The Tiger Vanquished

-->

Title: The Tiger Vanquished – LTTE’s Story

Author: M R Narayan Swamy

Publisher: Sage Publications 2011 (First published 2010)

ISBN: 978-81-321-0459-9

Pages: 188

M R Narayan Swamy is a reputed journalist who began his career in 1978. He has worked for premier news agencies like UNI, AFP and IANS. He focused on Sri Lanka while on his job and developed an in-depth understanding of the ground realities. He is the executive editor of IANS news agency at present. He is also the author of two path-breaking books on Sri Lanka. The first, Tigers of Lanka (1994) describes the origins of Tamil militancy and the second is Inside an Elusive Mind (2003), the unauthorized biography of the enigmatic leader of Tamil tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran. Both books are a must read for all those trying to understand Tamil militancy in Lanka.

The current title is a collection of articles and columns the author has published in news papers, magazines, web sites and as syndicated items for foreign publications. Right from 2003, when the Norway-sponsored peace process just began floundering on the hard rock of LTTE’s obstinacy, the author carries on the narrative till Prabhakaran’s death at the hands of Sri Lankan soldiers in May 2009. He has faithfully reproduced the rise and fall of the world’s most dreaded non-religious terrorist organization. With the characteristic mix of rigour and wit, Swamy’s incisive analyses of the realities in Sri Lanka evoke spontaneous admiration from the reader. Though the chapters are reproduction of articles authored by Swamy over a range of years, a comprehensive introduction spanning about half of the main text effortlessly strings them all together.

Tamils began to be estranged in Sri Lanka right from the country’s independence in 1948 and power fell into the hands of Sinhala nationalists. Too small to be a federal republic and too large to be a unitary state having two prominent, belliegerent communities, Lanka is a peculiarity in every sense of the word. Tamils’ alienation prompted several young men to take up arms in the 1970s. Velupillai Prabhakaran (1954 – 2009), left his home in 1972 for the cause and assassinated the government-backed Tamil mayor of Jaffna in 1975. This was the first crime committed by a terrorist mastermind who didn’t place any value on human lives. LTTE was founded in 1976, with only a handful of supporters. Prabhakaran spent a lot of time in India at the beginning of 1980s and got arrested over violent behaviour in Chennai. He was bailed out and he returned back to Sri Lanka. The notorious anti-Tamil pogrom in 1983 infuriated even the moderate members of Tamil society, which gave a new life to LTTE, which was already advocating armed struggle against the state. Procuring weapons from abroad and receiving military training in India, LTTE grew to be a major force in Lankan politics. Once gained power, LTTE went against Sinhalese and Tamils alike. Prabhakaran ordered the massacre of Buddhists at Anuradhapura in 1985 and eliminated Tamil rival groups like TELO and PLOT. Attacks and counter attacks put the hapless civilians in a desperate situation, when India air-dropped relief material, in defiance of Sri Lanka’s sovereignity. Then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi took special interest in Lankan affairs and was the brain behind the India-Sri Lanka peace accord of 1987.

The accord, even though the best Tamils could’ve obtained at any time since history, didn’t go down well with extremists like Prabhakaran who was unwilling to accept anything below a full fledged Tamil state, called Tamil Ealam. LTTE refused to disarm, as stipulated in the accord, forcing the Indian Army to move against them militarily. After two years of bloody conflicts in which the Indian side lost 1200 of its men, India withdrew its troops in 1990, when Rajiv Gandhi was voted out of power in 1989. The non-Congress government which ruled in Delhi in 1989-91 was very weak and collapsed in 1991. Prabhakaran genuinely feared that Rajiv may swing back to power who might reintroduce troops to Sri Lanka. LTTE assassinated Rajiv in a carefully orchestrated suicide bomber attack near Chennai in 1991, which turned out to be the greatest blunder committed by the organization. India outlawed LTTE as a terrorist outfit in 1992, hunted them out from Tamil Nadu and greatly helped Lankan military through hardware and personnel. Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa, who held anti-Indian attitude actively helped the Tamils to fight Indian troops. However, LTTE was a dangerous ally to play with and Premadasa found it too late when he too was killed in a suicide bomb attack in 1993.

Chandrika Kumaratunga and her UNP assumed power in 1994, who desired to give peace a chance. Talks reached nowhere, and LTTE declared Eelam War III against the state. After three years of military stalemate and surviving an assassination attempt on her own life, Kumaratunga sought help from Norway as a facilitator of the peace process. The peace initiative was initiated with covert Indian support and the two sides agreed to a landmark Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in 2002. Prabhakaran addressed his first open press conference in April that year when things looked bright for a political settlement in the war torn island nation.

People who thoroughly knew the LTTE from the inside and outside were aware that the man and the organization was not amenable to any peace offering. In 2003, just an year after the agreement was signed, Prabhakaran pulled out of peace talks. Also, the ceasefire was a new atmosphere for the battle-hardened LTTE cadres, who stagnated in the peaceful interval. The fighting spirit began to ebb, and partisanry creeped into the organisation. Prabhakaran’s trusted lieutenant and one time body guard, Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan, also called Karuna, broke away from the leader accusing him to be in the hold of unscrupulous aides in 2004. This was a great blow to LTTE. While the North and East of Sri Lanka was traditionally the strongholds of Tamils, Karuna’s rebellion made LTTE dominating only the north. Fratricidal warfare between the two factions further eroded the morale of Tamils.

LTTE continued its assassination program unabated, killing foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in 2005, who was also a Tamil. LTTE disillusionment with premier Renil Wickremasinghe and his UNP instigated them to call for a Tamil boycott of Sri Lankan elections in 2005. This was their second greatest blunder. The absence of thousands of sympathetic voters from the ballot ensured the defeat of UNP and Mahinda Rajapaksa, of the SLFP ascended power through a narrow margin. Rajapaksa was determined to put an end to the LTTE menace. The Tamils’ failed suicide attempts against the brother of the premier who headed the defense establishment and against Sarath Fonseka, the military chief was too much for Lanka, which declared an all out war, thus inaugurating Eelam War IV. In 2007, LTTE was driven out of the east and after another year, Prabhakaran was cornered in a narrow strip of land. The all out effort of the military bore fruit in 2009 when it captured Kilinochchi, LTTE’s hub and Prabhakaran himself was killed on May 18, 2009, putting an end to LTTE and its quarter-century old struggle.

The book is very interesting to read, as it comes from the author of the only biography of Prabhakaran in English, though unauthorized. The other one in Tamil was by P Nedumaran, a pro-LTTE politician from Tamil Nadu. Swamy’s grasp of finer nuances of the Sri Lankan situation was evidenced in his prediction in 2002 that the peace deal brokered by Norway was bound to fail. The book is easy to read, with fine getup, printed on very good quality paper, quite uncharacteristically for an Indian edition. One thing to be stressed is the excellent writing style of Narayan Swamy. Most Indian authors are unconsciously affected by cliched Indian styles, but Swamy is totally immune to it. Indian English does not show up at all. The author’s reputation soared in 2002, when he disclosed for the first time that the peace deal was in fact prepared with active Indian assistance from behind the screens.

There are very few to be put on the negative side. The author’s obsession with vis-à-vis, is one such thing. The word appears many many times in the text and is a spoiler of linguistic charm exhibited otherwise. But, we must keep in mind that the articles were written over a span of several years and the author’s favourite phrase is liable to be repeated. A serious objection is regarding the structure of the book. After an illuminating introduction in which the author narrates all salient features of the conflict and how it was militarily resolved, the main text, comprising of chapters arranged chronologically, seems to be redundant. It introduces no new concept or idea and the repetition is disinteresting. The author could’ve gone for a full treatise on the Lankan conflict, thus widening the scope of his previous book, The Tigers of Lanka. Given the flowing style of the author, another book on the same topic will surely appeal to the readers.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Naked Ape

Title: The Naked Ape

Author: Desmond Morris

Publisher: Vintage 1994 (First published 1967)

ISBN: 0-09-948201-0

Pages: 164

The author is a world-renowned zoologist, ethologist and anthropologist. The book caused quite a stir when it first appeared in 1967. It attempts to study human behaviour through the eyes of an ethologist (one who studies animal behaviour when subjected to certain stimulus. The word should not be confused with ethnologist). The author recollects in the foreward that he had not expected such a barrage of criticism, coming one century after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. This uncalled-for response suggests that darkness of ignorance has still not completely removed its veil over the face of humanity and that people places themselves in such a high pedestal that any notion that they belong to a race of animals upsets the whole balance. The book has seen many reprints, the present one seeing the light of day in 1994. Morris claims that the content of the book is so up-to-date and relevant that he had only to replace a ‘3’, with a ‘5’ when it was revised. The number relates to the world population as it stood at 3000 million in 1967, but boomed to 5000 million in 1994. The book is part of a trilogy, The Human Zoo  and Intimate Behaviour, being the other two. Critics also termed the book pessimistic and demeaning the human spirit. Such an over-reaction is definitely unwarranted, if we take an impassionate look at the book which can be easily seen to be a scientific enterprise in its quest to bring out the truth and nothing but the truth.

Morris calls humans the naked apes, the nakedness is the absence of body hair. This peculiarity differentiates humans from 192 other species of monkeys and apes, all of them full of fur. The change has come about due to evolutionary pressures on our ancestors. They left trees and walked into the savannah to begin life as a hunter-gatherer. The mainly herbivorous diet (which it still is for monkeys and some apes) gradually changed to mainly carnivorous. Humans also show neoteny, which is a phenomenon that the grown up adult also continues infantile growth. In all other species, learning ends with childhood, but humans continue it till the grave. The absence of hair might be due to neoteny, as all ape forms exhibit absence of body hair in the newborn. A typical ape completes 70% of brain growth in the womb, but humans do only 23% and continue growing for two decades more! Human kids do possess an unusually thick body hair during the 6^th to 8^th months of pregnancy, which is shedded just before birth. Prematurely born babies display this coat of hair, called lanugo, to the horror of the parents. Fortunately, the hair naturally drops off very soon. The author also suggests an aquatic theory for man’s unhairiness. Hunting apes, when they came out of trees, might have foraged for food on the African seashore. The coat of hair gradually gave way for easily navigating in the water. The head, which would be above the water level, retained its fur. This is further strengthened by the observation that subcutaneous fat deposits in humans are similar to the blubber in aquatic mammals like seals. The profusion of sweat glands evolved to provide cooling to the body after a hot chase for prey.

Desmond Morris loves controversy, it seems so often. There are numerous arguments which arise opposition even from scientists. The proposition that earlobes became prominent to receive erotic stimulus from the mate is outrageous, to say the least. Another prize winner is the development of conspicuous mammary glands in females (the breasts, in plain parlance). The author’s argument make us roar with laughter. He argues that copulation in apes is so positioned in all apes and monkeys that the male mounts from the rear. But when the naked apes adopted a vertical stature by going on hind limbs alone, this position was practically difficult. In response to a change in the copulatory position from the front side, mammary glands assumed the shape of rump so the male animal continues to get its ‘kick’! Apart from the amusement, such arguments are not based on any evidence or possibility.

The naked apes exhibit the urge to explore its surroundings and unknown things. This is the fundamental reason for our progress. This is also derived from an animal urge. Creatures which are not sure of where their next meal come from show exploratory nature, familiarizing every nook and cranny of their homebase. Neophilia (love of the new) prompts them to explore, familiarize and try variations on new subjects. Picture drawing, writing and sophisticated verbal communication are the results of the exploratory urge. This is kept on in adult phase, thanks to neoteny. Fighting among the species is a feature evolved for maintaining hierarchy (to impose itself on the group members) and to keeping territory (to protect it from other social groups). In an aggressive position, the sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system prepares the body for attack, by drawing blood from skin to internal muscles along with other symptoms, while the parasympathetic subsystem prepares it to calm down, by rushing blood to the skin. So, when angry, if the opponents shows a white face (devoid of blood), it is a sure sign of impending attack as against a red face.

The author muses also about the origins of religion. Religious ceremonies are congregation of numbers to bow before or appease a powerful master, called god. This stage developed when we left the forests and began life as a hunter gatherer, where social grouping demanded much more cooperative behaviour from its members. The leader, who possessed absolute mastery had to relinquish many privileges to demand cooperation from members. Gods surged ahead to fill the vacuum created by these chieftains. The development of religion was a crucial phase in the human evolution, without which large societies would not have originated. Unfortunately, judging from the intransigent attitudes of religious worshippers we have to conclude that it tries to keep society tied to the same spot.

Humans are omnivores. The trend in some people towards vegetarianism is not supported by natural history. Our carnivorous selves are seen in our spaced-out big meals, as against scattered short snacks of the primates. Also, by having a preference to eat the food hot, the old carnivorous instinct of devouring the prey while it is still warm is exhibited in an unconscious way. On the other hand our affinity to sweets is more linked to our herbivorous past we shared with other primates in the forest, which are in the habit of enjoying ripe fruits and nuts. Increased availability of food and development of highly nutritious food, combined with advances in medical science has brought out a population explosion. The numbers are inching higher towards unsustainable levels. If we can’t control it intelligently, the resulting competition among individuals each following its biological urges would spell doom for civilization. The title Naked Ape, is chosen and copiously reused to denote humans in a deliberate effort to make him stop and take note of the situation. It helps us to remember our animal ancestry and take a second look at the mess which we have inflicted on the planet. The book definitely served its purpose.

The book is rather short, but makes up for it in the breadth of ideas handled. The nitpicking extends to all social behaviour including eating, grouping, copulation, growth and psychological. Some readers may find the chapter on mating unsuitable for too young an audience. In any case, the author’s sharp eye reasserts itself. We would be flabbergasted at the subtle meaning behind our actions and mannerisms when presented through the zoological lens by the mastery of the author. The rise of adrenalin in the bloodstream of a CEO facing a business competitor across a conference table is the same as in an aborigin preparing himself for an ambush on an unsuspecting prey or a mortal enemy. Wherever we go and whatever we do, the same biological urges reign supreme. This, in a nutshell is the essence of the book.

The downside is the rather lewd description of human sexual behaviour, as mentioned earlier. Also, his predilection to extraordinary explanations for sufficiently common experiences threatens the scientific nature of the work.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

A Natural History Of Ourselves

Title: A Natural History Of Ourselves

Author: Hannah Holmes

Publisher: Atlantic Books, London 2010 (First published 2008)

ISBN: 978-1-84887-040-6

Pages: 362

Hannah Holmes is a delightful author who effortlessly scores the punches. She is the author of Suburban Safari and The Secret Life of Dust. An early life in the family of biologists had moulded the author for sharp observation and keen analysis of animals and yes, humans too. Modern man is just another animal in a biologist’s view, with little difference in the prime necessities of hard life, those of finding food, living in shelters, obtaining safely from predators and reproducing so that our genes find self expression long, long after we had gone from the face of the earth. This book is a study of humans, just like we would catalog an animal and pigeon-hole it according to several aspects which demand attention. The physical, mental, social and environmental aspects of human animal and its interactions with the outside world are examined in threadbare detail, filling in interesting details along the way. As the Boston Globe remarked, it is ”delightfully funny, though not so comical that we fail to appreciate how much we’re learning”.

The book begins with a general survey of human frame and muses about the evolutionary pathways through which it came into being. The author takes special care to use the original zoological lexicon in naming conventions, hair becomes fur, home changes to shelter, spouse transforms to mate and so on. Human hair gradually faded on the transition from hominids to adapt to the warm climate of African savannas. Still, we have lots of hair on the head, which might have been a modification to shield the ever increasing brain from so much heat poured down by the sun, which would fry it at 42 deg C (107.6 deg F). Humans are also the most sturdy long distance runners, though not record-setting in the matter of speed. We can regularly do tens of kilometers in a day, without even thinking about it twice. Horses don’t come near us, in covering long distances in one go.

The author, while analysing the human features, set before herself the image of herself in a mirror. The musings about the purpose and nature of each appendage in the human frame (!) is humorous in the extreme, though not exactly pampering to the sensitivities with religious prejudices. The deeply religious or opinionated readers may also skip the chapters on reproduction, if they still want to retain a virtuous assessment of the author. Humans reached the present pinnacle of evolution thanks to our brains, which is huge, compared to our frame. It consumes 20% of the total energy absorbed by the body. However, its size – absolute as well as proportional – is not the biggest among other creatures. Humming bird and Central American squirrel monkey have the largest ratio, while elephants and whales take the prize in the case of absolute size. Social animals need larger brains and the author proposes the throwing ape theory, that states that brain size boomed as an evolutionary pressure in the case of apes which developed a technique of spear throwing for hunting.

The book also includes some surprisingly simple, yet astute observations on the human body. Males, who throng with testosterone, have the ring fingers in their right hands longer than the index finger. For females, the second finger is either longer or at least as long as the fourth. Palmists, blubbering for their livelihood have not even had the power of observing this simple fact, which is made evident everytime their clients open the palm! Such is the ridiculousness of pseudo-sciences which produce streams of nonsensical arguments, yet fail to find the conspicuous stone at the bottom.

Human senses are crowned by sight. We boast of excellent colour and 3-D vision which is unique, barring some bird species. The cone cells in our retinas are tuned to detect three pigment types (in the red, blue and green areas of the spectrum), while some birds have cones tuned to five areas of the spectrum. We can only imagine the richness of colours they perceive. At the same time, dogs and other animals have only slightly better than monochromatic vision. Another amazing feature is the humans’ propensity to live anywhere around the globe. Without fire and clothing, though, we are limited to the tropics. Physiology has evolved over eons to acclimatize a person to a particular clime, without too much effort. Humans also adapted to wide ranging diet. Isotopic studies on tooth fossils of Lucy (australopithecus afarensis), our oldest ancestor, found traces of C4 plants (grasses, mainly) and C3 plants (fruits, broad leaves and roots). This indicates that our great-great-grand mother enjoyed a diet of meat and vegetables, the same as we do at present, though slightly differing in the matter of preparation! The wide diet reduced pressure on the digestive system and tooth sizes reduced.

Trying to hybridize humans with another species was always and intriguing activity, which was reportedly tried by Josef Stalin, the communist dictator of Russia in the 20^th century. He wanted to produce fierce warriors, half-human and half-ape who could be effectively utilized in his quest for spreading his venomous philosophy around the globe. Ilya Ivanov, a reputed scientist, artificially inseminated chimps with human semen, but the result turned out to be negative. Confusion reigns in the complimentary case, that of fertilizing human egg with chimpanzee sperms. It is said that the chimps in the experiment died due to disease during that time and the trial was abandoned, as the author says!

Humans have taken over the environment in every way possible and have almost eliminated their predators from the face of the earth. This can have unexpected reactions too, as evidenced by the spread of Lyme disease when gray wolves were eliminated from North American rural landscape. The disease is spread by deer ticks, whose population skyrocketed when their natural predators, the wolves were driven to extinction. A check on their numbers was exercised by rural human population who regularly ate them. When urbanization sprang and rural numbers dwindled, deers again increased without bounds, helping to spread the disease.

As mentioned earlier, the book is charmingly attractive like its author and demands great attention to the book as well as the side issues. Lots of interesting phenomena like Raynaud’s phenomenon, McGurts Effect are mentioned, without spelling out the details. The readers will be driven to research further on these topics on the Net. The book thereby serves its purpose to kindle a flame of enquiry in receptive minds. The full alphabet list (well, almost!) given in p.179 is the definite proof that humans are omnivores. The list includes “acorn, ant, artichoke, barley, bean, beetle, cicada, coffee, cow, date, daylily, dolphin, edamame, eel, egg, fennel, fern, fungus, garlic, goat, Gouda, haddock, hare, horseradish, ikura, Irish moss, iroko, jackfruit, jaguar, jicama, kamut, kangaroo, kiwi, lark, lemon, lentil, mango, mouse, mustard, nasturtium, nectarine, needlefish, obnion, opossum, owl, pansy, papaya, paprika, quahog, quince, quinoa, rat, rhinoceros, Roquefort, shark, sheep, sumac, tamarind, tequila, thistle, ugli fruit, uinta chipmunk, umi, vanilla, Velveeta, vicuna, walnut, whale, wine, yak, yeast, yucca, za’atar, zebu and zucchini”. A item with the letter ‘X’ would complete the list and I am in search of it!

There are nothing much to point out on the down side. In p. 174, the author states that nature abhors waste, to press home her point that human female releases only one egg at a time for fertilization. This assertion rattles with reality. In the case of sperm and pollen, nature produces it in copious quantities, though only one of them has the right to mate in a practical setting. In another section on speculating on the origins of the food species, it is stated that hot and cold pepper was originated in Central America, instead of India. This point is strongly suspected to be false.

Apart from these minor issues, the book is a pleasure to go through and any reader on popular science won’t want to miss this one, for sure. The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Caste, Society and Politics in India

-->

Title: Caste, Society and Politics in India – From The Eighteenth Century To The Modern Age

Author: Susan Bayly

Publisher: Cambridge UP 2002 (First published 1999)

ISBN: 0-521-79842-6

Pages: 387

Suan Bayly is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology in the University of Cambridge. This book is volume IV.3 of the New Cambridge History of India and covers the aspects related to caste, society and politics from the eighteenth century to the modern age. Not free from the traditional shackles binding English authors assessing Indian merit, this book demonstrates attempts to gauge India from the writings of European scholars alone. Not surprisingly, the author struggles to perceive the reality in the Indian social kaleidoscope. Bayly begins by declaring that casteism was not a byproduct of the colonial rule. Okay, who argued it was? She then shifts blame to post-Mughal and pre-colonial states in raking up caste and jati groups to the fore. The reasons given out in favour of such a hypothesis leaves an Indian reader very much in the know of how caste is such an overarching feature of Indian life wondering how all this could have materialized in one or two centuries. It is not clear whether the author has ever visited India, but nothing prevents her from spinning out fantastic theories and pointless assertions.

The social milieu in India is a caste-stratified social hierarchy. Many aspects of today’s caste society was developed in the 18^th century, asserts the author. Origins of caste can be traced back to Purusha Sukta in the Rig Veda, which was compiled around 1500-1000 BCE. Even non-Hindu populations in India are afflicted with the notions of caste, as many of them claim to be converts from upper castes. Caste, or jati, is a concept not seen anywhere else in the world, making western thinkers struggle hard to reconcile this inconvenient phenomenon among their tools. Louis Dumont characterised Hindus as belonging to Homo hierarchicus, meaning that the individual has no place in society, on the face of customs and practices belonging to the hierarchical caste structure in which he is a member. In contrast, the Euro-Americans are classified as Homo aequalis. According to Bayly, caste assumed solidified usage in the aftermath of Mughal collapse when regional chieftains and powerful retainers of the courts divided the country among themselves and each desired to espouse legitimacy by asserting that they and their subjects belong to specified castes with notions of purity and deferential behaviour expected among inter-caste relationships. The Bhakti movements abhorred caste norms, but its followers firmly continued to be members of castes. This transition is said to be particularly exemplified in the case Shivaji Bhonsle (1630-80), who was not a dvija (twice born), but who deftly manipulated the priesthood to confer on him the title of a Kshatriya. In 1674, the title Chhatrapati was bestowed on him by a group of brahmin priests. After this dynasty was removed from power due to the machinations of his brahmin chief ministers, titled Peshwas, the Chitpavan brahmins continued to enjoy immense power as rulers as well as priests of vast domains of land. Brahminisation of royal service ensued in its wake.

Removal of peshwas and putting kshatriyas of Shivaji’s lineage in their place caused rift between Brahmins and the British in the early 19^th century. Priests in holy places such as Banaras were seen to be plotting against the British and they are designated as conspiratorial brahmins, unworthy of service under the East India Company. This community also helped to bring out newly attired versions of old texts, linking dharmic practices to everyday actions of a social being. The origin of the word ‘caste’ to denote the particular custom of India has been narrated in detail. “The word’s origins are usually said to be Iberian. In the sixteenth century the term casta (apparently derived from the Latin castus, chaste) was used in Portuguese and Spanish to mean species or breed in both botany and animal husbandry; it seems though to correspond to the English word cast or caste which had the same meaning and apparently predates the British connection with India. Casta came to be used in the Iberian New World colonies to refer to Amerindian clans and lineages. In India, casta was used by early European travellers as an ambiguous term for community, bloodline or birth group.” (p.105-106). British writers like Risley and Hunter related it to racial theories while Ibbetson sought individualist and economical reasons behind its origin.

Indian reform movements sprang up after the tragic end of the first war of independence in 1857. National Social Conference was one such organisation founded in 1887 by M G Ranade and Raghunatha Rao, which opposed caste concepts. Conservatives like B G Tilak opposed their social agenda. Indian scholars espoused three views on the existence of caste. They are 1) The Incubus view: ‘caste’ in all its forms as a divisive and pernicious force, and a negation of nationhood; 2) The ‘Golden chain’ view: ‘caste’ as varna – to be seen as an ideology of spiritual orders and moral affinities, and a potential basis for national regeneration; 3) The idealized corporation view: ‘caste’ as jati – to be seen as a concrete ethnographic fact of Indian life, a source of historic national strengths and organised self-improvement or ‘uplift’ (p.155). The landed aristocracy suffered decline by the mid-19^th century and commercial classes like mahajans, agarwals and such marwari castes shot into prominence. These new upwardly mobile communities assumed strict morals of caste, bringing into focus vegetarian diet, extensive social gatherings during festivals and strict performance of rituals at home. They were also devotee of Vishnu. These communities gradually got promoted to the rank of Vaishya, the third varna. The colonial establishment also found it convenient to dance to the existing social tune, by employing untouchables like Chamars and Doms as cleaners, scavengers and nightsoil removers. Movements offering resistance to Brahmin supremacy also gained ground during this period, resulting in reservations of 50% of royal service seats for non-Brahmins in Mysore (1895) and Kolhapur (1902).

Gandhiji made eradication of untouchability a campaign of national priority in the 20^th century, but without trespassing the limits of the Hindu fold. Dr B R Ambedkar opposed him, often virtually by tooth and nail, demanding separate electorates for lower castes like what the British had sanctioned for Muslims. The consensus came in 1932 in the form of ‘Poona Pact’, which provided reservation in the legislative assembly for people of depressed castes origin, but no separate electorate for them. The scheme was carried over in the 1935 Government of India Act and scheduled lists were prepared for the castes and tribes for determining the percentage of seats. Thus originated the term, ‘scheduled’, when referring to depressed castes. Even in post-independent India, caste assumes a larger than life image, evidenced by the People of India Project, an ambitious government-funded programme to collect details of 4635 castes along with DNA sampling. This move assumes racial basis for divergence of castes. Reservations for other backward classes (OBCs) by Mandal commission’s recommendations have also ensured propagation of casteism in the minds of people moving forward to the 21^st century, as Bayly says as she is shrewd enough to observe that “Malabar, lowland Bengal and other ‘torrid’ locales were regions where significant numbers of people did display a strict and ‘unhealthy’ concern with concepts of ritualised rank and purity” (p.115).

This book was a disappointment by any parameter. The language is out and out academic and terse. On some points, it looked like a doctoral thesis presented with scant camouflage to the public eye. Totally out of touch with realities in the post-independent period, it doesn’t even allow a way out for Indians to get rid of the casteist spectre. Banes of untouchability, shared though in a lesser form by the OBCs doesn’t deserve mention in the skewed judgement of the author. Violent anti-Mandal reservation agitations held in North India are portrayed as rightful “protest against punishing the upper castes” (p.296). It also contains factually incorrect statements like the left parties espoused Mandalite reservation schemes (p.297). You can see unfounded allegations like the Sangh Parivar tried in 1990s to scrap the Constitution and to replace it with one which assured supremacy of Brahmins (p.300). Bayly might have used anti-Mandal propaganda as her reference material for this period is clearly evident by her terming the commission’s recommendations moribund (p.301), without analysing its salutory effects on a half of the country’s population. The tone of the book is so nauseatingly favouring upper castes that she has always put in apostrophes the terms like ‘forward oppressors’ and ‘backward uplift’. The book asserts that caste conflicts in the 1970s, also termed caste wars was sensationalized by the media (p.306), thus belittling the event and negating natural justice. The most laughable comment appears in page 321, as “people of high-caste origin in senior posts in government service lead secular and partially casteless lives”! How isolated the author is, from the harsh realities of actual Indian life! Bayly seems to have no idea of who are the members of OBCs, when she claims that Mandal commission’s recommendations made relaxed admission norms for ‘tribal’ students for courses in medicine (p.355). Who is going to convince her that tribals do not belong to OBCs?

The book is practically silent on Kerala and its revolutionary reform movements which pre-dated many in other parts of India. Apart from a cursory remark about the satyagraha at Vaikom for the right to travel on the perimeter road of the temple for the backward classes, nothing worthwhile is mentioned. The bibliography is heavily biased towards European authors. Altogether, the book can only be described as an opportunity wasted.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 1 Star

The World Is Flat

  

Title: The World Is Flat – The Globalized World In The 21^st Century

Author: Thomas Friedman

Publisher: Allen Lane 2005 (First)

ISBN: 0-713-99878-4

Pages: 469

A well read journalist and renowned for his expertise on international affairs and economic issues, Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times and has travelled all around the globe. His latest title, Hot, Flat and Crowded has been reviewed earlier in this blog. This book was published just before that one and is a good prelude to the new one. In both the works, the reader is amazed at Friedman’s superhuman talent of compressing so many facts in so few pages, in so enrapturing a way. He is the human equivalent of zip archiving! The thrust on the present title is the post-globalized world, bringing out the best in people and paying back the best to them, dependent only on their adaptability to changing conditions. The  walls that separated people, both physical (like the Berlin wall) and invisible (like tariff protections) came crashing down before the relentless push of globalization, making the playing field level. Friedman calls such a world ‘flat’, in the sense that there are no hurdles to travel of ideas, business, products and also, people.

Friedman postulates three stages of globalization, which started more than five centuries ago, with Columbus discovering America. The first stage lasted from 1492 to around 1800 when nations were forcing the pace, while the second stage, termed Globalization 2.0 started around 1800 to around 2000. The multi-national company emerged as the flag bearer during this era. The third phase (Globalization 3.0) started around 2000 and still continuing is marked by the ‘flatness’ of the world and individual human beings are the thrust behind it. Outsourcing of knowledge, services and manufacturing to developing countries like India and China, particularly to prosperous pockets like Bangalore and Dalian in China are symbols of this latest phase. Companies just started to give the task of running their business processes to other partners, sometime in the same country, called homesourcing or to individuals sitting half way around the globe (outsourcing). The old regime of top-down, hierarchical command structures gave way for horizontal, collaborative models.

Friedman lists out ten aspects, calling them flatteners, which was behind this silent revolution. They are

1) The coming down of Berlin Wall on Nov 11, 1989 (referred to as 11/9, as opposed to 9/11). This single event symbolised the fruition of the ambitions of freedom of a large multitude of people imprisoned behind the iron curtain of Soviet empire. At the same time, it paved the way for the growth of bin Laden and the dangerous ideology he represented. The growing spread of PCs and Internet helped people download the future, while the same tools enabled the Jihadists to upload the past.

2) Netscape went public – This seemingly unremarkable event in fact spurred growth in the internet browser technology, which was the basic tool of collaboration for billions of people today.

3) Development of workflow software enabled applications to talk to one another, ensuring better coordination.

4) Emergence of open source software like Linux and Firefox helped spread the basic tools to every part of the world.

5) Outsourcing

6) Off-shoring

7) Growth of supply chains

8) In-sourcing, where companies outsourcing part of their logistics

9) In-forming which enabled every individual with access to the Internet to gain information about any topic, free of cost, thanks to Google.

10) Steroids of growth like digital platforms, mobile phones and wireless technology.

Convergence of the technologies at the right time germinated the seeds of revolution in the globalized world. The author is keen to address the fears of an American readership on outsourcing. He argues that the less glamorous, less skilled jobs are the ones that are being shipped to India and China and the creative, highly skilled processes demanding cutting edge technology still remain in the U.S. The people should strive for value addition on their skills, otherwise they may end up as vanilla, whom can be made available in a developing country at a fraction of the manpower cost. Rise in the living standards of people in the less developed countries would boost the demands of American products, like software finding increased requirements from India and China. There are still plenty of jobs in the flattened world for the people who have the knowledge and ideas to seize them. Friedman complains that three gaps divide the present U.S. society with that goal – the number gap, the diminution of people enrolling for science and engineering courses in a university, ambition gap, and the education gap. The stress on science and technology in the career options of American students faded right after the Kennedy presidency to the legal profession in the 1970s and to management in the 1990s and 2000s.

The developing countries also need to take lessons in greasing their journey smooth in the flat world. Openness and ability to adopt and adapt are of prime importance. Glocalizing, another term invented by the author demands global actions assimilating and broadening the local mindset. This is done best in India or Malaysia while the going is extremely difficult in Muslim theocratic societies like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan where intolerance stops innovation. The pattern in developing countries was like a leader setting out the path to globalization with macroeconomic reforms, called reform wholesale and then structural readjustments following in its wake in every sphere of economic activity, called reform retail. Many countries just stop short at the wholesale reforms. Readers may justifiably suspect that India at present is stuck at this point! Mexico also stalled after wholesale reform. Companies also should adapt to the flattened world. They must strive to be global players right from day 1 itself, unlike the previous instances where decades of growth was a prerequisite for global presence. They should outsource to grow more and not to save costs by firing people. Outsourcing should be done to extract the best talent at an affordable price. Also, big companies shall be able to act small and small companies shall be encouraged to act big, riding on technological marvels.

Friedman also discusses about various factors which may derail the flattening process and set the course about turn. Even now, almost half of the world’s populace reside in the unflattened world. Poverty, diseases like malaria and AIDS and religious intolerance are keeping people chained to where their hopeless lives are led. Islamic terrorism is another aspect trying to put obstacles in setting a level field with the West. The terrorists should be seen in a new light in view of the author’s study of them. He likens them to the anarchists of the 19^th century who were motivated by a political philosophy and calls them Islamo-Leninists, who are propelled by the destructive ideology of political Islam rather than the pacifying morals of religious Islam, which seeks to build bridges between people. Frustration in the Muslim youths are also a result of the autocratic, illegitimate regimes of most of the Arab states. The energy crisis, soon to follow, if 3 billion more people start to imitate the profligate consumption pattern of the West, is another bottleneck to be surpasses. Alternate, green energy offers the only salvation out of this dilemma and Friedman urges America to take the lead in this. In fact, this is the central theme of his book, Hot, Flat and Crowded.

The author also argues that globalization helps to keep peace in the world. Elaborating the supply chain of Dell’s notebook computers, which happened to propagate through thirty countries, he concludes that those countries which formed part of the supply chain won’t like an interruption on their part, by breaking the chain. The same argument will ensure that a war between China and Taiwan over the latter’s bids for de jure independence will never occur, considering the vast business interests at stake in both countries, which are so intertwined in commerce that you can’t separate them except through a painful surgery like an all-out war.

The book is delightfully written, with easy, flowing language and illustrations crystal clear. Extensive references to statistical data without the attendant drudgery is interestingly effective. The author acts like a mixer who seemlessly weaves the data even from nonharmonious sources and presenting it in convincing style. The author’s wide travel around the globe and to numerous countries have definitely helped him to keep a sense of proportion between the achivements of the Davids as well as the Goliaths. Friedman’s advice on outsourcing should ring in the ears of overzealous managers trying to cull the workforce in a thankless way, like “The best companies outsource to win, not to shrink. They outsource to innovate faster and more cheaply in order to grow larger, gain market share, and hire more and different specialists – not to save money by firing more people” (p.360). The author’s assertion that only those countries with a net surplus of dreams over memories are going to prosper is really a thought provoking logic. He says, “In societies that have more memories than dreams, too many people are spending too many days looking backward. They see dignity, affirmation, and self-worth not by mining the present but by chewing on the past. And even that is not usually a real past but an imagined and adorned past. Indeed, such societies focus all their imagination on making that imagined past even more beautiful than it ever was, and then they cling to it like a rosary or a strand of worry beads, rather than imagining a better future and acting on that” (p.451).

The book is a gospel on India and her potential. The tolerance, enterpreneurial spirit, secularism, democracy and empowerment of Indians have received glowing tribute from Friedman. But, age old predilection of western authors to see the worst in it more vividly is not altogether absent. References may be made to his description of travel through Bangalore in potholed roads with horse drawn carts and sacred cows (p.5) and the Indian helpline operator’s offhand exclamation that India is the country next to Pakistan (p.25) in reply to an ignorant Western customer’s queries about where India is situated. Employment in India was rather limited in the pre-Globalization era, but graduates from IITs driving taxis was an unheard of thing, as claimed by him (p.207).

The book is eminently readable and very highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

The Ascent of Money

-->

Title: The Ascent of Money – A Financial History of the World

Author: Niall Ferguson

Publisher: Penguin 2009 (First published: 2008)

ISBN: 978-0-141-03548-2

Pages: 362

A book long overdue..was my first impression on getting hold of the book and a quick rustling through the pages. Very few authors try this bold initiative to bring out the horrendous mass of data and facts behind the most ubiquitous invention of civilization – money. Niall Ferguson is one of Britain’s most renowned historians. He is a professor of history and a best selling author, combined in one person – another unique combination. Realizing that money is a lot more interesting to handle rather than pondering over it, and the sheer drudgery of most books on finance, this one is refreshingly original. The author also writes in newspapers and journals and has presented four highly successful television documentary series. The combination of sarcastic wit and insightful reading has produced one of the best results in the field so far.

Credit and debt are among the most essential building blocks of economic development. It enabled man to transcend the frontiers of his village or tribe and to reach other societies, nowadays situated half way around the globe. Evolution of banking was the first step in the ascent of money. Those who blindly oppose the financial institutions conveniently forget the fact that poor people are impoverished by the absence, rather than the presence of banks. In the absence of easy credit, the poor fall victim to the hideous devices of usurers and loan sharks. Traces of banking goes back to the second millennium BCE in Mesopotamia. The system flourished in the renaissance era in Italy. In Florence, where the renaissance produced its finest blossom, the Medici family, who were also the patrons of Da Vinci, were actively engaged in banking and politics. Strength in both the fronts was essential in those days to survive. Soon, the fashion spread to other parts of Europe, creating Amsterdam Exchange Bank (1609), Stockholms Banco (1657) and Bank of England (1694). Inexperience with banking lay behind the frequent bankruptcies of Spain, though it was endowed with mountains of silver collected from the New World. Spain effectively let the banks in Holland to manage their credit. Printing of notes were vested with central banks and fortified by the gold standard, by which banks were obligated to replace bank notes with a quantity of gold and hence had to keep a gold reserve in proportion to the notes in circulation. This bottleneck on finance was finally removed in 1970 in the U.S.

Bond market was the second step in the ascent of money. As usual, its origins can also be traced to medieval Florence. The Italian city states were always quarrelling with each other, and the states fought amongst themselves by military contractors, called Condottieri who had to be paid in cash. Contribution from the elites and public were sought, with a guarantee of annuities for the amount. The bonds originated like this. However, the bond is still only a promise and the ability of the state to pay the interest is one of the factors determining the price of the bond. The variation in price leads to differences in yield, effectively causing the bond market yield to control long term interest rate in the economy. Nathan Rothschild was a clever investor who made millions from the bond market in the aftermath of Napoleonic wars. His mastery of the ways and the brutality over his enemies had earned the nickname of ‘Bonaparte of Finance’ to himself. History also shows that bonds dictate the outcome of wars. In the American civil war, South’s cotton backed bonds failed to impress European investors, after the South’s only port at New Orleans came under Union forces’ occupation. Lack of money for war effort hampered the South’s efforts, which was made extremely worse by the hyperinflation set in soon after it resorted to printing paper money to cover the lack of revenue from bond market.

The third step in the ascent was the invention of joint-stock, limited-liability company. This, however, originated in Holland in the 17^th century. Spice trade with the east over newly found trade routes around Africa was extremely lucrative and dangerous. Large capital was required for organizing journeys and traders began to pool their resources for a voyage. The capital was repaid to the investors when the ship returned. In 1602, the Dutch East India Company, named VOC was formed which issued shares to the public which was non-repayable for ten years. In 1612, when it was due, the repayment was postponed indefinitely, forcing the investors to sell them to another investor for realizing money. Thus was created the first stock market. Bubbles were an integral feature of stock markets and the first known occurrence of a stock bubble was in 1719 in France, when the Mississippi company stocks burst after a profound rally. Thousands of investors lost their money and it indirectly caused an aversion of the French people to stocks and financial markets for many decades thereafter.

The fourth step was the formation of insurance and the assimilation of risk by another party. Robert Wallace and Alexander Webster, two Scottish clergymen instituted a fund to fend for widows and underaged children of fellow ministers dying in harness. The company still exist today, even though the growth has been phenomenal over the centuries and is called Scottish Widows. Today’s insurance companies invest their collected premiums in other financial markets, like the stock market. Insurance is in fact a fund, the need for which arises from a chance event whose probability can be estimated in advance. Welfare state was a concept complimenting that of insurance, in which the government takes the liability of ensuring income to old age people in lieu of their savings to the corpus during their productive careers. Increased allocation to social security measures from taxation in developed countries are causing stagflation in their economies. Hedge funds is another option to guard against future risk, but it is open only to large business houses.

Investing in housing and real estate is a hallmark of the English-speaking peoples. The ratio of people who own their own residences are greater in those countries. Housing as a safe avenue for investment is jeopardized by the subprime mortgage crisis which engulfed the American system in 2007, which ultimately led to collapse of banks, hedge funds and resulting finally in recession. Collective financial propositions like the microfinance, which revolutionized the rural landscape in developing countries provide attractive investment options for the underprivileged. A part of the success of microfinance movements was extending credit to housewives, rather than their husbands, who in many cases proved to be credit risks, in fact.

The author concludes with a chapter on financial history after industrial revolution. Cheap transport paved the way for globalization of markets. The rising protest of the pre-industrial nations culminated in the disastrous first world war. Declining agricultural prices and soaring industrial output had dramatically widened the gulf between the nations which pursued a policy of global coverage and the conservatives who stuck to their preconceived notions. Almost hundred years after the first world war, globalization is still the most opposed financial concept, but the roles have reversed. The centre of financial acumen has shifted to China in the east. China calls the shots and controls the interest rates in the U.S. To keep renminbi – their currency – cheap, they accumulate dollar in every market, ratcheting it up. A strong dollar caused lower rates of interest in U.S., resulting in speculation and channeling of money to subprime mortgages. Ferguson coins the term Chimerica, to refer to the duo of Chinese and American economies which are so intertwined at present. The eastern side, China, saves the money and the west continues to indulge in spending. This may soon turn out to be chimera, should antagonism develop between the two great powers.

In the afterword provided in paperback editions, the author compares financial history to evolution, citing similar environmental and developmental factors. All recipes are in place in finance, like mutation and selection. Regulators and public sentiment form the environment on which organisms flourish. Several firms may die out, unable to compete with their neighbours in changing environments, while the fittest survive. Finance is like a mirror of society. If the face appears unattractive, that must be ascribed to the blemishes of individuals, rather than to the mirror.

The book is quite easy to read, at least the first half. It follows a structured approach, with each episode in the history of financial institutions neatly packaged into self-contained chapters. A casual reader can go through a single chapter, without reading the preceding and succeeding portions and could still come out with an enjoyable read. The author’s commendable effort in putting together two millennia of financial history in a book intelligible and appealing to ordinary readers is superbly successful. It may also be pointed out that in the second half of the book, the thread slightly gets knotty, raising financial jargons every now and then.

One serious disadvantage is the total neglect of financial institutions developed anywhere other than Europe. The author condescension to ascribe to Mesopotamia, the birth place of banking seems to be the result of his inner conviction that the Europeans owe their cultural continuity to those ancient people. India and China had experience with financial instruments many centuries before the European renaissance, but the total blackout to such events restricts the utility of the work as an authentic and comprehensive description of the world. It may well be worthwhile for Ferguson to remember that Asia also forms a part of the world, though not in the financial scale as its inhabitants want it to be. The financial lexicon is cumbersome at some places, the lack of glossary making it compounded.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star