Deal or no deal

Of late nearly every one worth his/her salt seems to be commenting on the nuclear deal on the context of the strategic freedom of India as a future super power. Finally Mr Karat the esteemed General Secretary of CPI(M) has gone public about the reasons of the Left opposition to the nuclear deal.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/20/stories/2007082051921200.htm

Any careful perusal of the statement makes the contradictions evident. I have quoted verbatim (in italics) from the article linked and tried to highlight some of the evident contradictions in the actions and stated aims of the Left parties on the issue of the India - US nuclear deal.

Without going into the complex and technical issues concerning civilian nuclear cooperation, it is necessary to take a wider look at the implications of the agreement. Is this only a nuclear cooperation deal or is it part of a wider agreement? If so, does it protect our capacity for an independent foreign policy and how will it affect our sovereignty? One can legitimately question whether India should partner the United States in the global democracy enterprise. “Regime change” and the implanting of democracy have yielded horrific results in Iraq.

By all means the current and future national interest is supreme and should be jealously guarded and it is welcome to analyse the deal from that perspective. But it is best to get the facts straight from fiction. There is no evidence so far to suggest that India is partnering US in any democratic crusade. The high point of the crusade was of course Iraq in which there was not even a debate about our participation covert or overt, forget about actual participation. Even within US the necons are in the decline and domestic US support for such campaigns is non existent (recent congress and senate election debacle), so to think that any such future campaigns are imminent is pure fantasy from the Left to justify reflexive opposition to deny the govt. legitimate credit for a huge foreign policy gain.

The nuclear cooperation deal is only one part of the wide-ranging alliance that the UPA government has forged with the United States. This was spelt out by the Indian Prime Minister and the American President in the joint statement in July 2005 in Washington. This agreement covers political, economic, military, and nuclear cooperation. This alliance entails not just nuclear cooperation but talks of the two countries promoting global democracy, revamping the Indian economy to facilitate large scale investment by the United States, and a strategic military collaboration.Prior to the joint statement of July 2005, the UPA government signed a ten-year Defence Framework Agreement with the Untied States. It is evident that without the defence agreement, the Americans would not have agreed to civilian nuclear cooperation. This seems part of a quid pro quo.

Revamping the Indian economy should be in the top of any agenda which seeks to further our national interest, and if another country is willing to help us attain that, then any such help should be more than welcome. Now, accepting the part that the nuclear deal is a quid pro quo for defence cooperation, it is hard to understand the logic that after conceding the US demand why we should shy away from claiming the part of the quid pro quo arrangement which is 'in our interest' as is conceded by the Left?

Repeated assertions that India’s foreign policy will not be subject to external pressures have not evoked confidence after the Iran episode. Spokesmen for the Bush administration have often cited India’s attitude on Iran to be a test. Even before the nuclear cooperation agreement was finalised, the government responded by voting against Iran not once but twice in the International Atomic Energy Agency. The first serious conflict with the Left arose when the UPA government did a volte-face on the Iran nuclear issue. The government voted along with the U.S. and other Western countries in September 2005 and was not even prepared to go along with the position adopted by the bloc of Non-Aligned Movement countries.

The Left alway seems to hide behind the convenient argument that we are losing our so called 'independence' in foreign policy and independence in foreign policy is a worthy goal in itself even at cost to larger national interests. The fact that we have had an 'independent' foreign policy by acting as the moral guardian of the so called third world has amounted to little in terms of real benefits to the country and it's citizens. Even in the rarefied atmosphere of high diplomacy our self righteous exhortations has counted for little. Our so called NAM friends haven't even stood by us to get an indian elected as UN secretary gen. much less getting into the hallowed security council. The so called Iranian friends are happy to renege legal gas supply agreements to charge us above commercial rates and engaging in brinkmanship in the cohort with our other 'friend' Pakistan on the gas pipeline issue. So when the Left is willing to scuttle it's own govt. and risk the credibility of country to tot up the Iranian interests it is clear whose best interests they are keeping in mind!

The Left parties have been watching with disquiet the way the UPA government has gone about forging close strategic and military ties with the United States. The Left came out in strong opposition to the Defence Framework Agreement. According to this agreement, India is taking steps to interlock our armed forces with that of the United States in the name of “inter-operability.” The framework agreement is leading to various steps like the Logistics Support Agreement and the Maritime Cooperation Pact. The Left has been vehemently opposed to joint military exercises such as the one that took place in the Kalaikunda air base in West Bengal. These exercises were held despite the strong protests of the Left parties and the Left Front government of West Bengal. The years 2005 to 2007 have seen a sharp increase in joint exercises between the two armed forces. This is now being extended to the “quadrilateral” exercises as desired by the U.S. with Japan and Australia in the September naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal.

The United States has been going about stating the obvious strategic and commercial benefits that will accrue from the nuclear deal. Apart from the sale of nuclear reactors, the U.S. is mounting pressure on India for military contracts to purchase fighter planes, naval ships, radar, and artillery. Along with steadily increasing military and security collaboration with Israel, India will find itself entangled in U.S. strategic designs in Asia.

Again Mr Secretary is making some vague allusions to US designs. It will be very useful for the Left to elaborate on the details of the so called 'design' that we are falling prey to. The Left had been 'watching' and doing nothing about the military cooperation between India and US. Why was it silent till now about all the military cooperation of last 2 years and is now creating a ruckus? What is the immediate trigger if not to deny the govt crucial credit which is due from the nuclear deal and 123 agreement. Why did the comrades let the US participate in military exercises in Kalaikunda under their very nose, with out any similar protestations as we are being subjected to now? By the way Indian armed forces are also planning exercises with China, Russia, Thailand, Singapore etc. etc. .... Are we supposed to believe that all these countries have some sinister 'designs' on India or are these exercises just part of maintaining normal diplomatic relations and building military to military contact? Again there are some allusions to US, Australia, India, Japan quadrilateral exercises as being planned as a counter to China. So respecting Chinese and Left sensitivities. if we stay away from such groupings what concessions do we get in return from China ? Would they stop military cooperation and nuclear proliferation to Pakistan? Would they stop claiming our territories and return the ones they have annexed? Would they support or at least stop opposing our entry to ASEAN, UN security council and help us secure rather than undercut our energy supplies? When China takes every possible step to curtail our supposed rise as a powerful nation, why are the Left so keen on not offending Chinese sensibilities at the cost of real benefit to the nation from being closer to the US and Japan. Further, when they wrap and sell it to us as their prescription for protecting our national interests only a person blinded by jaded ideology couldn't see through the smokescreen.

A major reason put forth being made for the nuclear cooperation agreement is that it will help India meet its energy needs. This ignores the very limited contribution that nuclear power makes to our overall energy generation, which is just 3 per cent and cannot exceed 7 per cent even if the ambitious plans for expansion are implemented by 2020. To make India’s foreign policy and strategic autonomy hostage to the potential benefits of nuclear energy does not make sense except for the American imperative to bind India to its strategic designs in Asia.

Owing to the consistent pressure of the CPI(M) and the Left parties who had raised a number of questions regarding the draft legislation before the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, the Prime Minister gave certain categorical assurances to Parliament on August 17, 2006. At that juncture, these assurances were in line with the concerns raised about protecting the country’s interests on the three-stage nuclear programme we have adopted.

However, the situation changed after the U.S. Congress adopted the final legislation to give a waiver for nuclear cooperation with India. This legislation known as the Hyde Act runs contrary to most of the assurances given by the Prime Minister in August 2006. The Act includes provisions imposing restrictions on transfer of technology and barring access to dual use technologies, thus denying India a full nuclear fuel cycle. The U.S. President has to report to the Congress every year on how India is complying with the provisions set out in the Hyde Act. The Act enjoins on the administration the prevention of fuel supplies and equipment from other countries to India if the U.S. terminates the bilateral agreement. The argument that the bilateral text overrides the clause cannot be accepted, as the text also states that “national laws” will prevail. To say that the Hyde Act is not binding to India is irrelevant. The point is that it is binding on the United States.

This is the only part of the statement by Mr Secretary that I think is at least rooted in logic and raises some valid issues. Clearly, it is neither an economic nor scientific consensus that nuclear power is a solution to the looming energy crisis facing the world. Even discounting the European paranoia about nuclear waste there are still lingering safety issues about widespread adoption of nuclear power, when there are other alternatives available like clean coal, bio, solar and wind etc. Even the developed world finds nuclear power expensive, that to without taking into account costs associated with dismantling of obsolete plants and long term safe storage or disposal of nuclear waste. In a highly populous country like India, any nuclear disaster would have disproportionately high human cost which no govt. of future can ignore. Even, assuming for a moment that nuclear power is a viable, safe and economical power source , expecting the US to provide us with world class reactors would be futile. The US nuclear industry has been in virtual freeze since late 1970s 3 Mile island incident and there has been no new reactors commissioned for close to 3 decades. If the hidden goal of the US behind the deal is off load obsolete US equipment at cut throat prices or for India to serve as testing ground for risky new reactor designs then the deal would not be in our interest at all. On the other hand if the deal opens up possibility of greater cooperation with Japan and France (who are the only countries actively commissioning new reactors and generate 80% of their electricity by nuclear process), and also open up importing uranium for running indigenous reactors, then such a deal would be extremely beneficial to us. If the Indian planners have sufficient foresight then they would source reactors from Japan and France and Uranium from Australia or Central Asian countries, which also in turn means that the Hyde act and US policy of return of nuclear equipments etc. becomes irrelevant. While we should internally debate which form of power is best suited for us economically and environmentally, the deal if implemented and followed up correctly opens up an option to expand the contribution from the nuclear sector, hitherto which has been in doldrums due to international restrictions put in place specifically against us (the 1974 Nuclear supply group being constituted in the aftermath of the first Indian nuclear test). As it happens, the world is again seriously considering nuclear power as a component of future solutions to the fossil fuel crisis. By not having an option to rapidly upgrade our nuclear component of power production we will be at significant future disadvantage. The potential harm from such a restriction to our national interest is being completely overlooked by the Left and other opponents to the nuclear deal.

Outside the sphere of nuclear cooperation, the Hyde Act contains directions on India’s foreign policy and other security-related matters. There are nine references to India’s role having to be one of support and complicity with U.S. designs on Iran.

After the Hyde Act was adopted in December 2006, the CPI(M) stated that it contained provisions that were contrary to the assurances given by the Prime Minister to Parliament on August 17, 2006. The CPI(M) repeatedly asked the government not to proceed with the bilateral negotiations for the 123 agreement until this matter was cleared up. But the government did not heed this advice.

The United States is already moving for another round of sanctions against Iran in the United Nations Security Council. Indian companies have been warned not to export to Iran even non-lethal materials. The Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline will not proceed if this nuclear agreement is put in place, despite the government’s protestations to the contrary. It will be unwise and shortsighted for India to spoil its relations with Iran and other West Asian countries, given the vital role these countries play in fulfilling India’s energy needs.

Again the Left's Iran obsession is getting out of hand here and is at variance with our national interest. Foreign policy independent or not must be subservient to the overall national interest and cannot be carried out as a morality play in international arean. It is high time that we recognise the realities of the world power structure and our strengths and weaknesses in that structure. As the world is and is going to be in the near future, the US would be the primary superpower both in military and economic terms. Next in the global pecking order comes Japan in economic strength and technology skills. The Iranians (whom our Left comrades would die for), come no where close to any of these nations and would be facing an internal implosion if not for the global crude price boom. What is the quid pro quo that the Iranians could offer us in return for our support? For all our 'friendship' over the decades with the West Asian and Arab countries what is the 'real' benefit that has accrued to us? Do we have preferential access to crude and gas supply .... no! Do these countries lean on Pakistan to end the terrorist menace ...no! On the contrary, most of the Islamic terrorism is funded by gulf petro dollar in active connivance with the local governments ! So if for a vote against Iran in IAEA the US is offering to open up the nuclear market for us as the Left is suggesting... then by all means we should gladly accept that. It is a very small price to pay for real gain to the country in terms of opening up new opportunity to source nuclear raw material (whose chronic under supply is forcing our current reactors to be under utilised, forget about further expansion! ). The Left should be forced to confront the potential 'real' benefits and losses that the country could potentially suffer by choosing to align with nations built on religious fundamentalism as their core philosophy, instead of aligning with like minded democratic powers.

When the UPA government was being installed in 2004, a Common Minimum Programme was drafted. When the Left was consulted, we insisted on the deletion of a reference to “strategic relations with the United States.” There is no mention of strategic ties with the U.S. in the Common Minimum Programme. But soon after, the government proceeded with forging a wider strategic alliance with Washington.

The Left parties have, after carefully assessing the implications of the 123 agreement, demanded that the government should not proceed further to operationalise the agreement. The objections to the deal have been spelt out in detail in the statement issued by the Left parties. The Left is clear that going ahead with the agreement will bind India to the United States in a manner that will seriously impair an independent foreign policy and our strategic autonomy.

A wise and expedient step for the government will be to acknowledge that there is widespread opposition to the agreement. The question is not whether it should be put to vote in Parliament or not. It is clear that a majority in Parliament is opposed to the agreement. The best course would be for the government not to proceed further with the operationalising of the agreement. Till all the doubts are clarified and the implications of the Hyde Act evaluated, the government should not take the next steps with regard to negotiating the IAEA safeguards, which are to be in perpetuity, and proceed to get the guidelines from the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

The above argument makes mockery of any rational and objective discussion that could be held to critically analyse the potential benefits and pitfalls of the treaty. In the name of majority opposition in Parliament, the Left is hiding behind the fact that it is riding piggy back on the support of the so called communal forces whom it is sworn to oppose! It is the BJP and NDA which exploded the bomb and then started the reconciliation process which has led to the current agreement. It is the NDA govt. which open heartedly supported the purported global war on terror and signed the defence cooperation agreement with the US. Now that they are in the opposition they are wily nily working hard to deny the current govt. any credit for the nuclear deal. It has become an unwritten law in our parliamentary set up that the opposition party should oppose every action of the govt. even if it goes against the decisions of its own previous govt and the the larger interest of the nation. The BJP opposition from this point though quixotical and reflexive, is understandable. But for the Left to hide behind such a facade and project their brand of obstructionist jaded policy as the will of people is nothing other than mockery of democracy. As we see the biggest enemies of the 'rise' of our nation are not external forces (read US), but quixotic pusillanimous vindictive politicians who prevent progressive ideas from taking root to settle petty egoistic goals .... all in the name of defending our 'national interest'.

If it all there is a single person who should be credited with the recent perception of a rising or shining India it is Dr Manmohan Singh, along with the political leadership of PM Rao in 1991, who freed the country decisively from the dark ages of license permit production. He has proven his credibility with 'real' results in the last decade (even the BJP and CPI(M)'s own Buddhadev Bhattacharjee have either wholeheartedly followed or accelerated his policy prescription during their reign) and is seeking to open new possibilities for the country. On what credible basis does the Left in general and Mr Karat in particular are adopting their current holier than thou approach about upholding national interest? Their long stint in power is exactly correlated with the decline of WB from a progressive and leading state of the nation to the economic back water that it is now. All over the world, the ruin of state planned communism is evident. Of course we can always count on North Korea and Cuba as the flag bearers of the future class less society. Comrades in Russia and China are probably more rabidly capitalist than their American counterparts ... the little fuss with which national foreign exchange reserves can be used for hedge fund operations in China has definitely put the US social security administrators to shame! Even more glaringly for the CPI-M, China it self was keen on a similar 123 agreement to be signed with the US after tortuous negotiations (from 1987 to 1998) on much worse terms than us, so that they can have the option of importing Australian Uranium to ensure energy supply for their booming economy. Does it mean that due to the nuclear cooperation with US (or even before when they broke the red solidarity by breaking bread with Nixon in '73), Chinese foreign policy or strategic independence is undermined or is it forced to play along with any democratic crusade of the US? Confident of it's own strength, China has been using the nuclear agreement to ensure energy supply and further secure its strategic and economic interests vis a vis US, Japan and not to forget India. If not anything, then this should be the clinching argument which highlights the duplicity of the Left's opposition to the current deal.

With all its ideological underpinnings being made irrelevant since the collapse of communism and organised worker movement, it is laughable that the obscurantist and anachronistic Indian Left is holding the whole country hostage by hiding behind the patriotism and independent foreign policy smokescreen in hand in hand with the (according to the Left definition ) the neo Fascist BJP! In the process they seek to sacrifice the energy security of the country, keep it permanently hostage to the West Asian 'friends', tarnish the credibility of any future govt. to pursue any meaningful international treaty, preserve permanent Chinese dominance in Asia and of course pave the way for the BJP to return to power. If the Left's vision for India is to be a class less society of beggars (think! if poverty is eradicated then the Left becomes irrelevant) built on self righteous morality (which the world doesn't give damn about) eternally paranoid and insecure about it's place in the world (read the constant exhortations about imperialism in the statements) hand in hand with West Asian fanatics and spurning advances from well meaning nations ... then it is high time well meaning citizens of India call their bluff and consign them to the footnote of history book they belong to.

Bravo comrades keep the farce on!

India - the lost decades and the road ahead

Infrastructure development, be it physical (roads, ports, railway) or human (education, health services) is finally being recognised as the key bottleneck towards the sustainable long term growth of Indian economy . Unfortunately there still doesn't seem to be a consensus about the beneficial effects of rapid economic growth on the over all well being of the populace and more importantly to raise significant sections of the population out of dire poverty. I would like to give a more regional and pan Asian perspective to the importance of having a directed policy for wealth creation rather than getting worked up about more innovative (and pernicious) ways of wealth distribution through licenses, reservations and needless restrictions on trade and investment.

Fortunately the lessons from round the world on poverty alleviation are pretty unambiguous: high investment leading to high growth rate fostered by closer integration with the world economy which helps in adopting the best technology practices. But that is achievable only so long as we tame the vested interests within the country who push for short term gains of their close community at the expense of the larger population.. Regardless of what the right and left wing extremists want to portray the enemies of a prosperous Indian state are to a large extent within our borders than outside it - and I am not talking about criminal elements but vested anachronistic economic powers whose benefit lies in keeping the country shackled.

Below are some numbers which could be highly illuminating as to how badly we have missed the growth train and how our so called highly enlightened political process which we take immense pride in has kept the country impoverished, democracy notwithstanding. The numbers tell the story by themselves. At the end of 1950 Korea had absolutely no industry, a country devastated by first Japanese occupation and then civil war, illiteracy was rampant and agriculture was sole livelihood of more than 80% of the population. In contrast India in 1950 had a solid industrial base (from the WWII supply )better than any Asian country, a working bureaucracy, (believe it or not) one of the bigger foreign exchange reserves, working universities etc. etc. Look at us now S Korea is a member of the OECD (club of developed economies), an economy larger than ours (with no natural resources, 1/20 of land mass and 1/25 population size), human development index of 0.912 (vs 0.611). Lest some of us may invoke some cultural arguments the cultures couldn't be more similar; a place of continuous civilization of 3000 years, high population density, traditional hierarchical society with myriad customs and the corruption which goes along with it. And this growth is despite several military coups, fledgling democratic structures and lack of independent foreign policy due to constant US presence is what makes it even more remarkable. For that matter even Japan was not very different in industry capability at the beginning of 1950 and I am not even venturing to make a comparison with Japan.

India

Year	1960 1975	1980	1985	1990	1995	2000	2002
GDP per capita (PPP-dollar)	430	630	960	1 380	1 830	2 420	2 670

South Korea

Year	1960 1975	1980	1985	1990	1995	2000	2002
GDP per capita (PPP-dollar)	337 1 310	2 440	4 320	7 400	11 450	15 220	16 950

An even better comparison would be India vs China which will put to rest the doubters that we can't simply grow fast because of complexities due to our size. This is despite the upheavals during the Mao era which was an unmitigated disaster leading to ~30 million deaths in the 1960s and destroying the industry and educational infrastructure of the country.

Per capita GDP (PPP) India
1965 1980 2000
927 1160 2480
Per capita GDP (PPP) China
1973 1980 2000
870 1210 3750

The comparison could go on and on with Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines even Sri lanka whose citizens are better off than average Indians despite those countries facing equivalently or more severe problems than us. Enough of ranting and raving .... but in the context the conclusions are clear; the malaise afflicting our nation is woolly headed policy making which is hostage to well intentioned but mis directed and obsolete models at best or being hostage to pernicious vested interests at worst. These conclusions were clear and repeated ad infinitum in academic circles since 1970 but unfortunately our political and bureaucratic class was only too busy protecting their interest at the expense of the common people.

The biggest policy disaster in my opinion is the import substitution model and paranoia about external trade. The sparkling growth numbers above in S Korea and China were achieved by large trade ~70% of GDP while Indian share was around 10 - 20 %. Corresponding investment rates >40 % to India's 20 % of GDP. Trade fosters competition, adoption of new technology, improving efficiency. Competition creates need for infrastructure which in turn fosters employment in industry rather than agriculture held hostage to natural vagaries. Discounting the IT sector (whose contribution is quite small compared to the hype), even now our primary exports are leather, gems, jewelery and iron ore! Unless this sector is broadened to industrial products, automobiles, textiles, consumer goods, electronics there would be no scope for employing the 60% agricultural labour force. And if 60% of working population is held hostage to monsoon vagaries then we could kiss the hopes for poverty eradication a goodbye. Regardless of what the rabid left and the likes of arundhati roy and medha patkar make us believe, there is no way agriculture growth can be sustained at 4% year on year basis infinitely to provide employment to the burgeoning rural population, unless we make a concerted effort for transferring the surplus labour to industrial sectors.The sooner we are out of Utopian day dream of sylvan village life romanticism the better it is for the country's progress out of 50 years of economic doldrums.

The consensus is clear. We need to take hard decisions to ensure industrial revival at national scale. Effective rehabilitation and forgive me but suppressing the militant vigilantism from the likes of Mamata Banerjee (politicians whose only aim is to reflexively oppose any progressive or regressive govt policy). There should be hard growth targets for state govt.s down to city and local governing bodies. Fuzzy woolly headed resource allocation should be done away with and resources should be directed to places which effectively utilise it. The welfare arm and the development arms of govt. should be truly separated. Mixing up welfare with development has led to the cesspool of corruption that is so evident in public infrastructure projects. The govt should actively encourage private enterprise (not just the small scale ones but even the likes of TATA and Birlas). Too long has these two important arms are playing adversarial roles for national loss. At the end of the day a successful professional conglomerate is lot more useful to the people of the country in terms of employment than millions of state propped and politician owned bankrupt small scale industries.

Of course all this would be lost if we as people (even the highly educated ones at that) don't appreciate the hard choices that all this entails and keep getting fooled by populist agendas on which elections are decided like Rs 2/kg rice, free electricity, free TV, x% reservation in jobs, vague exhortations to garibi hatao (with no followup to financially empower people), nuclear chest beating then kargil, pakistani honeymoon followed by raving about aar paar ki ladhai, white mania or colonial paranoia and mandal mandir hysteria.. The unfortunate tragedy of Indian democracy (regardless of the backslapping we slavishly lap up from the western media) is the lack of debate on real issues and how the superficial ones tend to be overplayed leading to election of idiots who eventually manned the commanding heights of our state driven economy. Honesty, objectivity and commitment to nation building has been the first casualty in the process. At least in the past we could forgive the politicians for their folly as though if not in action but intention they had the national welfare in the mind, but of late the cynical and brazen manipulation of caste, language, religion for political gains has stripped the political class of the veneer of justification. This eventually would be the biggest threat to the progress of our nation. Let's hope that this forum in its small way could lead a cause for change in the right direction.

My Nerd Score

Your Score Summary
Overall, you scored as follows:
14% scored higher (more nerdy), and 86% scored lower (less nerdy).



What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:High-Level Nerd. You are definitely MIT material, apply now!!!.

Human nature and solutions to conflict

Here is a quote from an article about competitiveness in the Aug21 edition of the Business week. The results from the quoted experiment are simply illuminating as to how possibly the seemingly interminable conflicts over resources and religion can be possibly solved.

Beginning of quote

"Stanford University biologist Robert M. Sapolsky wrote in the January issue of Foreign Affairs about two groups of savanna baboons he studied in the 1980s in Kenya. One group was getting fat and happy from the garbage they dined on daily from a nearby tourist lodge, but they were attacked nearly every morning by the most combative males from a forest-dwelling baboon group nearby.

It turns out the garbage was contaminated with tuberculosis bacteria. The disease soon killed off both the garbage-dump baboons and the forest baboon males that had been elbowing in on their spoils. As a result, the forest tribe was left with only the less-aggressive, friendly males, and double its previous female-to-male ratio. "The social consequences were dramatic," writes Sapolsky.

Aggression in the forest tribe was far less frequent. There was more reciprocal grooming and hanging out, and females were less defensive now that there were more of them. But most surprising, outsider aggressor males that joined the tribe quickly adapted to this Elysian setting, becoming less aggressive and more social as well. Some 20 years later the tribe's unique social order remains in place, even though all the original laid-back males have died out. "The most plausible explanation is that this troop's special culture is not passed on actively but simply emerges, facilitated by the actions of the resident members," writes Sapolsky.

In other words, the resident males and females treat newcomers well, even if they are aggressors. As a result, the new males relax and adopt the behavior of the group. Perhaps culture can trump our genetic imperative to compete -- or at least get us to stop stealing each other's food. "

End of quote

Now it is not that hard to evolutionally link us the human beings with the baboons in the study. Two crucial inferences can be drawn out right with striking parallels to the global political environment. The first one is that the war mongering strong baboons of both the groups are eventually the cause of each others destruction and second that the period of tranquility follows with a readjustment of the population according to the available resources. The remarkable fact is that such a pacified group is able to absorb and reform the aggressive tendencies of alien intruders albeit under the condition that the number of the intruders is not large enough to massacre the pacifists.

Now this study holds a striking parallel to the way the human society behaved over the last century. A period of ravenous imperliasm to grab resources along with rise of hawkish tendencies all over the world led to two bloody global conflicts resulting ultimately in the demise of the war mongers. This broadly has been followed by a period of relative calm making once the most militarist states of Germany, France and Japan one of the strongest global advocates of pacifism. The US not as deeply affected by the vagaries of total war (and Russia for a good period driven by ill fated belief in powers of the omniscient dictators) haven't lost faith in the military solutions to conflicts. The resulting cold war itself didn't ever degenrate to hot war because of rational pacifists prevailing over Dr Strangelove elements. Unfortunately since then the conflicts seem to be rising in the global scale with several flash points allover the world.

Of course the key issue of resource crunch for an ever increasing population seems unresolved. But we human beings have science and technology on our side to boost productivity and better manage or even create new resources. The way Malthus' predictions have been defied time and again is a pointer to such hopefulness. But the other key criterion of having a large group of pacifists which should be able to recondition any aberrant aggresive elements seems unfulfilled. From this regard the pursuit of bold diplomacy to solve chronic causes of injustice and hence breeding grounds for conflicts needs to be pursued at the earnest. Violence seems to have a strong network externality (borrowing from management parlance) i.e. it feeds on itself creating an uncontrollable spiral until a tipping point is reached where all the key players in the violent acts from both sides are annihilated. This tipping point needn't be achieved again at the cost of millions of lives like in the last century but by marginalising the causes and agents of conflict through the force of the civil society be through democracy or by religious edicts.

Hopfully this interesting finding gets picked up by politicians worldwide who sadly seem to be following down the path of force to control violence which inadevertently is causing it to become stronger than ever.

Guns Germs and Steel : Review

The theory proposed by Prof Jared Diamond of UCLA about the nature of inequalities in the modern world is a refreshingly new attempt at understanding the global power distribution as exsiting today. His work has already been quite popular leading to a best seller of the same name, a National Geographic feature story and another new book on the decline of the civilisations recently being published.

Being a scientist by training his rational approach to understand a problem raised by a native during an ornithology expedition in Papua New Guinea 30 years ago has taken him on a socio-historical journey dating thousands of years back when human like mammals were first creating settled communities. His effort throughout the book Guns Germs and Steel (GGS) is to find a reason to the way human society has evolved since those early days 30,000 years back. According to Prof Diamond the cradle of human civilisation is the so called fertile crescent in the Middle East around present day Israel and Syria which was green and rich with food during the retreat of the last ice age. From there on he proposes that human civilisation spread along areas of similar latitude to Asia and Europe. The fact that greater Eurasia has the biggest continental land mass and a geographical spread along the east-west meant that the new settlers had a huge land mass to inhabit featuring the same climactic and vegetation as their original homeland. This is unlike the Americas or Africa with a dominant north-south spread which meant that migration was often accompanied by highly varying climate and vegetation which required the population to reinvent their farming and herding all the time leading to more time investment in those activities precluding civilisation building.

Further he asserts that the majority of the farm animals domesticated (Cows, Sheep, Goats, Pigs, Horses etc ) are native to the fertile crescent as are the major cereal crops like wheat and barley. These situational advantages meant that the residents of that area harnessed animal power and quickly built agrarian societies based on efficient farming leading more man power to be available for development of other crafts like metal forming etc. This was unlike the case in America or Africa where societies continued primarily to depend on manual labour and small scale farming not freeing up resources for other activities leading to a technology gap.

His third point is regarding the evolution of the germs in human society. The close contact with farm animals in societies of Europe meant that they were ravaged by germs which transmuted into affecting humans from animals like small pox, plague, tuberculosis. These ravaged populations forcing a natural selection process which weeded out the weak and ensured some resistance to such disease was developed. Societies unexposed to such germs were wiped out when they came in contact with European people due to lack of natural resistance leading to their decline.

All the above postulated theories make for a cogent analysis and rationalisation of the historical events but inherent within them are flaws which are bound to be present in any simplistic theory trying to explain thousands of years of choices across the globe that human beings have made which has led to the current world order. Though Prof Diamond is careful in steering away from attributing any racial superiority to the Europeans; the effort to explain Euro-American dominance betrays a tacit acknowledgement of the superiority of the European model, though based on geographic and climactic advantage than any racial one. Geographic determinism is fine, but the underlying assumption in the analysis is that the current world order has reached a final stage of evolution, which is far from the case. Already there are signs that the European model of dominance may be under threat due to host or reasons like demography, shrinking power sources etc. The very advantage of high altitude temperate climate could turn on its head if the next dominant power source would be solar based giving the tropics the geographic advantage they seemed to have missed. The current European world order has been valid probably for last 400-500 years of human history before which the Chinese, Indian, Central Asian as well as the American civilisations of Incas and Aztecs were much more advanced than the contemporary Europeans. So to assume that the current world order is going to continue and that due to emergence of some other factors the current dominance of the European model won't be lost is difficult to assume.

Further the generalisations of the whole world society based on the New Guniea's backwardness or the conquest of the Incas by handful of conquistadors is fraught with dangers of oversimplification. It neglects the historical political and cultural factors in totality. Lets not forget that it was the dominance of the Arab power and their control of Constantinople, the gateway to Asia through land, which forced the Europeans to discover the sea route to India. That was the motivation behind the great sea expeditions across Atlantic which led to the discovery of the new world and eventual colonisation of the Americas as well as Asia. It was the need to secure trade routes which spawned much of the innovation leading to maritime dominance of England, Portugal and Spain. Had the Arabs allowed transit through Constantinople much of the European colonialism and rise would probably not have happened and the current world order could have looked very very different. Another fact that the authors seems to neglect is that the inferiority of metal working skills and horsemanship in traditional cavalry warfare, that forced the Europeans to innovate and use gun powders and develop the modern guns which eventually displaced horse ridden cavalry as the chief war machine. Clearly the Incas secured behind the heights of Andes and without any strong adversarial civilisation to wage wars with were not martially advanced as the Spanish conquistadors. Again it is the age old dictum of Sun Tzu to dictate and fight a battle on one's own terms that the Europeans used to hilt to decimate the Incas and Mayas. To judge advancement of civilisations solely on the ability to wage wars neglecting other cultural and scientific advancements is a narrow way of defining modernity and progress. The huge cities that the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans built overcoming inhospitable environs on the Andes while Europe was still roiling in medieval feudal village economy cannot be dismissed as signs of backwardness. The current poverty of South America after wholesale adoption of European methods of farming and city building probably shows the superiority of Incas in evolving a prosperous and sustaining society in the environs of Andes.

The superiority of the crop argument again looks hollow if we observe that important crops like potato, tomato, corn and maize were imported from the Americas as much as wheat and barley was exported there from Europe. Why is it that the role of wheat is so important compared to corn or even rice which seems to be the most dominant cereal even today is not straightforward to understand. Similarly the fact that potato, a south American import is probably the most important and popular source of calories worldwide today shows that the importance assigned in the book to wheat as a superior and more efficient food source is probably logically flawed.

The importance given to the 'Fertile Crescent' i.e. Middle East and Mediterranean region in the overall scheme of evolution of human civilisation also betrays the Judeo-Christian bias of the modern western thinking of some mythical garden of Eden which got bespoiled by human plunder. Though the area deemed fertile crescent may have been a transit for early man between Africa and Southern Europe to west and Persia, Caspian Sea, Mesopotamia, Indus - Gangetic valley and China in the East, to suggest that this region played a central role in development of human history is not backed by any settlement of the order or complexity comparable to the ones mentioned above. Again the probablity of environmental degradation caused by nomadic tribes of few thousands of people to render with primitive stone age tools sounds far fatched though appealing in the modern environmentally sensitive world. Would it not be more possible that the area mentioned lacking any major river systems was simply not suitable for sustaining any meaningful agriculture to support villages. Historically nomadic tribes moved out of Africa and typically settled along massive river systems which afforded good games and fertile land for cultivation. The lack of any major river system in the middle east denies the very precursor for long existence of tribes to adapt and build an agrarian society of any large scale such that their way of agriculture would dominate the whole of Eurasia.

The biggest shortcoming of GGS lies in the complete neglect of all the events in South and East Asia which has always housed upto 40% of world population.The fact that these areas are currently home to most of the world's poor despite housing some of the earliest and most advanced city states and being blessed with all the advantages associated with Guns Germs and Steel shows that there is much more to evolution of human society than just geography and climate. In fact as late as 1500 AD this region accounted for as much as 75% of world GDP which in a matter of 2 centuries has been reduced to a minor player in the global sweepstakes. Despite all the ancient innovations in maths(invention of zero, algebra), astronomy (evidence of solar systems being accepted in 500-600 AD in India much before Copernicus and Galileo in 1500-1600 AD), military strategy (Sun Tzu), medicine (evidence of advanced surgery as early as 100-200 AD), paper, gun powder, compass, rockets, sericulture, cotton, maritime power (Ming dynasty in 1500 AD possessing the most powerful navy) these regions failed to prosper anywhere close to the Europeans in the latter part of the era from 1600-2000 AD. In terms of germs this region is unrivalled next to probably equatorial Africa. In fact south eastern Asia is postulated as the germ factory of the world due to the range of poultry and animals being harvested for culinary purpose and evidenced with all the new dreaded viruses SARS, Avian flu registering their first human victims there. So despite being home to the most fertile regions of the world and massively populated societies dating back to 4000 BC why is it that these regions closely rival sub-saharan Africa in poverty?

The key which would make Prof Diamond's work more complete is the inclusion of cultural and political aspects to his geographical theory. A vast centrally administered state like the Ming dynasty, Mayas, Incas, or even the Mughals are prone to made policy decisions which limited and shackled development making societies vulnerable to attack by more versatile and mercenary Europeans of 15-16th century. The fragmented European society wasn't prone to massive blunders like the decision of the Mings to dismantle their navy at the height of its imperial power. Fragmented Europe as a whole saw continuous rise though within it the early imperialists like Portugals, Dutch and Spaniards gave way to the French , Germans and the British followed eventually by modern day USA. Being on continuous interactions with Arabs was of tremendous advantage in helping them aggressively adopt new technologies and further enhance them. This openness to adopt new ideas be out of willingness or compulsion was missing in the Chinese and Indian civilisations which increasingly became inward looking leading to their eventual demise. That said the recent events show ample evidence of reversal of old traditions as Asian nations are aggressively adopting the modern techniques from the west leading to rapid economic growth while the Arabs being increasingly inward looking are seemingly failing to latch on to a rapid progress curve.

Whither Reservations

The basis of justifying reservation in the name of heightened perception to some historical injustice of centuries ago is at least shaky if not totally disingenuous. First of all the caste system didn't exist in the egalitarian society of vedic era and neither during the era of Ashok when Buddhism was the dominant and state sponsored religion. The decline and eventual assimilation of Buddhism and the advent of the so called golden age of Hindu civilization during the period around 500 AD saw the first definitive mention of caste in the scriptures. Even then the extent of the Gupta kingdom was strictly limited to West-central and North India. The political and economic power of the upper caste namely Brahmins and Kshatriyas saw a decline by 900 AD along with political power, Harshvardhan being the last Hindu king of any pan-Indian influence. Then follows the rule of the Afghans and Mughals from 1100 AD to 1700 AD in the North and Central India. In between there were the Shakas, Huns and the powerful Kanishka kingdom (a Buddhist state) jostling for political power, none of which had any good will towards the hindu elite castes they disposed from power. In the southern India the Hindu kingdoms of influence were the Cholas, Cheras, Pandyas during the time of Guptas were followed by the Vijaynagar and Bahamani (Muslim) kingdoms in the 1200 AD. The point of argument being at no point in history the Hindu kingdoms were dominant political powers barring the period from 300-800AD. So in no way was the Hindu elite castes were free to impose their dictat on the rest of the populace by exclusive access to economic or political power centres.

From the Vedic times artisan guilds were never rigidly hereditary, much less subjected to discrimination along those lines. Numerous folklores of social mobility (viz. Parashuram, Valmiki) among the castes based on beliefs and work rather than birth are pointers to the flexible social order. Further there are enough instances of Shudras, Vasishyas and to some extent Brahmins wielding political power at the expese of the Kshatriyas, case in point being the Nanda dynasty (shudras) before the Maurya empire. The key to the power of Brahmins was the emergence of the Temples in the 200 - 1100 AD period as a centre of learning, culture and to certain extent of wealth and power wasbased on the land grants by the Hindu kings. There is no reason to believe that the Afghans, Mughals and British persisted with such generous grants which foster alternate power centres at variance with their religious ideologies. Thus since the decline of state sponsor from 1100 AD the econo-religious significance of the temples and the priestly clans have continuously declined making them economically impoverished than the the land wielding Kshatriyas and trading Vaishyas. Moreover, the supposed elitist discrimination of Brahmins in denying education by restriction of Vedas and Sanskrit was irrelevant from 1100 AD onwards when Parsi, Urdu, Arabic and then English became the official language of bureaucracy and commerce. The warrior classes were restricted to pockets of fiefdom with no pan Indian influence of any note. The official religion of the rulers Buddhism from (300BC to 300 AD), Islam (1100 AD to 1700 AD) or Christianity (1700-1947) was never in favour of perpetuating the dominance of so called Hindu elite castes. Moreover internal religious reforms by the emergence of the Advaita tradition of AdiShankaracharya, the Bhakti movement during the 1000 AD were all aimed at making the religion more egalitarian than hierachical.

By above argument I am no way denying the reality of caste based discrimination but just providing a better historical perspective to the oft repeated argument of reservation apologists about millennia of discrimination and suppression at the hands of the upper castes. The perniciousness of caste is rooted in the feudal system of Zamindaris imposed by the British in their policy of divide and rule. The destruction of rural economy and emergence of subsistence and cash agriculture as the only means of employment during the British Raj made the consolidation of land in the hand of few even more economically disastrous. The traditional artisan guilds started breaking down with the onslaught of free market profiteering by British industries reducing India from a 30% global GDP share to around 1% in a century at which level we are still languishing till today. The drastic reduction in the economy hit the artisans and traders the hardest who happen to be also land less to a greater extent than the erstwhile ruling class of Kshatriyas who became the ubiquitous evil Thakurs of the present Bollywood lore.

The realisation that the root of the social rigidity has a strong economic basis would be the first step towards a lasting solution to the caste conundrum. Even today the brazenness of the way the Western media tries to project the 'historical caste divide of India' and the gullibility of the Indian politicians to lap it up as an avowed truth is sickening to say the least. Why certain sections of the society prospered under certain time periods is difficult to answer and it is stupid to reduce to it to simple caste discriminations. Some pointers in these regard from the history. Why the erstwhile powerful Magadh is the most backward Bihar today?, why the Takshila in the erst while Gandhar featuring the first global university as far back as 200 BC is home to the present day disaster that is Afghanisthan, why are the ancient Chinese, Indian, Egyptian and Mespotamian civilisations are home to world's most impoverished and dominated over by barbaric Anglo-Saxons of yesteryear. Why is that Europeans who didn't have any strong scientific tradition as late as 1500 AD have overtaken Arabs, Indians and Chinese in these very fields so significantly in a matter of centuries? The extent of their rise would be perhaps more clear if we recollect that the crusading armies of Europe in 1100 - 1500 AD learnt the craft of Metallurgy, Personal Hygiene, Medicine, Algebra, War Tactics all from Arabs who in turn had assimilated and developed these from their interactions with civilisations further east. Nobody questions how a small nation as England came to occupy half the inhabited world in a span of two centuries vanquishing nations such as China and India with maritime and martial traditions dating back thousands of years. An honest question to ask would be the basis of such startling rise and fall of societies. In a competitive world such spectacular rises come at the expense of someone or other, but to call these as discrimination and whine about it in endless self pity is no harbinger of growth much less historical redress. Are we not more justified in seeking billions of pounds in reparations and concessions from the British who ravaged our country more recently than squabbling among ourselves for petty quotas for inequities in the 300-100AD period? But of course such suggestions would make us a laughing stock in the world!

The rise and fall of groups, societies, nations has got to do with the choices they make, the technological progress they foster and the enterprising they are in furthering the common good. The reason that certain sections of the society in India are perceived to be better off involves lot of complex socio-economic factors other than caste. In fact the discrimination and asymmetry of resources available is far more critical in the urban-rural divide than the upper caste -lower caste divide. The level of disparity between people from rural areas with no access to hospitals, schools, transportations and communication infrastructure and urban areas is far more discriminatory than among the upper and lower castes in the metropolis and urban centres. Much of this is again rooted in the collapse of the rural economy and the lack of rejuvenation since the independence. The key to greater social equity would be rapid economic growth with an inclusive agenda away from the monetarist and GDP percentage growth driven goals.

The very fact that dictat driven policies with no genuine feedback lead to disasters is evident in the economic arena. Self evident case being the implosion of the Soviet Union founded on the lofty ideals of egalitarian socialism degenerated the same way as the Czars because mere supplanting one flawed system by another no matter how noble the basis would eventually unravel itself. In pursuit of socialist ideals the Soviet leadership supplanted a monarchic dictatorship by the dictatorship of the proletariat. Hence overnight by fiat the suppressed became the rulers and eventually collapsed the same way. Are we not doing the same folly by replacing the imagined or real injustice of a hereditary caste system by a similarly rigid hereditary quota system in perpetuity. If the goal is to replace the upper caste elites by a crop of lower caste elites then the quota system is a highly efficient way of achieving that and enough indications are already available about its effectiveness. But hoping that reverse discrimination is supposed to reduce social inequity is akin to living in a utopia of self deceit.

Of course there are social reasons and dynamics which makes it enjoy the near political consensus which eludes in far important problems. The most important being the emergence of a powerful and political back ward caste. Starting from the Mulayams, Mayadevis in the the north to Karunanidhis and Jayalalithas in the South these so called groups are the dominant groups wielding disproportionate political power thanks to the flaws in the first past the post model of democracy. The flaw in the current model lies in the blatant copying of the European models and force fitting it to work in the Indian case. European nation states like France, Britain, Germany are highly homogeneous societies where vested interests and political groups find it hard to hijack the mandate. But with the collapse of the Congress as a party representing the broadest social combination the collapse of the Westminster model in India is all evident. Parties with as little as 20% of votes polled could get their candidates elected, hence the need to cultivate strong and politically active groups. This is the genesis of the Mandalisation since the 1990s in the Indian polity and the basis of political power of the OBCs, SCs and STs. The near political consensus is a reflection of the political power of the groups whom no party could afford to alienate. The end result being democracy degenerating to the rule of the mobs. The vested interests being the political parties themselves, have no incentive to reform the current system to include a second run off between the top 2 candidates or have a representational system with parties winning a certain seats based on their national vote percentage.

The lasting solution to the above problem would of course be to constitute a thorough political reform making the democratic system more representational. The trend of over legislation and under implementation making the Indian constitution the longest and most amended (94 amendments in 55 year history compared to 27 or so amendments in 230 year history of US) needs to be replaced by more voluntary and rewards driven implementation of social and economic reforms. A stronger commitment to rural growth and energising the manufacturing sector which could off set the loss of employment from the decline in agriculture. Merely relying on IT and ITES service industry as a harbinger of economic growth would make the economy significantly top heavy for a developing country. Every country progresses through the evolution from a agricultural to manufacturing to service society. The attempts to leapfrog from a rudimentary agrarian society to a developed service based society as practical as building castles in the air. The strong foundation of a manufacturing base is essential to employ millions of displaced land less labourers who can simply not all become high tech professionals. This is essential to heal the urban-rural as well as the caste divide. The myopia of the business and political class is evident in the gloating over a cyclical growth pattern in services as the panacea for all round economic growth and super power status. The irony of the matter is the two people (Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr Chidambaram) responsible for such reforms in the economic arena are culprit of complicity in the shackling of the social arena. The essential dichotomy in their policy prescription for the economic sector in reducing govt. dictat, removing quota and permit driven export and production and the current policy of increasing quotas and govt. Interventions in the education sector is highly deplorable. What is needed is a strong stewardship of the economic sector in fostering growth in the moribund rural economy which would do much more to reduce discriminations caste based or otherwise than distraction and regressive policies of placatory gestures to vote banks. These people may be tied down by compulsions of electoral politics and cynical manipulation by irrelevant politicians in their own party, but to call these as excuses for shackling regressive legislation which no future govt. Could correct is sure sign of lack of political imagination and management both from Mr. Prime Minister and the Congress leadership which has plunged the country into needless divisive chaos.

Critique of Outlook Article

The article seems to justify a complex socio-economic issue in a country of 1 billion people by selective sampling of 5-6 students. When we already have a prejudice justifying any course of action by selective reference won't be hard. To be fair there are some pros and cons about the whole issue listed in the beginning. It would have been worthwhile if the authors would have proceeded to do some analysis along those directions.

The point of contention is that reservations which are supposed to have lapsed in 1960s have even after extension by half a century have not been efficient in delivering their stated goal of socio-economic justice. The very proof being the recent talk of extension of quotas. A policy howsoever inefficient will have a few genuine beneficiaries and that is not a justification for perpetrating for it, much less extending to hitherto untouched sectors.

The key point of similarity of all the profiled candidates are that they are from "poor and rural" background. These are economic barriers at best which besets candidates from all social strata. Did the reporters care to find out the economic profiles of the rest of the 99% candidates in the same institutions and find any siginficant correlation between caste and access to funds and educational tools? What is the percentage of the reserved candidates in the institutes who come from affluent families where in their parents and siblings have already utilized the reservation system? By personal experience, I have found the above correlation disproportionately high even among the so called dalits to justify extension to traditionally more affluent OBCs. One could easily follow a similar lopsided analysis by identifying the number of dalit/OBC students who are children of high ranking PSU, IAS, IPS and state government officials who are beneficiaries of the reservation largesse.

The other recurring theme in the analysis seems to be that reserved students don't show any greater propensity to "drop out". Again highly misleading and biased as hardly any one "fails" in the IIT/IIM system, the differentiator being the relative position in the graduating class. Did the authors find any significant statistical evidence supporting or repudiating their conclusions from the average performance of general and reserved candidates? What are the typical career choices of the reserved candidates after graduation? By personal experience I find that a significant number prefer to pursue avenues where they have a reservation advantage vice IIMs after IITs, Civil service or PSU jobs. To be fair this is a fairly rational decision on their part, one would be a fool in the cut throat competitive world not to exploit the last ounce of advantage one possesses be it caste, merit or simply wealth! But the very fact that this happens on a widespread basis is a failure of the social justice agenda of the reservation system. In effect we are undermining meritocracy to create a "wealthy oppressed" class.

No body be rich/poor, upper/lower caste, OBC/Dalit student relishes taking the IITJEE or IIM CAT or for that matter barriers of entry to greater socio-economic mobility. The fact that such barriers exist is to maintain the quality and standards of the said institutions. The aim should not be equal representation based on population percentages but making the barriers objective enough not to have any un-natural bias to a given set of populace. From that perspective a student from an affluent background from a metropolis with access to private coaching has probably a significantly more advantage compared to a poor student from a semi-urban or rural background irrespective of caste. A statistical analysis of number of IIT students from a handful of cities or rather from a select coaching institute will reveal the extent of such a bias and its wider ramifications. Unfortunately such pertinent matters will never see the light of the day due to entrenched vested interests.

The job of the government should be to ensure the quality primary and secondary components of education and tackle the issue of drop outs at those levels among the backward sections due to economic reasons. Merely reserving a couple of hundred seats in IITs and hoping that it will solve the so called caste based discrimination of populace of 1 billion is a flight of fantasy.