – industries, politicians and elites – to refute inconvenient scientific findings.

Basically according to this mindset, one should not introspect and work towards seeking constructive feedback of one's actions and instead find similar faults of others and indirectly justify ourselves. This holds true from nation to individual. Conspiracy theories blooms in such environments led by elites turning backs to any sort of criticism.

Let us take example of or suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan recently. But, instead of seeing the cause of the terrorist acts, the Denial Brigade of Denialistan assert that this must be the doing of anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan forces, or of elements within the regime, such as intelligence agencies. The basic strategy is to mention the names of India, America and Israel for any wrong done in order to fuel the revulsion that already exists in Pakistan against them and to discredit the other argument not by presenting valid arguments but by presenting excuses. The complete denial of failing of Pakistan as a nation due to Talibani and Wahabi forces has already created a havoc situation in Pakistan. State of Denial And Apologetic Defense by Raza Habib Raja clearly describe the situation denial has created in a nation form on the religious faith only.

It is evident that the more one deny own moral and ideological failings, the more aggressive and prominent the physical expressions of our inner most religious and ideological prejudices and hypocrisies become. As this attitude leaves practically no space to the liberals and silent reformers. A failed state doesn't allow any grown-up internal debate, or any appeal against the divine edict. This will swiftly accelerate to an even more failed state and then a rogue one because its limitless paranoia and self-pity must be projected outward.

The tendency to blame external elements for all problems can only be countered by efforts at transparency and seriousness about conflicts. I would like to end this by dedicating the following quote as David Aaronovitch explains in his excellent guidebook Voodoo Histories: "If it can be proved that there has been a conspiracy which has transformed politics and society, then their defeat is not the product of their own inherent weakness or popularity, let alone their mistakes; it is due to the almost demonic ruthlessness of their enemy."

State Violence

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty. It is a privilege that must be earned before it can be enjoyed. It's a quote by a 19th century English cleric and writer, Charles Caleb Colton, which can be found in his 1820 publication "Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words, addressed to those who think".

When a state become involved in any cultural or physical warfare, the identities of people began to change in the public. New symbols have to be waved loud and pertaining to exhibitionism. There is always persecution of people with different opinion that party high command found is seen in every communist nation. Ethnically targeted state repression in Balkan countries where Slovak, Czech, Muslims, Serbs Croats and Roma people are targeting each other based on demographic strength. While the worse form comes in the military dictatorship where authority exploit the majority for their like in Burma and North Korea.

There is nothing to compare with the courage of ordinary people whose names are unknown and sacrifices pass un noticed. The courage that dares without recognition, without protection of media attention is a courage that humbles, inspires and re affirms our faith in humanity. They are the carriers of endurance and struggle against unjust system.

There is an intimate and indissoluble link between intellectual and political freedom. There will be no security for dissidents and their families as long as freedom of thought and freedom of political action are guaranteed by the law of the land. We want to have public policies with a view to promoting an open, secure political system based on confidence and credibility. Those believed in intellectual freedom and justice should be vanguard of democratic movement.

What about democratic Indian state in violence against minority ? Let us take the case of state of Gujarat . Majority of voters are Hindus and they have chosen Narendra Modi due to his efficient application of administrative policies and communal polarization of votes. Despite all his baggage and hate agenda, Narendra Modi may have been the first politician to demonstrate his voters how market works better than any corrupt subsidy system. But what is the choice of minority, either to die in hunger like BIMARU states or with communal hatred in the most prosperous state ?

Richard Holbrooke said with reference to the Yugoslavia of the 1990s: Suppose elections are free and fair and those elected are racists, fascists, separatists — that is the dilemma. Nationalism on the wave of such parties need to be resisted, for they promote daydreaming and they blur our idea of justice, equality and fraternity.

If bad people with the state power hurt someone I love, how far would I go to punish criminals back? I assume that I will go for non violent path through judicial courts initially. If I will have no option left, surely will take arms against repression. And thus will betray my own stand in the power of non violent means, this is mine personal dilemma.

The Sanctity of human life

I am not talking about human rights today. I am asking a burning question : Do some Lives are less worthy than others? Today, an American life is equivalent to thousands Iraqi lives. Genocide in Iraq and Palestine is taking place. And all of the world is mute spectator. Do I have to rephrase the cynical quote from Animal Farm to describe about human lives in tis situation : All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

The article War and the American Republic by Namit Sir has prompted me to write on this issue. I detest military as it shows brute force in countering the intelligent arguments. The ultimate purpose of a military is as a primarily destructive force to be utilised in only the direst of circumstances. But, as the authority resides in fewer hand in any society or world politics, military power is used to constantly wage war or to exploit millions for elite few. Embed here is the lecture of Noam Chomsky to understand power structure at global level (mostly American).

Obama, the Middle East, and the Prospects for Peace


In the interest of human civilization and progress, ideas must be subjected to logical and empirical scrutiny. They must be challenged and rejected when warranted. Idea of questioning policy of the state in in the times of war is treated as a sign of betrayal. Every ultra and irrational act is not only done and justified but also glorified in the veil of nationalism and security of religious identity.

In politics we often mistake stubbornness for strength and ideology for idealism. And we pay heavy price for that. In the words of Thucydides: "The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

The price of liberty has never been cheap in any part of world. But, no idea is greater than human life. Even the blood of martyrs was to protect future generation, it had not flown to nourish the belief and life of the 'holy' war. Only hate and war grow on such wrong notion of ideas of nationalism and identity. Unfortunately, loyalty to an idea rather than its purpose is a recipe for disaster.

Blind Faith - Prohibition

I will start the first part of trilogy on the blind faith. Trilogy will be composed of the essay on Prohibition, Denialism and Irrationality. This is an attempt born out of my anger on the ignorance, intolerance and indifference surrounding us. The need to confront violence and injustice began through questioning taboos and rituals. Overall, I am not here to worship what is known, but to question it.

Prohibition

When a small authorising groups such as state, businessmen or priestly class of a given population disapproves of and/or feels threatened by an activity in which a smaller group of that population engages, and seeks to render that activity legally prohibited. Most of the Blasphemy Laws, censor rules on piece of art like books, movies or music form in this category. Prohibitions are used as a tool to maintain status quo of the authority in the power.

Authority wants everything to be governed and monitored by too much closeness. It is all done in name of protecting the weakened from external harmful elements. They put prohibition by depicting falsely to inception of 'alien idea'. The deep belief that everything — especially anything open and external is already and by definition an intervention is part of the very identity and ideology of the image of the authority (state or religion).

Religion and state has always used prohibition masked as social customs to the majority. These victims of prohibition are mostly society's marginalized or uneducated working class member.  Legally disadvantaged position of women, poorer sections and religious minority helps authority to put violence, oppression and discrimination against them.

Let us take example of Islamic theology. Today, Islamic Prohibition is not solving any problem of the Muslims. Millatfacebook &  halaalsearch.com are way to grow in isolation than to confront others with reasons on world wide web. There is dearth need to question hypocritical religious laws that prohibit a wide range of normal human pleasures. Curosity of human nature is irrepresible by any laws. Take case of war on drugs. And only legalizers are the people who can bankrupt and destroy the rackets of prostitution and illegal alcohol and drugs. Only the prohibitionists can keep them alive as they try to repress the need of others. Demand and Supply principle is the axiomtic principle of the human nature.

The affinity for bans suggests the increasing prevalence of a worldview that wants to eliminate perspectives that are repugnant, rather than develop intellectual arguments against them. It is always more productive to engage with, rather than censor. Prohibitionism based laws have the added problem of calling attention to the behavior that they are attempting to prohibit. This can make the behavior interesting and exciting, and cause its popularity to increase. These prohibitionists made a serious miscalculations: they reacted to their failure by demanding the laws be tightened even more. When trying to block information backfires, it gives rise to the Streisand effect.

A conscious individual in this society has to constant tightrope walk between tradition and emancipation, between freedom and censorship. Today, there are many people that have been killed or persecuted, through bigotry, intolerance and iniquitous blasphemy laws. Hence,I am raged to ask this question: Is all and anything justified in the name of faith ?

The thousand-yard stare

I was watching the movie 'Full Metal Jacket' yesterday. The movie sparked the issue about violence in my mind. Why did authorising state take its stand more violently against dissidents than democratic states? The contents which authority is unaware, that is treated as treasonable due to fear of the losing power by unknown. There are attempts to de-legitimize and criminalize all dissent and opposition to its policies. Bounding of law to maintain order without even hearing voices of dissidents create havoc situation in the society.

Christopher Hitchens summarises dictatorship governance as : The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not. Thus, the ruled can always be found to be in the wrong. The ability to run such a "system" is among the greatest pleasures of arbitrary authority. The only thumb rule is: whatever is not compulsory is forbidden.

Fear, Paranoia, Suspicion and Desperation are common in the dictatorial state. State believes that it can control the citizens by blocking the information flow and shutting down counter state views. The outmoded bureaucracies of state put iron curtain on the people movements, migration and information flow. And, There comes a tipping point where ripple turns into a tidal wave, a wind into blizzard and a movement into a revolution.

Common people unaware of situation try to explain way crisis as conspiracy theories or playing the blame game on external factors, the relationship between solution and problem becomes a distant one. And by ignoring this, thus state and its citizens allows a crisis to fester. State of Pakistan is the prime example of this phenomenon.

There are two persons who inspired me for this discourse : Che Guevara [an Argentine Marxist revolutionary and major figure of the Cuban Revolution ] and Aung San Suu Kyi [a Burmese opposition politician and ex- General Secretary of the National League for Democracy]. They represent two opposite ways in the fight against tyranny of the authorizing state. I strictly stand on the fact that it is never easy to convince those who have acquired power forcibly of the wisdom of peaceful change. Aang San Su Kyi is doing non violently same in Burma and Che Guevera had opposed American interference in Latin American countries through violence.

In both of these struggles, injustice and anarchy are condoned by those who hold official responsibility for protecting the citizens from acts of violence. State tends to act as guardian of the citizens like the morality police, legislating on modes of behaviour they considers harmful to their citizens. When normal human urges are suppressed, they all too often express themselves in violent acts.

It is necessary to cultivate the habit of questioning arbitrary orders and to stand firm in the face of adversity. Political awareness can be blunted by the state but the natural instinct that led an individual to seek justice and freedom can't be suppressed. The root of discontent that is in protests of the young reflects general malaise of the society. State fails to recognise the reality of human behaviour, an instinct for freedom. Humans are not animals that are driven by hunger and mating behaviour only.

Here it also reflects that economic power is built on the ability to access information and resources asymmetrically. Economists have pointed out the link between the presence of huge energy reserves in a country and political instability and human rights abuse. The reason many suggest for this is that countries rich in energy reserves don't need the efforts of citizens to raise revenue, and consequently such states usually become (and can afford to be) undemocratic like Burma and Saudi Arabia . The price of economic development always comes through exploitation of many. Its not the justification of the act but basic flaw of top - down model of economic development.

I wanted to write about state and violence initially. But ended up at different shores in completion. I realized now that deeply held convictions are always on trial in the fight against arm repression. Today is ours independence day, 15th August. The political and economic changes had put India out of crisis, but there is a little intellectual tradition to support social change. Each youth generation should seek for new model or improvement in existing process for evolving, and today its mine responsibility.

PS: Read more about Authority: I don't walk Left and Irrational Faith -3.