Friday, February 25, 2011

India - What Can It Teach Us?


Title: India – What Can It Teach Us?
Author: F Max Muller
Publisher: Penguin 2000 (First published 1883)
ISBN: 978-0-14-100437-2
Pages: 228

Max Muller (1823 – 1900) was the most famous Indologist working in England in 19th century. Though a German by birth, he made England his home and rose to prominence as a faculty in the Oxford University. His prominence rose to international level due to his painstaking research done on ancient Sanskrit and literature of India. He became an admirer of India’s past and his books are still held to be the finest and most authoritative as far as the particular area of study is concerned. He is often called the ‘Sayana of the modern era’ in memory of the sage who compiled the vedas. This book is a compilation of seven lectures given by the learned professor to candidates for the Indian civil service examination at Cambridge university. The essays are marked for its clear insight, extensive research and logical conclusions. The love he had had to India and her institutions are made amply clear from the glowing terms on which he refers to them. Time and again, he locks horns with critics, those who ridicule Indian thought and takes them to task. The book, first published in 1883, assumed immense significance in India, which was seeking and reasserting its lost values and credentials which were lost in the mists of a millennium of slavery and alien domination. It rekindled the spirit of enquiry and the need for looking back for inspiration. It provided the guiding light for thousands of youths to ponder over our achievements untarnished by sectarian interests. The Vedas contained knowledge which is far superior than contemporary thought (if there had any) anywhere else in the world. The Indian sages meditated and contemplated on the transcendent nature of the universe and the truths behind the unending rhythm of nature, while almost everywhere else, the main topics of pondering were the menu for the evening meal! But unfortunately, we carried the baton far more than desired and had come up with hoards of people earnestly believing in the supernatural knowledge contained in the vedas. This is another extreme of the question, which is equally ridiculous. Vedas are the products of men, who compiled them as a record of their ceremonial and most often war rites.

Max Muller introduces the students to the world of India where a vast treasure lies unexplored. He advocates against the common misconceptions against India prevalent at that time and asserts that people with every conceivable interest is surely to find fulfilment there, be it literature, music archeology and others. The science of language developed and made to fruition with the discovery that Sanskrit belonged to the Aryan group of languages in the same category as Greek, Latin or other teutonic languages. People should study India to fulfill the historical consciousness. Scholars should look east.

The term most used to abuse Indians were that they are liars and cheats. A prominent text book of that time, Mill’s History of British India was full of venomous instincts and Muller cautions against adopting such coloured ideas. While it may be true that people in the presidencies of Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, whom the Britishers meet the most may belong to the odious categories earmarked in England for them, the attitude is totally erroneous for the millions calmly residing in the thousands of villages where the essence of Indianness is still not oozed out. Muller makes a list of foreign travellers and chroniclers from Hiuen Tsang to Abul Fazal and quotes from them. Indian ancient law books are quoted and asserted that truth is assiduously practised. Ancient India was inherently truthful, but after 1000 AD, when Muslim invasions convulsed the country beyond anything they had experienced before, the nature changed and the national character degenerated.

In the third lecture, the value of Sanskrit literature is assessed. Macaulay’s comment that all of India’s contributions in the literary field can be collected in a reasonable book shelf is strongly rebuked. More than 10,000 manuscripts in Sanskrit has been discovered and the number was slowly going up. There are two distinct phases, the pre-Saka (before 1st century AD) and post-Saka (1st to 3rd century AD). The renaissance of Sanskrit literature came during the post-Saka period, though the quality of books had diminished considerably. Vedas and Buddhist texts were the products of the first era. The other productions like Kalidasa’s plays cannot be termed classical due to the comparatively modern time period in which they were written. They are artificial and scholastic, as justly observed by several western critics. But the vedic texts are the original fountains of primitive thought which was brought to light by the untiring efforts by Burouf, a professor at College de France, Paris. Even though some childish fallacies are included in the Rig Veda, it contains religious thought unseen anywhere else.

Answers to critics are given in exemplifying detail in another lecture. A frequent one was that the vedic texts were the products of a few poets who were not linked to the masses. Max Muller refutes this accusation by showing examples from western societies where similar situations persist. The aspect of foreign influence on the text is examined and asserted to be not visible. A verse often used for this allegations contains the word ‘golden Manah’ which is never used again. Manah is a Phoenician measure of weight, but the coincidence doesn’t warrant the outcome of external influence. Also, ideas of deluge present in ancient texts need not be adaptations of a single original event. Floods were experienced by people everywhere and myths and legends connected with this extreme event may influence the victims to such a high level that poems and stories may be expected of them. In any case, references to deluge are found in Puranas, which are later in compilation. Another bone of contention is the 27 lunar mansions which are compared to Babylonian inventions. However Max Muller again asserts this to be an indigenous development.

Glimpses on the origin and development of languages are the most valuable contribution of the Vedas. Some of the critics find it difficult to digest the truth of the far superior level of thought exhibited in these ancient Indian texts than compared to other aborigins in Polynesia and elsewhere. The poets think on par with their modern-day counterparts. The high level of social life seen in the hymns and conventions of naming rivers were the same as Alexander found them. The sixth lecture is devoted to Vedic deities. While most of the gods are same or similar to gods in other Aryan races like Greeks and Romans, Indra is a later invention. Some of the common divinities are Dyaus (Zeus, Ju-piter), Ushas (Eos), Nakta (Nyx), Surya (Helios), Agni (Ignis), Bhaga (Baga or Bogu), Varuna (Uranos) and Vak (Vox). The god of thunder and lightning, Parjanya was also earlier thought to be uniquely Indian, until it was recovered from legends and prayers in Lithuanian, Lettish and Old Prussian under the apellations of Perkunas, Pehrkons and Perkunos, where also it is the god of rain and thunder.

Two important questions daunt any student of Indian thought – When did it acquire the alphabet and when did literature begin. The first manuscript of Vedas dates not earlier than 1500 CE. It is the thought and ideas presented there which helps to assign a much earlier date of 1500 BCE for them. Ashoka’s inscriptions are the earliest specimens of Sanskrit text and dates to 3rd century BCE. Two types of scripts employed in Ashoka’s edicts are probably influenced by semitic scripts. Megasthenes, who was the Greek ambassador in Ashoka’s court declares that Indians knew no writing. The knowledge of Vedas were handed down generation after generation through oral traditions. I Tsing, who visited India in the 7th century CE attests to this fact. Buddhist texts like Pratisakhyas which are a collection of rules dates back to 5th century BCE. The vedic pantheon housed three kinds of divinites – the devas, the pitris (forefathers) and rita (cosmic order). The author ends the discussion with a fervent appeal to students to learn the Vedas which is as essential a study as that of the forces of nature and its effects on the universe.

The book abounds with handsome quotations about ancient India and its worth. The author says, “If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow – in some parts a very paradise on earth – I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant – I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life – again I should point to India” (p.6).

Max Muller discusses on the need to learn history. “Why do we want to know history? Why does history form a recognised part of our liberal education? Simply because all of us, and everyone of us, ought to know how we have come to be what we are, so that each generation need not start again from the same point, and toil over the same ground, but, profiting by the experience of those who came before, may advance towards higher points and nobler aims” (p.15).

As I mentioned earlier, there are a class of people who assign divine status for the Vedas and argue that whatever is contained in them are written in code difficult to decipher. Muller hits out at such lunatics, “There have been silly persons who have represented the development of the Indian mind as superior to any other, nay, who would make us go back to the Veda or to the sacred writings of the Buddhists in order to find there a truer religion, a purer morality, and a more sublime philosophy than our own…That the Veda is full of childish, silly, even to our minds monstrous conceptions, who would deny? But even those monstrosities are interesting and instructive; nay, many of them, if we can but make allowance for different ways of thought and language, contain germs of truth and rays of light” (p.88).

The author is a devout Christian who harbours aspirations of assimilating India into the faith. He says, “Take religion, and where can you study its true origin, its natural growth, and its inevitable decay better than in India, the home of Brahmanism, the birthplace of Buddhism, and the refuge of Zoroastrianism, even now the mother of new superstitions – and why not, in the future, the regenerate child of the purest faith, if only purified from the dust of nineteen centuries?” (p.12). His attitude sometimes resembles that of a salesman, who announces his wares for the public as Max Muller is glorifying his area of research. Also, we come to know the author who is not in love with contemporary India – for which he maintains a not so condemnatory attitude as his fellow Britishers – but an India which lived thousands of years ago whose traces can still be found in isolated villages. The author’s obsession with Aryan race and its manifestations verge on racism. He says, “I am not pleading here for Gonds, or Bhils, or Santhals, and other non-Aryan tribes. I am speaking of the Aryan and more or less civilized inhabitants of India” (p.46). Again on p.86, he asks, “What then, you may ask, do we find in that ancient Sanskrit literature and cannot find anywhere else? My answer is, we find here the Aryan man, whom we know in his various characters, as Greek, Roman, German, Celt and Slav, in an entirely new character”. Again, “Sanskrit, and the Vedas can teach us lessons which nothing else can teach, as to the origin of our own language, the first formation of our own concepts, and the true natural germs of all that is comprehended under the name of civilization, at least the civilization of the Aryan race, to which we and all the greatest nations of the world belong” (p.107). The book also contains historical inaccuracies when the author claims the Indus valley civilization to be the handiwork of Aryans, as “We see the Aryan tribes taking possession of the land, and under the guidance of such warlike gods like Indra and the Maruts, defending their new homes against the assaults of the black-skinned aborigines as well as against the inroads of later Aryan colonists” (p.86). Max Muller may be forgiven for this slip, since the Indus Valley Civilization and its creators came to light much later after he died.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Alchemist






Title: The Alchemist
Author: Paulo Coelho
Publisher: Harper Collins 2009 (First published: 1988 in Portuguese)
ISBN: 978-81-7223-498-0
Pages: 161

This book was recommended by many of my friends for a long time, but I couldn’t get on to a copy until now. It was also suggested that it contained elements of spirituality - as a kind of statutory warning - since they knew me well! Spending money on something which embraced spirituality in its hold is not something I am wont to do. So with much delight, I saw the book waiting for me in the returned-books table of the library. As a character in the novel says, “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”, somebody might have conspired to give the book to me by returning it around the time I visited the library!

Paulo Coelho is the world-renowned writer and holds the record for the best selling living author. The Alchemist was translated into 67 languages and several million copies were sold. When it was first published in 1988, only 900 copies were sold and the publisher decided not to reprint. It was after finding another larger publisher that it really took off and found a place for itself in the mansion of world literature. Coelho’s novels are filled with spirituality and magic. The Alchemist is an allegorical novel full of symbolic happenings, extrasensory perceptions and miracles.

The hero of the novel, a Spanish boy named Santiago (though his name is mentioned only once in the book) was a shepherd in Andalusia who had recurring dreams that he would find a treasure at the Pyramids in Egypt. This was confirmed by a woman gypsy and a soothsayer who demanded one-tenth of his sheep as a reward. He crossed over to Tangier where all his money was stolen by a thief. He manages to find employment in a glass-ware shop where he amasses a good fortune for its owner by his uncannily apt business propositions. Once he got enough money, he left the place along with an English alchemist practitioner to the oasis at Al Faiyum where he meets with a true Arab master alchemist. The master tests his apprentice and finds him to be worthwhile and takes him along on the trip to Pyramids, across the Sahara desert. Braving tribal fighters, they reach a coptic monastery near the Pyramids. The alchemist converts a piece of lead into gold and divided it into four portions, one he gave the boy, the second he kept to himself, the third given to the monk and the fourth to the monk to keep in safe custody for the boy should he need it. Upon seeing the pyramids, the boy decides to dig a suitable place where he had an omen but was interrupted by armed robbers. They took away all his belongings and thrashes him and the chief told him that he was indeed a fool to go on a long journey in search of a dream, while he himself has not followed up on a dream in which he found a treasure in a disused Spanish church with a sycamore tree growing in its sacristy. The boy immediately recognises it to be the church near he lived. He returns to Spain, claims the treasure and decides to be with his love, Fatima, a girl he met at Al Faiyum.

The book is easy to read, quite interesting, I must admit. But it little goes beyond the level of some of the self-help books. ‘If you want something, the entire universe conspires to help you achieve it’ is a good motto to keep going. The stress given on living ones destiny will no doubt encourage people to seek and find it. As evinced from the interview of Coelho with BeliefNet - an internet portal for multi-religious faith – given at the end of the book, the contents are highly appreciable for religiously and spiritually minded people who may be able to gather a lot of meanings to the seemingly inconsequential events narrated in the work. The simplicity of the language more than helps in its high pedestal of one of the world’s best selling titles.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

When China Rules The World














Title: When China Rules The World – The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World
Author: Martin Jacques
Publisher: Allen Lane 2009 (First)
ISBN: 978-0-713-99254-0
Pages: 437

This is a very fine work, notwithstanding its apocalyptically sounding title. Martin Jacques is a visiting senior fellow of the London School of Economics and has travelled extensively in East Asia. He has lived for years there and is a visiting professor at Renmin University, Beijing. He is a reputed columnist, author and editor and lives in London. This book considers the spectacular growth China has achieved in a short span of a few decades and the wider ramifications on the world spurred by this growth which defied every norm of western-style economies. Jacques deals every aspect of China’s progress with precise conclusions, drawing from his extensive knowledge of the land mass which may be compared to a continent in its size. China is very different from the West, due to the differences integrated into the national psyche as a natural conclusion of millennia of cultural, politicial, social, religious and educational divergences. Martin Jacques, though himself Western, has transcended the invisible barrier the old kingdom erected in its dealings with the outside world and brought to us valuable insights about how China operates at present, what might be the direction it might take in the future and how its neighbours and fellows in the world comity of nations should treat this new superpower in the decades to come.

Economic power was invariably linked to military strength for the West. U.S. economy leapfrogged from 8.8% of the world in 1870 to 27.3% in 1950, while outdistancing Britain, the world’s superpower in the 19th century. Though the U.S. share has since dropped to just over 20% in 2008, that is a considerable figure. It has managed its numero uno position in part to the huge spending on military which accounted for 48% of the world’s total in 2008. From this vantage point, it had exported neo-liberalist, globalizing forces all over the world with promises for a free market, rule of law and democratic norms, which are the hallmarks of western-style societies. These traits made that society universal in its impact since it was copied with little change by the devloping nations. USSR was the enemy of U.S., but it was culturally identical with it. China is quite a different proposition. It is to be regarded as a civilization-state and not as an ordinary nation-state cast in the westphalian model. Also, it is not multiracial as 92% of the populace consider themselves to be Han Chinese. If China doesn’t change in spite of its economic quantum jump, the world may have to adjust to it.

Jacques then explains why China went behind to become a poor nation, though its estimated GDP was the highest in the world at the end of 18th century and which led others culturally. Britain and China were equal in parameters like life expectancy, other progess and technical innovations. However, China’s arable land between the Yellow river and Yang tze, though fertile,  was overused with declining margins making food production problematic. Britain could outpace all others in a swoop due to its free imports from its colonies and the discovery of coal deposits at home. The colonial produce were used to power British industries and the colonial manipulations mandated a powerful military which was always on guard against native uprisings and intrigues by other colonials. China had none of these. It had no colonies in the western sense. Its sphere of influence was based on the mind, as the links were cultural. It had coal reserves, but it was far away from population centres and its military was primitive. These factors made the Chinese subservient to European powers as evidenced from the Opium wars, wars against Japan, unequal trade treaties imposed upon the Chinese and annexation of large parts of ports. U.S didn’t have much overseas colonies, but the vast resources available in its backyard paved the way for its status as a superpower. Japan rose to preeminence after Meiji Restoration in 1868 which opened up the country to foreign trade. China became the underdog at the beginning of the 20th century. After decades of internecine warfare mixed with fights against colonizing forces, Communists assumed power in 1949.

If we look at its history stretching back millennia, a different story is seen. China was unified at roughly along the present borders 2000 years ago. During Song dynasty (960 – 1279), technical innovations like paper money, wooden block printing, spinning machine and other such devices were developed. China briefly entered into an era of international trade and maritime exploration during the Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644). Admiral Zheng He reached as far as the eastern African coast in vessels too big as compared to Columbus’ ships on his voyage to America. But quite unexpectedly, the empire decided to halt all marine operations and again reconciled its position as a land-based monarchy. It was a moment in history when a country deliberately decided to let go a golden opportunity to surge forward.

Chinese economy suffered during the reign of Mao Zedong and was subject to some of the worst purges in human history though the author chooses to keep silent about the period from 1949 to Mao’s death in 1976. Independent estimates make 40 to 70 million killings during this period, particularly during the Great Leap Forward  and Cultural Revolution. A mention of this tumultous period would have made the book a comprehensive treatise, but would definitely have resulted in the author losing his influence on present-day authorities in China. The economy picked up after 1978 due to the reform processes initiated by Deng Zhao Ping. New economic zones like Guang dong which was exempt from crippling laws prospered immensely. Internal savings rate picked up and provided the capital for reinvestment both at home and abroad. Chinese households save 25.3% of their disposable income whereas the ratio is 6.4% in the U.S in 2002. There were 54% of the people below poverty line in 1980, which tumbled to just 9% in 2000! China was transformed into the world’s workshop and multinationals transferred their production bases. The New China’s GDP consists of 70% foreign trade though making it vulnerable to external disturbances. The circumvent this disparity, the government is trying to increase domestic consumption. Its prosperity was not evenly distributed over the land, as the ratio of GDPs of the richest and poorest provinces became 10:1. This trend, if left unheeded, may strain the cohesiveness which had long been the hallmark of Chinese civilization. The growth also neglected the environment, as “The result is a huge ecological deficit of two centuries accumulated in just a few decades: growing water shortages, over three-quarters of river water that is unsuitable either for drinking or fishing, 300 million people lacking access to clean drinking water, rampant deforestation, sixteen of the world’s twenty worst-polluted cities, acid rain affecting a third of Chinese territory, desert covering a quarter of the country, and 58% of land classified as arid or semi-arid” (p.170).

China’s transformation from a command economy to market economy was smooth and without the tragic sequences felt by the European communist parties. Unlike Russia, which privatized its state enterprises at rock bottom prices for cronies, China maintained these institutions and started reaping profits from them. Attrition was allowed to prune the number to more manageable levels and it was reduced from 120,000 in mid-90s to 31,750 in 2004. During this period, China made huge trade surplus with U.S. But it reinvested the amount in U.S. treasury bonds. Since the rate of return from these bonds is minimal, China doesn’t find them attractive, but if they should withdraw a portion of the amount, the resulting drop in dollar values would seriously affect China’s own foreign reserves, which is in dollars. The impact of China on world business had been ultracheap consumer products worldwide, while at the same time pushing up commidities prices including oil. Primary producers find this attractive while the developed nations experience the problems of increasing raw material prices and no markets for their expensive final products. The blue-collar workers are also losing jobs since the manufacturing is moving to China, owing to the extremely cheap labour available there. If matters continue like this, the west may resort to protectionism of some sort, ending its own declared era of globalization.

Jacques urges not to evaluate China on democratic norms coined by the west. Confucianism, once denounced by the Communists, is on the ascendant in China and it is an elitist philosophy, with high moral commitments for the bureaucrats with no accountability to the masses. It assumes that the masses are ignorant and should be guided along the right path by people having authority, like a patriarch does in his family. This system is different from western ideals and anyway, democracy was still in its infancy in the western world when the industrial revolution took off in a big way. Reforms are definitely anticipated in due course, with the possibility that the communist party transforming in a ‘revolutionary’ manner, shredding all affiliations with Leninism. Another aspect to be kept in mind is that even though China should assume top position by 2030 as predicted, its per-capita GDP would still be in the lower-middle group, making it both a developed and developing country at the same time.

A morbid attitude exhibited by many Chinese is racism. They designate their country as the Middle Kingdom, which exists between heaven, where the gods and forefathers reside and the earth, where the lowly humans live. Racial prejudice is rampant and people with black or brown skins find it disparaging. The problem would escalate if not attended in the light of thousands of foreign students now regularly admitted to Chinese universities. The diaspora also exhibits this behaviour, sometimes even against their hosts! It is also true that the overseas Chinese themselves are subject to some kinds of discriminatory practises. This may partly be prompted by the close knit nature of overseas communities with little regard to outsiders and maintaining close ties with their homeland. The author asserts that the legacy of Han Chinese is not likely to wane in the near future. China spends only a very small portion of their GDP for military, but border disputes are unrelentingly followed up. The skirmishes of Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea with Vietnam are cases in point. China shows restraint and good behavious to its neighbours while singlemindedly engaged in economic development, while there is no guarantee that it would be continued indefinitely, once it has reached a position with which it can unleash its hegemony in East Asia. It used military force in 1995 against Philippines, in 1956, 1974 and 1988 against Vietnam when China took six islands in the Spratly area sinking three Vietnamese ships and killing 72 seamen.

Global perspectives of China are discussed in good detail, taking each case separately. China started wooing Africa in the 80s with the aim of obtaining raw materials from the resource-rich continent. Economic assistance to several nations followed, but Africa still is in a colony-style relationship with its new benefactor. It exports primary commodities and receives finished goods in return like it did with Europe in the heydays of colonialism. China’s financial assistance is, however, more liberal than IMF or World Bank as it don’t impose any restrictions on the regime’s performance in other areas like human rights. In the Middle-east, China’s long term ally is Iran, since it is antagonistic to U.S, but it follows a cautious line here, as it clearly knows that U.S. won’t allow anything there which would affect its own interests. China’s relations with Russia has improved substantially, with demilitarization at the border and extending Russia’s oil pipe lines to China. But an element of suspicion is still present on the Russian side since the number of Chinese immigrants, legal and illegal increased many fold in its eastern provinces due to the porous nature of border between the two countries. With India, China already has running border disputes, but they are now sidelined effectively. China’s arming of Pakistan would be a serious detriment which may force India to join U.S. in the region’s balance of power. China also tries to increase its presence in South Asia and also the Indian ocean with close links to Myanmar. In all its dealings with the external partners, the striking note is the friendship with which it handles the partners. It doesn’t even possess an aircraft carrier.

In the last chapter, the author summarizes the eight difference that define China. They are,

1) China is not a nation-state in the traditional sense, but a civilization-state.
2) China is likely to conceive of its relationship with East Asia in terms of a tributary-state rather than nation-state.
3) There is a distinctively Chinese attitude towards race and ethnicity
4) It operates on a quite different continental-sized canvas to other nation states
5) The nature of Chinese polity is highly specific, with little popular involvement in decision making
6) Chinese modernity, like other East Asian modernities, is distinguished by the speed of the country’s transformation
7) Since 1949, it has been ruled by a Communist regime which has changed colours after 1978.
8) China will combine the characteristics of both a developed and developing country for several decades to come.

Jacques describes some amusing aspects of Chinese social life. While the standard greeting in English when two people meet is “How are you?”, in Chinese, it is “Have you eaten?”, which shows the prominent place cuisine has in society. In fact, this is long rooted. The Chronicle of Zhou dynasty (1122 – 256 BCE) which was published several millenia ago contains descriptions of 2271 items of wine and food out of a total of 4000 items. Also, the immense time scales on which Chinese plans are based are mind boggling for westerners. When Henry Kissinger asked the premier, Zhou Enlai in 1972 about his opinion on the consequences of the French Revolution, his reply was, “It is too early to say”!

The book is splendidly written with a humongous bibliography and references. A lot of maps and statistics are inserted at the right places to make the grasping of ideas easy. In fact, Jacques’ scholarship appears to extend to other East Asian countries as well, particularly Japan. The empathetic attitude exhibited by the author towards things Chinese is a refreshing change of view, coming from a westerner.

On the downside, the author’s poor regard of democracy as a pre- or post-condition of economic prosperity is unsettling. In a bid to whitewash China’s own style of authoritarianism, his assertions seem to have outstepped its moral precincts. Some of the graphs would have been more legible if it were reproduced in colour as the number of wavy lines made it difficult to tell them apart. The greatest drawback would be the author’s partisan silence on the mass murders during the Mao era. Any book on China wouldn’t be complete without at least a footnote on how its greatest leader massacred millions of its children.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Sunday, February 13, 2011

The Secret War With Iran


Title: The Secret War With Iran
Author: Ronen Bergman
Publisher: Oneworld Publications 2010 (First published in Hebrew 2008)
ISBN: 978-1-85168-676-6
Pages: 384

Ronen Bergman is the senior security and intelligence correspondent for Israel’s largest daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. An authority on Israeli intelligence, he has published widely on topics such as Israeli military history, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian-funded terrorism. He is a qualified lawyer and holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. This book deals with the various aspects of international terrorism exported by Iran under the guise of fighting Israel and the silent and secret war the western intelligence agencies carrying out against it. Chilling details of many terrorist strikes and equally chilling description of counter-insurgency measures are given in great detail, thanks to the author’s extensive knowledge of Israel’s intelligence operations and the limit to which they allow a particular detail to be known to the public. The narration is clearly one-sided as the Muslim point of view is totally neglected which is only to be expected from an Israeli journalist. However, this makes the reader hesitant to accept the incidents and data given by him at face value. A critically minded reader could easily make out the contours of a thinly veiled propaganda initiative running deep in the text. The narratives are illustrated in such a way that the reader is made to sympathise with Israel’s security agencies in their inability to prevent gruesome terrorist operations. Also, the shortcomings and financial helplessness of Israel’s initiatives are brought out in vivid detail, probably as a trigger to attract considerable help from abroad. Whatever may be the partisanship of Bergman, there is no denying that Israel has been the object of venomous, inhuman and extreme terrorist attacks perpetrated under economic, military and political guidance from Iran.

Iran, Israel and U.S. were partners in an alliance during the Shah regime in Iran. A treaty, christened Ultrawatt was formed with these three partners along with Turkey for the manufacture of missiles and weapons for the Islamic states which will be fabricated in Israel. The Shah’s government was such a hated one in Iran that people rose up in revolt against it under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomaini, who led the coup in exile, first from Najaf in Iraq and thereafter from Paris. Even amidst this struggle, Khomaini’s religious bigotry was evident in his calls to wipe out the Jews. The Islamic Revolution, when it came about in 1979, wiped out the senior corps of army officers. Saddam Hussein attacked them in 1980 to exploit the general atmosphere of confusion which prevailed. Iran sought and obtained a novel scheme to attract manpower for suicidal operations during minefield clearings. They formed a group of underaged boys called Basij who would run over the fields to find out the mines, with paradise offered to those who would be blown to smithereens. Even during Khomaini’s term in office, Israel clandestinely supplied arms to Iran, some of which would be later used against their own soldiers. Israel attacked Lebanon in 1982 to oust armed militias threatening Israel’s northern border. Hezbollah was formed thereafter to counter the Jewish operations, with blessings and financial aid from Iran. Mossad’s efforts to penetrate Hezbollah were not fully successful.

Hostage taking went on with impunity in Lebanon, with U.S. and French citizens targeted the most. Under Imad Moughniyeh, the terror operations of Hezbollah scaled new heights with money pouring in from Iran and from drug trafficking. The negotiations to free the hostages often ended in supplying arms to Iran, which was advantageous to cash strapped industries in Israel. The Iran-contra deal came about in this way in 1986 under U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Contras were the rebels fighting against the government in Nicaragua with American support, though the Congress had forbidden the executive against helping the rebels. Under the deal reached by the President’s cronies, U.S. and Israel would supply arms to Iran at higher than market prices and the profit from this operation would be utilised to arm the contras. The scandal became an international one when it was exposed in American media. The deal provided temporary safety for U.S. citizens in Lebanon, while Iran continued its hunt for rebels and opposition leaders who had obtained asylum in European nations. Most European countries tried to play down the threat until the Mykonos affair put it in limelight. Four Kurdish rebels opposed to Iran were shot dead by terrorists in the Mykonos café in Berlin. Investigations revealed involvement of Iranian diplomats and top officials of the republic.

Israeli intelligence also resorted to kidnappings and torture under custody. The interrogation of Mustafa Dirani is particularly gruesome and loathful when he was even sexually harassed for not giving replies the interrogators expected to get. Hezbollah, however, carried the fight worldwide as exemplified by bomb attacks in Argentina against Jewish interests. Secret war between Israel and Iran spilled over to economic affairs as well. When Iran tried for getting loans from Europe to tide over the difficult financial situation in early 1990s, Israel tried to scuttle the negotiations by painting the real, tough and dangerous condition the Islamic republic’s economy was in, before the banks and financial institutions. Even though Hezbollah is a Shia organisation, Iran supports Sunni terrorists as well. As claimed by the author, Dr. Hassan al-Turabi of Sudan was a facilitator between Iran and Ayman al-Zawahiri who went on to becone number two in Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Zawahiri also tried to assassinate Hosni Mubarak while he was participating in an Organisation for African Unity summit in Ethiopia. The work of Shiites and Sunnis are focussed under the aegis of World Jihad and exported to terrorise other countries. They also want to dismantle moderate Muslim rulers in the middle east and to replace them with Taliban style extremist regimes.

Suicide bombing was one of the hallmarks of terrorism, particularly in the post-cold war era. Apart from financial help in this world, paradise is offered in the life hereafter as incentives. The martyrs (fidayeens) are offered free use of 72 virgins in paradise. An amusing case is described by Bergman. A suicide bomber was captured in Jerusalem in January 1997 whose explosive belt failed to go off, except for the detonator. He was lightly wounded by the small blast and lost consciousness, waking up in hospital later under heavy police and Shin Bet guard, with doctors and nurses coming and going. He opened his eyes, sat up in bed, lifted the arm that wasn’t connected to an infusion, and said in Arabic: “You can tell them to come in now”. “Tell who”, asked the Shin Bet man, who hadn’t expected the interrogation to begin like this. “It’s okay,” said the failed suicide. “You can bring them all in, I can see them all at the same time now.” Seeing that the interrogator still hadn’t gotten his drift, he made it clearer: “Where are the virgins?” he asked, and could not be persuaded that he was in Haddassah Hospital and not paradise until the investigator showed him his Shin Bet ID card. “Do you think that in Paradise, you’ll be interrogated by the Shin Bet?” he asked the disappointed man (p. 249-50).

Israel withdrew from Lebanon as part of UN brokered peace deal which also bound Lebanon to disarm and dismantle all militias, which were not kept. In the vacuum created by the troop withdrawal, Hezbollah strengthened their positions and indulged in guerilla war against Israel. The kidnappings, rocket attacks and ambushes from the border grew to such heights that Israel was forced again to attack Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in a major ground offensive in 2006. IDF (Israel Defence Forces) also resorted to a new technique called Grass Widow to shoot down the terrorists. A military vehicle would drive through a Palestinian street, hurling expletives and abusive language against them. When militants come out with arms and attack the vehicle, they’d be conveniently shot down by Israeli snipers already occupying some of the buildings in the street. This tactic was borrowed by U.S. in their fight against rebels in Iraq.

The book’s last part deals with Iran and Syria’s nuclear programs. Iran doesn’t need nuclear power as it possesses 92.86 billion tons of crude oil (9.3% of world reserves) and 73 billion cu.ft of natural gas (second only to Russia). In fact, the Islamic revolution delayed the process. Shah was determined to have the technology and weaponry, but Ayatollah Khomaini declared the indiscriminate killing and suffering in the wake of a nuclear bomb explosion unacceptable to Islamic morals. It was only after his death and change of leadership that Iran again pursued the line. They obtained nuclear technology and equipments from former communist republics, even including Russia. North Korea is an active participant in the effort, delivering nuclear material in return for cash for which Iran is not short of. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani who stole the blueprints of centrifuges from the institution in which he worked in Belgium was also a prominent ally. A Q Khan, a national hero of Pakistan even today, disseminated the nuclear information for cash to rogue states in the middle east. The making of a nuclear bomb involves four steps, a) mining the ore and turning it to yellow cake, b) Uranium conversion – transforming the yellow cake into pure uranium hexafluoride gas, c) Enrichment – Feeding the UF6 into high-speed centrifuges and d) Weapon development by placing the enriched uranium inside the shell and making the delivery and trigger mechanisms ready. Iran has nearly completed the third step at present. Syria also built a nuclear facility with North Korean support, which was blasted off by an Israeli airforce raid.

The book represents in true detail the terror faced by Israel at the hands of Hezbollah and Hamas. There is no doubt in the minds of independent assessors that it should give more concessions and self-rule for the Palestinians, but the terrorists’ way can’t be promoted by anybody around the world. As long as such violent measures are adopted, they won’t obtain support from foreign states. The case for Israel is clearly and forcibly laid out in the book which has a very good index to look down specific topics. The style is entertaining and pleasant. There is an interesting quote of Khomaini as he said, “The despised Shah, that Jewish spy, the American snake, whose head must be crushed with a stone” (p. 11). It is curious to note that the deal with the snake was the exact phrase allegedly used by the Saudi King’s appeal to U.S. in destroying Iran as brought public by Wiki Leaks.

On the negative side, the assertions of the author is always to be gulped with a pinch of salt, due to his being a part of Israeli security establishment. Defamatory remarks against muslim leaders and rulers are to be accepted with due caution. Even though the book claims in its title that it is about the secret war with Iran, what it actually explains is the war against terrorism, of course with Iran’s sponsorship. Israel and Mossad are always portrayed at the receiving end, but some of their actions also exceed human dignity and fails to get support from impartial outsiders. The overall feeling I had after reading the book was that it was a propaganda instrument, cleared by Israeli security agencies.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Monday, February 7, 2011

The Trouble With Physics




Title: The Trouble With Physics
Author: Lee Smolin
Publisher: Allen Lane 2006 (First)
ISBN: 978-0-713-99799-6
Pages: 355

This book is a distress report of the problems faced by physics communities around the world. It is rightly said that the 20th century was the century of physics in light of the numerous inventions which changed the face of the world and the way we communicate with each other. Never before in the history of the world was so many inventions materialized in so short a period. The revolution began with the conceptualization of quantum by Max Planck in 1900, carried forward by Einstein in 1905 and 1913 with his special and general theories of relativity, matured with discovery of quantum mechanics from Heisenberg, Pauli and Dirac around 1925, explosion in electronics after the second world war, leaps in cosmology in the 1960s and last but greatest of all, the search for a unified theory of physics. The standard model of particles and forces, which is a catalogue of all known phenomena was finalised in 1973-74, with great expectations of winding up theoretical physics after a few more years. After the propositions of Steven Weinberg’s electroweak theory which integrated weak interaction and quantum chromodynamics which incorporated strong interaction, there was no forward going to include gravity also in the framework. All efforts to stitch the parameter into the common fabric has continued to evade victory for the last 40 years or so. Lee Smolin is worried about the prospect and asserts that never in the last two centuries of physics has such a peculiar phenomenon has occurred in which no new developments were arrived at.

The author discusses in detail about string theory which was put forward as a panacea to all ailments faced by theoretical physics. It was first proposed in the early 70s. Even though the theory is mathematically consistent, it has continuously failed to put forward some testable hypotheses. Some predictions made by the theory require enormous amount of energy that not even the biggest particle accelerators in service at present are not able to handle them. It is amazing to see the strength of the followers of the theory in academia. Almost all of the American universities hire exclusively among the supporters of string theory that a stage has reached where no alternative proposals would even be allowed to come to the fore. Inevitably, it makes research unidirectional and students are pressurised to follow the peers and senior professors who contributes only to string theory. Smolin claims that the adherents even demonstrate unscientific attitudes to propagate their points of view and wonder how a theory which can’t be falsifiable by experiment has bagged so many devotees and grant money! This is catalogued as a trouble with physics.

The author lists five great problems in theoretical physics.

1) Quantum mechanics and relativity are not reconciled as the former is yet to give a true understanding of nature. It even has traces which defy logic and reality as all results are obtained as result of some observer observing the experiment.

2) Resolve the problems with foundations of quantum mechanics such that either the postulates should be made sensible or invent a new theory right from the beginning.

3) Determine whether the various forces and particles can be expressed as manifestations of a single entity, the unified theory.

4) Explain why values of free constants like the Planck’s constant, gravitational constant, speed of light and such others have the values they presently possess.

5) Explain dark matter and dark energy

These five great problems represent the boundaries of present knowledge.

Attempts at unification was going on right from the advent of modern science with Galileo and Newton who unified absolute rest and motion. There is no way a body can distinguish whether it is at rest or is speeding at a uniform rate unless acceleration is not involved. This was a great intellectual leap for medieval science. James Clerk Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism with his electromagnetic theory in 19th century. Einstein integrated space and time with his general theory of relativity which jolted traditional thinkers. Actually, it involved three unifications, a) all motion is equivalent if gravity is taken into account, b) effects of gravity is indistinguishable from acceleration and c) gravitational field is unified with the geometry of spacetime. Kaluza Klein theory unified electromagnetism with general relativity by adding an extra dimension to the universe in which electromagnetism popped out of the theory. However, no new predictions were made by the hypothesis and it went into disuse. A split in the physics community between classicals and quantum mechanists surfaced with the advance of quantum mechanics. Prominent scientists like Einstein continued the quest for a grand unified theory, but they were sidelined. Several theories, such as the SU(5) theory predicted quarks, of which nucleons are made of, failed to withstand when proton decay, which was one of the predictions failed to be observed. This was said to be the turning point when particle physics ceased to be exciting. Supersymmetry came along the way which unifies the forces and particles, with a superparticle suggested for every known particle. For the first time, it combined fermions and bosons and it is expected to come out successful when experiments are performed at full energy in the Large Hadron Collider.

String theory was born in this background. In 1968, Gabriele Veneziano of Italy proposed a formula to describe patterns of proton scattering. Scientists followed this up, particularly Yoichiro Nambu, Holger Nielsen and Leonard Susskind. They found that the equations don’t describe point particles which all theories held up to that time, and instead one dimensional strings which can be open-ended or forming loops. Vibrations in specific patterns along the string caused the manifestation of particles and forces. String theory was born from these considerations, but it included 25 dimensions of space and one of time. Tachyons, which travelled faster than light and massless particles were also included in the theory which put brakes on its acceptance. Also, it failed as a theory of strong interaction which was the motive of developing it in the first place. Researches by Pierre Ramond, Andrei Neveu and John Schwarz introduced supersymmetry into the theory and reduced the number of dimensions to 10 (9 of space, 1 of time). Photons and gravitons emerged spontaneously from the calculations and it was touted as the fundamental theory of everything, but not taken seriously by the academia. All of it was to change in 1984 with the first string revolution when Schwarz and Michael Green proved that the theory was consistent in 10 dimensions and unification indeed takes place. But again enthusiasm weakened when it was made clear that the theory had hundreds of thousands of solutions which can explain any observation. Proponents doubted the existence of a metatheory behind all these solutions and in 1996, Edward Witten and Joseph Polchinski proposed M-theory (mother, or membrane) which proposed membranes instead of strings and one more dimension was added to the picture.

Smolin says string theory satisfies only one out of the five criteria described above, that of unification. There is some progress in attempts to link gravity with quantum mechanics, but apart from that, in spite of the immense research, the theory still stands where it began vis-à-vis experimental verification. It is logical to search for alternative theories due to the dead end in mainstream physics. One such candidate is Mordehai Milgram’s MOND (modified Newtonian dynamics) proposed in 1983. An unknown kind of mass was seen to accelerate arms of spiral galaxies which couldn’t be accounted for by the amount of matter in the galaxy discernable by visible means, hence the name dark matter. This exotic substance was hypothesized to avoid facing the alternative, that Newton’s law of gravitation is either incomplete or wrong. MOND suggests that Newton’s law breaks down at very low accelerations of the order of 1.2 x 10-8 cm/s2 and proposed equations for correctly estimating the values. Another would-be groundbreaking theory was partnered by the author himself, which is called DSR II (Doubly special relativity). This tries to explain the smoothness or uniformity of universe whichever way we look. Since nothing can travel faster than light – according to special theory of relativity – this constituted a dilemma of how the uniformity information spread through the early universe. Alan Guth’s inflation theory solved this pesky problem by postulating that the early universe expanded in one great bounce causing the information to spread uniformly. However DSR II attempts to solve the issue without inflation. It says that in the early universe, the speed of light was considerably more than it is today. This settles the issue in one stroke, neatly. However, Smolin himself is not sure of its success.

After all these years of running the show without much success, Smolin considers that the present generation has bequeathed a set of ideas, some true, some only partially true with a cautionary tale of how even great scientists failed to make the story complete. We should not corner them by insisting that they work on them. Meanwhile, he takes stock of the shortcomings of string theorists who have become monolithic, tremendously self-confident, full of group identification, disregard for alternative ideas and interprets evidence optimistically without taking any risks. This runs contrary to the spirit of science and advises them to learn what is science. What the new students should inculcate is the courage and character to fight off orthodoxy, fashion, age and status. There are two kinds of scholars, the craftspeople who specializes in the technical running of the show and the seers who concentrate on basic philosophical problems and willing to face established ways and demolish them. Academia should take some risk in hiring people and should try to include more seers among their ranks.

The book is really heavy, both in its physical weight and the multitude of arguments it contains. This does not deal cutting edge science exactly, but that is to be expected when the author’s major intention was to do a dressing down of string theory. He highlights it only to announce later that the idea is not fully developed. String theorists should take a lesson or two from the points discussed in the book. But apart from that, I wonder whether an lay reader like me would benefit from this book. Lee Smolin is persuasive in his arguments, but he could equally have done it with half the number of pages the volume presently has! Many chapters are also uncharacteristically dry and boring. Unlike Smolin’s other works, this one is very tedious and is really an ordeal for the reader. There are several references to another book, ‘Life of Cosmos’, also from the same author and a promotional attitude is to be suspected.

The book is not recommended for the general reader.

Rating: 2 Star