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.