Desicritics Author: Somik Raha

Action Sociology: Human Rights with Sanitation

Somik Raha — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:34:43 EST

Ever since independence (and from a long time before that), people in India have been appalled with the abuse of the caste system, especially the poor treatment meted out to "untouchables." As usual, well-meaning people think they can change attitudes by passing laws. And so, India has The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, which punishes the preaching and practice of untouchability. Needless to say, the act made little difference on the ground in terms of changing people's attitudes.

There is no dearth of angry activism on this issue in India and outside, and as is the nature of all angry activism, the message is so loud that people close their ears and ignore it. Meanwhile, India's politicians are more interested in maintaining the status quo and milking caste divisions for votes instead of working for the welfare of the "untouchables." In this hopeless scenario, one man is running a silent revolution with a lot of success.

This is the story of Bindeshwar Pathak, whose life transformed as a young man in the 60s, when he was told by the General Secretary of a Gandhian organization that it was Gandhi's unfinished work to remove the profession of manual scavenging from India and liberate the untouchables. The General Secretary told the young Pathak that he had to finish Gandhi's mission and added, "I see light in you." The young man had no clue what this meant, but he read a few books published by the WHO on sanitation, and decided to live in a scavenger's colony for two months to understand them and their problems. People thought he was crazy. He survived, and came back with an understanding that was different from any social activist in this field.

He felt that the discrimination of the untouchables was due to technical reasons. The untouchables, or manual scavengers of toilets, were considered dirty as they dealt with human excreta while cleaning "bucket toilets." Human excreta would be pulled out of such toilets into buckets and then, scavengers would carry buckets on their heads to a location for disposal. If there could be an alternate toilet designed to be self-cleaning, then it would be cheaper for the consumer as they wouldn't need to hire people to clean it. It would also eliminate the need for the scavenging profession.

Pathak started "Sulabh" (which means "easy") to address this. He came up with the two-pit pour-flush toilet which would work in the Indian context. One pit would be in use at a time. Once the pit was full, it would would be closed and the other would be in operation. Over a year, the first pit's contents would turn into manure and could be used as fertilizer in the field. Thus, there would be no need to scavenge and clean these toilets. Sulabh's toilet product turned out to be a great hit, with over a million pieces already sold. Sulabh then channeled their profits toward retraining the untouchables to enter mainstream society - as cooks, beauticians, electricians, etc. Today, Sulabh has a whole array of toilet products to suit your budget.

Pathak also felt strongly about the problem of open defecation. Unlike those who faulted the "Indian civic sense," he recognized that the problem was that we didn't have enough public toilets. This is also a question of human dignity, especially for women, as they would suppress the call of nature the whole day and only go very early in the morning or in the night. Even so, such trips would make them a target of sexual predators, snakebites, diseases due to defecating in unhygienic environs, etc., not to speak of the health problems that come from suppressing the call of nature the entire day. Again, this was a technical problem waiting to be solved. So, he started the first public toilet in (hold your breath) Arrah, Bihar, a state where people would rather travel on top of trains than buy tickets. Pathak believed people would pay for a clean toilet experience, and he was proved right. The people of Bihar paid and sustained the public toilets. Today, Sulabh has built over 5000 public toilets all over India, including the largest toilet in the world at Shirdi for pilgrims.

Not only do these toilets generate local employment, they also collect raw material for Sulabh's energy innovation - bio-gas and electricity production. You have to see it with your own eyes - yes, your excreta can now be used to produce cooking gas and electricity.

Pathakji also understood that he needed to help the children of the scavengers get the same opportunity as others. Sulabh uses its profits to run a school where children of the scavengers get free education, books and uniforms. They also eat together with children of other communities, and learn Sanskrit, a language they were earlier denied access to. The children in this school are taught all religions so they can celebrate all of India's traditions.

And the story does not end here. Sulabh also has a toilet museum which is now on the tourist maps of New Delhi. They have expanded to eco-sanitation projects that help with pisciculture, among other things. Throughout these projects, Pathakji continued his education to go on for a Phd and a D.Litt, and has coined a new term, "Action Sociology," which he advocates as a way to solve social problems.

Behind all of these efforts is a deep-rooted spirituality. Pathakji's day begins with the entire Sulabh community praying (they sing a universal prayer) and filling their hearts with positive vibrations. When I interviewed him, not once did I sense anger against society for discrimination of the untouchables. At the same time, there was no acceptance of the injustice. Like Krishnammal and Sandhya, and in a completely unique manner, Pathakji has transcended anger and hatred to make a difference, a big difference, through social entrepreneurship. He is indeed a bright light in India who has illuminated our conscience and given us great hope for the future.

You can meet him by going to the Palam Vihar (New Delhi) office of Sulabh International Social Service Organization (although he travels often, he is generally accessible). You can also meet the other heroes of Sulabh and see their toilet museum and a demonstration of bio-gas and electricity from human excreta in the same complex. There are several volunteering and internship opportunities with this organization, if you have the time.

And if you can't visit them, here is a film I made on Sulabh in 2006. I recommend watching it in full-screen mode (press the TV icon) and using headphones.

In case the full screen feature does not work below, you can watch it directly on Blip TV.

Errata: the film says Sulabh has built over 500 toilets, when in fact, the number is ab

Defending Kasab

Somik Raha — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 08:38:50 EST

As the world watches and supports India in its investigation of the Mumbai terror attacks, we are on the verge of dismantling the very spirit of our democracy that we should have been striving to protect. One wonders which law schools have trained the members of the Mumbai Bar Council when all of them refuse to represent Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist caught by the police in the Mumbai attacks. What is wrong with the people of India that they think an accused should be denied legal rights?

There are several disturbing reports in the media about this. Here is a badly written piece that argues the following, "What would have been the treatment if this would have happened in some middle east countries. India is turning out to be heaven for this terrorist groups, they have every oppurtunity to use the loose laws in there favour and save themselves in jail......in long and safe trials. The democratic heaven of terrorist give them right to life to kill several lives." This is what I call a "self-defeating argument." It is clear that the author does not hold the Middle East in good light. Yet, if we follow his thinking to its logical conclusion and deny legal rights, we will create a middle-eastern system within India, which I assume he won't like. Of course, it is another discussion if the middle-eastern system is indeed as primitive as it is made out to be.

The lone lawyer who was "appointed" to represent Kasab withdrew, and the Times of India presents it in a manner that makes it look patriotic. The Mumbai Bar Council passed a resolution saying it would not represent Kasab or any of the defendants.

One brave and sensible advocate, Mahesh Deshmukh, showed the willingness to take up the case. The Shiv Sena, which had disappeared all this time, re-emerged and attacked Mr. Deshmukh's house. The police were apparently present when the Shiv Sainiks manhandled Mr. Deshmukh, and as far as I have seen, there has been no action taken against the Sena.

All this paints a very disturbing picture of an India that is throwing logic and the law out of the window. The outcome will come back to haunt us in ways that we won't like at all. First, for all those people who have fooled themselves into believing that patriotism is about not representing criminals, To Kill a Mockingbird comes as highly recommended reading. In fact, we ought to read this book as high-school children. The story is about a black man convicted of raping a white woman, and a white lawyer who is requested by the judge to represent the accused. Of course, all hell breaks loose, and the town is furious with the lawyer for taking the case.

To me, the white lawyer in the story is a hero. And we have such living heroes who uphold the values we hold dear in our country. One of them is Ram Jethmalani. Shockingly, the Indian media is also unaware of the fact that the accused in our country are given legal rights. Sagarika Ghose tried to ask Mr. Jethmalani why he was representing Manu Sharma, a convicted murderer accused of killing Jessica Lall, and a person who does not arouse any sympathy from any quarter in India (including myself). Jethmalani's response was classic:

"Who the hell is the press to decide who is indefensible? Courts decide that. .. The press has no right to determine this issue. The press in trying to determine this issue is guilty of the highest form of contempt." He also says in the interview that it will be the saddest day in India when lawyers refuse to defend an accused. Unfortunately, that day is here.

Here is the must-watch interview:

I am also critical of the way in which the government is interacting with Pakistan on this investigation. Zaid Hamid, a vitriolic Mujahideen turned defense analyst from Pakistan, has been screaming himself hoarse on how all this is a Hindu-Zionist conspiracy. While on first glance, he looks and talks like a clown, it is in our interest to listen carefully, for he brings up simple points like the kalash on the hand of Kasab, and that he was talking in Marathi instead of Punjabi, as was alleged. How hard can it be for Indian investigators to refute this? All they need to do is invite a senior investigator from Pakistan to talk to Kasab and determine if he has a Punjabi or Marathi accent.

I think Pakistan cannot be represented by outspoken clowns - there are several sane voices in the land, and we must appreciate them. Today, Nawaz Sharif has talked about the cordon around Ajmal's village, and how he believes that Ajmal is indeed from Pakistan. Meanwhile, Geo TV, Pakistan's private television channel, is busy getting sued by a ruling party politician for doing an undercover investigation and showing villagers agreeing that Ajmal was from their area. These guys are heroes for having the courage to go after the truth, and it will be nice to see some appreciation from the Indian side. And of course, the other voice I respect from Pakistan is that of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who gave a very sensible and sane interview in David Frost's show. Imran follows this up with an interview with NDTV (you can see how the journalist is least interested in the points that Imran is making).

Perhaps, there is an opportunity for engagement. India could invite people like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan, along with Pakistani investigators, to come talk to the accused and then tell their fellow citizens what they think. How hard is it for us to do this? Let us not be blinded in patriotic anger, for no good can ever come from it. Rabindranath Tagore once wrote, at the height of the freedom struggle, "Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live."

In summary, if we lose this opportunity to stand up for the Indian system that gives defense rights to even the most damned criminal, we might as well give up on democracy altogether, and go back to a feudal system. There is still time - let us not make a bad decision here. We must come down very heavily on politicians who are no less than hooligans when they beat up or threaten lawyers who want to take this case. They should be on the dock for contempt of court, if not treason for subverting the judiciary and the state. We must also come down heavily on the media who claim to be representing the public voice and milk people's anger for their ratings. I think they should be inspired to help the public transcend their anger and go to a place of reason where our judgment is not clouded. All is not lost, as there are some people still willing to come out and defend Kasab. Let us encourage and not vilify them. Let us also consider the opportunity to connect with the sane voices in Pakistan and try a constructive approach in the investigation.

India, Pakistan and the Future

Somik Raha — Sat, 6 Dec 2008 14:22:00 EST

The terrorist attacks of Nov 26 will go down in history as a turning point for the people of South Asia, if not the world. The attacks seem to have been orchestrated to destabilize the new democratic government of Pakistan and ensure that no one talks peace between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. The terrorists would have hit a jackpot if internal Hindu-Muslim hatred could have been provoked, leading to more carnage. However, the people of India have responded in a very mature fashion.

First, there is very little talk of revenge against Pakistan. People are angry against the fragile neighbor and at the same time, they recognize that there is little Pakistan can do for India or for its own self, given that it is largely controlled by their military and spy agencies. Second, and more importantly, the ire of the Indian people has been finally turned on India's incompetent civil government. The people of India have had it being governed by imbeciles, and are out on the streets recognizing their frustration. This is unprecedented. Rarely have all the politicians gone into hiding from the media. No one is making statements anymore. Those who are foolhardy enough to do so regret it from both sides of their face. Others are pleading for the politician-bashing to stop. Blogs, facebook groups and the personal internet has come alive with people expressing their anger and desire for change. Noted journalist Barkha Dutt, among others, has been at the receiving end of criticism for the media, prompting her to make a formal response.

We have perhaps never been closer to change than we are now, as the net connects us not just to the traditional newsmakers, but to regular people, who, if inspired to believe that change is possible, can make change happen. Obama's victory this year would hardly have been conceivable in an age without the internet, where an older and out-of-touch political caste would never have believed that such a change would be acceptable to the population. Its funny how our political representatives are most out of touch with the people they represent. As we slowly wake up to the fact that change begins with one person, the time has come to think about what we'd like to change to. Change for change's sake is counterproductive. Most Indians don't know that Mahatma Gandhi opposed a British parliamentary system in his 1913 book, Hind Swaraj or Self Rule. He used uncharacteristically strong words when describing it in Chapter 5, The Condition of England: prostitute and barren.

He wrote, "I pray to God that India may never be in that plight." It is baffling that his disciples did exactly the opposite of what he suggested, and his description would be considered by many as accurate about our parliamentary system today. I suggest that it is time for the Indian people to question the efficacy and ethics of a democracy like the one we have today. It is certainly better than the dictatorial system in China that stifles any voice that threatens it, but democracy cannot be mistaken for freedom, for it is a system where 51% have the right to coerce the remaining 49%, as we have seen the world over. An essay on Plato points out a major failing of a democracy:

.. the rule by the many was no remedy for the ills of oligarchy, according to Plato, because ordinary people were too easily swayed by the emotional and deceptive rhetoric of ambitious politicians. It was the demos, after all, the majority of ordinary people, who time and again had supported the disastrous campaigns of the Peloponnesian War by their votes, who had condoned numerous atrocities and breaches of the law, and who were also responsible for the questionable trial and execution of Socrates.

Sounds so much like the times of Nazi Germany which elected Hitler democratically and executed Jews and others legally. All democracies of our time that go to war do so with the legitimacy of elected governments. I believe that we should encourage people to think about what we want our "free" society to look like, without worrying about whether it is possible. Once we know where we want to go, we can then discuss how to get there.

There is something else that no one is talking about right now, which I think is critical for the survival and progress of South Asia. And that is reunification with Pakistan. Pakistan's existence came out of a negation of the idea of India. Pakistani politicians come to power with strong anti-India rhetoric and Kashmir promises. How can there be peace if Pakistan views India as the other and vice versa? At the same time, reunification is abhorrent to most Pakistanis. The impression is that they needed their own space to practice Islam, without having to apologize or live like a minority. Now that they have their own land, why should they risk becoming a minority again? Besides, who is India or anyone else to use its power and clout to threaten the idea of Pakistan? All valid points. Reunification that is done by force or coercion can only lead to disaster. Is it possible for Pakistan and India to both want to reunite, without losing their individual identities?

Yes. It is time for both Indians and Pakistanis who are sick of their political systems to dream of a South Asian Union, just like the European Union. East Kashmir and West Kashmir would have access to each other, without hindrance, resolving a six decade grievance in the hearts of the Kashmiri people. Pakistan would have access to not just all of Kashmir, but all of India. When a Pakistani citizen comes to an Indian airport, the first question they would get is: do you want a cab? The second might be: do you want a hotel? And India would have access to all of Pakistan, with the same treatment. Suddenly, we are not the other. The Indian and Pakistani troops can patrol the joint borders of South Asia together while the inter-country borders could be opened for free movement with minimal fanfare. You could be driving on the South Asian autobahn from Karachi to New Delhi, and at the border, you'd just see a small sign board saying, "Welcome to India, please continue to drive safely." Imagine?

Contrary to what a lot of Indians think, Pakistani citizens are no different from Indian citizens. They want peace and progress and are as sick of their politicians as we are of ours. What stops both countries from making their borders irrelevant? Here is a story that might shed some light. One economist tried to understand why Pakistan does not import tea from India, instead of paying a lot more to get it from Kenya (this has been written about). The Pakistani establishment cited the Kashmir dispute as the reason. Then, the economist asked why they didn't import tea from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh? Then, the real story came out - Pakistan has massive investments in Kenyan tea, and it is against the business interest of some merchants to let India into the market. What's the best way to stop India? Rake up the Kashmir issue.

India and Pakistan would have been friends and the South Asian Union would have been a reality a long time back were it not for narrow business interests that prevent this from happening. If you think that all the business interests are on the Pakistan side, think again. Domestic business lobbies exist on both sides.

Hatred multiplies with hatred, but dissolves when fired upon with love and compassion. While India strives to come up with a better defense system, the best defense is giving others many reasons to love you. We have a lot of work to do.

Saving India's Missing Girls

Somik Raha — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:10:15 EST

In the second piece of the Gems of the Planet series (the first was My Friend, the Landlord), we continue with the same criteria for our gems:

Feel the suffering of others as their own and cannot rest until they've done something to alleviate it
Have compassion for all, especially those they seek to transform

I found this gem in an unexpected place - a film screening at Stanford of India's Missing Girls, a documentary made by Ashok Prasad of the BBC. The documentary portrayed a grim picture and dispelled several myths:

Several women interviewed preferred male babies and would prefer to terminate female foetuses of their own accord.
Educated women too do this, especially in business families to ensure that the fortune remains in the family
In some cases, when the woman is unwilling, the family puts a lot of pressure, and sometimes forces the mother to abort
The director presented statistics after the film screening. The highest number of female abortions are done by Jains, followed by Sikhs, followed by either Buddhists or Hindus (I forget which). I remember being shocked by this statistic, because I expected Hindus to be at the top. Nothing can prepare one to accept that Jains are the #1 offender as Jain philosophy is the pinnacle of non-violence. I guess I am too naive to believe that people follow the philosophy they were born into.
The fact that women were electing to abort foetuses confounded the pro-choice people in the audience (should they say: we want women to have choice, but not that much choice?)

However, in the middle of all these depressing facts was a shining gem. The film revolves around a remarkable woman, Sandhya Puchalapalli, who founded the Arti Home in Cuddappah, to save female foetuses from abortion. Sandhya studied the circumstances that lead people to abort their female children, and she tackled several problems. First, she has a crib outside the nursing home that allows families to anonymously place babies whom they'd otherwise kill or abandon (with the same outcome). This takes care of the fear of legal repercussions, and saves the life of the baby who is then raised in the home in a loving environment with a focus on nutrition and education. Second, she keeps a strong connection with the community around her and knows who is pregnant. She then connects with them to talk about their aspirations for their baby. When they tell her that they will abort if it is a girl, she reasons with them in a remarkably non-judgmental way. I know many who'd hit the parents if they heard something like this. Not Sandhya. She goes back on a regular basis, explaining that a girl child is not useless and deserves a lot of love, the same as a boy child. The film follows the interaction with one couple and how the mother comes around from a position of fear to one of joy where she eagerly waits for her daughter and does not abort.

What makes Sandhya stand out from all the other activists I know is that, time after time in the film, she has only compassionate words for parents who decide to abort, particularly to avoid dowry. She says, "Just imagine what the parents must be going through to have come to this decision?" Even when she is face-to-face with the parents, she has no anger or hatred, but understanding and compassion. A poignant moment of the film is when Sandhya receives a baby who is born premature. After getting the baby medical help, Sandhya goes to the local temple to pray for the child's life. When the child does not make it, she is heartbroken. Even then, she has no harsh words for the parents who abandoned the baby.

Caring for unwanted children, feeling their pain and doing something to save their lives beyond yelling and criticizing in media platforms is rare. Generating compassion for the parents who feel compelled to abort their children and not seeing them as the "other" is rarer still. While one miracle is documented in the film (the change of heart of one family), I am sure she works many such miracles with her attitude. I sincerely hope I get to meet this remarkable lady in person.

If you are in Cuddappah and meet her, do share your stories with me. Arti Home is supported by the Vijay Foundation Trust.

My Friend, the Landlord

Somik Raha — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:40:24 EST

In Chapter 6 of the Bhagvad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, "O Arjuna, that yogi is considered the best who judges what is happiness and sorrow in all beings by the same standard as he would apply to himself. (32)" Further, in Chapter 14, Krishna expounds the qualities of those who are not deluded by their own nature. Among the many listed, here are a few, "one who is the same under honor and dishonor, who is equally disposed towards the friend and the foe; who has renounced all (selfish) enterprise - this one is said to have gone beyond nature. (25)"

While it is one thing to philosophically parse these words and ponder on its meaning, it is exhilarating to find a living example, without which such ideals would be relegated to the ivory towers of impractical high philosophy.

In this series, I will share stories of living examples, who can still be met by the interested reader with a little effort. But first, let us set up a contrast. We are all too familiar with the jholaawaala brigade that is ready for "andolan" any given time of the day. Such people take up worthy causes and often dedicate their lives to it. When they speak, they usually train their guns on an "enemy" and spew venom. No matter how noble the cause, readers are burned by the vitriol that comes out and are unable to move beyond the venom. The powers that be ridicule such activists and if they ever give in, it is usually out of frustration and irritation, without any sense of compassion or restitution.

The activists themselves have a career that looks like a bell curve. Their ego rises with their career, and after a certain point, they are so consumed by their self-importance that they cannot see beyond themselves and are blind to the good in those they oppose. And so begins their descent, as they get deluded by their own nature. Their co-workers end up parting ways, frustrated and dejected by the ego-centric leadership that manifests itself in many ways in their movement. At the end, we have a lot of angry people - angry at the "enemy," angry with each other, angry with themselves.

And then, right under our noses, we find the exact opposite - people who are terribly active for a cause, but are not consumed by it. Their intellect and intuition are synchronized, each guiding the other. They find divinity in those who others might call the "enemy." The laws of human nature as we know it collapse and we start witnessing changes in attitude of their opponents, some of which might be termed "miracles." Perhaps, Swami Vivekananda's observation that "what goes around comes around" is true after all.

It is time to meet Krishnammal Jagannathan, fondly referred to as Amma. Amma was born in a harijan community and was very rebellious during her childhood years. She remembers that if her brother hit her once, she would hit him back three times. As she grew older, she had the good fortune of meeting Mahatma Gandhi, and remembers being very deeply touched by that meeting. She noticed a young man who was controlling the crowds during that meeting. They met later and the young man was of Brahmin birth. Influenced by Gandhiji, he had determined that he would only marry a Harijan, and as she puts it, "In his eyes, I was that girl." She was not interested in marriage but finally, they both agreed to only get married in free India, which they did.

She completed her university education but did not wait to get her degree, she felt that the certificate was a useless piece of paper, and she would rather prefer service through Sarvodaya (which means "Welfare of All"), a movement started by Gandhiji. She and her husband walked with Vinoba Bhave in the Bhoodaan movement, a walk that should be in history textbooks all over the world. In 1968, 44 Dalit Christians were burned alive by the landlord over a land dispute. Heartbroken, she rushed to the spot and remembers that she couldn't stop crying for three days. She resolved to bring justice to these families. But not in the usual sense of litigation and punishment. Instead, she started a non-violent movement where she would plead with landlords to share their land with the less fortunate landless tillers, in the same style as the Bhoodan movement, under the banner of LAFTI (Land For Tiller's Freedom).

What is unique in her approach is that she believes there is a great light within her and in all beings. She considers the landlords who commit injustice as sick people, those who cannot see their own divine light. The language she uses to describe her encounters with the landlords is comic and tragic at the same time. She recalls, "I went to meet my friend, and he attacked me." A perplexed listener asked her, "Amma, why would a friend attack you?" And she replied, "Oh, the friend was a landlord." Another time, the moment she walked in, the landlord got so enraged that he went inside to find a stick to beat her with. Her response: instead of being angry or upset, she goes to the local temple and decides to pray for her sick friend without food and water. After three days, her friend is unable to take it anymore and comes to the temple to tell her, "Amma, please stop the fast. Let us eat together and we'll discuss this land issue." And invariably, she would get land to redistribute to the landless.

Another time, when she was on her regular morning walk, goons from her landlord friends surrounded her and poured kerosene all around. Her reaction: she sat down calmly and started singing her favorite bhajans, ready to die. This enraged the goons and they started abusing her loudly. The villagers woke up and came to her rescue. On seeing them, her attacker friends ran away.

While she walks through dangerous situations all the time, what makes the retelling so funny is the complete absence of any anger or hatred. Amma believes she lives in a world of friends and her experience confirms her belief. She also is in no hurry - she does not manage by objectives and annual performance. She says that this July (2008), a landlord involved in the massacre of 1968 told her that he was wrong and he wanted to give away his land to Amma for whatever purpose she had in mind. The indefatigable Amma is already making plans - she will start a school for Dalit children to help them come out of their condition.

Her focus has been on the empowerment of Dalit women. She claims to have an "army of women," whom she trains in non-violence. She finds that less people have, the more they have to give. She is often invited home by the women, and she will sleep on their bed, where a pillow is made for her comfort by tying the household clothes together. Lying down in that condition, she cries for these women - how hard they work, how much they sacrifice and how much they are willing to give. And yet, our society engages in exploiting them. She identifies so much with their suffering that their pain is her own. Her material needs are so few and she will be considered penniless for tax purposes, and yet she lives, walks and talks like a queen.

I met her two weeks back at Stanford and then in the Bay Area, before proceeding on to Seattle to receive the Opus Prize (as a finalist). She has also been awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternate Nobel Prize) in Stockholm. In her funny style, she told us that she tried to find Seattle on the map but was unsuccessful. When she went to the airport, they wouldn't let her board because she didn't know where she would stay in the US. She called up her daughter and finally got an address. Even after arriving, she was unsuccessful in locating Seattle on the map, but believed that she would be taken care of wherever she went, which is true for such human beings.

Here is a video made by Seattle University on her work.

You can also read about her on Wikipedia.

The interested reader should be able to meet Amma easily in Tamil Nadu.

Ending Coercive Land Acquisition - Creating Options

Somik Raha — Sun, 9 Nov 2008 05:37:45 EST

The reaction by India's industrial titans to the Singur crisis has been unanimous. Big guns like Mukesh Ambani, Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji and others have supported the Tatas and warned that the state would become a desert for investment if the Tatas had to leave, which is now a reality. Even the Prince of Calcutta, Sourav Ganguly, has supported the Tatas. Mamta Banerjee seemed to be the lone voice in support of the farmers whose land had been acquired forcefully without adequate compensation. People have called her stupid and an enemy of the state. Her own party supporters have voiced their disagreement with her opposition. In this backdrop, I am going to take on the perilous task of finding logic in her stubborn stance and also to suggest a long term solution for the future. I ask the reader to bear with me and let me explain my position.

Not our problem alone

Land acquisition issues are by no means limited to India. In the United States, there exists a law called "Eminent Domain," which in plain speak says that Uncle Sam can throw you out of your property if it sees a public good that requires the use of your land. Imagine this: a Civil Engineer (from a reputed university) contracted by the government to come up with the most optimal road plan figures out that such a road would need to pass through your grandmother’s house. The authorities send her a notice that she will be paid a certain amount, which would probably be a little lower than the market price. She refuses. Even after the compensation is hiked some more, she refuses. The authorities invoke Eminent Domain and send the cops to throw her out. As the cops arrive, the poor old lady holds on to whatever she can to prevent being dragged away, all the while crying out that this is where she has all her memories, this is where she lived with her husband until he passed away, and this is where she wants to die. She wants to be left alone. But that cannot be allowed, and the official tells her, "Ma'am, you don’t understand. The most optimal road goes through your house, and therefore, for public good, we must have it." And her cries go in vain (unless civil rights groups get into the game and sue the government for doing this). This story plays out in every society in the world (see box 1, box 2).

People all over the world are generally nice and compassionate, and most people feel bad about a story like this, but they ask desperately, "What alternative do we have for building YOUR-FAVORITE-PUBLIC-GOOD?" There is an alternative that ought to be taught in high schools for its utter simplicity. It has to be understood that the only legal power of a government is the power of coercion. And every single time coercion is used for public good, it has unintended consequences. Note all the controversies of land acquisition that have come to light, from the Narmada Dam project in the West, NanoCity in the North, Singur in the East and now Reliance might make the same mistake in Maharashtra. In India, the police knows no better than to use their guns on protesting people, often killing many. The legal costs rise and big businesses get discouraged by the reaction. In the United States, as business after business got stung by the backlash to eminent domain, a path-breaking and simple alternative emerged.

Create Options

This alternative has its roots in one of the most powerful insights that the wise have shared about decision making: you can always create OPTIONS. Taking this insight literally, let us try creating options for land acquisition (not the unrealistic't know a financial meltdown until the train hit them but the decision analytic variety whose math is simple enough to be understood by an English major with a minor effort). Let’s say Reliance plans an oil pipeline that needs contiguous areas of land. If any one of the landowners in the path of the pipeline hold out, the project will not take off, leaving Reliance with several non-contiguous pieces of land and a large hole in their pocket. In an alternative scenario, instead of buying any plot of land, Reliance could choose to buy an option from the landowner. The option will give Reliance the right to buy the land at the prevailing market (or agreed upon) price within a period of three years (for instance). This option can be valued easily using simple decision analysis tools and would be an order of magnitude cheaper than acquiring the land itself. Reliance could then plan multiple pipeline routes and try to acquire options on each of the routes. The moment they have all the options on a particular route, they can exercise the options on that route and acquire all the contiguous pieces of land.

There are several benefits to this approach. First, as Reliance is a private party, they are not required to reveal the purpose of the acquisition. They can send out agents who don't even need to reveal that Reliance is behind the acquisition. The government, on the other hand, is required to reveal the purpose of their acquisition, resulting in landowners realizing that they can make a lot of money if they hold out. The cost of acquisition will now be based on a good deal between the private party and the landowner. Second, as exercising the option is a legal right, there is no necessity for state coercion on the individual landowner. If someone holds out even after selling an option, that will be considered contractual fraud, and we have a legal framework in place to deal with that. The government no longer needs to deal with mass protests, the police no longer needs to open fire on hostile crowds, and entrepreneurs no longer need to sink large sums of money in legal costs. Third, if some people (tribals/farmers/middle class people) have a strong connection to their land and don’t want to leave it, all they have to do is not sell the option to their land. There should be no legal authority on the part of the government or the industry to force them to do so, and any forcible or fraudulent activity on the part of the entrepreneur would be subject to our existing legal framework that prohibits fraud and coercion. Human rights organizations can shift their focus from protesting to educating the tribals/farmers, while respecting the choice of these communities to accept or reject the education.

Creating options is not a new idea, and you have likely already used it in your life. We shall define an option as "the right to a future decision." A little consideration should reveal that insurance is a very good example of an option, where you buy the right to a lower medical expense should an emergency arise. The price of the option here would be the insurance premium you need to pay each year, which is a fraction of the coverage cost that the insurance company is legally obligated to pay should the situation arise. If you have played in the stock market, then you might be familiar with "call/put options" which is the right to buy/sell a stock at a predetermined price.

Who's Doing Non-coercive Acquisitions with/without options?

If this method is so simple, why hasn’t it been tried already for land acquisition? Strange as it may sound, this has been tried – it just hasn’t been spoken about as most private firms don’t want to talk about their land acquisition strategy. I’ve heard from a reputed professor at Stanford that Disney used options to acquire most of the land they needed for their theme park at Anaheim, California, after which people got wise to the purpose behind the acquisition and hiked up the selling price. Even then, Disney saved a fortune in legal fees by using this method. (For other companies in the US, see Box 2)

The intelligent reader may point out that what works in the United States may not necessarily work in India. To which I wonder what is so special about the Indian DNA that it would not like to save lives and lower costs when it could. In any case, options has been in use in India for a long time, without us explicitly recognizing it. If you've tried buying land in India, chances are you've been asked to pay a "roka" as North Indians would call it. The "roka" is an advance that a buyer would pay a seller after which the seller would stop showing the land to others. The "roka" is an option, a right to buy the land within a specified time. "Roka" options are quite common in the real-estate market and are probably referred to with different words in different parts of the country.

Finally, I have anecdotal evidence that after Larsen & Toubro (L&T) had completed acquiring land for the third Howrah Bridge in (hold your breath) West Bengal, neighboring land owners who had been skipped were upset at missing the pie, and begged L&T to consider buying their land too. It seems that landowners in West Bengal also like good deals, like landowners anywhere else.

Challenges

There are some legitimate challenges to applying this solution, especially in places like West Bengal. The business climate in the state is highly interventionist, with entrepreneurs unable to operate without the blessings of the prevailing local political party. In such a situation, talking about free markets is a travesty. The current government needs to realize that it cannot replace coercive prevention of industry by coercive adoption of it. It needs to start with the fundamentals and shrink to a minimal form of government. But then, what will happen to the party ranks? Instead of employing cadre into what amounts to an organized land mafia, they can be encouraged to become social entrepreneurs who combine the best of capitalism (freedom) and communism (caring for the community) while leaving the worst out (greed and coercion respectively). While this might take some time, a first step for India would be people from all walks of life coming together to demand the revoking of Article 300-A so that no government has the right to take away private property through any argument of public good. In today's society, we should realize that governments claim almost any economic activity as a public good, and eminent domain laws become a vehicle for individual abuse.

While economists would welcome the strengthening of property rights, they may raise several objections to entirely scrapping Eminent Domain laws in India. First, they will point out that there are "actual public goods" that a government must provide (e.g. roads, wildlife reserves, forested lands). How is the government to do so without laws that resemble eminent domain? Second, private parties cannot freely purchase agricultural land in India. We would need laws that allowed for land use changes, and we still need to consider if such a change is in public interest. Third, individuals sitting on vast natural resources ought not to have the right to refuse their commercialization - this is an argument for eminent domain laws. Fourth, there are thousands of land holders who have title to a small amount of land. This makes it infeasible for private parties to negotiate with so many, hence, the government is a good intermediary. Finally, you would need a sophisticated buyer and seller to be able to use options.

Lets take these arguments one by one. First, it is a 20th century idea that governments are responsible for public goods. There is ample evidence of societies that did fine in the past without government intervention in every sphere of life. As evidence in our present time, look at all the public goods in India and you will find those are the services that are most lacking in creativity and innovation. In the United States as well, the government builds roads as a public good. This is one sector which has seen so little innovation that you now have cars that are built to touch 200 miles per hour and roads that can only handle 65 miles per hour. Think about all the private toll roads you've been on in India and compare them to the government maintained roads, and the difference should immediately be apparent to you. India is full of examples of social entrepreneurs who have given up on the government's ability to provide public goods and provided solutions themselves, either as a for-profit or as a non-profit. Sulabh International builds public toilets(shauchalayas) that are financially sustainable and pay for their construction cost quickly, while generating employment. See Box 3 and Box 4 for further examples. Second, I agree that private parties should be allowed to freely purchase agricultural land and the land owner should have the right to decide how the land should be used. If the current land owner feels it is important that the land use should not be changed, this can be specified in a contract at the time of sale. The argument is often made that good agricultural land should not be used for non-agricultural purposes. If we truly believe that, then we should immediately proceed to demolish all the government (and other) buildings in Kolkata, which has some of the best agricultural soil you could find being on the banks of the Ganga. Third, it is possible to grant an individual the right to their property while one could also construct rights for what lies below the property and separate the two. Once this is done, there is an incentive for entrepreneurs to find ways to drill for oil or a similar natural resource without disturbing the landowner who is at the surface. Fourth, the argument of "too many land owners" is a terrible one, as the government does no better, and arguably worse, than a private negotiator. In fact, a private negotiator would not have the advantage of guns and would have to be polite and stay within legal boundaries. Perhaps, this is an area where an entrepreneur could provide negotiation consulting services. Finally, the argument of sophisticated buyer and seller is an argument for education, although the Indian market is already using "roka" options without doing sophisticated decision analysis. Companies that need help modeling options can hire decision consultants just like they hire tax consultants. I admit that companies will have an advantage in pricing methodology over individual landowners. However, this is a good reason for the creation of a friendly social venture that offers pricing services to individual land owners. On the topic of decision education in India, there is much that needs to be done. (See Box 5)

Philosophical, Economic and Traditional Reasons

Options should be used for both philosophical and economic reasons.

Philosophically, even if everyone around me says that murder and theft is the best way to get what I want, I refuse to do it, and I will argue that India, with its deep spiritual tradition of acceptance of all religions, systems and ideas, should stand firmly behind non-coercion. Just as the tool of coercive land acquisition is the use of a police force with guns, the tool of smart non-coercive land acquisition is options. Economically, let us be clear that while using options has lowered the cost of land acquisition for many, the method itself is not going to guarantee that industrialists will get the land they want, which is no different from the case of using coercion as we have just seen the Tatas getting thwarted even with government support. If both methods cannot guarantee success, and the coercive one consistently creates more headaches, takes lives and increases costs, then we ought to throw our weight behind the non-coercive methods.

Finally, traditionalists might point out that in the Indian tradition, the individual must sacrifice for the family, the family for the community, the community for the state and the state for the world (a maxim approved by Sri Krishna). While this is a noble spiritual idea, it is not what is followed today. On the other hand, a more accurate maxim for the practice of the modern day is, "the individual must be coerced to sacrifice for the family, the family for the community, the community for the state for the world." Every spiritual tradition in India recognizes a supreme internal freedom asks its followers to acknowledge and become aware of it. It is but natural that India lead the world in giving expression to this internal freedom in our external environment. We can start by recognizing that individual sacrifice is a decision to be made only by the individual, and coercion has no place in a society that wants to call itself free.

Almost every country in the world has a legal mechanism that resembles Eminent Domain laws. In the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Ireland, these laws are referred to as "Compulsory Purchase," while Canada and South Africa call it "Expropriation." India used to consider right to property as a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(f). This meant that your land could not be taken away except under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, or a similar state law, which allows the use of forcibly acquired land by the Government "in the interests of the general public or for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe". The Land Acquisition Act of 1894 empowered the Central and the State Governments to acquire lands that they felt was necessary for a "public purpose". Public purpose was defined so broadly that even land use by state-owned corporations was included, thus turning this law into an all-powerful mechanism for the British. While this British baggage continues to this day, in 1978, the right to property was shifted out of fundamental rights so as to make it harder to challenge land acquisitions by the government, and Article 300-A was introduced which said that "no person will be deprived of his property save by authority of law." In other words, the state/central government can take your land away if Parliament or State Legislatures make a legislation/order/rule to do so, in exchange for compensation determined under the Land Acquisition Act by the Collector. You can challenge the action of the government in a court if you think the government has acted unfairly, and in most countries (except authoritarian ones like China), this leads to protracted legal battles, civil rights headaches for the government and spiraling legal costs for the industry involved. The Land Acquisition Amendment Bill (2007) is an effort to reform the 1894 law, but how much band-aid can one put on a gaping wound? Senior Advocate Bishwajit Bhattacharyya recently outlined in the Statesman (Oct 29, 2008) how even passing a law under Article 300-A has been successfully challenged in court. How many people have the resources to take on the government when their rights are violated?

At this time, the United States probably has the worst eminent domain laws on the planet. In 2005, a controversial Supreme Court ruling upheld (by a 5-4 vote) the government's use of eminent domain powers to take private property from one owner and transfer it to another owner under the pretext of economic development. This ruling was criticized publicly by many noted people, including Bill Clinton. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who voted against the law in the famed Kelo v. City of New London case, warned that this new addition would "wash out any distinction between private and public use of property." For the first time in US history, governments could use eminent domain powers to declare ordinary private use of property as a "public use." In a report by the Castle Coalition (a network of homeowners and activists in the US determined to stop the abuse of eminent domain), there have been more than 5,000 instances of abuse since the Kelo decision. This figure includes cases where private property owners have threatened the use of eminent domain on reluctant sellers to agree to their price or risk having their property taken away by force. This situation is quite comparable to India where the government acquires lands for private parties under the argument of "economic development."

The report also goes on to debunk the myth that eminent domain laws are needed for economic development by citing several projects that did not use eminent domain. Walt Disney's construction of Disney World, The Rouse Company's construction of a new city in Howard County, Maryland and Focus Property Group's creation of a 3000-acre community called Mountain's Edge are some of the examples. Disney World is particularly interesting to us as they used options quite heavily. Further Reading: http://www.castlecoalition.org

Box 3: Social Entrepreneurs in India, a powerful force for public good
Arvind Eye Hospitals in Madurai (and other cities in South India) treats patients who cannot pay; free of cost and make up their money from people who can. Exnora in Chennai (and now several other cities) has created a system of garbage cleaning where an erstwhile scavenger now collects garbage from each home and dumps it in the proper place, for a fee. LaserSoft Info Systems in Chennai employs "disabled" people and puts them to work in the field of banking software. The Sangini Mahila Seva Cooperative Society is for, of and by sex workers in Kamathipura, Mumbai's oldest red-light district, where sex workers gain access to banking services and rise out of destitution. A similar and older initiative has been quite successful in Kolkata's Sonargachi district. The popular Lijjat Papad is made by a social venture, Shri Mahila Griha Udyog, founded by Sarvodaya members. This is an organization focused on creating a dignified work environment for women in a decentralized manner, and its success should inform case studies in any serious business school. Most Indians are familiar with "utterly, butterly delicious" Amul butter. Amul stands for Anand Milk Union Limited, a social venture inspired by Sardar Vallabhai Patel, which is privately run as a cooperative to give milk farmers a good deal and provide high quality milk products to society. Anandwan is a social venture in Maharashtra founded by the late Baba Amte, and run as a self-sufficient rehabilitation center for people afflicted with leprosy. Anandwan has incorporated environment-friendly processes into the local lifestyle without your tax money.

Box 4: Environmental Social Entrepreneurship in the US
The Nature Conservancy (http://www.nature.org/) is a US charitable institution that acquires forested land using existing land acquisition laws as a private party in order to conserve it. Aimed at preserving bio-diversity, this organization has been voted as one of the most trusted national organizations in the US in online polls. Their work has led to the creation of several national parks. The Proactive Carnivore Conservation Fund is a private initiative by an organization called Defenders of Wildlife that finds innovative solutions to prevent people from killing wildlife (such as compensating farmers for the livestock they lose to wolves in return for sparing the wolf's life). The Property and Environment Research Center has an instructive article by the founder of this project, Hank Fischer, at http://www.perc.org/articles/article319.php

Box 5: Decision Education
It is a pity that most business schools in India either skip Decision Analysis or teach it as "Decision Tree Analysis," which is like stripping all the philosophy from yoga and teaching it as a bunch of stretching exercises. There is only minimal benefit in doing so. This is not just a problem in India but also in the United States (as you can see from the massive financial crisis). What is even more pitiable is that people need to wait till they get to a university (there are only a few that teach this as a philosophy) to learn good decision making. To remedy this, the Decision Education Foundation (www.decisioneducation.org) teaches high school children the basics of good decision making. Perhaps it is time to start a chapter of the foundation in India.

Here is a very brief introduction to the philosophical foundation of decision analysis (DA). DA does NOT help you predict the future or maximize the chance of the best outcome. For that, you are better off going to an Indian astrologer or a financial engineer (though I wouldn't trust the financial engineer - I recommend the book "The Black Swan" for people who call themselves statisticians or financial engineers). DA is an amoral method that helps you stay consistent with your preferences, information and alternatives. DA disabuses you of the notion of "objective decision making," making it clear that you can only judge the quality of your decision, not someone else's. Even more fundamentally, the quality of your decision must be judged before the outcome, as you cannot judge a decision from the outcome. If you knew the outcome, you wouldn't have a decision to make. Another fundamental tenet is the principle of sunk cost - the past matters only for learning, not for accounting.

Supreme Court Reiterates "No Goons For Collections"

Somik Raha — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:00:52 EDT

The Supreme Court in a landmark judgement on Thursday reiterated its earlier stand that banks cannot deploy musclemen for recovery of loans from defaulters thus forcing them to end their lives.

"We deem it appropriate to remind the banks and other financial institutions that we live in a civilized country and are governed by the rule of law," a bench comprising Justices Tarun Chatterjee and Dalveer Bhandari said.

This is indeed a landmark judgment. I have heard from time to time that banks have forced debtors to sell their kidneys in order to pay back their loans. While urban legends abound, the fact that the banks of India are unimaginative in their debt-collection practices is a cause of great concern.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. In an article that appeared in the Indian Express two years back, we learned about a company called "Adhikrut Jabti Evam Vasuli" with a website - vasuli.com. This company is headed by a team of women, and they write about their recovery operations in the following manner:

Managed by TEAM OF YOUNG WOMENS came into operation in the year 1998 and has a distinction of being first private agency of the country engaged in recovery on behalf of Govt. & Nationalized banks in structured manner. We believe firmly in Recovering Public Money remaining in four corners of LAW.

The most interesting part of their website is their transparent policy of collection:

* Dignity and Respect to customers is our Debt Collection Policy and we do not follow policies that are unduly coercive in collection of dues.
* Our Office of Adhikrut Jabti Evam Vasuli's dues-collection policy is built on courtesy, fair-treatment and persuasion.

By customers, they mean the customers of the banks who have defaulted. They will first contact these customers while maintaining their privacy and try ordinary means of communication to resolve the situation. When customers have closed all doors of communication, then they use unique methods to shame them. For example, a restaurant owner who had defaulted and refused to pay back saw people sitting with placards outside his restaurant informing customers that he was a defaulter. He settled that evening.

Perhaps it had to be a team of women entrepreneurs who wouldn't think like men to be able to come up with a humane and intelligent mechanism of debt collection. I would give my kudos to Vasuli for showing that we don't need bullies and violence to get the job done - a little imagination and sensitivity goes a long way. And I applaud the Supreme Court for coming down heavily on banks that cannot think beyond violence in debt-collection. ICICI Bank would do well to hire Vasuli for their services if they want to keep the trust of the people they serve.

Salman Rushdie and Freedom of Speech

Somik Raha — Sat, 10 May 2008 02:20:22 EDT

Noted and controversial writer Salman Rushdie gave a talk at Stanford University recently. The Stanford Daily report covers important parts of his talk but misses out on the ending. Rushdie, towards the end, pointed to the fundamentalism displayed by the Hindu right toward M. F. Hussain. He said that M. F. Hussain had painted goddesses in the nude, who had "always been depicted that way," and, Hussain had been hounded out of India for committing this transgression as a Muslim. Now, Hussain lives in London and Dubai, and is about to open an art museum in Dubai. India will lose the art works of its greatest artist.

Rushdie's support for free speech is well-known. I spoke to some close Muslim friends and tried explaining how much I liked Rushdie's talk. To highlight Rushdie's support for a Muslim artist, I mentioned M. F. Hussain. Immediately, my Muslim friends (who are not from India) quizzed me on what Hussain had done. When I mentioned the painting of Indian goddesses in the nude, the reaction was of immediate disgust, and I could not get my Muslim friends to support M. F. Hussain. They felt that Hussain had been highly insensitive and should never have done something like this.

I tried hard to explain that I wouldn't send my kids to Hussain's art gallery, but I would defend his right to paint whatever he liked as long as he didn't use taxpayer money. In the end, my friends reluctantly agreed that Hussain should not have been kicked out of India, but that was because both my friends don't like government interference in public life, like me.

This conversation was remarkable in many respects. While discussing Rushdie, one friend pointed out that Muslims ought not to waste their time with such things, for the Prophet had clearly asked his followers to ignore those who abused his teachings - it was better to do good in the world than waste one's energy to counter such people. Somehow, I find all my Muslim friends to have such an open and liberal attitude, and this isn't just at Stanford.

Moving on, I think freedom of speech by itself does not pass scrutiny. I wouldn't like someone to come into my home and talk about topics that were uninteresting or disgusting to me. I do have the right to ask people to get off my property. Then, freedom of speech is the prerogative of the property owner. In this context, it becomes much easier to tackle situations that seem like violations by examining the property rights of the individuals concerned. In Hussain's case, whose property was he on when he made and displayed the paintings? As long as the property owner is fine with it, no one else's opinions can have legal standing.

Finally, as Indians, we would do well to recognize that our forefathers really meant "freedom" when they fought for freedom. This means that people have a right to be jerks in their own homes or outside as long as they don't physically hurt or defraud anyone else. Those that get offended have the option of shutting their eyes, not buying books, turning off the television, etc. We need to attach ourselves to a much higher ideal of freedom. I would like to end with a reminder of such an ideal, from Tagore's immortal poem on the subject.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high,
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action–
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father,
Let my country awake.

End the Textbook Circus - II

Somik Raha — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 09:28:19 EST

I had written a piece titled End the Textbook Circus on Feb 26. The post received nineteen comments with varied reactions. I am going to try and put my finger on the underlying argument that I think some commenters were making and then attempt to address them.

One reason for doing this exercise is that the opinions expressed come from valid concerns. If we consider disbanding the Department of Education, isn't that a rather radical step? Would the same arguments not apply to the rest of government action? If so, why am I not commenting on military spending and instead focusing my lens on education? Others thought that social entrepreneurship takes time to succeed, given that the Grameen Bank took three decades to cover 7% of all women. Can we wait that long? Still others thought that free economies work well only under the purview of a regulatory watchdog.

These are all great questions. In the 1940s, some people wanted separate bathrooms for blacks as they claimed that black people sweat more than whites. These were called Jim Crow practices and created a furor, and researchers set out to prove that black people don't sweat more than white. In fact, most white people can't tell the difference and Chinese Americans find white sweat more distasteful. Everett Hughes criticized the researchers by pointing out a classic logic error (which is now immortalized in Howard Becker's Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While Doing It). The researchers were challenging what is called a minor premise, that black people don't sweat more. But by doing so, they had accepted the major premise, that people who sweat more should have separate bathrooms. Where did that come from?

In our analysis, we are stuck with the minor premise that certain government actions are better than others to facilitate education. The major premise, that government action is necessary or beneficial, goes completely unchallenged. I will argue that if India has done well with education, it is inspite of public schools. Most people who can afford it send their children to private schools. Even in private schools, Indians have learned not to rely on the system. If they can't keep up with teaching in school, they go for private tuitions. This is a voluntary resolution of the so-called "learning disability" which acquires students in institutions that are unfortunate enough to recognize it. Students learn differently, and thankfully in India, we haven't yet turned this into a disease like the US has done, so children are able to catch up later on in life. The Indian culture encourages the Pull Model, where the onus is on the student to acquire learning. In contrast, in the West, the onus is often on the teacher to reach out and break learning barriers. This difference is also one of the reasons for the "success" of Indian education, in the eyes of many educators.

In Delhi alone, several private schools have mushroomed and are there to earn the business of the "poor." They provide education at a lower cost and parents prefer them to government schools. Yet, we insist that we need public schools to save our children. I will contend that one of the biggest barriers to the education puzzle in India is a regulation that prohibits entrepreneurs from making profit if they're in the business of education. If this barrier is taken off, the sky is the limit. In India, social entrepreneurship would abound if it were not for the umpteen limitations placed on the creative mind.

Let me rest some of my arguments for the moment, as I am sure opinions against it will abound. I don't think it is necessary for people to agree with what I've said so far, as what I'm going to suggest next should help us move beyond.

Let's leave the Dept of Education alone. And let's focus on creating a private board of education. A board that provides accreditation to schools that apply for it. Let this board function as a company and offer the accreditation as a pay-per-use service. Schools will undergo a rigorous testing process before they can get certified. The company (let's call it MySyllabus Inc.) specializes in providing multiple accreditations. One is the Communist accreditation for those who want children to learn Marxist ideals. Another is the Hindutva accreditation for those who want children growing up in Hinduism. A third is a Madrassa accreditation, teaching children the essence of Islam and packaging science within an Islamic context. A fourth could be a Christian accreditation and a fifth could be an Atheistic accreditation. And a sixth could be a Universalist accreditation that takes a little bit of all of the above. The big service by MySyllabus will be to teach transcendental ideas of scientific inquiry, truth, honesty and ethics through the cultural context that people currently subscribe to through different ideologies.

A school can figure out which accreditation it wants. Within it, there will be standards of teaching and as long as it meets them, the accreditation is provided. Parents can decide where to send their children. They alone have the right to decide this. Will such a solution work?

Now, you might still argue that this is too radical. Alright, alright. Opinions abound. Let's try another one. In the US, one of the best innovations has been the school voucher. The government spends a certain amount of money on each "poor" child's education. Through a legislation, the parent of the child has the right to decide where this check will go. Would it be to the public school or the private one? By doing this, public schools have realized that they have to provide high quality service or they will close down. And children don't have to pay the price for this. Why can't we try a similar system in India? Give the parents of the children the right to choose?

I would go one step further and give taxpayers the right to choose where their education tax goes. In other words, all the government has to do is to tell me what amount of money from my income is being dedicated to education, and I will tell the government which NGO or public or private education-related organization should receive my hard-earned money. Through this system, I can do the research on my own and fund a school of my choice. Or, I can trust an NGO or education-oriented organization that will use my money wisely.

At the end of the day, the question boils down to this - do you want the right to decide where your education tax goes?

Reservation: Our Downfall

Somik Raha — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 00:51:07 EST

Roshan Krishnan, in a post, 'The Big Old Reservation Debate,' makes the following point, in response to government pressure on private companies, "I believe it's time we thought differently regarding this reservation policy of ours. It's time to come up with other methods to help the socially and/or economically backward of our society." I couldn't agree more.

The goal of improving social opportunities for under-served communities is a laudable one, and we must appreciate people in society who think this is a worthy goal. The question is, are laudable goals to be implemented in a coercive manner under the power of the gun, conceding that this is really the only power a government has? We must be very careful when involving the government in solving social problems.

China is a glaring example of what happens when governments get involved in restoring social equity - an era of unprecedented brutality under the euphemism of "cultural revolution", policies that were intended to control the population that have now ended up creating a huge vacuum in the workforce, and land redistribution that was supposed to be equitable that resulted in the deaths of millions of landowners at the hands of their fellow villagers, who died later by the millions due to a nationwide famine that devastated their "commune farms", which were surprisingly owned by the state (see the Economist, May Issue).

China has recognized this, given the smart and talented people that country has, and the government has recanted many of these steps, even going so far as to publicly acknowledge policy errors. At the time, they were making the best decision given the information they had. Does India have such an excuse today, seeing the effects of such government intervention?

Let's examine how India's latest move squares with the following maxim, "Peaceful, Honest People Have the Right to be Left Alone."

We define "peaceful" as people who do not use force or threaten the use of force against others, except in self-defense. We define "honest" as people who have not committed fraud over an implicit or explicit contract. We assume for the rest of this essay that this maxim is the hallmark of a free society until we find a better maxim, else we have more fundamental problems.

Entrepreneurs, who are in the business of making other people happy and getting remunerated in exchange, fit the bill of "peaceful, honest people" insofar as they have not coerced anyone into buying their services or products. Then, they have the right to be left alone and not coerced into hiring people using criteria that they may not share.

If there is social inequity, then it needs to be a problem that is owned by the people. We wouldn't want to be idle critics of the government, so here is a different way of looking at this problem. Most information technology companies in India compete at the global level today. Their biggest problem is finding talent as there is tremendous competition over the best individuals. Companies need to wake up to the fact that their battleground has to shift from capturing the best trained talent to training people to be the best with competitive contracts that secure their services.

While this has happened in the past with companies such as Tata Consultancies requiring new employees to sign bonds, with competition heating up, prospective employees have other options with companies that do not require bonds.

Then, it becomes a question of where the "bond" idea would be seen as a positive opportunity instead of a constraint. And common sense would tell us that it would be in under-served communities, whose existing options are much worse. Once this is recognized, our IT companies would look at under-served communities as a gold mine. Mind you, not all of the raw material in a gold mine yields gold. But the ones that do yield gold make it worth your while to get into the mining business.

Once this thinking sets in, companies will rush in to attract talented minds in under-served communities. Imagine a contract, "We will fund your child's high school and college education if your child agrees to sign a contract to work for a 2-5 year period. Should the contract need to be broken, here is the amount that will have to be refunded."

In the interest of making the most money out of people in the shortest amount of time, companies would have to give the best training possible to such children, so that the work they do is of the highest value possible. Companies can also get creative. Instead of requiring a fixed number of years, they can provide training in a niche area which they alone serve, and ensure that they have a wide talent pool to pick from when the time comes.

One has to only see how corporates woo poor students by looking at them as valuable future options. For example, Microsoft provides its development platform either free or at heavy discounts at various universities so students can become experts by the time they graduate, and form a ripe pool to recruit from, thus lowering recruitment costs.

Many organizations give freebies with an intention to create a future market. For example, this was behind the success of Unix as an operating system with Sun Microsystems making it free for students, who would then want to use it when they started professional work, in addition to creating a pool of people who they could hire.

At Stanford University, every company provides steep discounts on student software in the hope that they are creating future communities for their products. Yahoo and Apple are engaged in a battle over the music download market and students get the best deal in the process, with Yahoo providing a year's worth of free downloads, with the hope of getting loyal future paying customers.

Now, pro-reservation thinkers will argue that people have benefited in the past from reservation. Their arguments are not without merit. Let us examine some of them.

First, people who have benefited under reservation are now doing things that they could not have done earlier due to lack of opportunity.

Second, we cannot have laws that are fair to all, it is the way of the world and if someone loses out, too bad. We can only try to be most fair to the least served communities.

Third, a non-coercive system will only benefit the smart, who can take care of themselves anyway.

Fourth, the fact that many beneficiaries of reservation have improved economically under reservation proves that reservation was a good decision to make and we should continue it.

The first argument is valid. Some beneficiaries of reservation are indeed doing desirable things that they would not have done otherwise. We must note that the idea of reservation is not being objected to. If you believe that reservation is important to restore equity in society, then more power to you! In your organization, you can have reservation based on sex, caste, class, height, weight and whatever other criteria you wish. However, the problem arises only when you impose your criteria on someone else.

For instance, cigarette smoking is bad and you don't like it. So you can abstain, and use your free will to ensure it is not permitted in your house. You will not frequent restaurants that allow smoking. But do you really have the right to decide that this standard must be coercively imposed in every house, however laudable it might be?

People making this argument routinely overlook the fact that reservation is eminently possible in private institutions on a voluntary basis. Most Catholic schools reserve seats for their community and open the rest to others. And that actually works great for everyone. Boys-only schools voluntarily commit sexual discrimination and it works great as do girls-only schools.

The second argument says that the least served people should get the most opportunities. Imagine the principal of a girls-only school deciding that enough was enough. As girls have traditionally been under-served, all schools in India must have 75% reservation for women in order to restore the equity, until the number of educated girls equals the number of educated boys (who knows how you would track that). After all, female education is a laudable goal, right?

If you were to make the second argument, then you really should not have a problem with this situation. You would be within reason to point out that this is an extreme extension. The only way we can test a universal principle is by taking it to the extreme. If you take the maxim to its extreme, all peaceful and honest people will be left alone. No problem.

But if you take social equity to it's extreme, we land into all kinds of difficulties. When people are quick to point out that you can't be fair to all sides in this issue, they are absolutely right. However, the conclusion that we must "live with it" is an excuse for not thinking deeper. If we can't have a "fair" law, then why must we have a law at all? What would a system without such a law look like? Are our conclusions based on scientific experiments or socio-political biases? If we truly care about under-served communities, we cannot afford to be unscientific about this. We must explore with a scientific mind.

The third argument that only smart people will benefit from a non-coercive system appears to be a convincing one. However, it is really a facade for a paternalistic and condescending view of society. It is easy to fall into this trap. The acclaimed philosopher Bertrand Russell once noted that when a piece appeared in the British press that only 10% of the population was intelligent, people agreed as everyone counted themselves in the intelligent 10%. Such self-deception is prevalent in all societies, including India.

It is high time we stopped assuming stupidity of the masses. Let's take a look at our neighboring state, Bangladesh, which almost everyone agrees is worse off than India. Every year, this country either suffers drought or flood or both. Decades of aid has only devastated the country further as the agendas of donor countries trump the real needs of the country, according to Dr. Mohammed Yunus, the man who turned the field of economics on its head with his experiment in this country.

Dr. Yunus believed that "poor" people were extremely creative and could solve their own problems. Their only problem was, no one trusted them. So he decided to trust them and lend them money. The result was the formation of the legendary Grameen Bank, which has by now disbursed over $1 billion of loans, and has a recovery rate of 99.1% (more conservative auditing brings this down to 85% which is still extremely high for its segment), matching some of the most astute banks in the United States.

Even the most basic study of this experiment will reveal that their process involves getting people to solve their own problems. The Grameen experiment is being replicated all over the world, including India, though it was botched up initially when the Government got involved. It is now being tried by private enterprises like Unitus and the reports have been very positive.

The final argument that because some people have benefited, it implies it was a good decision and should be continued is a highly fallacious one. One cannot judge a decision from the outcome but only from the process used to arrive at the decision. If we knew outcomes, we really wouldn't have a decision to make.

Once this logic is understood, we will quickly realize that we cannot condemn the creators of reservation - at the time, they thought this was the best way to introduce equity, hence it was a good decision indeed as they were consistent to their preferences and the best information available. But we know better now, and it is naive for us to ignore the evidence in front of us.

Affirmative action (or reservation) research in the United States has shown that reservation has not had the intended effect on the self-confidence or performance of beneficiaries. The evidence shows that under-served communities have not been able to utilize their opportunity and do poorly, even with the best of resources at hand. If these studies were to be repeated in India, we should not be shocked with similar findings, for these have been empirically reported.

One has to only wonder why it is that in Tamil Nadu, year after year, Brahmin children perform exceedingly well, while being a tiny minority (estimates put them at less than 3% of the population) and having all quotas against them?

Logic would have us institute reservation for Brahmins in Tamil Nadu as they are the minority. Strangely, reality does not concur with logic and the state offers 69% reservation for under-served communities. In spite of a much lower set of opportunities, how do Brahmin children do so well, an observable and acknowledged fact by all, especially the politicians of the state who clamor for more reservation? We need to find answers to these questions so we may replicate them for children of other communities and have them be as self-reliant.

To summarize, there is no objection against reservation of any form undertaken on a voluntary basis. However, coercive reservation is fundamentally flawed, ineffective and creates more problems than it solves. It also diverts our attention from non-coercive, voluntary approaches, that would have been tried a long time back had people not thought that the government was taking care of it.

The decision makers who introduced reservation made a good decision that was consistent with the best information available to them and their preferences. Why can't we follow their footsteps and be consistent with our preferences and the vastly better information available to us today?