Educational Rant (Promise)

• I deeply want to be South Indian. Or at least know the four languages there. Because otherwise it is impossible to remember that Therukoothu is a dance form in TN, Pavakoothu a form of rod puppetry in Kerala, Kudiyattam, a theatre form in Kerala and but Kavadiattam a dance in Tamil Nadu. Why can’t you at least use different sounding words so that stupid-exam givers (the exam being stupid, not the givers) can devise mnemonics to remember what infernal dance/ puppetry/ theatre form belongs to which state?
• It is worth noting how many people say they want to clear the UPSC/ CSE exam, versus the numbers who say they want to be in the IAS/ IPS/ IFS etc. What does UPSC aspirant even mean? UPSC is the recruitment agency! Do you want to be the recruiting agency?
• If you say you are an IAS/ Civil Service aspirant, you are only linguistically correct. Because you have to be a dumbass to aspire to a generic administrative designation.
• Bomalattam is string puppetry from Tamil Nadu but Tholu Bommalata is shadow puppetry in Andhra Pradesh. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
• India is the seventh largest country in the world by area, second largest by population. Azerbaijan is 119^th by area, 89^th by population. The latter has a Kashmir too-Nagorno Karabakh. Of course I am simplifying, but the point is that we will be hard-pressed to find a country where a certain section does not want to ‘leave’.
• I don’t want Kashmir to leave India. Now that I have learnt that the Kashmiri New Year is called Navreh, that their dances are called Rouff and Dhumal, that they practice a form of folk theatre called Bhand Pather and their folk music is called Gulraj. Or it may be it is the little Sanghi inside me. In my defence, if I were British, I would oppose Brexit too.
• I know feelings are not facts, except when you have fever. Then, what you feel is far more important than the 99.4 temperature that the thermometer insists on showing.
• There is a theatre form called Maach. That’s one of three Bengali phrases every non Bengali knows (maach khabo, jol khabo, and Kemon acho, said in a very weird sheepish tone). But is this theatre form from Bengal? No, it’s from MP, which is not even coastal! Matlab even Odisha or Andhra or Maharashtra would be easy to remember!
• Though come to think of it, why would you call a puppetry form from any state, as generic a term as Fish?
• Lest we think that a Qandeel Baloch would not happen in India-at least the Twitter folks would lay off celebrating an honour killing-we should remember that India does worse than Pakistan on the Gender Development Index as well as the Gender Inequality Index.
• Bhavai is a dance form in Rajasthan as well as a theatre form in Gujarat.
• According to an OECD Survey in 2014, India has the second highest proportion of people surveyed who said they trusted the national government. Switzerland holds the top rank [which means that the Scandinavian countries rank behind us]. In case you think this is a jabra-fans driven exercise, note that the proportion of people who trusted the government in 2014 was actually a decrease over the proportion recorded in the previous version of the survey in 2007. I guess the idiot media is to blame.
• I know I have it on the blog about how Hinduism is diverse and allows space for hedonism/ atheism. But it’s also true that this may be the case for other religions, and we are simply not aware. For example, Islam had the Mutazila school that believed in monism-essentially there being no difference between the creators and the created. Sure it faced opposition from the orthodox, but then that’s pretty much their job description.

 Latest edition of how things never change:

• The Vernacular Press Act sought to impose pre-censorship on the Vernacular Newspapers that were considerably bolder in their criticism of the British government than the English newspapers. It empowered the police to also confiscate the printing materials of the newspapers, if they were found to be publishing seditious things.
• An educational committee led by Hunter in 1882 suggested that there be a two track education system-the more deserving students get to have a higher secondary and University education, while the not-as-good students get to choose a vocation and have a commercial career.
• A Raleigh Commission of 1904 also suggested that more time be spent on academics and research in our universities, otherwise known as ‘dens of political activity’.           

In which we establish my Sanghiness

• There is much wrong with the Mohenjodaro poster, and the movie may be worse (or better). But the worst part is that there is nobody to represent them. I am not trying to defend the cottage industry of ‘hurt sentiments’ but when it came to Jodha Akbar, there WERE people from Rajasthan at least registering protest. The Barber community protested against Billu Barber and the Mochi community against Aaja Nachle. Sikhs were upset at Jo Bole So Nihal, Muslims at Vishwaroopam and Hindus at PK. But there is literally no one to take up the cudgels, file random FIRs, burn posters or block screenings, on behalf of the Harappans.
• Okay my feelings just turned from outrage to grudging admiration. Well played Ashutosh Gowariker.
• My second favourite Indian empire after the Mughals (because I have those now) is the Mauryas. Emperor Ashoka, who I have rhapsodised about before, is not the only reason. They also had India’s favourite economist-policy maker, Chanakya. Even Subramaniam Swamy loves him, I suspect, because apart from being suitably ‘mentally Indian’, he was three-quarters Raghuram Rajan, one-quarter Amit Shah with a dash of Arun Jaitley.
• A recent scientific study (using DNA samples, no less) pointed to the Guptas as being the period when endogamy within a caste began to be followed (though the caste system as such preceded the Guptas). It was also the period when the Vaishyas and Shudras rebelled against the slavery imposed on them. This was the precise point when the wise Brahmanas declared the beginning of the Kali-yug, i.e., the period of most depraved human values. We just call them anti-national now.
• The obsession with #Ease-of-Doing-Business did not start with 2014. That happened in 1608 when Jahangir started handing out rights to the British to set up ‘factories’ first along the West coast and then all over India.
• If you go to the Gaekwad’s palace in Baroda, you get to hear the audio recording of one of the princes whining about how their house was so big that the coffee would go cold before the servant could lug it up to his room. #Upping-the-ante-on-urban-poverty.
• Turns out such a sense of entitlement will also make you intensely unpopular among your subjects. The revolt of the Wagheras of Baroda, was a rare case of opposition to the own ruler (Gaekwads) that took place in the pre-1857 period. In contrast, in most cases people supported their rulers (despots they may be) in revolting against the British.
• Did you know that Hinduism (or Brahmanism more precisely) derived its practice of idol worship from Buddhism? Till the point I read about it, I was quite sure that Buddhism did not sanction idol worship. This could be reflective of how badly we were taught anything in school but also of how little attention I paid, while there. [Let me know if you thought so too, then we will know who to blame].
• Hinduism is a most interesting religion. In fact I am inclined to believe that it’s not a religion at all. At the risk of sounding Sanghi, it does seem like a way of life. How else do you explain schools of thought within Hinduism that tell you to not believe all the balderdash about karma or rituals and enjoy life (even if you have to borrow ghee to do so)?
• We have been discussing marital rape for more than a century now, and the terms of the debate are not radically different. In 1891 the Parliament introduced legislation to increase the age of consent from 10 years to 12 years for women female children. (Of course as long as she was older than 12 and married, her consent or lack thereof did not matter). This was after the reported death of an 11 year old when her husband forced himself on her. Tilak opposed the law. Clearly Swarajya was a birth-right only for a few.

Five Ways in which India changed the World

Every time someone needs to extol India’s virtues-be it the PM at his galas for the diaspora in different countries, the FM, while pleading for FDI at different fora abroad, or sundry political and business leaders or foreign diplomats while making domestic speeches-they have to rely on some stock phrases. Largest democracy in the world, diverse, emerging economic behemoth, global bright spot, young, are some. For the more imaginative, Lord Ganesha is held up as proof of India’s prowess in cosmetic surgery and the Pushpak Vimana as our contribution to aeronautics.  On the eve of our 66^th Republic Day, I am guessing we will have to hear more of the same. So I have helpfully compiled a list of five of India’s contributions to the world which I haven’t seen being used in public discourse before.

[I would add in a disclaimer about tongues being in cheeks, or taking stuff with pinches of salt, but that goes without saying in a country where scientific conferences point to Lord Shiva as an environmentalist.]

We invented the concept of ‘soft power’. (Or it could have been Egypt.)

Much before McDonalds’ and KFC, Ashoka pointed out that it was better to win people and territory over through ideas than through the coercion of war. [There might have a Egyptian king called Akhnaton before him who said that too, but Ashoka could not have known that]. Of course, our soft power was in Buddhism and peace. The Americans exported obesity and reality TV.

We made the USA.

Bengal, that Communist fiefdom for more than 30 years, played a crucial part in the making of the flagbearer of all things capitalist, the United States of America.

Between 1756 and 1763 the French and the British were fighting the Seven Years’ War for control over more colonies across the world. Some part of this was being played out in India as well as the two battled it out mostly in South India. The British won, largely due to the resources they were able to command from Bengal after 1757, when they used supreme levels of skulduggery to beat Siraj-ud-daulah.

Winning in India, no doubt contributed to the overall win over the French. It also led the British to demand that the American colonists pay them ‘rent’ for the land they were using in America, since it was after all the British government that won it for them. Subsequently, the Stamp Act and the Townshend Act led the colonists to get weary of cheapo Britain fight the American War of Independence in 1776 and establish the United States of America. And who should they thank for it? The nice, self-effacing Bengalis.

The French revolution, you ask? All us.

Incidentally, the Colonists in their War of Independence were being supported by the French, who in a close approximation of cutting off your nose to spite your face, managed to bankrupt themselves in the process. This in turn caused the French revolution. [Aside:  I think Bengal should let Odisha claim the roshogolla. Since they you know, helped create the modern world, as we know it today.]

The industrial revolution was our idea.

We have all heard of how British merchants coerced India to sell (cotton) cheap and buy (final goods) dear, leading to ‘primary accumulation’ of capital that allowed the industrial revolution to take place. But we may have had a more important to play-essentially, by creating a market for cotton textiles in the first place. The British capitalists piled on, realising that there was a ready market they could serve, if they could only displace the market leaders.  This was hardly going to be difficult given their political control over India-imagine Steve Jobs as the majority shareholder in Nokia. But they went about it the civilised way first-by raising tariffs on Indian goods. By 1813, they were able to pressurise their government to end the monopoly of the East India Company in India, and subsequently flood the Indian markets with cheaper machine made goods. Interestingly, they also tried to increase the uptake of British goods in India by bringing in English education and Christian missionaries.

Maybe the firang love for FabIndia is their way to atone for the past.

Desi kids, your childhood dynamic with your friends/ siblings is the model of international diplomacy/ belligerence

North Korea is claiming that it has tested its first hydrogen bomb. In retaliation South Korea is broadcasting criticism against the North Korean government through loudspeakers on the border. North Korea is returning that in kind. It’s basically like when you were five and cheated in kho-kho and then somebody called you a cheater-cock and you got back by saying “no ji, jo bolta hai wahi hota hai”. 

Have you heard of China's frenzied island re-claiming activity in South China Sea? You, with your spitting-lightly-over-the-chocolate-before-the-blasted-sibling-can-make-a-claim behaviour, inspired it.

Lessons from the Mughals (and their contemporaries)

I have been told in the past, that this blog is a waste of time, given my inclination to prattle on about things that don’t matter. That is all set to change now, as the blog turns 3, with me being committed to further our (you and me, dear reader) knowledge base with strictly fact based posts. Read on to learn more about the Mughals.

Delhi is the coolest city EVER

For close to two years, I passed the Old Fort every day while on my way to work. Without ever consciously registering that it was the same fort outside which, Hemu the military commander of the Suri Dynasty and the winner of 22 consecutive battles, was publicly hanged after the loss of the Second Battle of Panipat.

The Red Fort, which you pass every other weekend to get to the Daryaganj book bazaar is where the Mughal dynasty was brutally finished by the British.

Todar Mal road and Bhagwan Das road (near Mandi House, where you occasionally go to watch a play or eat at Triveni) are named after Akbar’s revenue officer and brother-in-law respectively. And it is not inconceivable that back in the day, they gallivanted across those very bits of land on horseback.

Of course, the Sanghis may want to interrupt at this point, abuse the Mughals and the other Muslim rulers (invaders, happy?) of medieval India, and talk about how Delhi was first Indraprastha, the seat of the Pandavas.

Any which way, in your face, you colonial upstart, Bombay!

Professional rivalries were as cutthroat then as today (maybe just more literally so)

Are you pissed at that senior who usurped all the credit for work you did? Or the junior who managed to ingratiate herself in front of the boss? Spare a thought then for Akbar’s wazir, who was back-stabbed (and I can’t stress this enough-literally so) by the Emperor’s foster brother Adham Khan, when Akbar refused to promote him. (Score for meritocracy, though.)

Their forms of capital punishment would put the Indonesians, firing squads and all, to shame

To punish Adham Khan for murdering his employee-the wazir, Akbar had Khan taken to the parapet of the Agra Fort and pushed from there. He died.

Was Akbar the dream boss (for the late wazir at least) or what?

There was no trade-off between chasing passions and having a comfortable bank balance

If you are still not convinced about Akbar’s greatness, you will be when I tell you that his civil servants (mansabdars) were the highest paid professionals in the world.

And I bet you already know about his navratnas- consisting of singers, writers and jesters who also enjoyed high mansabs (ranks) and attendant privileges.

The political leaders seem to have stellar economic sense

Sher Shah Suri imposed only two taxes on goods-one, an ‘import duty’ when the good entered his territory through Bengal or the North west, and second, at the time of the sale. Specifically, no taxes were imposed on inter-state movement of goods. To think, close to 500 years later, our leaders are still grappling with issues of establishing a common market by subsuming the entry tax, Central sales tax and octroi within the GST.

They were also as hypocritical as our present ones

Akbar (yes, him again) tried to bring in social reform by encouraging monogamy. A bit rich, coming from a man who used marriage as a tool of foreign policy, don’t you think? Then again, reminiscent of present day sons of the soil who insist on the adoption of vernacular languages as medium of instruction in government schools but send their own children to private schools, teaching in English.

Karma is a bitch You reap what you sow

Shah Jahan, who had revolted against his sick, dying father to gain power had to taste his own medicine towards his last years. In fact, his son, Aurangzeb, went one step further, imprisoning Shah Jahaan for eight years within the Agra Fort, in his quest to become the emperor.

Don’t be stoned all the time

The you-reap-what-you-sow argument cannot be used for Humayun who-bless his soul-did everything by the book. Not for him, his daddy’s decadent practices of making mountains of skulls of the defeated enemy’s soldiers, just for kicks. Not for him, his great-great-grandson’s power grab by killing his own siblings. In fact, he let his brother Kamran, take over Kabul, Kandahar, and Peshawar. He lost Gujarat and Malwa because of the idiocy of another sibling. He rushed to protect the kingdoms of others when sent Rakhis by widows of erstwhile opponents. Yet, after all this, after once losing his empire to Sher Shah, and then winning it all back, he died, not as a warrior in the battlefield or at the hands of  a scheming son/ underling, but due to a fall from the first floor of his library. I can only blame opium (since he probably didn’t have access to LSD).

Religion will always be used for furthering political ambitions

Humayun inherited his drug habit from his father Babur, who by all accounts was a party animal. Yet when it came to motivating his troops for the battle against Rana Sanga at Khanwa, he used religion. He called the battle ‘jihad’, throwing out his treasured stocks of alcohol to prove his religious fervour to his soldiers.

Guess who won the battle?

PS: Yes, the blog just turned 3!!
PPS: The Sanghis are a super-efficient force, as it turns out. See what they did on 15 May.