Apostatic Alumnus? Or Pragmatic Patriot?

India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, whose observations and comments invariably attract controversy every now and then, opined to the press the other day that the faculty at the IITs and the IIMs and the quality of the research produced by them were not world class. (Not that the faculty were bad, mind you, just that they were not world class.) A news report from CNN IBN quotes him as saying:

"There is hardly any worthwhile research from our IITs. The faculty in the IIT[s] is not world class. It is the students in IITs who are world class. So the IITs and IIMs are excellent because of the quality of students, not because of quality of research or faculty." 

His comment was seen as heresy, given that he is an alumnus of IIT B and that his father was on the faculty there, and provoked an emotional outburst from several quarters (including the lead opposition party, who pounce on every opportunity to bash an incumbent Minister) but hardly evoked any cogent counter-arguments. All criticisms so far either question his moral right to say what he did or accuse him of ignorance and prejudice, and stoutly assert the generally accepted view (in India) that these venerable institutions are indeed among the finest in the world. Nobody has yet stepped forward with specific evidence that the faculty at these institutions and the research produced by them are indeed world class, in direct contradiction to Jairam Ramesh's statement.

Jairam Ramesh's view on this matter is not very different from my own, and when I had aired this view in an earlier post, it drew as much ire (proportionately scaled down to the modest size of my audience), as is evident from some of the comments on that post. My tweet yesterday, questioning the basis for outrage against Jairam Ramesh's comment, was met with equal outrage by someone who offered as proof the fact that Bill Gates and Scott McNealy thought highly of IITians and the fact that in the US, IIM alumni competed (presumably with local managers) to head American corporations. While I have no doubt that these are indeed statements of fact, they not inconsistent with, and therefore do not challenge, the essence of Jairam Ramesh's observation -- that the students are great but not the faculty. Where is the proof that the faculty, and the research they produce, are world class, regardless of the quality of the students or other characteristics of these institutions? Is there any data out there in the public domain that can serve as a basis to substantiate either view?

I decided to investigate the subject of university rankings, focusing on what, according to global academia, might constitute a world-class institution of higher learning, and accordingly, what a list of the world's best institutions might look like. I readily found the 2010 QS World University Rankings of the top 500 institutions within a few minutes of searching. I also came across an old news report that summarized the findings of this same 2010 study from an India perspective. Depending on your inclination and your available time, feel free to download the entire report and analyze it, or to just scan through the rediff news summary. If, however, you are keen on drilling down to the bottom of this issue and so need far more details than what the downloaded pdf ofers, then visit the home page of QS World University Rankings. The home page also explains in detail the methodology underlying the rankings including the parameters for scoring and their respective weights, the process of conducting academic peer reviews and employer assessments and the logic behind the scores.

In the overall "2010 World University Rankings", no Indian institution figures in the top 20 or the top 50 or the top 100 or even the top 150 -- not one single Indian institution of any kind (i.e., not even non-IITs/ IIMs). IIT B, ranked at 187, just about makes it to the top 200. It is interesting to note that among other parameters, 'citations per faculty' (a research/ faculty -linked indicator, under which IIT B ranks 291) and 'employer reputation' (a student-linked indicator, under which IIT B ranks 50) both contribute to the overall rankings, and that our Indian Institutes, generally speaking, rank highly on the latter and rather poorly on the former. This is consistent with Jairam Ramesh's claim. Since I didn't see the IIMs anywhere, I probed further and found a separate niche ranking for "Social Sciences & Management" where JNU and University of Delhi appear in the 125+ range and IIT D, University of Calcutta and IIM A in the 280-300 range (with IIM A just about making it into the list, tying for the 299th position). I also found a separate niche ranking for "Engineering & Technology" in which IIT B manages to make the top 50, coming in at rank 47. Another 4 IITs follow in the 51-100 range, giving India a total of 5 IITs within the top 100 Engineering & Technology universities of the world. These domain-specific rankings certainly paint a better picture of the IITs than the overall rankings, though they don't do much for the IIMs. The 2011 Asian University Rankings are not so kind to the Indian Institutes either -- nothing within the top 10 or even top 20. However, the five "legacy" IITs (i.e., not the more recently established ones) are all within the top 50 and this may be the source of some consolation to the less ambitious. (Shouldn't world-class institutions be within the top 10 or at least top 20 of their own geographical region, if not the world?)

A claim to world class, I would imagine, could best be substantiated if a critical mass of the IITs and IIMs (e.g., the "legacy" institutes: 5 old IITs and 3 old IIMs) were each within the top 100 of the overall world rankings, and each within the top 50 of their world niche/ domain category ("Engineering & Technology" and "Social Sciences & Management" respectively) and further, also well within the top 20 of the overall Asian rankings. These are just numbers I plucked from the air, and you may have your own way of setting the bar for the Indian Institutes of Technology/ Management to be called world class. Either way, the QS rankings for 2010/2011 do not establish either the IITs or the IIMs as world-class institutes. And QS seems to be the only acknowledged brand for ranking universities across the world.

Aggrieved faculty members of the IITs and IIMs and angry alumni (whose wrath, I think, is directed more at the perceived insult to their teachers than to the perceived falsification of facts, if any) would do well to calm down and analyze the hard data freely available to all, instead of being in denial and adopting the proverbial ostrich-like approach. I have this short and simple message for them:

Questioning the validity of the QS rankings or their relevance to the Indian higher education system is not a constructive approach, it is in fact futile and self-serving. It would be useful to understand how the academic world today defines "world class" and to then introspect as to what your institution needs to do to get there, assuming you consider this a priority. If you love your alma mater and your country, then recognize the problems faced by them and look for solutions, rather than question the problems themselves. The first step is to accept reality. But in order to do this, you need to pull your collective head out of your collective ... er ... um ... I mean .. out of the sand, instead of burying it deeper still. (Yes, I'd alluded to ostriches, so sand would be more appropriate.)

Post Script - May 27, 2011

Woke up this morning to find news reports that the Union HRD Minister (responsible for education) Kapil Sibal (whose initial reaction was to say something to the effect that Jairam Ramesh, being an IIT alumnus probably has better insights) had "demolished" Jairam Ramesh's argument, based on "evidence, not perception".

The evidence he offers is in the form of the claim that "IITs rank among the top 50 in the global index, with IIT-Bombay placed at No 21, IIT-Delhi at 24, IIT-Kanpur at 37 and IIT-Madras at 39." I searched extensively for this global index but couldn't find it, and if you do, I'd be much obliged if you could provide a link below in the comments section. For the sake of completion, I thought I would also add other ranking frameworks I found instead:
1. Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU): The wikipedia page presents a table of the top 100 universities in the world ranked over the last 8 years by the ARWU methodology, and states that "If a university is not listed in this table, it did not rank in the top 100 in any of the eight years tabulated." India doesn't figure anywhere in this list.
2. Times Higher Education (THE) World Universities Rankings: THE presents the top 200 ranked by their methodology, in which no Indian Institute (of anything) appears, and also the top universities ranked by reputation (based exclusively on their reputation for teaching and research) where the Indian Institute of Science appears in the 90-100 range, but no mention of any of the IITs or IIMs.
3. Other ranking systems such as webometrics and 4icu that rank world universities based on their web presence and search engine results. Clearly, not relevant criteria apropos of this discussion.

On the subject of research, Kapil Sibal defends the paucity of research, arguing that "the focus of IITs at least for the first 50-odd years was to provide technically trained manpower for the country's needs and that research had not been top priority." Wonder how he feels about that fact that the bulk of that technically trained manpower migrates to the US immediately after graduation.

Kapil Sibal goes on to argue that that 25% of the IIT faculty are IIT alumni, and since by definition IIT students are world class, the faculty is world class too. You don't really need me to point out the fallacy in this logic, but just in case you do, I have three points for Kabil Sibal to consider: (1) Great students do not necessarily make great teachers (2) Even if they do, what about the remaining 75%? (3) How many of those 25% took to teaching as their first choice of career?

Our Minister responsible for education, astute politician that he is, was clearly engaged in damage control, as a reaction to the flak the Government must have received from all the enraged "ostriches". This is indeed a sad day for the Indian education system!

Amis on Hitchens: Something's amiss and that's the hitch

Regardless of his sexuality and sexual orientation/ preferences (I neither know nor care what they are) Martin Amis's love for his friend Christopher Hitchens, as evident in his recent article about Hitchens in the Guardian, seems to consist more of eros than philia or storge. Why else would a grown man indulge in the literary equivalent of performing fellatio -- that other (and more literal) form of oral gratification -- on another grown man in full view of the whole world? And if this trope offends you, I am sorry. I can't think of any other metaphor that might more aptly describe such wanton idolatry as the kind found in this article, of which the following sentence is a sterling example.

 Everyone is unique – but Christopher is preternatural.

Preternatural? I mean, I do think Hitchens's wit is rare and at times outstanding, but preternatural?

Preternatural is the rationalist's supernatural. Amis might as well have gone all out and said "Christopher is supernatural" except that Hitchens might have frowned upon such absurdly banal characterization of his god-like non-godliness. (Being, as he is: a staunch 'antitheist', of serious scientific temper, a purveyor of rhetorical sound-bites to less articulate but equally impassioned atheists, of which "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" is an excellent example, as Amis proclaims.) The epithet preternatural, I am sure, gives Hitchens that warm fuzzy feeling deep down inside that we all long for -- an assurance that, after all this trouble we've taken to explain ourselves to the world, someone out there actually gets it. Someone out there actually understands us and appreciates our true worth. This is how we all long to immortalize ourselves; being called preternatural is the crowning glory of our lives.

What kind of obsequious sycophancy is this? And shouldn't the individual at the receiving end (who, we are told, shuns the human "desire to worship and obey") shudder with disgust at such cloying adulation and that too from a peer, a friend? Contrast that with us plebeians, who, when asked about a gifted friend with exceptional talent in some field, usually use 2 words to describe him: great guy. But perhaps professional writers -- especially professors of creative writing like Amis -- need to slavishly lavish in excess of 4000 words (and while they're at it, frequently quote from Nabokov) on their object of worship. When such writers draw on their love for a friend and whip out all the tools of their craft, it seems as though no other skill is more important than the one in which the exalted one excels, and no other person a better exponent of that art than the one being deified. In this case the skill deals with being the excoriating über-critic -- one whose métier is defined as the continuous perfection of the art of the extempore epigram, and mastery over its application to disparaging, deriding and insulting people. And in this case the deified one may be seen as a modern day Wilde-meets-Socrates, only meaner, ruder, but less profound, and with hubris oozing out of his ears. What basis such hubris, you might ask. At first glance it seems as though his hubris doesn't need a basis, since it appears to be more of a premise than a conclusion. It is suggestive of the possibility that it determines his existence, in a Cartesian sort of way: "I exude hubris, therefore I am." Or is his hubris somewhat closely linked to being a successful career contrarian (in terms of correlation if not causation)? But hold that thought. Amis goes through much trouble to clarify that Hitchens is better understood as a 'natural rebel' than as an 'autocontrarian'.

Christopher is bored by the epithet contrarian, which has been trailing him around for a quarter of a century. What he is, in any case, is an autocontrarian: he seeks, not only the most difficult position, but the most difficult position for Christopher Hitchens. Hardly anyone agrees with him on Iraq (yet hardly anyone is keen to debate him on it). We think also of his support for Ralph Nader, his collusion with the impeachment process of the loathed Bill Clinton (who, in Christopher's new book, The Quotable Hitchens, occupies more space than any other subject), and his support for Bush-Cheney in 2004. Christopher often suffers for his isolations; this is widely sensed, and strongly contributes to his magnetism. He is in his own person the drama, as we watch the lithe contortions of a self-shackling Houdini. Could this be the crux of his charisma – that Christopher, ultimately, is locked in argument with the Hitch? Still, "contrarian" is looking shopworn. And if there must be an epithet, or what the press likes to call a (single-word) "narrative", then I can suggest a refinement: Christopher is one of nature's rebels. By which I mean that he has no automatic respect for anybody or anything.

* 

This is the way to spot a rebel: they give no deference or even civility to their supposed superiors (that goes without saying); they also give no deference or even civility to their demonstrable inferiors. 

"No automatic respect for anybody or anything." That immediately puts Hitchens above and beyond most of humanity. These boys are so into exclusivity! Indeed, Amis awards himself, his father and his friend the dubious distinction of being the only rebels he's ever known, before going on to extol their finer points i.e. their lack of civility to everybody other than those they consider to be their peers (which, again, is a very small and exclusive band of brothers, it seems).

Oh, and I almost forgot. Apropos of the "epithet contrarian" there's this whole business about seeking difficult positions. "He seeks not only the most difficult position but the most difficult position for Christopher Hitchens." Bravo! This sentence reflects the sheer genius of Martin Amis, since it sums up the essence of Christopher Hitchens in a single line. So there are those who seek positions, those who seek difficult positions, and those (or perhaps only one, in that class) who seek the most difficult position -- not for any old polemicist, but for Christopher Hitchens, the gold standard.

Perhaps that's what really irks me about Hitchens. You see, where I come from, we don't go about "seeking" positions on matters. Our positions find us -- sometimes spontaneously, at other times after due soul-searching, and they reflect who we are. If we are unclear about something, we open our minds, we explore, we ask, we learn the facts, we ponder, we converse. And we await the visitation of the position that is ours, via some kind of epiphany. When facts change, we subject those positions to stringent review and if necessary change our minds, as advised by Keynes. OK, granted that not everyone has the cojones to do the latter. Many just stick to positions they've already taken even in the face of new facts that clearly contradict those positions.

Of course, there are several other ways in which people approach matters of import. Some  just adopt positions of their intellectual gurus, since they either can't or won't develop one for themselves, on their own. Some others just find it convenient to sync with their peers. And many others take the position dictated by political correctness or expedience. I am not unduly bothered by any of these attitudes though I believe honesty requires that we ourselves organically evolve our positions, aligned with the natural grain of our own weltanschauung and outlook to life.

But this "seeking" of a position is different. It is dishonest in a profoundly fundamental way and I regard it with disdain. The disdain gives way to sheer contempt when that seeking is driven by the need to maximize the "difficulty" of the position.  This, to me, is the quintessence of intellectual delinquency -- to refute everybody and everything, and when challenged to explain oneself, take the thin grassy trail left untrodden by the muddied boots of everybody else's pronouncements. (Think 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost.) There always is one; the trick is to find it and talk the walk, surprising or even shocking an unsuspecting audience with the succinct articulation of one's own unique, radically different point of view. This is exactly what seeking difficult positions entails. I know because when I was in my early teens, that's what I used to do. There was a kind of enigmatic heroism about doing it -- the kind of enigmatic heroism that would attract (or so I thought back then) the opposite sex or at least a mixed fan following. And the torment arising from the struggle within, of syncretic attempts to reconcile those varying difficult positions (over time contrarian positions are bound to result in contradictions and paradoxes, which rationalists hate as much as superstitious belief and blind faith) only served to enhance one's magnetism. But with Amis, Hitchens et al. it doesn't end there. There's the icing on the cake: the expression "the most difficult position for Christopher Hitchens" -- suggesting not only an unparalleled greatness but also the continuous effort to outdo that greatness every time. Ergo preternatural.

Sadly, it turns out that some juvenile intellectual delinquents just never grow up; on the contrary, they obsessively hone their compulsions to a fine art form, and then get fawned upon by fanboys. Perhaps this is because of their socially maladjusted adolescence and/ or major childhood insecurities that were never addressed. As happens with most nerds and others suffering from a sense of inadequacy or low self-esteem, they would then stick to small groups of their own kind -- a tight mutual admiration society of bright minds that are socially dysfunctional, to seek comfort in each others' miseries. Perhaps that, then, is whence the hubris develops, as a defensive mechanism against the mocking jeering social success of 'lesser' mortals.

If only that hubris were to be replaced by humility. If only that brilliant wit, that penchant for deliciously timed and executed riposte, that sharply articulated logic behind pithily framed cogent arguments, were put to constructive use in the service of humankind. Amis misses this angle completely, lost as he is in rapturous praise of 'the Hitch'. And that, then, is what's amiss in his glowing portrait of his buddy. And that, then, is the hitch in the maturing of a middle-aged terminally ill writer. The only redeeming point I see in his story is his ability to laugh at his condition. But that could also be because you least expect it of him. That's how contrarians are.

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.