Wrong To Education, Part 2

(The introduction to this series analysing RTE can be found here:
http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-introduction.html)
(Part 1: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-1.html)
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2. The Act does not flow from the Right (Art. 21A of the Constitution)

a) There are serious legal / interpretation issues with the Act.

The big controversy has been on whether "minority unaided institutions" must provide quotas under the Act. The Supreme Court finally decided that they need not. Apparently, this is to harmonise the new Right to Education (Art. 21A) & the precedent on this right (Mohini Jain vs. State of Karnataka >>> Unnikrishnan JP & Ors. vs. State of Andhra Pradesh >>> TMA Pai Foundation vs. State of Karnataka >>> PA Inamdar & Ors. vs. State of Maharashtra) with the right of minorities to set up & administer educational institutions for the preservation of their unique language & culture under Art. 30 (or, in general, with minority cultural rights under Art. 25-30).

Relative to the questions being considered, though, this is - at most - a procedural quibble. To see "Minority Rights" as the controversy is not so much to miss the wood for the trees as to miss the Veerappan for the moustache - sure, it's impressive, but the danger is everything else. (Oh, and those trees? Gone, while you were admiring the moustaches.)

b) Here is what Art. 21A of the Constitution says:

"The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine." 

What, you may ask, does this new Article mean?
(i) An (ostensibly) inescapable duty has been placed on the State, to provide education to all children (6-14) free of cost.

(ii) Note the language:
State shall provide <education> in such manner as the State may, by law, determine. Normally, when you say that the State will provide something, it means that the State itself will give it. When it is to be provided in such manner as the State may, by law, determine, you expect a legislation that will detail how the State will give it.
(iii) Note also this language: ... SHALL provide free & COMPULSORY education...

HOW?
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Spare me a minute on (iii) here.
<The Counterproductive Part, #2>
Remember, this is a Fundamental Right now. And not just any Fundamental Right, it's been appended to Art. 21 itself, which indicates that this provision is part of the Right to Life (read as a right to a certain quality of life, etc.) itself.
This means the State can be taken to court for failing to provide it.
If YOU choose, for whatever reason, not to send YOUR child to school, then THE STATE can be taken - directly, by writ petition under Art.32 - to the SUPREME COURT for failing in ITS obligation to provide COMPULSORY education (for free).

At least, that's the only way I can read it. I hope I'm wrong. But it just looks like ludicrous drafting to me. Everyone said "The Right to Free & Compulsory Education" as a phrase, and it found its way into the Constitution(!) as that same phrase. Excuse me while I go hit my head against the wall a little, maybe cry over the lack of editorial oversight that gives us such drafting. 

(If you want to see why it's ludicrous, replace "Education" with "Lunch".

"Beta, come & eat. It's a free lunch!"
"I'm not that hungry, sorry."
"No, you must. It is your fundamental right to free AND COMPULSORY Lunch."

See?)  

The only way I can see the State doing this is to make not sending your child to school an offence, and prosecuting you for it. Sec. 10 of the act currently says that it shall be the duty of every parent & guardian to admit their child/ward to elementary education in the neighbourhood school. They also made it a new Directive Principle of State Policy (the new Art. 45). So no penalty provided for failing to do this - Yet how it can be enforced without one?

 ("You must eat." / "No." / "But you must." / "No." / "It is your duty!" / "No." / <?> )

Now this might sounds scary, but it's really no big deal, right? Because we know everyone in India who can afford to send a child to school does it. (Ignore the case of those who can afford to send their child to school but choose home schooling or tutoring instead. They do present a challenge to this section of the Act, but one that is easily resolved, e.g. by certification through NIOS.) We are, without a doubt, enamoured of education - we want our children to have the best education we can afford.  And since it's free, we can all afford it, right? 

Except, there are still children not sent to school. (Our Gross Enrollment Ratio, while both encouraging & rising, isn't 100% yet.) Who are these people then? Precisely those for whom even the costs of free schooling are too high, whether that is simply the price of transport, or the loss of income from that child not working. (And just to avoid the issue of child labour being illegal anyway, assume I mean a child scavenging nuts & berries, or looking after younger siblings or cattle, or fetching water - all of which save the family money even if they are not "work", simply by reducing the parents' workload.)

Yes, under the Act, a school should be set up within 1-3 km of their homes. And yes, they can now sue the government for failing to provide this. Except, if you've read about rural schooling in India (Sainath's "Everybody Loves A Good Drought" is a good place to start) - or even simply travelled in the more remote parts of our country - you'll realise that this failure to provide is neither new, nor as yet remedied by lawsuits, & that terrain alone can defeat the government's intentions - or make such a rigid approach impractical.

So, potentially, the poorest parents in India may be prosecuted by the State, because in not sending their children to school they leave the State liable to litigation for not providing a fundamental right. Remember, even forcing them to send their children to school when they cannot afford it is a de facto fine levied on them.

How is this a step forwards, for educating the poor?

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c) Sorry for the detour. Next: What does the Act say?
The RTE Act says three things:
i) Government Schools will provide free education to all (Sec. 12a), and there WILL be a PROPER (as per the Schedule) government school near you (Sec.6-9).
ii) Aided or special category (basically the Sainik, KV, Navodaya etc.) schools will provide at least 25% of their seats to students for free (Sec. 12b).
If they receive more than 25% of their funds from the State, they will provide free seats in proportion to the percentage of such funding to their total expenses.
iii) Unaided schools will provide 25% of their seats AT EACH INTAKE TO CLASS I to students for free.
(And also, if any such school provides pre-primary education, this portion applies mutatis mutandis to such students as well.)

I'll take up which schools in #3, which students in #4. The point here is that this is an absolutely weasel way of interpreting "provide": How, via Sec. 12(c) is the State PROVIDING free education? It's the unaided school that is (forced into) providing it! More importantly, how is Sec. 12(c) justifiable as "providing" under Art. 21A?

So the State cannot provide free education for all - as is its duty now. Instead it will "provide FOR <education> by law". (If you think the government reading the word "FOR" into place where it didn't exist is fantastic, wait till you see what the Supreme Court did.)  I'm not saying here that the Act does not involve the State itself doing a lot: that is the core part of the Act, it is unexceptionable, and we are all eager to help with executing it. But to claim that, by forcing private schools - by law, no less - to admit students for free, the State is fulfilling ITS duty under Art.21A - this I reject completely. 

Just so we're clear: the quota under Sec. 12(c) is a bold experiment, and potentially one that can have great benefit. More on that in #4. But it is not the "Provision" which Art.21A envisages at all.

  

Not that this was unexpected: it was very much a part of the debate on the drafting of Art. 21A itself, i.e. before the RTE Act was even introduced. In hindsight, this little exchange looks prescient:

MINUTE OF DISSENT

"I vehemently oppose the State wanting to introduce free and compulsory education in private, unaided schools. 

Clause 21A (3) must be inserted as I do not wish the State to make laws regarding free and compulsory education in relation to educational institutions not maintained by the State or not receiving aid out of State funds. 

A Committee of State Education Ministers have already considered the issue in view of the Unni Krishnan case, and found it not feasible to bring unaided private educational institutions within the purview of the Bill.

Hence, I state once again that the proposed clause "21A(3") must be inserted in the Bill."

Clause 21A(3) would have read: 
"The State shall not make any law, for free and compulsory education, in relation to the educational institutions not maintained by the State or not receiving aid out of State funds."

When the Amendment was originally referred to a committee, this was their response:

"...As regards the interpretation as to whether the private institutions should provide free education or not, the Committee is aware of the Supreme Court judgment given in the Unni Krishnan case. This judgment provides the rule for application and interpretation. In view of the judgment, it is not necessary to make a clause in the Constitution. It would be appropriate to leave the interpretation to the courts instead of making a specific provision in black and white. ..."

<It was to this statement that a member attached the minute of dissent.>

Et voila, the actual RTE Act takes the ratio from Unni Krishnan (which created two classes of seats in private institutions, free seats & paid seats) - premised on the absurdity of a Right to Education under the increasingly expansive positive interpretation of Art. 21, which dilutes its essential nature as a negative right, a crucial restriction on the actions or powers of the State - into strange new territory. 

This, because the Amendment did not "make specific provision in black & white." And when the court was asked to interpret, we got a judgment that takes us into something stranger yet.

NEXT:
(Part 3, which is longer than the average, but is split into logical & legal analysis: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-3-or-art-of.html)
(Part 4: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-4-asses.html)

Wrong To Education, Part 1

(The introduction to this series analysing RTE can be found here: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-introduction.html)
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1. Infrastructure & Licensing.

a) Imagine if you defined a market like this:
"A flat area of at least 60 yards, having at least two approach roads of a minimum of two lanes, walled or fenced with gates for the roads, with at least twelve enclosures of not less than 100 sq.ft. area each, of which six must be roofed, and two have cold storage facilities, and each active enclosure manned by not less than two attendants, plus one shopkeeper per 100 daily footfall units, plus at least one watchman per gate, and not less than four safai karmachari*... It shall function for at least 300 days a year, not less than 10 hours a day, including at least one weekend per month...
* For qualifications of attendant, shopkeeper, watchman, karmachari see..."  

In economics, I learned that a market is anywhere a buyer & seller interact to trade in goods or services. You can define a market any other way, of course, but that won't stop buyers & sellers from meeting & trading anyway. And if you tried to stop this - to stop trade from occurring anywhere except in what you designated a market - you'd
i) Harm the total volume of trade
ii) Cause much inconvenience to both buyers & sellers perfectly willing to trade even without any of your conditions
iii) Look like an idiot.

b) RTE defines a school in infrastructural terms: 
i) Schedule to the Act: No. of teachers, school buildings, no. of working days, hours per teacher per week - plus equipment, sports facilities, library)
ii) Sec. 18 of the RTE Act requires schools to acquire a certificate of recognition from a specified authority, which means they must meet these norms. 
iii) Sec. 19 of the RTE Act penalises schools for running without recognition or after withdrawal of recognition - which they will not get without meeting these norms - to the extent of 1 lakh rupees, plus 10,000/- rupees per day of continuing violation.

Are you thinking License-Permit Raj yet?
When you look at norms like this, you need to ask only one question: Who stands to gain from this? 
Is it students who want to learn, and anyone who is willing to teach them? Or is it the people getting contracts to build these schools, the various officials who will inspect premises & award recognition, and perhaps teachers' unions, who have a rigid set of "rules" to resort to now?

What RTE misses entirely is the broader point: A school is like a market. Wherever students & teachers meet to learn, there is a school.

Exactly as in (a) above, if you try to stop learning from occurring anywhere but what you designate (recognise) as a school, you:
i) Decrease the total volume of education

ii) Cause immense inconvenience to students & teachers willing to function without any of your conditions.

iii) Look like an idiot.

c) The Counterproductive Part.

Schools for the poor run in shacks & fields. (So did gurukuls, and ironically, modern-day gurukuls would probably fail to meet the norms in the schedule.) Fr. Trevor Miranda has, as part of the Rural Education Assistance Programme (http://www.reapchild.org) taken classes on the foot overbridges of railway stations in Mumbai for over a decade now. Because anyone who is serious about elementary education has come to the same conclusion: It's the children that matter. Too often, they cannot come to you, so you must go to the children. In hundreds of local endeavours, one or two teachers teach hundreds of students, without regular hours for either, and with little equipment of any description. Often these are people of those very communities, trying to improve the lot of their own.

These will all receive no recognition under the Act. They will all be fined - and fined lakhs, even though they may be running purely on charity - and have to close down.

How is this a step forwards, for educating the poor?

NEXT:
(Part 2: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-2.html)
(Part 3, which is longer than the average, but split into logical & legal analysis:
http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-3-or-art-of.html )
(Part 4: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-4-asses.html)

Wrong To Education, Introduction.

This is to introduce a series of posts analysing the RTE Act. As you can guess from the title, I'm not a fan.


Ever since Meeta Sengupta (& Sarayu Natarajan) introduced us to the current impact of the RTE, I've been trying to read about the Act, its measures, the history of its formulation & so on. And the more I read, the more I realise they were being very kind to the Act, and to our GCPP batch at that session, by not engaging us in any comprehensive evaluation.

I think I've read enough now to have no reason to be as kind: RTE is a hoax. It's an eyewash. Worse, it's evidently counterproductive. The provisions are ludicrous, the drafting ill-thought out. I've been looking at only the legal evolution of the Right to Education, & there's enough on just the legal front to be baffled with.

Here's how RTE scene looks to me now:
1. It creates an infrastructure-oriented licensing scheme.
2. The Act does not flow from the Right.
3. The 2012 Supreme Court judgment in Society for Un-aided Private Schools (Rajasthan) vs. Union of India & Anr. is both legally & practically untenable.
4. It is NOT targeted specifically at those who cannot afford education.

And, on a related note
5. NOBODY in any Newspaper or on TV seems to have reported a word on this. Not. One. Word. of criticism.

Watch this space.
(Part 1: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-1.html)
(Part 2: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-2.html)
(Part 3, which is longer than the average, but split into logical & legal analysis: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-3-or-art-of.html )
(Part 4: http://kianayema.blogspot.in/2012/08/wrong-to-education-part-4-asses.html) 

Normally, I Would Put A Feminist Joke Here. This One's Serious, Though. No, Really.

AGENDA & AGENCY: SOCIETY & THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF FEMINISM

In a certain place, certain people engaged in certain criminal acts against a certain girl. For reasons – you can list them as well as I – this would appear to have sparked a national focus on the status of women, particularly with respect to violent crime against them. Every media outlet worth its newsprint is suddenly running articles, special reports, compilations, dedicated segments, campaigns etc., all to the effect that women are increasingly victimized in this country. Various causes are identified, various persons or institutions blamed, even demonized. Depending on who you listen to, you may believe that one or the other social trend is leading to this disturbing development.

Unfortunately, a lot of this coverage is nonsense. It is based in nonsense. The statistics it relies on are nonsense. The theories it invokes are not, inherently, nonsense – but their applications here frequently are. I hesitate from entering the debate on media sensationalism & its business aspect, simply because the feminist debate is large enough already. Suffice it to say that a vanishingly small percentage of the coverage is not using recent shocking incidents for its own purposes. This is unfortunate, but not unexpected. “Social conscience” is perhaps the weakest of all motivations today, so it would be phenomenally naïve to expect sincerity or sensitivity in such coverage; everybody & their uncle will undoubtedly try to use this apparent “national outrage” to push their own agenda.

This writer is no saint. When it comes to this topic, though, I enjoy a rather significant advantage: I have no agenda to fulfill, unless you wish to rank a desire for intellectual honesty & clarity under that head[1]. What I do have is a substantial lack of patience for both, fuzzy pseudo-logic & manipulation. I also have a rather clear idea as to what constitutes feminism, what is causing this “rise” in violence against women, and the challenges feminism faces today[2]. My core contention is simply this: the current spectacle does great disservice to the feminist cause.

First, context: men & women are different. This is biological, evolutionary fact – a nature factor. It is true across most arenas of human endeavour. A “scientist” who tries to maintain that gender differences do not exist is ignoring a vast, established & growing body of evidence – a charlatan. An “advocate” who tries to maintain that this knowledge should not have ANY bearing on how society treats men & women is hopelessly idealistic at best, and dangerously fascist[3] at worst.

The social roles of men & women are also different, usually in a manner roughly congruent with their gender differences. This is a historical & economic fact – a nurture factor, reflecting the influence of evocative interaction – an individual is affected by the system, but the system is determined by the trends in trait distributions across individuals & populations. One may thus expect these roles to evolve to reflect the relative impact of these differences, especially given the impact of technology in reducing their salience in many fields.

Does such evolution take place? Let us explore with an example: economic division of labour is a relic with respect to the capacity to ensure survival or welfare of a person, family or society. Nobody argues today that a woman cannot earn a living in most occupations the same as a man. Nonetheless, it may be both economically efficient & socially beneficial for women to be housewives. This is because, with respect to nurturing & raising children, the evidence still argues in favour of the mother – as well as for joint family institutions. Many tensions can arise in this way: institutions arise for one purpose, but can come to fulfill many roles, and some of these roles may outlive the original rationale. Most occupations & social spaces may not be “unsafe” for women any more (not that the current media coverage would agree) but women retain an evolutionary edge as caregivers[4].

The first source of this tension is the difference in timescales: species are affected by their evolution, as we saw, on geological timescales, but societal evolution is far from linear – agonizingly slow for most of the time, but increasingly rapid once underway, yet prone to relapse or reactionary pressures. Technology can also catalyse sweeping social changes, so societal evolution comes in leaps & bounds. Large periods of time can thus be “transition periods”, where society is adjusting to the net impact of evolutionary characteristics & technological developments.

The second source of this tension lies in a key difference between biological & societal evolution. Survival of the species is about survival of the gene pool (this is the leading sociobiological interpretation of altruism), which means there is no personal stake or payback from the process. Societal evolution, however, is about survival of institutions. Institutions are merely interactions between individuals in defined power structures, so there are significant personal consequences – i.e. those who are strongest in a given institution also have the strongest incentives to maintain it. This means that societal evolution is neither automatic nor inevitable – it can be (and is) resisted, by numerous powerful reactionary elements. Not till their power is suitably compromised can a new social structure replace the old one as the norm, although new structures can (and do) exist in defiance of norms long before they are accepted. Thus, the timescale of societal evolution also proceeds in leaps & bounds because a particular change can be resisted for a long time before finally achieving a breakthrough – and even after it is entrenched, still faces challenges from elements of the old order.

Where, then, does one site feminism in this complex of biological differences, societal transitions, institutional reactions, all feeding into a recursive loop of evocative interaction?

Answer: In the human rights discourse. My knowledge of the development of the feminist movement is limited, but that is the only logical position it can occupy today. Feminism is not the belief that men & women are the same. It is not the proposition that social roles should be congruent to gender differences. It is not even the argument that men & women should be treated the same in all respects. It is a very specific claim to a very specific right: Agency. Feminism is nothing more (or less – the claim is, given historical context, phenomenally audacious) than a claim to equal agency for individuals irrespective of gender.

Agency, in the simplest sense, means that the individual has first right to make any decisions pertaining to themselves. Whether it is my time, my effort, my body or my property – I, and (in the first instance) only I can decide what to do with them. It is the deepest meaning of Liberty or Freedom. Like any other freedom, it is not infinite: the harmonization of competing individual rights is precisely the realm of the law-giver & the law-keeper, and reasonable restrictions can be imposed in this respect. Minority is an obvious restriction, since we do not ascribe the capacity or judgment necessary to exercise agency to those below a certain age (or to those who, by reason of developmental or mental afflictions, have not achieved it or have been deprived of it). This is a telling restriction: its premise is that one who lacks capacity to understand the consequences of his/her own actions cannot in good conscience be made to face those consequences; this is why a guardian is appointed to make those choices for them, and presumably to inculcate such capacity in them. The principle is that those to whom agency is ascribed are competent not only to choose or act for themselves, but to face the consequences of those choices or actions.

This relationship between choice & consequence is crucial. In practice, law restrains agency in many ways. Broadly, where the consequence is interference in another’s rights, the choice is curtailed. The principle is thus that restrictions should be imposed on agency only to protect human rights the law deems unimpeachable. Consequently, the first principle of feminism is simply this: GENDER IS NOT A SUITABLE BASIS FOR RESTRICTIONS ON AGENCY.

It is easy to see why so much of the media coverage is thus harmful, also hypocritical, nonsense. Harmful because it is rooted in a patriarchal discourse of women as victims. Where is the discussion on choice & consequence? Where is the discussion on the impact of those consequences on rights, and on consequent choices? Hypocritical, because those very media are littered with advertisements premised on objectifying women. Objectification is the inherent negation of Agency, because it assumes that BOTH MEN & WOMEN are passive reactants to certain stimuli. Frankly, I don’t need to be a feminist to be insulted by the suggestion that anyone who wants to can simply lead me around by the crotch.

This is why the comment earlier this year by then head of the Women’s Rights Commission that to call someone “sexy” is a compliment, akin to calling them beautiful or graceful, is nonsense. Context matters. To call someone or something sexy today means attraction towards that person or object; advertisements should make it clear that “sexy” means “I want to possess that” – and too often, as the sexiness of the model transitions to the object sold, the objectification extends to the model, until the “person or object” distinction is blurred, even lost. Not that the role of possession in sex was particularly understated in a patriarchy to start with.

Incidentally, this is also why women who say “Chivalry is dead” should be jumping for joy. Chivalry was a step in the evolution of the rights discourse, but it was addressed entirely at men; it barely attributed to women agency to choose a champion. I just helped a co-passenger with an injured hand retrieve some luggage. Was this chivalrous? Can’t tell me without knowing it the person I helped was male or female, right? But how can gender be the basis for determining the virtue of an action? In fact, this could be the long form of the first principle: Gender is not a suitable basis for restriction on agency BECAUSE gender is not a suitable basis for determining the virtue of an action.

This should make it clear why feminism is in fact revolutionary. In a strongly patriarchal society, where great efforts in culture, religion & philosophy are devoted to considering what is an ideal daughter, ideal wife or ideal mother (as also, an ideal son, ideal husband, ideal father – remember, it’s a gender-neutral claim of agency), the idea that virtue is independent of gender is itself a challenge to the established order. The precise reason why sexual violence is an act of such significance in society is that modesty is a virtue & lust a sin only for females[5]. Rape, molestation & harassment are forms of punishment against women for choosing to exercise their agency in ways of which society disapproves. Rape apologism inevitably centres on lust – the “natural” lust that any man must be provoked to feel, and the “unnatural” lust any immodest woman must be feeling to display herself in such fashion[6], which in turn somehow becomes a wholly natural lust again when physical signs of arousal are used as evidence of consent. Suffice it to say, the more frequent the clashes between patriarchal notions of modesty-as-virtue & the exercise of agency in “immodest” ways by individuals, the more the instances of sexual violence (in particular) & repression (in general) we will see.

Is that the reason for the “rise” in sexual violence today? Perhaps to a small extent, but a far greater proportion of the figures is simply a reporting & transparency effect. Simply put, it seems far more likely that more rapes are being reported than that more rapes are taking place. This may seem like a trivial point: after all, the concern is that such offences are taking place, right? True, except that such a formulation hides an important distinction. We are & have since antiquity been a society riddled with violence against women. We are not becoming more violent in consequence of modern influences, just more open about it. This also tends to debunk claims that traditional virtues are being corrupted by modern influences, leading to such violence – I freely concede that such confrontations, perceptions etc. have a role, but the premise, that the traditional system was somehow less violent, less repressive or more equitable is deeply flawed. That is what the numbers really show: the extent to which the existing systems already inflict sexual violence, especially in relation to caste. Witness increasing sex-selective abortion: modern technology has, in that instance, enabled traditional discrimination, not caused it.

This is, precisely, the challenge facing feminism today. To push for agency in a world dominated by patriarchal institutions, where such institutions control even the terms of the discourse, and will punish every attempt to deviate from their norms. In a sense, of course, this is the same challenge any subaltern movement has always faced, and it comes with the same issues of tokenism[7] & baiting into hypocritical arguments any such movement faces. It does, however, throw up peculiar contradictions for a feminist: promoting agency for people who themselves exercise it to punish those who would exercise it in deviance of societal norms. I remember reading of reform efforts that women over a certain age were often the most vocal opponents. And what to make of informed, wealthy women still deciding on aborting a female foetus? The feminist with clarity can handle these issues, as also the next one:

Agency clearly includes taking responsibility for your own actions. So, if – being aware of social context – you choose to place yourself in the path of danger, you must accept the potentially life-shattering responses you may provoke. I cannot absolve altogether from responsibility one who deliberately challenges societal institutions. For instance, if a Slutwalk campaign had been organised here, it was unlikely to register much support – and to the contrary, I would expect the greatest numbers in attendance to be precisely those whose actions & attitudes it is supposed to protest; they would turn up for a free show, and perhaps even to mock the protesters. Indeed, Gods forbid, but if the number of women protesting as opposed to the audience were too sharply skewed, I would expect a mob situation to develop. Again, if I ever opted to commit suicide, I could think of few ways as spectacular as launching a Dating School & Speed Dating Agency in khap panchayat heartland. Where does responsibility lie in such instances? What is a suitable feminist response?

The answer has this in common: I must answer for the consequences of my actions. And those who choose to act against me, in violation of my rights, &/or in violation of the law, must answer for theirs. Under most such circumstances, their violence against the “deviant” element is the consequence – but their own actions must attract retribution just as swift, sure & unforgiving. So the response is not so much “teach your sons to be respectful, not your daughters how to dress”, but both: until the world is safe enough for your daughters to dress as they wish, please, do teach them to choose their clothes keeping in mind what they plan to do, and what they expect to encounter.

One of the tragedies of this encounter is how the word “sensible” has come to be so loaded with political connotations. It really means what I wrote above – behave in a rational way GIVEN WHAT YOU KNOW IS THE CONTEXT, even as you try to alter the context to something more positive. Sadly, it has become the rape apologist’s tool of choice, and taboo for a sensible writer to use.

Then again, that’s probably the least of the tragedies playing out here.

---

[1] Of course every salesman insists that he has no agenda in selling you anything. The reader has no reason to believe me when I declare no motivation beyond annoyance with the prevailing media climate. I will only say that almost all my writing happens when someone or something affects me deeply enough that I MUST write a response. The reader can – indeed, ought to – judge for him/herself if this article does push any agenda.

[2] Skip to Para 10 if you just want to read the answers to those questions. If you disagree, come back & read the rest!

[3] In the original sense of the word, being a complete submission of the individual to the society.

[4] The usual response to this argument is to raise ad hominem or “I know a man who” examples. Which is, once again, nonsense: we are not talking in absolutes, but about trends. “Men are physically stronger than women” is a biological fact with respect to the whole population, not each & every individual present in it. Roger Bannister’s four minute mile record was beaten by a man long before it was beaten by a woman, and more men than women have beaten it. Any of the women who did break it is, of course, a superior athlete to the vast majority of the male population. All other factors being constant, though, men are still better athletes.

So, yes, children are raised “successfully” by working couples, nuclear families, single mothers, house-husbands, even orphanages. Children are raised “unsuccessfully” by housewives & joint families (whatever success means in this context). The trend is still in favour of the latter. Further, as an economic question, even individual women or joint families have to expend less resources and effort to achieve a given result, as compared to men or nuclear families. Motherhood is a biological fact. Species that did not evolve suitable care for their young died out, & even to date the human female retains an evolutionary edge in childrearing alongside her monopoly on childbearing.

[5] In Indian Law, at least, “assault intended to outrage the modesty of (an adult) male” is not an aggravated offense.

[6] Note that this formulation of modesty being inapplicable to males has limits. Male cross-dressers are branded as eunuchs, and broadly treated as outcasts. The attribution of witch-like powers to them has granted them an odd kind of respect, born from fear, but also makes them a target for violence in the event of any misfortune in their vicinity. Forced castration has often been reported. In some places, they have little choice but commercial sex work. Even in affluent society, it seems unlikely that a cross-dresser could get professional employment – except as a sort of freak figure in television or film. Tied in with hostility towards homosexuality, this may be the reason for increasing instances of sex-change operations. I am unaware of any research or even anecdotal evidence describing society’s reactions to a “new woman” following such a procedure, but I suspect they are not welcoming.

[7] Intertwined with more objectification. Why does a secretary, receptionist or (if anyone still employs them) a stenographer have to be or not be of a certain age, appearance etc., depending on the company employing them & the message it wishes to convey? I’m as happy as the next man to be greeted by a pretty face, but one would think secretarial efficiency, perhaps a cheerful disposition, more important. Perhaps one of the few positive consequences, probably unintended, of such tokenism has been to a premium on appearance, grooming & presentation skills for men & women alike. I do not comment on whether this emphasis itself is a good thing, only the fact that it seems to be increasingly a gender-neutral demand.  

In Re: Why Are Government Subsidies Harmful

Arvind Ilamaran, also of GCPP2 - with the added benefit, I think, of GeoEconomics - put up this post on his blog, Indian Liberal @ Wordpress:

http://indianliberal.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/why-government-subsidies-are-harmful/ 

From what I remember of our orientation (notoriously unreliable memory here) the GCPP aims to be, or foster, a forum for dialogue. This is me joining in & being all dialogue-ey.

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Dear Arvind,

In a word: Disagree : ]
(Sounds cooler in French. Je rejette. Je suis en desaccord. See?)

First off, I'm not sure a subsidy could be classed as a public good. Maybe this is my limited understanding, or just a side effect of trying to read Econ after 3 AM. Bear with me, though? I'll use a classic Public Good as the point of comparison - "Fresh Air". 

(Urban inhabitants get used to putting that in quotes, of course.)

Fresh air is non-excludable. You cannot so design the good that it can be delivered selectively to some but not to others. Fresh air is non-rivalrous. Consumption by one person, even to his/her heart's content (technically, lungs' content) will not significantly affect availability of fresh air for another/others. Of course, this is only true because fresh air (~ oxygen) is available in abundance, so the scarcity criterion (which creates rivalry) does not apply. It is available in abundance, because the production of this resource outstrips its consumption.
(Assume no pollution or climate change. Don't you love economics?)

A government subsidy meets neither of those criteria. Neither a direct subsidy (where government sells at a discount) nor an indirect subsidy (where the government transfers resources) is non-excludable - i.e. it CAN be so designed as to be available only to some members of the population, and not others. A subsidy CAN be universal (e.g. on fuel prices), or it CAN be exclusive. At ration shops, proof of economic standing (or lack thereof) can be asked for before subsidised prices are offered. With direct transfers this is even easier, because an entry barrier (BPL status) is built in to the system. Theoretically, we could have price discrimination in fuel sales also - display BPL card to get subsidised petrol, else pay international procurement price equivalent.

(Assume scrupulous honesty, i.e. no corruption, forgery etc. Don't you really love economics?)

Subsidies reflect a direct expenditure of government wealth. Either the government incurs - as you say - a loss while selling, or it gives away money (or equivalent good/services) outright. Unless the government's money is as abundant as fresh air, there IS a scarcity criterion in play. Since the government has limited streams of revenue, there is no abundance of government money. And yes, the government can always print more currency, but I assume we're talking about money in real (value equivalent) terms, not my-wheelbarrow-is-worth-more-than-the-bushel-of-notes-in-it terms. And as we've seen, where a resource is limited, rivalry is inevitable.
(Assume no inflation? Economics doesn't love you back, not that much anyway. Sorry.)

Second, the statement that subsidies necessarily mean making losses carries an implicit assumption that there is an equilibrium market price representing true value of the commodity, e.g. as determined in perfect competition. Market prices may result from various other factors. Given a monopolistic (or, more realistically, oligopolistic) market, government CAN acquire below market price (as sought to be set by the seller/sellers) with no real loss (only a reduction from notional super-normal towards normal profit) as long as its price is greater than / equal to average cost to the producer(s). Even in competitive markets, the government does set a Minimum Support Price for various crops. Farmers then bargain a higher price for themselves in the market - & sell to the government stocks not sold in the market at this reserve price, i.e. less than market price. Government could, theoretically, sell those crops at a profit while still providing a subsidy, by selling at a price point between the minimum support & market prices.
(Assume bargaining power for farmers. Economics loves farmers. The Indian government does, too.)

For that matter, would you call waiver of VAT a subsidy? Prices would dip by 12.5% in most such cases, because the "market price" included a tax component now discounted. In that case, too, government would face only a notional loss of potential tax revenue, not an actual loss since there would be no government expenditure. In fact, where the government levies indirect taxes, it can procure at pre-tax prices & sell with a partial tax waiver, thus making a profit per unit sold without gypping its citizens while STILL offering a subsidy (read as discount).

These are only theoretical scenarios. In practice, subsidies do involve expenditure of government resources - let's take your figure, between 2 to 3% of GDP. Given that most subsidies (though by no means all of them) can be seen as part of Poverty Alleviation Programmes, one would expect this money to come from tax receipts. For instance, one would assume that expenditure on the Right To Education is paid for from revenues raised by levying Education Cess on transactions or commodities. One would also believe that the logical source for such revenues, at a central level at least, is personal / corporate income tax, since the relation between indirect taxation & price levels are direct & proportionate, but between a universal progressive income tax & price levels less so. Also, there is the option of increasing tax enforcement / realisation without raising tax rates. By some estimates, write-offs in the corporate tax segment exceed Rs. 25 lakh crore! (See P Sainath,  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/article3223573.ece - table.)

[Also taking off from Sainath, an option would be a degree of fiscal discipline & reallotment of resources within the government - something actually mandated by the government in recent "austerity" measures:

  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/article3439624.ece

Not that I agree with this caricaturing of the BPL calculation - that's a policy decision with its own set of implications - but his point on probity & public trust is entirely valid. Especially when you read both articles together & realise the true levels of both, poverty & available resource base. Under the circumstances, it's ironic to call India unfriendly or unfavourable to institutional investment, domestic or foreign. Takes a special kind of budget to do favours for corporates & STILL discourage them from investing, no?]

Generally speaking, I do agree with both your characterisation of an ungoverned subsidy-inflation vicious cycle, & Amogh's comment on the role of Quantitative Easing in instances of stagflation - which we may be close to facing. A government faced with difficulties increasing money supply in the short run given already low interest rates may indeed turn to Quantitative Easing, buying stocks / bonds etc. from banks or in the market. The biggest problem with this policy is not so much its impact on long term interest as that there is no guarantee that banks will make this increase in reserves available to the public. So the government will have incurred debts, driven down interest (as you say, affecting investors in those assets) but produced a relatively low impact on market money supply. Inflation, but no stimulus / growth. Now we're really screwed, no?
(NEVER assume implementation of economic policy objectives by private / non-state elements of the financial system. For that matter, even assuming State apparatus does implement it can be risky. It's the money system, not a mathematical problem.)

All of which is to say, the answer to your question is simple. Why are government subsidies harmful? Because they are applied inappropriately. They are applied according to only one criterion - political gain (read as votes at nearest election). They *should* be applied with respect to the government's economic capacity (resources available), their sustainability, their short-term impacts on economic performance, their long-term impact on structural incentives etc. Subsidies can be a powerful equity promotion tool, protecting the poorest from the ravaging effects of the inflation/unemployment paradox inherent in economic growth. Of course, if we accept Mankiw's proposition that moves to promote equity are automatic disincentives to efficiency (I'll need a lot more convincing that it's an automatic consequence given either economic or psychological impacts) then another relevant criterion becomes the efficiency loss involved - an acceptable level must be computed. Equally importantly, the assessment metric for the impacts of such measures must also be adjusted for such effects.

Government subsidies are not harmful. They are costly. The question of whether that cost is worth the gains they provide is a policy decision. The question of what costs & what gains are being taken into account in making this decision is for the field of policy analysis   & critique.

Identity, Self-Determination & Nationality

I've been having a debate with a friend, based on a quote of Dr. Jiddu Krishnamurthy's, to the effect that all identity is a cleavage from universal humanity, hence an act of violence.


Here is the quote in full: (emphasis added)

"Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence.

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind."
From Freedom From The Known, 1969.


My point is that this cleavage is essential for sanity for all but the most evolved souls (& probably even for them on a daily basis. Forgive the flippancy, but I just brushed my teeth, not all humanity's!) - what brings in violence is judgment(s) of value associated with identity. If we can use the value-neutral term "different" for those of other groups, without implying thereby "better" or "worse", there is no violence inherent in associating ourselves with these groups or others with those.


Of course, group identities DO involve value judgments. Even at a sociobiological level, safety instincts teach me to trust the in-group more than the out-group (more fool I. For instance, only about 8% of rape is by strangers). The most neutral formulation I could adopt is to overlay categories of "Liked", "Indifferent" & "Disliked" over those of in-group & out-group. So, perhaps, Dr. JK is right when he says the very act of asserting an identity is violent - but again, for anyone less than a sage, it is also inevitable. I cannot, for instance, assert an equal love for all humanity - there are segments of it to whom I am more disposed. (At risk of flippancy again: there are segments of humanity towards whom I am more, even romantically, attracted. So far, at least, all of them are female. This may be inherent to me biologically, but how far removed from this are my sociobiological instincts?) The question would be whether this is inherently violent - and I believe that at any practical level the answer is no.


This is a useful frame to enquiring into questions of Liberty vs. Self-Determination & Universalism vs. Nationalism. I draw your attention to an inherent assumption here - that these concepts must be assessed at the level of the single individual. Logic, no doubt, demands that this be done - we must start from an elementary building block & make consistent rules to build a coherent structure. Practice, however, makes no such demands; indeed a lot of our logic here is derivation based on the philosophy of "as above, so below" - a philosophy that, while both empirically strong & elegant, exposes us to a significant artefact in our inquiries. As both historians & apologists know, "those who seek shall find" - Confirmation Bias can affect any observation/investigation.


In practice, then, the unit of analysis is frequently the group - the family, the tribe, the village, the community, that nation. "Individual" self-determination - as with any absolute view of "individual" liberty - is a sterile concept, meaningless unless that individual can survive & sustain in isolation (& that's still mostly science fiction. And I mean Waterworld, not great SF. If you think that's advisable, well, Darwin award for removing yourself from the gene pool. We'll even get Kevin Costner to give it to you in person, along with a glass of water distilled from his own... you know.) Yes, belonging to a group is a process of adjustment & compromise. Yes, we maintain multiple identities according to the groups to which we wish to belong. Should we cast those adjustments of interest & identity as "Self-Determination"? Only at the risk of being vainglorious!


It is individual benefit only as corollary to group survival & advancement that is the true calculus of self-determination. The question then becomes less about whether one maintains multiple identities as the extent to which they are incompatible. Here, I do believe Nitin Pai's theory about evolving sovereignty (I've heard different approaches to this before, e.g. David Malone takes it up at the level of international relations) holds true: we're coming to realise which elements of social/political/economic order are essential to the concept of a State, & which merely to those of a nation.


Territory, economy & military (much as we may rue this last - and as a navy brat & martial artist, it's hard for me to see it with too jaundiced an eye) are essential to the State. I can belong to - indeed, declare sovereignty for - a million nations, and so long as I do not affect the temporal power of the State in these realms (which ensure it's security & survival) I doubt it will provoke much response. So even holding myself a nation unto myself is no cause for concern as long as, while on Indian soil, I obey Indian laws & pay Indian taxes.


DIGRESSION: The charming case of His Imperial Majesty Joshua Edward Norton, self-proclaimed "Emperor Norton I of These United States & Defender of Mexico", late (1820-1880) of the San Francisco Hand Cart Sub-Pioneers, comes to mind. They even let him collect taxes (50p a head) from "his subjects"! He was, at one time, arrested for lunacy, and released without trial. The logic of the magistrate who set him at liberty was simple - Mr. Norton has shed no blood, robbed no man, and despoiled no country, which is far more than can be said of most fellows in the 'king' line <of work>. He is Emperor of The United States, and he is content to be so.

(Norton was a favourite of Mark Twain, also of the Hand Cart Sub-pioneers; Twain based the character of the King in Huckleberry Finn on him. There's also a fantastic graphic adaptation of his life in Neil Gaiman's Sandman - Fables & Reflections, called Three Septembers & A January.)


What this means is that values having no impact on the survival of States (or, if you will, Nation-States - in which number I doubt India can be considered) can be freely shared, professed, even made the basis of organisation of new nations. The Islamic Ummah, The Jewish/Hasidic Bet - nobody has an issue with these, as long as they claim no higher allegiance from a citizen than s/he owes to the State; universalism, especially Universal Humanitarianism, falls mostly in this category. You are welcome to propound & live by a concept of vasudeva kutumbakam as long as you also follow lex loci - and, at need, can take up arms & kill some of that family to protect others of the family who also happen to prefer lex loci. 

This also means that we could have an utterly fragmented India. Administratively, of course, it would be chaos, but conceptually there's no reason why, instead of 24 or 28 or 36 states we could not see an India of 10,000 city-states, town-states & village-states. Heck, we could have house-states, factory-states, hotel-states! (Yes, administratively, utter nightmare. Federal relations are complicated enough as it is - but as long as you don't question your ultimate allegiance to India, pay your taxes, do not claim Indian territory etc. India might not very much care how atomistic you want to be.)


So, as to Telangana: You want your own State? Make a practical plan, and take it. (Don't come crying to me tomorrow when the richest parts of your state in turn split off into some other sub-rashtriya entity, leaving you with a few thousand sq.km of dust & a handful of engineering colleges!) You're still a contributing part of India, so really, knock yourselves out. Or to pieces. Whatever. What's funny is that *this* is somehow a legitimate political aspiration, but I'll be laughed at for wanting to establish a "Xavierite" state in South Mumbai, with Gokul (shady bar, legendary post-college hangout) as our capital. (No, I don't want to, but) Why? From the point of view of the Indian state, what is the difference?

This is also what distinguishes Telangana (or Xavieristan) from (a putative independent/ceded) Kashmir, ULFA, Khalistan, the Eelam movement in Sri Lanka, Basque nationalism, Uighurs in China, the Mon in Myanmar, the Kurdistan Workers Party - every secessionist movement. As part of a State, you have as much right to self-determination as does not harm that State. The moment you pick, as a nation, an identity that DOES threaten the territory/economy/strategic security of the State, you make yourself a visceral enemy of the State. So, as an Indian, you can freely self-determine anything that India is willing to let you determine. We do not recognise any democratic right to secession, and we extinguished any sovereign right to secession at accession. (It could be worse. At least we're not scared of democracy. American Idol ended up banned in China, not because it promoted Western music or corrupting cultural influences etc., but because it used a voting mechanism.)

There are meant to be checks & balances here. There is meant to be a quid pro quo. I do not *agree* to be part of India because of blind patriotism, I agree because India follows a system that I find amenable, and the freedoms which it does not give me do not pinch in their absence. I agree because India works hard to provide for me, to retain my loyalty. In that sense, a "legitimate" separatist movement can arise where this inter-relation falls apart. As a State, though, India must introspect deeply on how to resolve these situations once created - which outcome maximises utility to our territory, economy & security combined. As an individual, I must only consider if my interests are best served by maintaining this loyalty, or whether I gain by switching it - e.g. by emigrating to Scandinavia, where my fundamental right to grow a bushy beard is not infringed by elderly female relatives.


I'm sorry, I ramble. Good morning. I'm off to go brush my, I mean, all humanity's teeth.