Superpower?

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Title: Superpower? The Amazing Race Between China’s Hare and India’s Tortoise

Author: Raghav Bahl

Publisher: Allen Lane 2010 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-670-08463-0

Pages: 220

Raghav Bahl is the founder editor of Network 18 and is a prominent presence in visual media. He was one of the first to reap the benefits of India’s liberalization process, reaping hefty rewards by making the television channel to the numero uno position in India. Bahl’s knowledge of business practices actually taking place in India and China are enormous and his cutting edge analysis of ground conditions make a very good effect on the reader. Without resorting to tedious statistics, but not letting out facts, he has presented a heady mix for the reader. The book is a comparison of the post-liberalization processes which spearheaded China and India to prominent positions in the world economy. China had a heady start of 13 years, its forward march kicking off in 1978 when Mao died and Deng Xiao Ping assumed power. India was still reeling under the semi-autocratic rule of Indira Gandhi when at last P V Narasimha Rao put India into the right tracks in 1991. The author associates China to the hare in the fable and India to the tortoise. In the story, it is the tortoise which wins the race in the end, but only because the hare slept if off in the middle. But the Chinese hare is unlikely to repeat the fabled blunder and in spite of the patriotic optimism of Bahl, we are forced to conclude that the outcome of this race is a foregone conclusion.

After it hit the paths of progress, the Chinese hare raced on, paying no heed to popular opinion or public outcry, which were ruthlessly crushed as evidenced in Tiananmen Square in 1989. India continued tied up with bad governance and left-centre politics infiltrating political parties of every hew. After Lehman crisis in 2008, both countries came out unscathed but India rebounded with lesser discomfort as it was not as fully integrated with the U.S. economy as China had. China employs all means in its arsenal, including unethical ones to reign supreme in world trade, the artificially low-valued renminbi being one such issue. China rules by law, in India rule of law prevails. Chinese law is an instrument of state policy, and courts often decide on patriotic or nationalistic fervour. Courts are also subservient to Communist party leadership, the operating procedures laughable by free-world standards. Hardly any case is brought against the state and litigators are often arm twisted to withdraw proceedings if it goes against the interests of the party. Even this iota of opposition is now stifled in the wake of colour revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, where elected governments were overthrown by popular revolts. China tightened the judicial process, even appointing a policeman as the chief justice of the country.

Geo-political ambitions of both countries differ. China plans immense spheres of influence in Asia and Africa often by encircling India with hostile regimes. India’s cozying up to U.S. in civil nuclear treaty unsettled China to no ends, prompting them to throw spanners into the works. In reality, China views India with contempt, as a soft power which can be made to fall in line. According to its view, India is too weak economically to exert an influence it tries to wield in the region. The communist nation eyes African markets with lust, huge as it is, which is roughly equivalent to India, with 150 million elite consumers and 500 million aspiring ones.

A curious dichotomy exists between the two neighbours in demographic profiles. Though the world’s most populous country still, China is rapidly growing old due to severe restrictions in the number of children a family is allowed to have. The harsh one-child policy ruling from mid-1970s is forcibly in place. The program was a resounding success because of the punitive measures meted out to deviants, even denying them food rations. By 2050, dependency ratio (ratio of people below 15 and above 60 years to other people) may exceed 70% clearly bringing out the graying of population. Family planning was slow to take root, and was put back several years by the harsh drive during emergency era (1975-77) when overzealous officials bowing before Sanjay Gandhi forcibly sterilized ordinary people. As a result, population continued to boom for two more decades and India may well turn out to be the job exchange of the world if it can manage to provide health and education for its aspiring youth. Entrepreneurship is more evident in India, which always had a private sector however fettered under the license-quota-permit raj. After liberalization, Indian companies developed worldwide brands, with no public secor company being incorporated after 1991. The situation is drastically different in China, with state owned enterprises (SOEs) trying to gobble up their weak private competitors in collusion with an obliging judiciary. Even though the trends in food habits are similar in both countries, the educational, transportation and scientific infrastructure is widely superior to India’s. India has the world’s largest English-speaking ethnic community, but China possess its largest English-learning community.

Building infrastructure is one activity in which China is not comparable, not only to India, but even to developed countries. It spends more than half of its GDP in infrastructure projects, many of them having overcapacity. The government plans to drive economic progress with the overcapacity. Land acquisition is a headache for India, while it is smooth sailing for China, as all land is government property. It is simply not chained by the proprieties of democracy. Railways, in which India had a head start of 25 years, has swiftly developed into new scales that China Rail is a model even to Japan. Indian railways was unaffected by the reforms process, which also contributes to the sorry state of affairs.

Despite the fact that the book started with a rhetorical question of who will win in the fictitious race between the hare and tortoise, Bahl reformulates the puzzle as who will lose the race. India needs new leadership, bolder governance and modern policies. It is advantage China on velocity and momentum of the forward progress, but India is the institutional favourite. The book leaves no doubt in the minds of readers that China is going to win the race unless it is suddenly afflicted with a soviet-style desire to forcefully control other nations based on ideology or culture.

The book is easy to read, with easily digestible facts and statistics. The language is smooth and free flowing. The scion of visual media has succeeded in putting the point convincingly across. Insightful analysis and criticism of the institutional failures of India should serve as a lesson for politicians, bureaucrats and civil activists, not leaving out the society as a whole. The equivocal attitude displayed by the union government in allowing 100% FDI in retail recently is a clear vindication of Bahl, who has stressed the same ambivalence as the root cause of snail-like progress in India. The author’s immense experience in running a fledgling news channel is obvious in the clever choice of words and ideas.

There are a few negatives also. The early to middle parts of the book unnecessarily eulogizes mediocre success stories of India, particularly when the author sings in praise of ISRO for its Chandrayaan project. An organization which still has not possessed the knowhow to launch a geo-stationary satellite should droop their heads in shame in front of the Chinese organization which has created wonders like sending a man to space in its own vehicle and bringing him back alive, is a long call for India to emulate. We feel that Bahl has fallen prey to the narrow ideals of patriotism in some portions of the work. An irritating aspect is the tendency to equate India to a degenerate America like India following those practices which America employ, but in a less substantial way. Drinking coke and wearing jeans is described as the only saving grace for an India struggling to be on the forefront of world business.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Eureka! The Birth Of Science

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Title: Eureka! The Birth of Science

Author: Andrew Gregory

Publisher: Icon Books 2003 (First published: 2001)

ISBN: 1-84046-374-0

Pages: 171

Andrew Greogry is a reader of history of science in University College, London and has widely written on many facets of the development of science. This book seeks to outline the growth of science from rudimentary spouts in ancient Greece. Though by no means unique, Greek thought and philosophy built upon the origins first seen in Babylon and Egypt and was greatly enriched by the geniuses of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and numerous other great thinkers. The light of original thought was dimmed but not put out by the darkness of medieval ages, kept lit by Arab thinkers and handed over to Europe which was just waking up from a few centuries of slumber by the 13^th century. There are five major periods in ancient science – Babylonian (pre-1000 BCE), Pre-Socratic (600-400 BCE), Athenian (400-300 BCE), Hellenistic (300 BCE – 200 CE) and Roman (200-600 CE). The author takes a deeper look into the middle three, with cursory glances over the fifth.

Technology predated science. Every civilization, whether known or very primitive, had some form of technology, otherwise they would not have lasted even that much. It dealt with when or how a thing would happen. Science is different in the sense that it explains why a thing would happen. Extensive thought and logic goes behind enunciation of scientific principles. To differentiate a scientific theory from numerous alternatives, it must be different from mythology and should not resort to supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena. The Greeks were the first to propound ideas which stand up to this test. Of course, their theories won’t stand up to modern critical review, but they had one thing in common with modern concepts – both attempts a natural explanation of phenomena that had previously been attributed to the whimsical actions of gods. Anaximander’s theory that thunder and lightning is caused by the action of wind is a case in point. The Greeks were naturally advantaged to have no central religion to impede the path of intellect and no hierarchy of priests to rule over men. Unfortunately, their technology and science was not interlinked, due to a social reason. The Greek society employed a large number of slave labourers and labour-saving automation was not in the minds of free thinkers and slave owners!

When theories began to be shaped, thought turned more sophisticated. Empedocles of Acragas introduced the four elements of matter (earth, water, fire and air) which constituted various substances in differing ratios of constitution. Hippocrates of Cos, in his medical canon, established that all diseases have natural causes and nothing is caused by divine intervention. Geometry, which literally means measuring the earth developed well before Greeks, but it flourished as a science through the works of Euclid and Pythagoras. Plato and Aristotle contributed a lot to philosophy. Aristotle’s theories contained holism, organic world view and qualitative, rather than quantitative methodologies. It took nearly eighteen centuries for these ideas to be expunged out of science.

Astronomy took root rapidly in ancient Greece. Earth was regarded as the centre of the Universe. The retrograde motion of inner planets of the solar system greatly confused the astronomers who based their cosmological models on geocentrism. Eudoxus of Cnides proposed a concentric sphere model in which planets were allowed complex motions in the spheres to account for their retrograde motion. The model was refined by his pupil, Callippus of Cyzicus, by introducing more concentric spheres. A change in perspective, putting the sun at the centre would have greatly simplified the solution, but so entrenched was the weight of tradition that any such avenues were soon closed. Even with Callippus’ modifications there were differences with observation. Since planets revolved around the sun in elliptic orbits, rather than circular as thought by Greeks, the concentric sphere model was difficult to agree with observation. Ptolemy of Alexandria put forth another novel concept, called epicycles to account for the vagaries. Even though the model was flawed, it so agreed with observational data that it took 1500 years to unseat by Copernicus and Galileo. Even in the Greek world, isolated voices were protesting against established wisdom. Aristarchus of Samos theorized that the earth circles around the sun, but his arguments convinced none.

Galen was the most prominent medical practitioner of antiquity, bringing forth the humoural system of the body. He believed that four key humours keep the body healthy by a delicate balance among themselves. The humours were, blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, standing for air, water, fire and earth respectively of the Aristotelian elements. Ancient medicine was handicapped by social taboo of dissecting or vivifying human bodies. Galen relied more on Barbary apes for dissection than human beings, and the difference is evidenced by subtle variations in the actions of body muscles described by Galen to actual movements. The descriptional flaws of Galen on muscles of the human hand was clarified by Vesalius in 16^th century, who observed that Galen’s ideas corresponded correctly with simian hands. Errors which would surprise a modern man was also abundant in Galen’s works. He didn’t believe that it was the heart which is causing pulse in arteries.

Archimedes was a glowing tribute to Hellenistic science. He was a mathematician and engineer, though Gregory objects to inventions like water screw pump and solar ray concentrating device which are commonly attributed to him. His uttering forms the title of the book, but the incident, which might be apocryphal, would have been better to be illustrated in more detail. Archimedes deviced a clever way by hydrostatic method for determining adulteration in the golden crown of Hieron II. He was killed by a Roman soldier when he failed to answer the impatient Roman, as he was deep in thought. The darkness which filtered in after the collapse of Roman empire lasted until a millennium after. The spread of Christianity proved to be fatal to free thought and enquiry. All forms of knowledge were made subservient to the Church who allowed nothing but religious revelations. Unlike many Christian leaders, a great scholar and intellectual like St. Augustine said that, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, the Academy to do with the Church, the heretic to do with the Christian?….We have no need for curiosity after Jesus Christ, and no need of investigation after the gospel. Firstly we believe this, that there is nothing else that we need to believe” (p.154). This essentially sums up the logic of the dark medieval era when religion ruled the world.

The book is very compact, gifted with a glossary and timeline. But that’s about the whole which can be said in its favour. The language is terse, and narration is completely uninteresting. The author has not even a nodding acquaintance with humour, in this book at least. There is no focus on the central theme, which is the origin of science. Apart from listing out a number of philosophers and their contributions which you’d anyway get from a handbook or encyclopedia, the author has not tried to weave a string of connecting logic through the factoids. Gregory’s undue praise for Aristotle is unfounded on actual facts. It was Aristotelian grip that science found so difficult to shake off, after centuries of darkness. Aristotle was vehemently opposed to experimentation which was counter to the scientific method.  He believed the heart to be the central organ and thought that the brain was for cooling the blood supply.

Andrew Gregory uses terms like A.D. and B.C for reckoning time, where CE and BCE would have been proper for a scientific work. After reading the book, the reader is confused whether Aristotle devised a four- or five-element model of the universe, as it is specified in both contexts in various parts of the book. The book is a drag on time and waste of effort.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

At Home

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Title: At Home – A Short History Of Private Life

Author: Bill Bryson

Publisher: Doubleday 2010 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-385-60827-5

Pages: 483

A great book, even though it provides a short history of nothing in particular. The width is so huge, but more than offset by the shallowness of depth. Bryson is a best selling author, his A Short History of Nearly Everything is very popular. In this title, Bryson delves into private homes and reflects on the historical, social, scientific and economic development of the factors which constitutes a house. His own home, a rectory built in 1851 provides the author an ample prototype for extrapolating the intellectual tidbits to every aspect of private life. Readers will be mindboggled by the sheer number of ideas briefly looked into, in the voluminous 483 pages of the good work. Not only the subject matter, but the timeline too extends to the early paleolithic. Each room in the rectory is taken out sequentially and in detail, to provide charming narratives which enthrall the reader.

Development of individual homes began with the invention of farming in the neolithic age, aroung 10,000 years ago. The hunter gatherers started enjoying settled lives. Edible plants were cultivated, but the range is surprisingly low. Out of a total of 30,000 edible plants thought to exist in the world, just 11 – corn, rice, wheat, potato, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye and oats – account for 93% of what humans eat. Settled life initiated an exacting toll on the ancients, in the way of restricted diet and intake of nutrition. It is said that in the Middle East, where farming began, average height of people came down by 6 inches, a case of malnutrition. Infectious diseases spread due to close living quarters of the humans and animals they domesticated. The most surprising domestication of food was in Meso America where maize, the staple local food, is now not even seen in its wild state – so complete was the genetic engineering. Even the case with potato is amazing, the ingenious way in which toxic glycoalkaloids are removed from it.

‘Hall’ is a concept well known to people anywhere in the world, even in non-English speaking regions. The term came into being through the invasions of Anglo-Saxon tribesmen into England. These were central structures in which a hearth is set in the middle. The family, along with their retainers, slaves and attendants practically lived in the single room. The dining table was a board supported on trestles or even the knees of eaters. Eventually, the term ‘boarding’ came to signify the presence of food and it survives to this day. As construction sprawled, halls were downgraded to a mere entrance lobby with a staircase.

A delightful feature of the book is the pleasant detours the author takes from the main thread. In the chapter on kitchens, he peeps into the food and its preservation industry. Till 1840s, food (particularly meat and milk) were consumed near the production sites. There was no available method to preserve it. In 1844, ice from Lake Wenham in U.S. appeared in Britain in insulated ships. Rail cars, refrigerated with this ice revolutionized food transportation around the globe. Food could be grown anywhere and consumed anywhere. The led to severe crisis in Europe in general and in some places in America, where farmers were greatly impoverished in the competition with cheap food sourced from a plentiful place made possible then. Potato, an original inhabitant of Peru, was introduced in Europe after the discovery of the New World, and quickly took root to become the staple food of some countries like Ireland. The infamous potato blight, which scourged the nation in 1845-46 killed 1.5 million people.

19^th century was the age of the rich, with their homes full of servants. One-third of London women were servants and another third were prostitutes. Such were the limited choices available to women in that era. Work exceeded 12 hours on all days. The concept of a weekly offday or a holiday had not spread its root. The work experience was humiliating in the extreme for the hapless servants and handbooks were regularly published on how to discipline erring servants. Sometimes, they even had to change their names as the family found it difficult to call their new coachman by any name other than the one they had become familiarized with their old servant, who might have just died. The rich couldn’t be bothered to remember the names of people who served them. America had few servants, but more than compensated for it in the vast array of slaves.

The 19^th century aristocrats, however rich they might have been, couldn’t enjoy some conveniences even the most poor in today’s society can afford. Lighting was very poor in all homes. Even the light we discern in a present-day refrigerator is more than the total light many large homes employed. Candles made of tallow or beeswax were used but very expensive. Oil lamps used spermacetti from sperm whales, which went on the brink of extinction due to indiscriminate hunting. In 1846, kerosene was first extracted from coal tar and was found to be a good lighting agent. Rock oil (crude oil was called thus when it was discovered) became available in 1859, making extraction of kerosene cheaper and more reliable. Highly volatile liquids which were separated along with kerosene were simply drained off, as they had no useful purpose. After Hermann Sprengel invented the mercury pump, it became easy to create high vacuum in an enclosed glass tube, ushering in the era of incandescent, electric bulbs. After an epic struggle for finding a material suitable for the filament, Edison patented the invention. Incandescent bulbs were called ‘blazing miracles’ by the public.

The book houses a good commentary on the history of architecture and furniture working in England which involved names like Chippendale. A good diversion is availed to explain the intricacies of spice trade while dealing with the origin of salt and pepper condiments in dining tables. A quantum leap occurred after Columbus discovered America. The exchange between the old and new worlds is known as Columbian Exchange, in which potato, tomato, sunflower, peanuts, cashew, pineapple, papaya, guava, vanilla and chocolate sailed east. The Americans were rather poor in livestock, as their bounty was limited to only 5 domesicated breeds, namely, turkey, duck, dog, bee and cochinear insect.

Iron entered the world stage as a material of construction in the 19^th century. Its shortcomings were also apparent right from the beginning. Buildings and bridges made of cast or wrought iron regularly collapsed. In 1857, Henry Bessemer invented the steel making process which still continues with only minor modifications. Gardening also caught on people’s attention as several municipal parks were thrown open to the public which ameliorated the pains of a congested living. The poor conditions at home also led to spread of communicable diseases, smallpox and cholera among them. The story of the mysterious disease called ‘milk sick’ terrifies us even today. People who drank milk which didn’t taste any different grew delirious and swiftly died. It was late in the century that the cause was found to be a plant called white snakeroot upon which the cows grazed. The plant was harmless to cows, but made their milk toxic.

It provides amusing reading about the dressing material and habits of our predecessors. Linen, hemp, wool and silk were the material for dressing, with silk worth its weight in gold due to rarity as the Chinese jealously guarded the secrets of its manufacture, until an Englishman took it out of them. The miracle came in the form of cotton from India, which transformed England in the 18^th century. Spinning of cotton fibre and weaving it into cloth was problematic for the early practitioners. Their attempts to solve the problems resulted in the Industrial Revolution. John Kay invented the Flying Shuttle in 1733, for weaving, James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny in 1764 for spinning and Edmund Cartwright brought forth the power loom in 1785. Britain never looked back.

Readers would find the book a pleasurable experience. It covers so wide a range that there is something which appeals to any class of readers. It explains the origins of several words which are so common in parlance that we don’t stop to reflect upon where or how it came into being. Words like boarding, in the lime light, curfew, bigwig are only a few among the dozens you would find in the book. What separates the work from others and keeps it in a high pedestal is the survey of the life of common people, which histories so painfully lack. Almost in every chapter we find the origin of a household item and how it affected the lives of the poor people. Bryson doesn’t mince words when describing the follies and whims of the rich. His sharp humour is visible in its fullest extreme. The book shows how the world became so interconnected from the 16^th century onwards – some form of globalization, as pointed out in Thomas L Friedman’s works – that events happening in a remote corner of an upstart economy began to affect even the wealthy in established nations of Europe. Hilaire Belloc’s doggerel on the dangers of electricity (p.144), when it slowly found usage in the 19^th century should really be a talisman for safety conscious engineers. It runs like,

Some random touch – a hand’s imprudent slip –

The Terminals – flash – a sound like ‘Zip!’

A smell of burning fills the startled Air –

The Electrician is no longer there!

One and only accusation which may be levelled against the book is that the focus is firmly on Europe (specifically Britain) and America alone. The outside world comes only in glimpses and that too in not so redeeming light. We read about China as the country which guarded its silk weaving techniques, how it was victimized by Britains lust for tea and how native Americans were arm twisted out of existence.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

The Tiger Vanquished

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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

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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