How to write a blog post criticizing Anna Hazare and the Jan Lok Pal Bill

Apparently many ardent and strident bloggers still want to write critical blog posts on the subject that had grabbed last week's headlines: Anna Hazare's fast and the Jan Lok Pal (JLP) Bill. It is necessary for them to do this, it seems, since their peers have already voiced their opposition on the subject, but they haven't done so yet. And tauba tauba ... they wouldn't want their silence to be construed as support for Hazare and the JLP! Heavens forbid!

If you're not one of those looking to write a critical article on this subject, you could skip reading the rest of this post. But if you are then here're some broad guidelines that are easy to follow and will help you write a really unique post on this subject.

First, express some trepidation around the possibility that what you are about to embark on i.e. criticizing Anna Hazare and the JLP, may be considered iconoclastic and perhaps even blasphemous by the public at large. This establishes you as an original thinker with a really off-beat perspective on things, who doesn't get shepherded into following mass movements. (Besides, it is so uncool for someone like you to be seen on the same side as Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar!) Of course, your regular readers know that in matters cerebral pertaining to a  cause célèbre such as this one, you always take the road less traveled. But remember that your post will be passed around among friends, and you will have several new readers who should eventually become part of your fan club. Hence necessary to establish you as both: maven and maverick.

Second, give a clean chit to Anna Hazare. Acknowledge the good work he's done and his spotless record. Provide a link to the Wikipedia page on Ralegaon Siddhi. Make it clear that you mean no disrespect to the man. If you are really bold, you may venture to suggest that Hazare played to the galleries and was enthusiastic about being part of the reality show that the movement became. But stay within reasonable limits. You don't want to outrage your audience, just to shock them into a new awakening with the epiphany of your revelations (which you will do in subsequent paragraphs).

Third, agree that corruption is a big problem in India today. Deride the venal panjandrums who have been indulging in jobbery, robbing the common citizen blind. Mention the 2G scam and the CWG scam, for sure, and any other scam that comes to mind (there are many of them).  Also make a note of the frustration and anger against graft that has been building up among the hoi polloi over the years, and endorse it as being fully justified. Depending on how bold you feel, you may consider suggesting that people get the government they deserve. If you must do that, then also acknowledge that such homilies are not very useful in crafting solutions. (It would help to remember that the reader is looking for some kind of solution from you, thinking, fallaciously, that if you are criticizing a particular solution then you must offer alternatives.) Strongly advocate the need for urgent action to bring probity to public life and to implement reforms aimed at clean governance at all levels.

Fourth, oppose Hazare's fast as a matter of principle. Call it coercive. Use the word blackmail, if needed, to emphasize your point. Quote, from Dr Ambedkar's speech, that priceless phrase -- "Grammar of Anarchy", and make it your own. (In fact, pwn it, if you know what I mean.) Assert that it is unconstitutional to use fasting and other satyagraha tactics to subvert the normal course of action undertaken by a government constituted by the elected representatives of the people of India.

Next, oppose the JLP Bill as a matter of principle. Call it draconian. Suggest that it paves the way for dictatorship. Identify specific items in the proposed draft JLP and take issue with them. Your duty as a responsible citizen ends here as far as the JLP is concerned. You don't need to suggest alternative language or replacement of egregious text with better verbiage. Since per se you don't believe that this Bill in any form is the solution (or even "a" solution since it doesn't address the real issues), you don't have to pass on your feedback to Hazare & Co., even though there's enough basis to support the belief that this Bill, in some shape or form, is going to be passed by Parliament within a year. Having correctly diagnosed the root cause of the problem as [insert your diagnosis here, followed by rationale] you'd rather focus your keen intellect on developing the "right" solution, than improve what you know to be a draconian Bill that will most likely see passage in a few months. As far as you're concerned, posting your thoughts on your blog is enough contribution. Your fan following will take forward the good work.

Then, call this whole agitation misguided (for above stated reasons) and self-righteous. Inform the reader that it is not enough to be virtuous -- one has to abide by the principles of democracy. Does this imply that Hazare is a morally upright guy, but since politics is the business of villains it should be left to them? No. What it means is that sanctity of democratic processes is paramount. Virtue needs to be patient and learn to work the system. It's a different thing that Vice is unfettered by any such mores and in fact freely abuses the very systems that it is supposed to uphold and protect, through its perversion of powers vested in it by the very people it is supposed to serve.

Further, oppose the constitution of the Committee that will work on drafting the Bill. Oppose it primarily because it doesn't include you or your aantel buddies that hang around your adda, or any other right-minded intellectual (i.e., someone who thinks like you), but instead includes people of questionable predilections and biases. On the other hand, you don't believe this Bill is a solution, anyway, so why would you want to get on this Committee to begin with?

Conclude your post by pointing out how this could well be yet another example of good intentions that can go very, very wrong. Express fervent hope as a concerned and responsible citizen, that this doesn't end up as a cure that's even worse than the disease.

These above are the basic points around which you can build your post. Depending on your individual taste, your own personal style, the tone/ tenor and degree of stridency of your blog, and on what, specifically, is biting your ass right now, feel free to go as heavy or as light as you like, on each of the points above. If you're really good at the craft of using language for atmospherics, then create the overall feel of a savant who sees beyond the obvious and shares deep insights into mundane matters with an audience that is dumb enough to follow you and swallow your nuggets of brilliance whole, without any mastication, much less rumination. Sit back and gloat over the re-tweets on twitter and the 'likes' on facebook that will invariably follow, and the encomiums of praise that will promptly flow in your comments box. Your good work for the day is done!

My WikiTake on WikiLeaks: Assess Before Assassinating Assange

The big buzz worldwide this last week, more or less a week after the leakage of the Radia tapes in India, was around the WikiLeaks controversy. Even as I write this blog entry, opinion clouds in cyberspace continue to be agog with the good the bad and the ugly about it. Julian Assange's face is now recognizable by more people than Lady Gaga's and people all over the world are learning to spell and pronounce his last name, albeit with some difficulty.

The WikiLeaks phenomenon has not only piqued my curiosity but, being unprecedented in many ways, has also challenged my ability to make quick moral assessments -- I can't readily say if this is a good thing or a bad thing. According to Will Wilkinson, writing in The Economist, this is really not important. However, it is difficult to ignore the urge to develop an opinion on as provocative a phenomenon as WikiLeaks, especially if, as Wilkinson predicts, we are going to see more of the same in the future. Having kept an open mind from the word go, I find that while I don't really support what WikiLeaks stand for (as it appears to me: a kind of information anarchy; I don't eagerly support anarchists of any kind) I am not really against it either. If this suggests that I am being morally ambivalent or noncommittal, then let me clarify: it is just that there are no precedents to WikiLeaks  in terms of the nature, scope and scale of public disclosures of secret information and I don't believe we have adequate information to take a position on whether or not this is a good thing from the point of view of the long-term common good of the whole world at large. I believe we should remain circumspect and patiently await revelations and other emergent data before forming opinions on the subject. It would be interesting to observe the trajectory of Wikileaks over the next few years, assuming they're allowed to function unencumbered and unfettered. Frankly, I suspect we have yet to see WikiLeaks in its full glory. Equally frankly, I also suspect that the global powers that be may not allow that to happen in the first place, going by some of the comments that have started to appear in the media. (Links shared by Shefaly Yogendra on facebook.)

Be that as it may, as the future unfolds and (assuming) more disclosures happen and we learn more about the motives and modus operandi of WikiLeaks, I believe we may be in a better position to make an assessment. My proposed assessment criteria would be: (a) intent (b) method (c) outcome and (d) impact. I would want to test WikiLeaks for each of these criteria against the principles of sustainability. In other words, determine whether Wikileaks: (a) aims at the "right" things (b) goes after them in the "right" manner (c) achieves the "right" results, that (d) bring about the "right" state transitions to the world's political status-quo (where "right" is defined as "aligned with progress and prosperity of all mankind for the present and also for future generations"). OK, that may sound like motherhood and apple pie, but I really have no other way of assessing questions of moral rectitude that are not supported by precedent. The alternative being to rely on the opinions of those whose opinions on such matters tend to be pretty close to mine ("those who bought this also bought ...") but that's simply not my style.

Meanwhile, Assange's "boil the ocean" or "have secrets -- will expose" approach has me a bit confused. There seems to be no selectivity, no filtering, no targeting ... any disclosure of any secrets will do, it seems, as long as some part of it or the other stirs some pot or the other in some part of the world or the other. I am assuming that their long-term mission is not specifically targeted at the US, though the recent leaks seem to point in that direction. Before WikiLeaks became infamous recently, for blowing open the lid of the Pandora's box of US diplomacy, WikiLeaks had already uncovered secrets elsewhere -- notably, Kenya. Exposing US Govt. hypocrisy is to an extent quite fashionable among some political observers and analysts (especially those who are not American), and in that sense Assange is not alone, if that is what he is after. Few can resist biting into the meaty steak of American doublespeak, especially if it is served up on a platter au jus. And there has been so much of it over the last decade or so. What would set Assange up as a truly nation-agnostic information anarchist would be if he repeats this number with any or all of countries like Russia, China, Iran, N Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine and so on.

As may be evident from my last post at this blog (in which I severely criticized Arundhati Roy for being an anarchist), I classify anarchists into two categories -- the deontological anarchists, for whom anarchy is the means as well as the end, and the teleological anarchists, for whom anarchy is a means to a "higher" goal. Assange's last comment in the Guardian Q&A:

‎"History will win. The world will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you." 

seems to suggest that he's the latter kind of anarchist. On the other hand his utterance might simply be an appeal to crowd-source support for his cause, a swan song for survival.

Not sure if history will win -- history tends to be written by the victorious. But time will tell, for sure.

The Fraud of All Things (or, The Case for the Sedation of the Seductive Seditionist)

I am not against the very idea of discussing Kashmir's secession from the Indian Union. There, I've said it. Not that I am in favour of secession either -- certainly not, all else being equal. But hey, if Kashmir's Aazadi is the only way things can move forward to bring peace and stability to the region, to reduce conflict in general and terrorism in particular, and to allow India and Pakistan to focus on economic growth, social reform and prosperity for their respective peoples, then it has my reluctant vote. My objection to Arundhati Roy's inflammatory speeches that have been fanning secessionist fires among Kashmiris in an atmosphere already charged with anger and hatred for the Indian Government, is not about that. It is about the motives of Ms Roy, as they appear to me.

I've never been a fan of Arundhati Roy. Years ago, I didn't find her book "The God of Small Things" particularly interesting or worthy of the Booker she got. In fact I found it eminently put-down-able and so put it down after a few honest attempts at reading it. Going on from there, I've found her anti-establishmentarian antics over the last few years very shallow, jejune and churlish -- devices to grab attention, revealing her to be a controversial contrarian who delights in intellectual delinquency and basks in the media spotlight that it brings. I seldom discuss Arundhati Roy or her work, because I fear that it might feed the invisible demons who conspire to bring publicity to opinionated twits like her. In a manner of speaking. However, there are times when I am drawn into it and can't help myself.

About a year ago, at the birthday party of a friend, an impressionable young man (who happened to be my friend's husband's nephew) was gushing over Roy and her activism and her bold stand on various issues to a group of people. According to me she doesn't really have a stand that can stand sharp intellectual scrutiny, but she's definitely got a lot of people fooled. Since I entered the conversation late, I had to ask said nephew of said friend's husband who he was talking about, and when told, couldn't help saying, with a dismissive wave of hand -- "Oh! her." Which, of course, immediately led to my being quizzed about such a response. "She's just an attention-mongering contrarian and devoid of any real substance" said I. The nephew, stung by this blasphemous disparagement of his 'goddess of big things', parried back with "And aren't you being a contrarian yourself by taking that stand when all of us here think highly of her?" Realising by now that this whole bunch was on one side, I said, "No. I expressed a considered opinion, which, as it turns out, is different from what you guys think of her. A contrarian would do it in reverse -- wait to hear what the general consensus of the crowd is, or, if there's no time for that then quickly get a sense of the crowd's mood, and then stun them with outright contradiction."

Roy has been in the media a lot in recent times -- specifically apropos her support for the Maoists, but also for generally being the enfant terrible of the world of social causes. Not wanting to waste time on her and her controversies, I've restrained my urge to comment in the social media, though I did air my views a couple of times in private conversations. However, earlier today, I broke my self-imposed oath to never utter her name in public, and at the risk of drawing the ire of her misguided fan following, tweeted:

They say it takes all kinds to make a world. Apply that to Arundhati Roy, the fraud of all things. Does she make a world? Or break one?

and, feeling recklessly brave, followed that with another tweet:

On a different note, what is the verb from 'sedition'? In Roy's case it could be 'to seduce'. She may need to be 'sedated'.

Someone remarked in a back-channel message (on the second tweet) that it smacked of sexism. I replied that it would indeed have been a sexist comment, if it weren't for the fact that Roy's go-to-market strategy freely draws on her own dainty muliebrity, or the fact that she has a knack for foxily leveraging her feminine allure (or what's left of it) in her interviews and her public interactions. Why should she then escape characterization as a seductress? Moreover, sedition is a kind of seduction in itself, isn't it?

Just as I don't have issues with peaceful discussions on secession as a solution to our problems, I also don't have issues with peaceful discussions on using anarchy as a means to achieve a better end-state. (I don't agree that anarchy can or will lead to a better end-state -- I think there are less risky ways to get there, but I am open to discussing anarchy as a possible approach.) There are many ways of getting from A to B, and my moral compass in such matters is more aligned with teleological morality rather than deontological morality. Which means that I don't think that anarchy is a bad thing per se and so, in my opinion, someone trying to create anarchy is not committing a crime ipso facto. Their motives in doing so are important.

In the case of Ms Roy, in her support for Maoist insurgents and Kashmiri separatists (different contexts, same agenda) the anarchy she is trying to create, as far as I can see, is not a means to an end (such as a better India) but an end in itself. Not a solution to a problem but a deepening of the problem itself. I suspect she would go to any part of India where there is strife and suffering and stoke the anti-establishment fires that are burning there: the far east, the central corridor, the north .. wherever trouble is being fomented. But she cleverly stays within the ambit of the law, in each case, never really crossing the line herself. Not the originator but an agent provocateur. Not a reagent that participates in a chemical reaction, but a catalyst who accelerates precipitation but remains untouched. It is almost as if she wants done to India what the Taliban has already begun doing to Pakistan -- to disintegrate the state and destroy its institutions, and to look like an ingénue while it happens. If that's her motive, that is something I will not stand for.

So, whereas I strongly believe in unconditional freedom of expression in an Einsteinian world -- of curved spacetime inhabited by zen monks where the lyrics of John Lennon's "Imagine" ring true, when it comes to the Newtonian world we live in -- of Euclidean spacetime populated by brutes capable of unimaginable and unconscionable violence and full of volatile mobs that can explode within moments of listening to hate speeches, I would draw the line somewhere. Sorry, no unrestrained free speech for those whose sole purpose is to cause total system failure -- it is not on the menu. True, it takes all kinds to make a world (and those who know me will testify to the fact that I am a strident pluralist, an avid celebrator of diversity and a staunch upholder of all kinds of individual freedoms) but it takes just one kind to break a world -- the kind who loves the smell of napalm in the morning.

Relief and Ground

There are times when I sit back and observe my 6 year old at play with his friends -- those simple games, those minor squabbles, those negotiations and reconciliations, those squeals of delight, those shrieks of glee.

Children don't need a reason to be happy: they just are. If there are times when they are not happy, then it is because of some reason -- something that did not go their way. And when that has passed, they are happy again. Happiness is their default natural state. It is what they return to every time, all the time. They don't go around seeking happiness; it is already there. It is where they live. We adults refer to childhood as a time of innocence. The loss of innocence comes with the discovery that that is not how life is.

We adults need reasons to be happy. We are constantly seeking happiness (as though something we do can bring it to us, or someone we know can gift it to us). But not finding it, most of the time. If there are times when we are happy, then that is because of some reason -- something that did indeed go our way! And when that has passed, we're unhappy, again. Unhappiness does not always mean sadness or misery, but includes a variety of different feelings, emotions, moods, and states of mind. However, all of these have one thing in common: they cannot be described as happiness. As adults, our unhappiness is our natural state. It is what we return to every time, all the time. It is already there, always with us. It is where we live. We may indulge ourselves in the pleasures of life, we may eke instant gratification from the things money can buy, we may celebrate momentous or memorable occasions, we may revel in the joy of achievements or victories, and at times we may even derive satisfaction from our overall state of being. But we are seldom happy the way children are -- spontaneously and unconditionally. We look for causation through, or at least correlation with, various externalities: places, activities, things, people ...

Those of us blessed with happy children find it soothing to watch them be happy ... and to sometimes even plunge into their moment, to vicariously splash around in that pool of pure natural happiness, letting their waves of joy wash over us, letting some of that clean, wholesome goodness rub off on us like the mud on their sleeves.

Migration Migraines: Going Against My Grain

Some time last week an article by Vivek Wadhwa (written, no doubt, in the wake of President Obama's recent speech about immigration reform) caught my attention. As I read through this article and followed the link to a related previous article, also by Vivek Wadhwa, I was intrigued by the author's concerns about reverse brain drain. Numerous thoughts relating to immigration and brain drain started straining my brain (pardon the word play). So I brushed them all aside to the background recesses of my mind where I let them jostle with one another and take coherent shape on their own as I went about my daily routine, and decided to put them all down in a blog post over the weekend in one concentrated burst of effort. After all, that's what blogs are for, aren't they?

First, there's the issue that triggered it all off -- Mr Wadhwa's warning to his President that immigration reforms won't stop the reverse brain drain, and his alarm bells on how reverse brain drain to India and China is a very real threat to the American economy. Why, I wonder, would a Vivek Wadhwa be so concerned about reverse brain drain from the US to India as to write about it so often, when he himself was, in all likelihood, part of the original brain drain from India to the US? Didn't the original brain drain concern him then when he was an Indian, as much as the reverse brain drain concerns him now, as an American?

This is not a personal criticism. I don't know Mr Wadhwa and have nothing against him. I can safely speculate, though, that he is of Indian origin and presently a US citizen. It is possible (though unlikely, I think) that he was born and raised in the US and always was a US citizen. (I did 'google' his name and spend some time researching his past, but all I could come up with was that he graduated from a university in Australia. No information about schooling etc. readily available in the public domain.) But it is also possible (and more likely -- don't ask me why) that he was actually born and raised in India, as an Indian citizen, and went overseas as a student/ young adult. Strange, then, that he should write sentences like -- and I quote from his article:

"The reality is that [..] the poor and unskilled will still be here. But the educated and skilled professionals—who could be creating new jobs and making the U.S. more competitive—won’t be here. They will, instead, be boosting the economies of other countries."

Where was he when that same reality prevailed "here"? (And by "here" I mean India, not the US.) In fact, isn't he one of those (to borrow his phrase) "educated and skilled professionals who could be creating new jobs and making India more competitive" who is, instead, boosting the economy of another country? At a personal level, I have no issues with Indians who've migrated to the US. People will go where opportunities abound, and that is most natural. Nothing wrong with that. Several of my best friends from school and college have migrated to the US and other Western countries. But they don't write articles like these -- expressing concern over reverse brain drain from the US to India. If anything, most of them find themselves on the horns of a dilemma, when it comes to the question of supporting US Govt. policies that affect the Indian economy in one way and the US economy in another.

The question of affiliation with the "old country" tends to come up quite often with my friends who've settled abroad (all first generation immigrants) and some of them are quick with preemptive statements like "Don't ask me whose side I would be on if India and America were at war -- that's too hypothetical and too melodramatic and too cliched a question". When I encounter this dodgy argument (or rather, foil to an anticipated argument) I turn around and ask them which team they would root for if India and America were pitted against each other as finalists in the World Cup -- a relatively less hypothetical and less dramatic question that puts many of the Indian Americans I know in a bit of a quandary. But when the same question is re-cast at the level of government policies -- on matters such as immigration, jobs going offshore etc., it becomes far less hypothetical, far more real, and a dilemma for most of my friends. After all, the two countries collaborate but also compete in the global arena. It's not about questioning their sense of patriotism to the US, it's just that the emotional connect with the country of origin is difficult to ignore completely.

Second, there's this laissez-faire attitude in India towards brain drain from India to the US over the last several decades (whose reversal Mr Wadhwa seems so concerned about). Right through my own childhood, adolescence and youth, I have been witness to the steady migration of some of our best and brightest, year after year, moving out from India and into the US and other lands of opportunity. As a nation, our body of talent has been bleeding 'from a thousand cuts' for several years now. Have we in India recognized this as a problem that needs to be solved? No. Instead we have developed an attitude that, to my mind, is best characterized by a tragic and grotesque blend of: (a) denial (b) rationalization and (c) resignation to fate. There's this standard line of reasoning about Indian talent migrating overseas -- in many cases even after receiving education that has been subsidized by the Indian tax payer (from institutions like the IITs), and this is how the argument unfolds, as more and more evidence of brain drain becomes obvious and undeniable:

Initially: Oh it's nothing much -- there's hardly any brain drain to talk about.
Followed by: Well, yes, quite a few good people do migrate, but look at how many people stay back here.
And then: OK, agreed that the ones who are staying back are doing so because they couldn't migrate; agreed that the good talent does migrate, but some day the trend will reverse and they will come back.
Later: Yes, quite a few of those who have come back to India, have again returned to the US in frustration after a year or two because they couldn't deal with the ground realities here. But the point is that many of them have stayed on.
Lastly (the final justification that to their mind clinches their side of the debate): Well, it's all for the greater good of the whole world, isn't it? Look at the big picture -- India is contributing to global progress, people of Indian origin are leading global businesses, are achieving eminence in academia and research, and are even at the forefront of global politics. We should be proud of that instead of complaining about brain drain!
And as an epilogue: In any case, we keep producing more and more people, so how does it matter that many of the talented people migrate?

You seldom hear anything along the lines of:
- Our systems are broken, we must fix the root causes of brain drain.
- We must have a strong resolve to retain our talent. At the very least, we should stop new outflows, even if we can't reverse old ones.
- We must attract the best minds from abroad, just like America does, and make that our competitive strategy.

Why is it that we hardly, if ever, hear people speak this language? I put this down to the mind-numbing fatalism that is hidden deep inside the Indian psyche when faced with monumental challenges. We find it easier to deny, and if denial doesn't work then our next response is reconciliation -- we accept graciously, for it is so ordained. This is what goes against my grain. And gives me a migraine. Apologies, again, for the play on words. My weak humour is but a poor attempt to mask the pain.

Third, there's the broader issue of talent migration and flow of human capital around the world. This is something that America should learn to deal with, if not actively promote. Up until now it was working in their favour -- they were able to attract the best talent from all over the world. The same thing that drove immigration into that country in the past will drive emigration out of that country in the future, when opportunities abound elsewhere. But even before that future happens, Americans must learn to accept what their President has been saying for quite some time now -- that prosperity does not happen in a vacuum, that steep inequities will only serve to be more divisive, and will disenfranchise large sections of the world population and increase global conflict between peoples and nations. This cannot be good for America, can it? On the other hand, qualified Americans going back to their countries of origin will help in bringing those countries up to a better standard of living and ensure a better quality of life for their former compatriots. This will eventually reduce conflict in different parts of the world and also reduce tensions between those parts of the world and the US.

Moreover, Americans who migrate to other parts of the world will act as cultural and knowledge ambassadors for America. They will draw on the intellectual capital that America has created within them, and will therefore replicate American values, institutions, policies, systems, technologies, management models, regulatory frameworks, etc. thus keeping America in a vanguard position and always ahead of the curve. If these other countries were to develop on their own, who knows -- they may even leapfrog over America some day! Don't you think, Mr Wadhwa, that you should warn your President about that?