Democracy loses legally in Karnataka

May 19, 2018May 20, 2018 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

Nothing comes close to explaining the state of politics in the largest democracy in the world, India than the elections held for Legislative Assembly in Karnataka this month. Irrespective of who becomes the chief minister of Karnataka and which party is in power, democracy is the biggest loser. Anytime there is an election in India, I tell myself I will not quote the alleged Winston Churchill’s quote on India’s being given right to self-determine its government. I find it could be intellectually lazy but after seeing the events unfold I had to kick myself and use that quote. Though there is no concrete evidence of Winston Churchill saying this. However, whoever did should have had a time machine.

“Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre & men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles.”

Here is how the events unfolded.

None of the parties involved contesting won enough seats to get a single majority to run the government. Of the total of 222 seats,
1. BJP won 104 seats
2. Congress won 78 seats
3. JDS+ won 38 seats
4. Others won 2 seats
None of the parties above had any pre-election coalition.
Immediately after noticing that they will not get majority and BJP might not either, Congress which had more than twice the number of seats as JDS presented a devious proposal to JDS. They offered to form a government with the JDS leader H. D. Kumaraswamy as the chief minister. H.D. Kumaraswamy is the son of the JDS party head H.D. Deva Gowda. This is not illegal but just breaks fundamentals of democracy.
BJP which was the single largest party was asked to form for the government by the Governor of Karnataka. The Governor of Karnataka Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala, who is supposed to be a neutral leader and the constitutional head of the state is actually a BJP party member. The new government was asked to prove it’s majority in the assembly in 15 days.
BJP formed the government with B. S. Yeddyurappa as the chief minister. The septuagenarian announced that he will be able to prove his majority. This is quite brazen considering the only way he can prove majority if people elected for the other parties agree to him being the Chief Minister. Is this an open statement that he will bribe the opposition MLAs or just the impunity enjoyed by politicians? Either way, he cannot be prosecuted legally.
The next action done by the Congress and JDS party heads was to round up their MLAs, move them to another state and keep them under guard. This act of locking up the elected legislators was done under the pretext of protection. This is an open case of kidnapping and house arrest. I also wonder if this is an admission that elected officials can be bought. There was a bigger case in Tamil Nadu a few years back, so these acts have political precedences to an extent that it can be considered normal. However, at what point can this be considered as a violation of habeas corpus? These acts can’t be proven illegal as both law and lawmakers have morphed into a single corrupt system.

I am sure there will be more drama unfolding in the coming days. Congress which has lost power might form the government under a JDS Chief Minister or Yeddyurappa might buy off some MLAs to prove majority. Either way, there is going to be no legal grounds to prosecute them. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time this has happened and definitely won’t be the last. The moral police in the mainstream media have made it to a secularism vs fundamentalism fight. Unfortunately, both parties are on the same side here. It is a fight between political impunity and democratic values. The loser is the people.

An anti-conformist & contrarian view

May 9, 2018May 10, 2018 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

One of my constant philosophical internal struggles is comprehending the tribalism in human species as it overpowers the more harmonious social bondage we should have inherited from our primate ancestry. From my basic understanding of the primate behaviours, the primate social bondage is far less tribal at least within their own species. However, as humans, we tend to bond as tribes than as a collective species. This is an intriguing subject as the people who seem to be against the innate tribalism then inadvertently fall into the very same bucket. I for one have to admit that in spite of my best efforts I have exhibited that in my own life.

I once considered myself a Marxist or a communist. I do miss those days when I could form a bond with the fellow Marxists but I don’t believe Marxism as a global solution anymore. Nowadays, I call myself a Marxist only when I have a get under the skin of a bunch of free-market capitalists. I don’t think I can be a Marxist as even Karl Marx wouldn’t be one today. The causal factors which led Marx to do his work don’t exist today. Quoting the Danish Philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” I do not think I can reverse history to go back to those old days. So belonging to these tribes will only come at the peril of restricting my thought and not learning.

For some time now, I have decided not to associate myself with any group. To put me into any of the groups mean, I concur with the view of the group. To continue to belong to that group when my views contradict the group is the very definition of non sequitur. I consider this true with everything, leftist, Marxist, liberal, socialist, feminist and to even some extent atheist etc. I am much more comfortable in calling myself into anti tribe than a tribe. I consider myself an anti-theist than an atheist, an anti-male chauvinist than a feminist, an anti-authoritarian than a leftist, an anti-conservative rather than a liberal and so on.

Over the last few years, I found almost all the public movements are shades of grey, the altercations between the public intellectuals have been personal attacks rather than ideologies and above all simple philosophies like free-speech, right to peaceful dissent and civil liberty have different meanings for different people. I also found some crazy people who capitalised on these divides. This has also coincided with the entire social media hysteria, lack of journalistic honesty from the mainstream media and finally everyone with a pen and studio calling themselves a journalist. I definitely see the positive side of this story but I can also see how crazy this has become. I also realised that the current crop of people who call themselves the gatekeepers of the left have ended up with a thinner skin, thicker ego and lost the ability to have a sensible conversation with adversaries.

Therefore, I want to move from the cult mentality to the issues. I want to do this by using the same approach I use in my consulting role. I want to break down problems into facts, opinions and people. My approach can be broken down into the below four points.

Take stance on issues based on facts. If facts change my stance changes.
Call our hypocrisy, lies, and anti-fact behaviours
Provide feedback to people based on issues and not based on opinions, or simply avoid ad hominem
A converse of the above, never agree with opinions because you like the person
Inductive fallacy – Avoid generalisation based on probability or carefully chosen pieces of evidence

I feel the present status of most discussion is a false dichotomy. If you are in the United States, then you are either a Republican or a Democrat. If you are in the United Kingdom, you are either a Labour or a Conservative. My stand depends on the issues and not what the liberal or conservative philosophy says. The below table demonstrates the need to move from the cults of the left to the points on the right. I want to leave the usage of left and right to just this table and not what the meaning has become.

From	To
Liberal vs illiberal Socialism vs capitalism Left vs Right Labour vs conservative	Political interventions Political Correctness Islamism Theism Systemic Racism Identity Politics Role of government Role of large corporations Role of markets Globalisation Migration Regulations Women’s rights Economics Nationalism Moral frameworks Free Speech Climate change LGBT rights Education Health Care

In doing so, I want to be extremely tough on few behaviours listed below.

Using one’s rights to erode other’s rights or using freedom against itself
Moving from left to right or vice versa
Calling everything a faith

Using one’s rights to erode other’s rights or using freedom against itself is a seriously dangerous trend. It is the incongruence where people want to use freedom of expression to shut other’s freedom of expression. The classic examples are when people want to stop speakers as they are offensive, especially when the audience is supposed to be adults. It has taken extreme forms in the recent years. You see the terrorists use the secular values in Europe to propagate religious intolerance. You see the students in colleges revolting against everything that they do not like to hear. Offensive speech and hate speech should not be stopped as the modern day acceptable speech was offensive few years back.

I am tired of this phrase moving from left to right or vice versa. I see the former more than the latter. As an audience to shows like the Rubin Report, I see these people a lot. However, the problem is very simple, just because you don’t agree to the left doesn’t mean you are going to agree to the right. That is a false dichotomy and people who do that have to be called out. It is not a journey if you learn people on one side are wrong as a natural consequence people on the other side should be right. To simplify, if we find that Obama was wrong an issue it doesn’t mean Trump is right. It is a naive way to look at the world. Such people haven’t demonstrated any learning. It is again a tribal behaviour. You made a hasty decision assuming that everything was right in one tribe. You learnt it is not true. Instead of moving out of all tribes, you have joined the opposite gang with the same approach that made you join the first tribe. This is not an evolution as Dave Rubin generally wants to put. It justifies moving out but doesn’t justify moving into the next one.

The third one is a very tiring and a circular reasoning issue. Most people who say this start with the reasoning that faith is someone innate and end with that. Faith is something which evidence can’t break. Anti-faith is a behaviour where my position is based on the evidence presented and will change when evidence suggests the contrary. Let me take the most common faith, faith in god. The logic used to justify the existence of god is either because there is no conclusive theory to confirm the source of something or a based on stories of some individuals. The former is a logical fallacy called an argument from ignorance. The latter is a mere extension of the faith. Now you need to have faith in other individuals who in turn will become the proof of god. This fallacy is called an appeal to authority. If god appears in front of me and other’s in an undeniable way and consistently, then we will all start accepting God. Then God is not faith anymore, it is based on evidence. So, the logic still remains, believing in evidence is not a faith. It is like saying accepting truth is a faith. This carefully constructed wordplay intended to make the repeated assertions as a proof of the proposition.

I feel passionate about the topics listed above and the philosophies underneath. I want to do my best by basing it facts and logic rather than a cultish or mob hysteria. This would mean that I want to take stances against everyone I agree with on another issue. Truth has no obligation to be pleasant to me or even good for humanity. I want to be happy with truth instead of basing my life on lies.

Any culture worshipping misogyny will become the epicenter of rape

April 20, 2018October 11, 2018 ~ Venki ~ 2 Comments

Yet another rape in India, this time of an eight-year-old child by eight men. While that is gruesome in isolation, the nature of the event and the religious frenzy which followed has made it extremely gut-wrenching. This has resulted in an avalanche of sexual abuse cases getting reported, mostly against minors. To me, this is India in a nutshell. For the rest of the world, India is a secular democracy with a majority Hindu population. It has seen a tremendous growth over the last few decades, thanks to information technology services and globalisation. For some Westerners, India and China are the embodiment of eastern mysticism. They somehow think there is more to these cultures than mere age. I do not share that view. For me, it is an epidemic of problems with a culture of misogyny. It is the epicentre of rape and sexual abuse in the world, stemming from a strong religious value. I do not intend to take a cheap shot at religions to gain mileage from these atrocious crimes. I want to reflect on growing up as a man in this extreme misogynic culture.

Sometime in 2013, I had an argument with one of my lady colleagues in India. I told her, I believe that sexual abuse in India is a bigger epidemic than what gets reported. In order to test my hypothesis, I told her to check with the 60+ women working in the office if they have ever been groped or sexually assaulted at least once in their lives. My test was, if more than 80% of the people say yes to it, then my hypothesis is valid. To her surprise, the result for 100% and what is worse the most of them have multiple harrowing stories. While most countries talk about discrimination at different levels, sexual abuse is definitely a red line. Misogyny is pervasive globally but some cultures protect and worship it more than others. India worships misogyny through its religious ideologies. An average male is more chauvinistic than most other cultures. Let us drill down on this further.

For the sake of accuracy, I want to start by acknowledging a couple of facts. I do this to set to rest the common and rather stupid copouts given by religious nutjobs for the behaviour of men in their communities.

Accepting the risk of approximation, it won’t be inaccurate to say a majority of males are more physically powerful than their female counterparts, assuming they belong to the same ethnicity and share the same food habits.
The need to take control of one’s life and exert some degree of power over others is quite innate in most primates.

These two points are true globally but sexual abuses are not that common in the rest of the world as it is in the religious nations. So there are some cultures which have evolved more than the others.

Influence of the religions

According to the 2011 census in India, India has close to 79.8% Hindus, 14.2% Muslims, 2.3% Christians and 1.7% Sikhs. The rest of the religions and non-affiliated population constitute around 2%. For the sake of ease, let me take the top 94% of the population for this study which comprises of Hindus and Muslims. It will definitely not require a massive leap of faith if one were to look at India through the history of these two religious faiths. Both Hindus and Muslims claim that their religion is one which respects women. The reality is any nation which has these religions as a majority doesn’t seem to be a friendly place for women. Then how do these religions claim to be so pro-women. Both Hinduism and the Abrahamic faiths find a strong reason to protect and defend their women. They do not believe they can do that themselves. They also believe left to themselves they cannot be as moral as their male counterparts. The other countries which feel subjugation is a form of protection include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan etc. The connection is very obvious to see. India is rather unique in this coalition of rotten chauvinists. India has a ‘Secular Democracy’ or at least a constitution which says so. By giving each religion a unique right to practice its chauvinism, India has projected an image of religious tolerance. This dissonance is hard for most people to assimilate and understand. It is easier when Saudi Arabia or Pakistan do it. But when there are multiple religions and one defends the other in this act, the process is tricky. So, we need to unpack these religions one by one.

Let me start with Hindus. It is a polytheistic religion. These are the people who worship, Rama, Krishna and Shiva as Gods. It is also true that there are just as many female Gods in Hinduism as there are male gods. However, that is the bait. If people listen to the myths, they will understand that these ‘Gods’ are not just immoral normally but extremely misogynistic. Rama’s wife Sita was kidnapped by another king who fell for her beauty. When she got freed, Rama wanted his wife to prove her chastity by walking into a pyre of fire. He didn’t trust her ‘purity’ because she was kidnapped by another guy. Years later as a king of a nation, he asked his pregnant wife to do the same when his citizens doubted her. When she refused, he sent her into exile. He later wanted her back as he wanted to do some prayers which required him to have his wife. However, he wanted her to do the purity test once more before she gets back to the kingdom. This “God” is worshipped and is considered as an ideal husband, someone every woman should hope for. Half of India is fine with waging a war to get a temple built for his person.

Let’s take the next God Krishna, who goes an extra mile with his libido. The stories of Mahabharata, various Upanishads and Gita Govinda describe his amorous life in great detail. Somewhere I feel the sick intentions of the author come out in these works. His crude and despicable sexual escapades with both married and single women in his village are romanticised through songs and dance. My intestine rolls over when I see women dance for these songs. It is an insult to human decency.

The third major God worshipped in India is Siva. As the legend goes that Siva disapproved of his wife(Sati) attending a pooja done by her father. She goes in spite of that, gets disrespected and self-immolates herself as she has disobeyed her husband’s order. She is considered a great moral example. There is no wonder, this is also the reason behind the practice of Sati, where a widow immolates herself on her husband’s pyre. It has taken centuries for people to come out of this practice and there are still some fringe forces which want to restart this.

Looking at all this it is rather bemusing when the ruling party in the Government of India wants to establish a ‘Rama Rajya’ meaning rule of Rama. When a majority of the country think it should happen, we have wonder about the state of their minds. No wonder every religious scumbag wants to molest the girl hoping to use these examples to get away.

Let us now go to the Muslims. These are worshippers of Allah through the words of their prophet. Muhammad, a conquering warlord in Arabia is said to have married 13 women. This perfect prophet married his wife Aisha when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine. It is worthy to note that Muhammad was 53 at that time. In many countries, it is legal for parents to get their daughter married at age nine. In India, it is allowed only for Muslims. Further men are allowed to have up to four wives at any time.

Hadiths which are interpretations of the Quran offer 72 virgins to martyrs. Husbands are legally permitted to beat their wife if they follow the Sharia laws. In 2005, an Islamic seminary told a woman who was raped by her father-in-law to start treating her husband like her son. He used the Quran to justify this. When she defied these orders she was punished instead of her rapist father-in-law. This is what Muslim leaders want, a special court for themselves where justice is based on their medieval beliefs disseminated by a horny and deluded warlord.

There are a great number of examples of the culture of rape and sexual assault in India but nothing exemplifies it more than the events which happened on the western border of India during 1947. The Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs ganged up to rape the women and sometimes minor girls in the other communities. The documentary below shows men who are proud of their act.

https://youtu.be/jGiTaQ60Je0

What do the stats say?

Now, let us look at some statistics. In this age, twenty-two girls die every day in India due to dowry-related violence. One the average there are 70 rape cases reported every single day. This means by the time you read this blog post there has been a new rape case reported somewhere in the country. Again, this is only a reported crime. Most rapes go unreported as it is considered a social stigma. Further marital rape is not considered a crime in India. Then there are sexual abuses, eve teasing and groping cases which will include every girl in every city. Almost all of these go unreported. The other major crimes against female include infanticide, forced prostitution, domestic violence, forced marriage and worst of all chemical attacks.

International Men and Gender Equality Survey conducted a survey which showed some disturbing results.

A man should have the final word about decisions in his home – 81%
A woman should tolerate violence in order to keep her family together – 68%
There are times when a woman deserves to be beaten – 65%
Perpetrating physical violence against partner – 37%
Carried sexual violence against a female – 24%

https://www.icrw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Evolving-Men-Initial-Results-from-the-International-Men-and-Gender-Equality-Survey-IMAGES-1.pdf

When 65% of men think that woman deserves to be beaten, you cannot brush it as a fringe group. When 24% of men have admitted to sexual violence, it is not a fringe group. The common excuse that most religious people are moderates and law-abiding citizens is not actually true. My thoughts go back to Christopher Hitchens book, ‘god is not great. How religion poisons everything?’. I want to quote the American physicist Steven Weinberg here, “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

Priests involved in rape

It is also noteworthy that there is a large number of religious priests and gurus who have been involved in sexual abuses. While this is pretty much a global phenomenon, India is special in its complete lack of respect for evidence and prolonged support for these people under the pretext of religion is something to cringeworthy. Here are some of the high profile cases from my recent memory. In each of these cases, the followers continue to believe that the alleged rapist is innocent.

Asaram Bapu, a septuagenarian godman has been accused of raping a 16-year-old girl.
Rajneesh or Osho had practices within his ashram, which earned him the nickname ‘sex guru’
Jayendra Saraswati, a Hindu seer was accused a sexually assaulting a female writer.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim a self-styled spiritual leader has been accused of rape and murder
Father Robin Vadakkumcherry has been arrested for raping a minor girl and making her pregnant

Seeing this in practice

If you want to further evidence of this archaic belief system and misogyny worship, one has to witness Indian weddings. I have witnessed quite a few wedding during my life there across the three major religions. I will call out two really ugly practices.

In Hindu weddings, the father of the bride performs a ceremony where he donates his daughter to the groom as a gift (of a virgin). The girl has to consider her husband a form of Vishnu, a Hindu god. This ugly practice is supposed to give salvation to the bride’s father as he has done the ultimate sacrifice. Some scumbags call this practice a testimony to the respect women have in Hinduism. This happens at every wedding and is a soul-crushing activity ( http://www.csuchico.edu/anth/mithila/kanyadan2.htm ).
In Muslim weddings, immediately after the ceremony is over a priest or imam explains the role of a wife. I was a distressed participant to one of these weddings when my friend’s sister got married. The priest speaks about how the wife has to be obedient to her husband, be ready to meet his needs and desires, content with what her husband provides, do household work and honour her husband. She is expected to be a sex slave who does household work for free. (http://eng.islam-today.ru/women-in-islam/what-are-the-duties-of-a-muslim-woman-toward-her-husband/)

Conclusion

I can go on and on about the pervasive misogyny and its roots in religion. One of the most touching and hard-hitting work is the documentary ‘India’s Daughter’. A 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern was brutally raped and killed in the capital of India. The religious leaders from all major religions were quick to blame the girl and society for the lack of modesty. Here is the documentary for you to watch.

http://watchdocumentaries.com/indias-daughter/

In the spirit of honest disclosure, I did reflect a lot as I started synthesising the content of this blog. I am definitely a vociferous critic of any cultural elements which are sacrosanct because they have practised long. I want to trust in my quest for truth in an unbiased fashion. I promised myself that I will go back and correct my work if I learnt anything which makes it inaccurate. When rape and sexual abuse become an epidemic, the culture has to reflect and look at the root causes. For now, the only common thread across all the rapes in India is a religion promoted misogyny. There is no way to fight violence against women in India keeping religious views intact. It is an insult to morality and decency.

Some examples

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/16/asia/india-rape-bjp-protests-intl/index.html

https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/here-are-11-of-many-barbaric-rape-cases-from-2017-that-tell-us-that-women-in-india-aren-t-safe-324152.html

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/after-nirbhaya-the-rape-cases-that-shook-india/article18404268.ece

https://www.rankred.com/10-worst-and-most-brutal-rape-cases-in-india/

Brahminism – Why it can’t be eradicated without contesting brahmins

April 13, 2018April 15, 2018 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

My previous article had the on the “resurgence of brahminim” deliberately left a few questions unanswered. I want to take those questions, and also elaborate on why brahminism cannot be eradicated without contesting brahmins.

Brahmins aren’t the only people who are obsessed with their caste? Why are you taking them on and not everyone else? Do you think they are a soft target or are you scared of taking any other caste on?
Why use the word brahminism instead of casteism?
There are plenty of rich people in the society and not just brahmins. Brahmins are a minority. Further, there are plenty of poor brahmins. How can brahmins be responsible?

I am sure there are plenty of others but they either variants of the above question or too stupid to answer.

As I mentioned in my article, I do not consider the modern brahmins as just the traditional brahmins, while they do form a part of it. Brahminism according to me is a social construct which has a community at the top dictating or at least having control over the progress of the society. There are few key social constructs which drive any heterogeneous progressive society, which eventually aims be a land of opportunity. The first one is access to quality education for all, the second construct is to remove any barriers of discrimination and the third construct is to provide health care. These three key constructs which will drive progress have been controlled and dragged by the modern brahmins.

Let me start with education. My parents like pretty much most people of their generation studied in a government school. Furthermore, they were from rural India. They ended up as professor and school teacher in government-aided institutions. Every baby boomer in India who is from an upper middle class to a lower class background would have studied in a government school. All their children went to private schools. I studied in a truly secular, affordable private school but even there the behaviours were extremely discriminatory. The government schools over the years lost their funding and the quality has been let down deliberately. The private schools where teachers are paid less than a living wage are supposed to be of better quality. When I got admission to study engineering, there was twice the number of private engineering institutions as the state-run ones. Today the percentage has quadrupled. Further, the path to get into better institutions have been curtailed a lot through co-curricular addendums which cannot be afforded by everyone. Education has been bought over by the rich.

Secondly, the emancipation of the discriminated classes in India has not gone well with the modern brahmins. There is an abject condemnation of the miserable state of the discriminated classes. One needs to understand that the slavery was abolished in the US before the caste-based discrimination got legally abolished in India. A vast majority of these people have parents who were not allowed to enter some streets in their village. I prefer the word brahminism instead of the caste system. Caste system refers to the system of having different communities. Brahminism, on the other hand, are the rules enabling the discrimination of these communities and the laws governing their social status. There are people in my own extended family circle and acquaintances who believe they are superior to the other communities.

The most common argument is that not all brahmins are rich and their biggest regret is the reservation system in India. While I do agree that the reservation system in India has its flaws and can definitely be improved, poor brahmin fetches just as much sympathy from me as a wounded terrorist. The moment a person is referring to oneself as a brahmin, then she/he doesn’t deserve the pity. The acknowledgement to belong to a class which has ordained itself the right to discriminate after knowing everything they have done in the past will only get my ire, not sympathy. I always see these brahmins complain about reservation depriving of their opportunities but never about wealthy individuals doing the same, even though the latter takes a larger share of the pie.

So, why has this problem become relevant now? If we scratch the surface the deeper cunning brahminism exists even today. The classic example is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Gandhi was born to a trader community in India and was a staunch Hindu. When he realised that Dr. B.R. Ambedkar has started to mobilise all the classes of the discriminated people with him, Gandhi played one of the cheapest possible tricks. He plagiarised the word Harijan, meaning people of Vishnu. He used that to describe the discriminated classes indicating that they were the people of the Hindu God. That diluted their movement to federate and self-determinate. The situation on the ground hasn’t changed a lot since. The modern brahmins are just waiting for the right opportunity. It is not possible to eradicate brahminsm without tackling them. The key attribute of the resurgence now is a sense of pride in belonging to the community that has come to the present generation. It has been portrayed as a benign, moderate, scientific culture which is no different from any other groups. Society can only ignore it at the peril of civilisation. The roots of these people come from a dangerous book Manusmriti (Laws of Manu). It is a dangerous cult which is no different from fascism, national socialism (of which they are sympathisers), wahabism or the KKK. Brahminism is a dangerous ideology and should be eliminated and eradicated. It should be learnt in the history book as the rest of the horrific ideologies of the past but not practiced. Brahmins are the custodians of Brahminism. I finally came to the conclusion which EV Ramasamy did, “Brahminism cannot be eradicated without fighting Brahmins”.

The resurgence of brahminism in India

March 14, 2018March 14, 2018 ~ Venki ~ 1 Comment

Dr B.R. Ambedkar was once quoted saying “The history of India is nothing but a history of a mortal conflict between Buddhism and Brahminism.“. I consider the use of the words Buddhism and Brahminism metaphorical like Einstein’s god. While Brahminism stands for inequality, divide and discrimination, Buddhism stands for equality, love and peace. While all Buddhists and Brahmins might not entirely fall into those buckets, I can broadly accept the usage as a metaphor.

During the British rule of India, two groups started to benefit albeit at different levels. The brahmins who held the monopoly over social rules and education started to gain massive financial grounds by capitalising on their social status and knowledge. The Dalits who were discriminated and kept at the bottom of the social pyramid saw light through a government which didn’t care much about the Indian Caste Structure. Though, the British government didn’t change the structure at it roots it provided a way for the Dalits to see what can be done.

Post achieving their right to self-determine and govern themselves from the British, Indian government put in several constitutional measures to ensure equality in the society and upliftment of the downtrodden. However, that didn’t again fundamentally kill the biases in the society. It got questioned, suppressed and most commonly capitalised to the benefit of the ruling population. Now, it is raising its ugly head, just that this new version of the social software is much more dangerous. I want to break this down into happenings, reason and way forward.

What is the present state of India?

The caste system is rife with different sects of the society wanting to become the Brahmins of the past. When I last visited India, I found a rather depressing need for people to find out who is below them in the society. There was a sense of entitlement towards possession. I also saw an acute admonishment towards people who do possess lesser than oneself. There were plenty of cultish movements which had little regards for history or truth. I want to broadly classify this social phenomenon as the resurgence of the Brahminism in India.

As I mentioned above, the traditional brahmins have gained a lot of wealth, social status and power in the society. In the last century, there have been plenty of social changes, as a result, they had to give up their long-held right to dictate and discriminate the society. However, at their roots, they haven’t changed. They have found the erosion to their right to discriminate others extremely hard to accept while their accumulation of wealth as a matter of pride.

Traditional brahmins are not alone here. There are three sets of modern brahmins in the present day India.

Traditional brahmins – People who still call themselves brahmins by caste
Other castists – People who still believe in caste system and strongly associate themselves with a caste
Wealthy individuals – People with immense wealth to be able to drive around the society they way they wish

India, much like the US has a culture of entitlement and fate, where wealth is entitled and poverty is a result of fate; the crony combination of Capitalism and Theocracy. There are three indicators which have made me realise the resurgence of Brahminism in a more modern sense.

Grassroot movements spreading the righteousness of the religious & castist practices in India
Growing intolerance towards dissent and alternate viewpoints
Identity Politics – Realignment of people based on religion, caste and wealth

So, what are the evidence of each of these?

Grassroot movements: The social media has made the spread of (mis)information extremely easy. Over the last few years, I increasingly see spread of messages praising the brahmins of the past, justifying caste systems, a neo-spiritual explanation for all the myths, a justification for past deeds of castists, a call for a fundamental belief system and above all a cry of foul over brahmins behind considered a venom of the caste system. I originally dismissed this as an aberration. I began to then see mass movements towards traditionalistic conservatism. Then I realised, my friends who were at least secular before are infected by this. It has spread from just a Brahmin concept to a full-fledged rollback of social development. E. V. Ramasamy, popularly known as ‘Periyar’ was an anti-castist and a social reformer in southern India. He once said society cannot eliminate Brahminism without fighting Brahmins. It is so true. The torchbearers of the castist ideologies have just kept it hidden for decades. However, what is worse is that every other caste which was either discriminated or was on the periphery have joined the Brahmin bandwagon.

There is absolutely no intellectual honesty or a forum for healthy debate on the disconcerting Indian history. Freedom of speech as a constitutional right has been completely overruled by the right to get offended or more precisely right to physically attack blasphemy. Every cult or group having more than 50 members have enough hooligans and goons to cause chaos. In the past one year, India has witnessed attacks against non-believers, religious minorities in a location, women, individuals whose opinions are not accepted and worst of all attack on law enforcement for arresting a religious leader accused of raping minor girls. A bunch of activists who protested against intolerance and calling for freedom of speech were attacked under the name of nationalism. Anyone questioning any religion, especially the credentials of Hinduism is put behind bars or has to face mob justice.

Karl Marx referred to religion as the “sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” There can’t be a bigger testimony to those words than India. Religion has given people a tool to explain their status in the society, use it discriminate, use it to justify discrimination and use it to accept poverty and discrimination. Every religion feels superior using the same principles. Every caste seems to think the same way. The Wealthy feel entitled to their wealth either using Free Market Liberal principles or religious principles. Sometimes even they want to feel discriminated. The worst part of this is even the discriminated groups have now forgotten what they fought. They have made their new caste their identity and want special treatment. The identity of individuals seems to be their religion and caste. There is not a single secular party in India which has a truly non-religious aligned candidate. Parties decide the political candidate in an area is based on the major caste in that area.

So, what?

The most common question I encounter when I place this rather uncomfortable state in front of the fanatics is, “so, what? why is this Brahminism?”. I want to break this down to what exactly is happening as a result of all this. If one looks at traditional brahmins, their biggest levers were

Ability to dictate people’s position in the social pyramid
Education

M.K. Gandhi, himself a big castist supported the secular candidate Jawaharlal Nehru as the first prime minister of India. Nehru was a secular social democrat. He ended up working on making education free at best and affordable at worst. He worked with Dr BR Ambedkar to ensure systemic changes to dismantle the then social structures. He also ensured that businesses are controlled and regulated. Also, the policies were intended to ensure there is an equitable distribution of wealth and economic redistribution.

What has neo-brahminism done? It has undone the work of the first parliament. Secularism is just an abused word now. People who utilised the public education system from the early 1950s to late 1960s have not invested back into the system. They voted in favour of private schools. The communities which were against discrimination now want the right to discriminate. The communities which had to stop discrimination are crying foul and want to discriminate again.

There are private schools, colleges and universities all over the country. These schools are extremely expensive and quite elitist. You cannot land in a decent university unless you are from one of these private schools. This leaves people who didn’t ride the first wave of social welfare or have subsequently been brought down with little or no scope of reviving their lives. The next genius could be languishing in the slums of Mumbai or the ghastly mines of Korba or the footpaths in Chennai or the stuck in the chaos of Kashmir. The only equality measure left in the system in of reservation, which is currently hogged by people who have already been capitalised. You will see a lot of people in India complain about reservation while virtually no one complaining about money in education. Caste as a means to bias in education is bad but money in education is just as bad if not worse. Reservation in education for underprivileged communities doesn’t take the opportunity away from people of privilege but money in education does.

Now, what?

There is no way to end Brahminism without taking the privilege out of the brahmins. Brahmins hold a grip over most critical events in a person’s life from birth to weddings to death. There is a social pressure to fall in line with their expectations. It can only be broken through education and counter approaches. We cannot silence them as that would amount to arresting freedom of speech. We need counter opinions to take the stigma out of not being associated with them. Once these key events do not require being associated with a brahmin, it takes the sting off their venom.

The next thing is to make education public and take money out of education. For this to happen, the government has to do the following

Slowly eliminate private players from education
Remove the system where seats can be bought by rich people
Ensure lodging and food can be made free to all deserving students

The only way to make this happen is to increase the budget for education. Make the corporations pay their share.

Brahminism is dangerous. It has corrupted the Indian societies for over 3000 years. There is no justification for the caste system and is utterly made up.

It is a master stroke – Beware of Trump’s baits on Jerusalem and Travel Ban

December 12, 2017December 13, 2017 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

Most foreign policy experts would agree that Trump’s move to ban people from certain countries or his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is a diplomatic blunder. The past presidents feel it will cause unrest in the middle east nations, disagreements with partner nations and above all might back fire the global fight against terrorism. I might be giving President Trump a lot of credit here but I think it is a master stroke for his divisive agenda. ‘Divide and Rule’ is an age old political trick and Donald Trump seems to be a master at that. For the hypersensitive left or the cunning right, it might be hard to believe but he has perfected the art of divisiveness and delivering it to the right persona. I feel Trump’s moves are baits and people are falling for it. Here is my take on these specific policies.

Putting oneself in President Donald Trump’s shoes is not easy, but let’s try it for a brief while. If I were Donald Trump, what keeps me going is unabated adulation and power. Let us not start judging those attributes for now. If that is what I want, then I have to find ways to achieve that. Surprisingly, for anyone who understands politics the means to get there are not mutually exclusive. Donald Trump’s base is an evangelical group which will support him irrespective of anything. They would have voted for Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush or even Mike Pence as long as they are evangelical. These people will continue to praise the Republican in power. The other set of Trump voters are the people from the so called ‘Rust Belt’ states in the US who are frustrated with the establishment. They are not extremely evangelical but are anxious of their future. If Trump can continue to show them way the reasons to be anxious, he will stay in power. The above policies are baits driven by these motivations.

The travel ban or popularly known as Muslim Ban has no mention of religion in it. It was cleverly crafted to do exactly that, but Trump appealed to the fear in his base by calling it a Muslim Ban during his campaign and actually while signing it. The Ban has no direct effect on Trump as an individual but it will feed on his base and he will propel himself with that energy. Trump would have an Indian Ban, Buddhist ban or an Italian Ban if it could easily cause the same effect. It was a bait. He wanted people to react and anger his base. This bait however hasn’t caused the intended damage. Now look at it in conjunction with the Jerusalem announcement.

Making Jerusalem the capital of Israel has no direct impact to the welfare of Americans. Why should it matter to a person whose campaign was to concentrate on the US and not bother about other sovereign nations. Firstly, The announcement elated the born again Christians who want Jews to control Jerusalem for the second coming of Jesus. But that will not bring Trump back to power. Trump definitely knows the fundamentalist Islamist groups will not be happy with it. Their demonstrations are not going to be peaceful. They will definitely attack civilians. Neither Trump nor his family will be directly affected by any such attacks. When such attacks happen, it drives emotional reactions in people. He will be looked at as a saviour with his Travel Ban. It will also eliminate any sane voice who want to investigate this issue as un-American. This will propel Trump back to victory. Just cast your memory on the key aspect which won Bush the 2006 elections. As Bush fell in the polls, Osama Bin Laden issued a statement threatening Bush. It triggered a wave of anger. People got together to reflect George Bush. President Donald Trump is doing exactly that. He is not appealing to your intellect but to your anxiety and fear.

It is extremely easy to dismiss Trump as a man-child or a narcissist but to call him an idiot is plain inaccurate. Having had my share of experiences with people with NPD, I believe these people are way too smart but dangerous as they are self obsessed. Trump’s detractors will downplay his capabilities at their own peril.

Two possible scenarios

Now, what do I hope happens. I really hope the world deals with through intellectual discourse and peaceful demonstrations. Attack Trump where it hurts him the most. That is not American people or American flag but his ego. Do it in a peaceful way and do it worldwide. Don’t underestimate your enemy’s capability. If nations want to take this up, do it is a civil way through diplomatic ties and the United Nations. It is an era for having debates, war of ideas and not military conflicts.

All said and done, what do I see is most likely to happen. We have to brace yourself as there will be violent demonstrations as the right wing lunatic will react irrespective. Peace is not in their DNA. They will make life miserable for civilians on all sides. They will eliminate sympathy for people who actually are affected by Trump’s schemes. The terrorists need Trump’s policies as they are the base of the Islam right wing. We are going to see more justification of divisive policies. The left are going to react to any violence blaming Trump and not condoning the religious philosophies behind the attack. This will irritate everyone and propel Trump’s ratings.

Social Media Trials – an inferno which will engulf us all

December 11, 2017December 12, 2017 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

Al Franken resigned from the Senate last week after a spate of allegations against him. His resignation speech was massively criticised by many. When I listened to it, the speech reminded me of the multiple facets which were wrong about our system. As a person growing up in India, I always read news where media would convict an individual without proper trial. Then, there were instances where people take laws into their own hands and hand over punishment to people on the streets. The inability of the judicial branch to run a fair and fast trial on the accused or protect the rights of the common citizens, made the medial and social trials a very fancied alternatives. All of a sudden there was a craze to beat someone on the streets with no trial. While they did get the right perpetrator at times, it was a dangerous trend, as it gives authority for a group to hit anyone you don’t like. With the social media, I now see these two dangerous trends have been amalgamated to create a parallel judicial system filled with trolls who have the attention span of a sparrow. If legislative side is beginning to get affected by this then I feel the next few years are extremely dangerous. I want to break this down by clarifying my position on sexual harassment, and then on this public justice obsession.

Most traditions and almost every religion claims that it has great respect for women, however I haven’t seen even a single one do so in practice. Women have been subjugated and abused for generation. It is great to hear their voices and see the change in the society.

Sexual abuse is a despicable act and shouldn’t be tolerated even between partners. What is worse than the abuse itself is the victim bashing. One cannot blame someone else for one’s inability to keep their libido to themselves. It is paramount to have a society where people speak out against the perpetrators without any inhibition. It is also more important to ensure the society protects these people. I wish more people come out in open to share their stories and more people do so immediately. Above all, I wish these incidents stop happening in the generations to come. So, I want to eliminate these three main oppositions to the people coming out.

They had it coming because of their lack of culture, values or morality.
They should avoid group mentality and handle this as individuals.
They should have done it immediately. Since they have delayed it, the accusation lacks merit.

All three reasons are copouts by people who do not have any intellectual capital.I have carefully framed the sentences neutrally with no reference to any gender.

My concern is not with people coming out but the way these accusations are being dealt. For what it is worth, these are still accusations and do not have proof yet. I want more and more people to come out and share their experiences, but I do not want people to take action on that. We should have an investigation before taking actions. Ten accusations doesn’t mean one is guilt of the crime, it just increases the probability of having done it. Investigation needs honest assessment of facts over emotional reaction to certain posts. Reality is different from reality shows. Facts cannot be measured by number of likes. This lynch mob mentality has been a dangerous development in the last few years. Someone says something and twitter goes crazy for a couple of days. Then they move on to the next issue leaving people behind.

Genuine Victims are left behind

Social Media is great as a mechanism to reach out to thousands of people. What used to take days to achieve has been reduced to minutes if not seconds. However, the mechanism to disseminate information cannot be used to accelerate investigation. One of the key aspect of investigation is protection of victims and ensure they get their due justice. By not letting investigation run through its due coarse and by exhibiting the primitive mob mentality, people affected will not get the necessary justice. They are told that a bunch of people have just abused the accused perpetrator and at its worst, the person will have to find another job. This is not justice for the genuine victims. This doesn’t prevent further such incidents, this doesn’t provide legal protection to the victims, this doesn’t ensure that the victim can move on in their life.

You could hurt an innocent

It might sound harsh and even brash to the moral crusaders in Twitter, you can hurt innocents by doing your emotional justice mechanism. When Starbucks CEO said that he plans to recruit refugees, one group started going more to Starbucks and another one started attacking them. The result is few innocent coffee-goers got hurt. By responding to sexual abuse allegations with instant vilification, you might end up crusading against everyone and not just the perpetrators. You also set a dangerous precedence where anyone can raise a point and a mob picks it up and acts on it. This is not different from how the notorious religious extremist groups react. They don’t care about facts, they just pick up clues from one of their biased media outlets or Twitter rants and react. In this process, you do not know who gets hurt.

Facts are bigger than emotions

The media is hardly sharing facts. In stead they are sharing emotions. For some reason, this seems to be the anti-pattern. When I read a news item, I am looking for answers to the three of the important questions.

What did the person do?
What is the evidence for saying that the person did that?
What are the causal factors which led to this?
What are the supporting evidences which will corroborate this story if any.

At the same time, I am wary of flowing emotions and call for immediate judgements without presenting any evidence what so ever. As I say this, I also acknowledge that most sexual abuses happen when there is no third person to testify. Also, it makes the life of the victim extremely harrowing to answer prying and deeply skeptical questions. This also is a testimony to my original point of protecting the victim. So, it is a fine balance and a skill to muster enough evidence to be able to piece together a picture. We are emotional beings but making decisions without looking at facts, especially when it can affect countless lives is a dangerous precedence.

Selfishly, it could be “you”

As the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true.” When people ask for these emotionally charged immediate decisions, it sets a dangerous trend. I have been having discussions with some of my colleagues on this dangerous trend. Everyone can fall into a majority or a minority group depending on the group. So, if you start to make decisions depending on whether the victim belongs to a discriminated minority and not on facts, the trend can come back to hit you hard. Let’s focus on the crime and evidence and not the demographic. If I find ten non white, straight, christian, male to say something about you, then are you guilty?

You follow the collective over the cliff

The other dangerous trend I see is to claim innocence if a person is elected. Donald Trump, Roy Moore or Al Franken cannot be termed innocent because people have decided to elect them in spite of the accusations against them. This is a phenomenon of collective suicide. Popular opinions and facts are not always linked. Further it creates a herd mentality and people stop thinking.

Conclusion

To conclude, I feel people should take the following steps before taking against individual.

Hear the victim
Protect victim’s identity and interest
Share the next steps with the victim and also call out for the need to protect the accused’s identity
Commit to a free and fair investigation
Act based on the evidences found
1. Take necessary strong action if the evidence is conclusive
2. If the result is inconclusive but favours one party over the other, then
3. 1. Protect the identity of the individuals
  2. share the findings
  3. Issue necessary warnings
  4. Move the doubtful person from any role of influence on the other
4. If the result is completely inconclusive, then
5. 1. be transparent with the findings
  2. protect identities
  3. ensure you take necessary actions to be able to capture evidences in the future.
Reflect on the policies and make appropriate changes

If you do not follow the due process before making any decision, then it is a dangerous trend. It could very easily create divisive environment, snowball into a moral crisis and polarise people to form group consensus rather than solve the issue.

Yemen Humanitarian Crisis Part I – The history

December 3, 2017December 4, 2017 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

The world will be entering 2018 with some serious humanitarian crisis. The civil war in Syria, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, the Catalan crisis in Spain, the refugee offshore detention centre crisis in Australia and the unrest in the Kashmir valley to name a few, but none seem to be more grave than the one in Yemen. The crisis has disturbed me to the extent that I am struggling to stop myself from thinking about it. I will try to give a quick narrative of the complete story. I want to write about it in two parts. The first part is the history of the events and a high-level view of the situation. The second part covering the details of the horror.

Brief history of Yemen

In order to understand the current struggle, it is important to understand the history of Yemen. The present capital of Yemen is Sana’a. It is considered one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world with civilisation records dating the 15th century BCE. Greek geographer Ptolemy described Yemen a fortunate Arabia (Arabia Felix) as against the rest desert Arabia (Arabia Deserta). According to Wikipedia, Yemenis had developed the South Arabian alphabet by the 12th to 8th centuries BCE, which explains why most historians date all of the ancient Yemeni kingdoms to that era. Yemen was the first country to also produce commercial coffee.

Islam spread rapidly in Yemen in the 7th Century CE. By the 9th century CE, the northern Yemen predominantly belonged to the Zaydi sect, an Iraqi based Shia sect. There were few other Shiite sects but they were minorities. The southern and western Yemen were mainly controlled by different Sunni factions, the Ayyūbids, the Rasūlids, and later the Sufis. But for a part of Northern Yemen, the rest of the country came under the Ottoman Empire and continued to remain that way till their fall at the end of the Great War in 1918.

At the fall the Ottoman Empire, the Northern Yemen became part of the United Arab States. North Yemen gains independence and is ruled by Imam Yahya, a leader from the Zaydi community. He was succeeded by his son Imam Ahmad. In the mid-1960s, Imam Ahmad’s son Badr took the reins after his father’s death. He was deposed in a coup détat by the army official resulting in the formation of the Yemen Arab Republic with Sana’a as its capital.

South Yemen has been under some British influence from the 1830s. After the fall of the empire, South and East Yemen were ruled as part of the British Yemen until 1937. In 1967, the tribal states united to form the People’s Republic of Yemen, comprising Aden and former Protectorate of South Arabia. However, in two years the Marxist National Liberation Front (NLF) took over power and the British troops were fully removed from the country. By 1970, they officially formed the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) with Aden as it’s capital. It was a secular government till they merged with the North.

North and South Yemen, didn’t have any open conflict but there were always discussions on merging. In May 1988, the two governments created a demilitarized zone at their border. In May 1990, they agreed on a draft unity constitution, which was ultimately approved by referendum in May 1991. The Republic of Yemen was officially declared on May 22, 1990. Ali Abdullah Saleh who is from the Zaydi community became the first president of the united Yemen, which he was until the Arab Springs of 2011.

Lead up to the Revolution

Yemen has been in a political turmoil for the last century. Civil unrests have been quite common. In the last couple of decades, they have seen ideological and political clashes between a violent Shiite faction called Houthis and the Arabia Al-Qaeda. However, what is happening now is of a magnitude never seen before. What is worse, it is a crisis which hasn’t remotely got the coverage it deserves. Here is the quick rundown of events which has resulted in today’s state.

BBC timeline of Yemen will give a decent account of the events which has led to the present situation.

Key Stats about Yemen

(from http://www.cso-yemen.org & http://www.centralbank.gov.ye)

Demographics (as of 2016)
Population: 27 million (approx)
Sex distribution: 50.62% male 49.38% female
Age breakdown: 41% (under 15years) , 54.8% (between 15-60 years) and rest over 60 years
Religious affiliation: 65% Sunni 35% Shia
Literacy: 70.1%; males literate 85.1%; females literate 55.0%.

Government (officially recognised by the international body)
Form of government: multiparty republic with two legislative houses
Head of state: President
Head of government: Prime Minister
Capital: Sanaa.
Official language: Arabic.

Economics
Budget Deficit: 50%
Exports: mineral fuels and lubricants 79.7%, chemicals and chemical products 9.4%; food and live animals 7.6%
Imports: mineral fuels and lubricants 32.4%, food and live animals 25.9%, machinery and transport equipment 15.7%
Gross National Income: U.S.$33 billion
The imported food items account for 90% of Yemen’s food requirements.

Though there were occasional Houthi and Al-Qaeda violence, the Yemenese government was doing a relatively good job at ensuring they stay away from these violent groups, unlike their more illustrious northern neighbour. In spite of siding with Iraq in their invasion of Kuwait, Yemen had been in good books of most countries. As the only Gulf country which doesn’t have a lot of oil left, Yemen’s economy is in the danger of collapsing. Government’s lack of effort in developing the economy for the country resulted in huge divide and economic uncertainties. The situation started to worsen towards the end of the first decade of this century.

Yemen Revolution

In 2011, Like most of the nations in the middle-east, the Arab Springs triggered a series of anti-government revolts in Yemen. As with the rest of the countries, the Yemen fight was against corruption, erosion of human rights, lack of development and freedom of the press. The Yemenese version of the Arab Springs was led by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman and was called ‘Jasmine Revolution’.

After an injury caused by a rocket attack, President Saleh handed over power to his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. In November 2011, after few months of continuing to maintain power against the mounting revolution against him, Ali Abdullah Saleh finally relinquished his power to Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. He did that by signing a power-transfer agreement brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council. However, the coalition of the opposition parties called JMP (Joint Meeting Parties), didn’t agree with this agreement. By Feb 2012, in what looks like an extremely dodgy presidential election Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi won unopposed.

Yemen Civil War

In spite of the transfer of power, there were four key developments from late 2012 to end of 2014, which led to the present Civil War in Yemen.

Saleh was not happy to have relinquished the power after 33 years at the helm. He mustered enough support in the Yemeni army to build a base for himself.
Yemenese revolutionaries including people like Tawakkol Karman, who were fighting peacefully to put Yemen on the path of development were disappointed. The country moved from one dictator to another and there wasn’t any development in sight.
The Houthis, Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula(AQAP), ISIL started to use the anxiety in the nation to drive their annexure plans
Saudi Arabia and Iran were looking for avenues to get into the country to drive their sectarian agenda

The civil unrest started when Houthis joined the pro-Saleh armed forces to capture Sanaa. The sent Hadi to Aden in the south first and then he moved to Riyadh for support. Over time they captured most of Yemen. In the meantime, the US forces conducted drone attacks to kill some of the AQAP leaders. However, AQAP started capturing cities from the south.

The issue got worse when the Houthis gave Saudi Arabia their awaiting invitation by threatening to attack them. This brought them into the war as they started bombing all sections of the society with no consideration. The Houthis then started receiving support from an unexpected source, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The US and the UK support Saudi Arabia with military equipment, arms and intelligence services. The US conducts drone attacks and also has armed forces on the ground. Saudi Arabia with all the support they receive from the developed nations has caused havoc to this poor nation. They have taken over control over the oil in Yemen, which was still a major contribution to their economy. They also have an embargo on imports or support to Yemen, which has resulted in one of the major humanitarian crisis the world has seen in decades.

Overall, what started as a movement to remove corrupt authorities and push Yemen towards development has had an unexpected twist. The Yemeni people are in the middle of a crisis, a sectarian war, a political power struggle, terrorism, destruction of the sovereignty of Yemen by foreign sources and utter disrespect to all international laws including Geneva convention. I want to convey the details of this crisis in my second part.

The world this week – ending 18Nov2017

November 18, 2017November 18, 2017 ~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

Australia votes for marriage equality

Australia parliament didn’t want to legalise same-sex marriages all by themselves as they feared the backlash from the conservative groups. This led to a huge backlash. They wanted to do a plebiscite which finally became a voluntary postal vote. The survey concluded on 7th November 2017 and the results were announced on 15th November. It was an astounding victory for the ‘Yes’ team in favour of marriage equality. It has been one of the bright spots in a year of crisis. Here is the link to my blog on the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Marriage_Law_Postal_Survey

https://marriagesurvey.abs.gov.au/results/

The Catalan crisis

Spain has comfortably been the most influential country in the Age of Discovery since Christopher Columbus set his sails to discover the Caribbean islands. However, by the 20th Century, they had let go of all their imperialistic ambitions to settle into a more civilised society. They have a high degree of personal freedom and protection of human rights. In spite of being a constitutional monarchy, they are still very much a modern liberal state. However, the Catalan crisis and the following human rights violations have brought back some of the memories of its notorious history. Spain is one of the most federated or de-centralised states in the world. Catalonia has a separate history has always been a territory annexed to Spain rather than be a part of Spain. The struggle for Independence has nothing to do with hatred towards Spain but a right for the people to determine their future. This is not Brexit but a struggle of the Catalonian’s for self-determination of their government.

Spain has reacted in a despicable fashion by not recognising the will of the people. The ironical part of it was when the King of Spain spoke about the power of democracy to oppose Catalonian leaders. Probably he thinks he is a representative of the people. The Catalan President Carles Puigdemont along with 13 ministers have been sacked and charged under sedition laws. Carles Puigdemont along with 5 of his ministers sought refuge in Brussels, however, in a rather spineless act, Belgium along with the rest of the European Union countries have abandoned a peaceful independence movement of a nation.

The arrested Catalan leaders are still been held in the prison without a trial. In the meantime, the Spanish government is calling for a fresh election in Catalan. Carles Puigdemont has people to unite and vote for the pro-independence leaders. Deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont said that he will stay in office should the pro-independence parties win a majority of seats in the upcoming election. In the meantime, people are taking to the streets to demonstrate their support for Independence. The Spanish Government and the International Community are ghastly inconsiderate to the feeling of Catalonia. Surprisingly the only country which supports Catalonia is Russia but I am not sure if their support comes from the right place.

The Catalan news website covers most of the details.

http://catalannews.com/

The Military Coup in Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe, the controversial 93 years old president of Zimbabwe is facing challenges from his own military. Mr Mugabe has been ruling Zimbabwe in one form or another from the 1980s. Robert Mugabe, much like many of his contemporary revolutionaries fought the battle against segregation, discrimination for the welfare of the society. Much similar to them, once he succeeded in gaining the power, he didn’t know how to create a system which will ensure welfare for all and doesn’t depend on him. The longer he stayed in power, the more he didn’t want to relinquish it. This results in charges of corruption, misappropriation, nepotism amongst many. Mr Mugabe is no different. He wants to hand over power to his wife Grace Mugabe, who had famously claimed that even Robert Mugabe’s corpse will win elections in Zimbabwe. Power got from the people was never given back to the people.

After watching this unfold for years, the military finally has taken matters into their own hands. They have captured power, arrested some of Robert Mugabe’s aides. Mr Mugabe has been under house arrest. There is still no clarity on Grace Mugabe. However, from the initial messages, it looks like the military is maintaining respect for Mr Mugabe and wants to give him a clean exit. Will Robert Mugabe accept this transition? It is still unclear what this means to the future of Zimbabwe. Are we going to see a military rule for the next few decades? Are we going to see a smooth transition to a more free and fair democracy? We don’t know yet. We have to watch over the next few weeks. What is clear now is, most people in Zimbabwe seem to feel positive about this latest military coup.

High profile Sexual assaults

I have never been a big fan of Hollywood, at least the A-Listers over there. However, I feel Hollywood has now started a trend of exposing high profile sexual abuse cases. I do not want to use the word scandal as it affects the victims. After Harvey Weinstein and CK Louise, we have had an avalanche of new cases coming out, This week we have seen women coming out against George HW Bush, Roy Moore and finally, Senator Al Franken Victims are slowly getting more courage to face the situation. I wish this snowballs and the people finally pick up the courage to impeach the Groper-In-Chief at the White House.

There are a couple of other points which have gotten highlighted through these scandals.

Sexual abuse is pervasive and is bi-partisan. While Harvey Weinstein is a big Democrat donor, Al Franken is a democratic senator.
The hypocrisy of the right and the conservative media is extremely apparent. Apart from a few Republicans, the rest of them as still behind Roy Morre the Child Sex Predator who is contesting for Senate seat in Alabama. The pro-marriage, anti-abortion family man has been after minor girls while he was in his 30s. The progressive left has distanced themselves from their predators while the right wants to elect them to the government. Steve Bannon wants to project the cases against Roy Moore as a Jeff Bezos-Washington Post conspiracy.

I sincerely hope more women come out in the open and everyone supports them to take the stigma out of the society. If anything the abusers should be stigmatised, instead, they are getting elected.

The 31st ASEAN Summit

Founded in 1967, ASEAN stands for The Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It is a 10-member bloc with a combined GDP of $2.4 trillion and a land mass covering more than 1.7 million square miles. The ASEAN summit has been happening twice a year since 2009, discussing trade, national security, health and climate-related issues. The most notable countries who haven’t been given membership are East Timor and Taiwan. East Timor has been excluded under the pressure of Indonesia and Malaysia. Taiwan is not included in the fear of China. The 31st ASEAN summit was held in Manila,

The 31st ASEAN summit was held in Manila, Philippines from 10–14 November. It was attended by leaders from all over the world. It looks like a congregation of human rights violators. The list which has Aung San Suu Kyi, Rodrigo Duterte, Li Keqiang, Shinzo Abe, Narendra Modi and last but definitely not the least Donald Trump.

One might wonder why ASEAN is important for non-ASEAN countries. ASEAN is important predominantly for trade and national security reasons. Good worth trillions of dollars pass through the disputed South China Sea every year. It is important for everyone to be part of these negotiations. The collaboration of the ASEAN countries is key to prevent illegal trafficking of people and resources. Further, ASEAN GDP is the 6th in the world. No country wants to miss out such an opportunity.

Members

Brunei – Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei

Cambodia – Prime Minister Hun Sen

Indonesia – President Joko Widodo

Laos – Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith

Malaysia – Prime Minister Najib Razak

Myanmar – State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi

Singapore – Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong

Thailand – Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha

Vietnam – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc

Philippines – President Rodrigo Duterte

Dialogue partners

Australia – Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

Canada – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

China – Premier Li Keqiang

European Council – President Donald Tusk

Japan – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

India – Prime Minister Narendra Modi

New Zealand – Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

Russia – Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev

South Korea – President Moon Jae-In

United States – President Donald Trump

United Nations – Secretary General Antonio Guterres

The Yemen Crisis deepens

One of the biggest humanitarian crisis of our generation is happening in Yemen with contribution from every nation. Even the silence of the world leaders is killing innocents in Yemen. Before the civil war, 90% of Yemen’s food requirements were imported. Saudi Arabia has blocked all imports to Yemen, leaving the country with a shortage of medicines and food. Young children are affected the most. The United Nations is calling this one of the worst famine in decades. The lust for oil from Saudi has made the world leaders continue to arm them. These arms are being used against civilians in Yemen. Not many know that the US forces are teaming up with Al-Qaeda and Saudi Arabian army to fight the Houthis. This is not the state that the human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman would have imagined for her country in 2011 Arab Springs.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57380#.WhCICLZg3Up

Gun Crime continued

The tryst with firearms in the United States is something that I am unable to understand. The NRA is the best in creating a market through propaganda, lobbying/bribing and fake news. After the mass shooting in Las Vegas and the Sutherland Springs, Texas, this week we had two more incidents. One was a freak incident where a person showing off his guns in a discussion about the Sutherland Springs shooting accidentally shot two people. The second was a more serious one, where a lunatic went on a shooting spree before entering a school campus. Thankfully the school authorities immediately locked down the school to prevent deaths of many more innocent lives. The shocking commonalities in all these threads are blatantly disturbing.

The perpetrators have mental issues and family problems
They were allowed to purchase semi-automatic weapons and supplements which make them worse.
They take their personal frustrations on the society
The Democrats talk about gun-control and no action
The Republicans talk about prayer and solidarity
NRA advertises the need to have more guns to prevent such gun crimes
The rest of the country braces itself for the next attack

Is there anyone genuinely interested in resolving this? From Bernie Sanders to Elizabeth Warren, senators only talk about sensible gun control. No one ever talks about addressing the need to have guns. Why do civilians need a gun, can we address that first?

Yes !!!! Australia votes for Marriage Equality but ….

November 17, 2017December 11, 2017 ~ Venki ~ 1 Comment

The results of the same-sex marriage plebiscite in Australia was released at 10:00 a.m. on 15-Nov-2017. The result was important for me and millions of others in multiple ways. I want to break down my views, expectations and the results. Overall, I am relieved with the result.

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/gay-marriage/australia-decides-live-coverage-of-samesex-marriage-survey/news-story/f03c276c28cc9073fefd92bd9bed7f9d

My Views

This is the twenty-first century and certain topics are not to be still debated like the earth is not flat, evolution, universe, the earth is not 5000 years old. Homosexuality being normal is one such. Individual or even majority is not a reference for normalcy. We should not be understanding the world with our cognitive biases. Scientific methods have given us the answers to some of these questions, and they challenge our understanding and our biases. So, it was bothering me that in this era, we are still debating whether to give equal rights to a set of people. In the age where we recognise and shut discrimination, rights of the homosexuals should not be for public debate.

Further, I was sceptical that this might give a floor to the nitwits to share their hatred. The community which has been marginalised doesn’t need more hatred. Also, I felt it has created an equivalence between the bigots and the liberals. The dichotomy is true but there is no equivalence between them. One is right and the other is wrong, so there is no middle ground between the two. To come up with a policy which accommodates both is like trying to balance one group with says the Universe is 13.6 billion years old and the other which says it is 5000 years old. The final answer cannot be 6.749999 billion years.

My apprehensions

However, in spite of all the logic and the right being on one side, I was still scared of the result. The past few years of world politics, the return of fascism or right-wing nationalism to the mainstream, the election of populist right-wing leaders across the globe, the rapidly diminishing support for human rights have made me wary of people’s ability to think beyond themselves. I strongly believe we have exhausted the conditions of the past and what I am seeing is not a revival of the fascist forces but a new set of conditions resulting in a fresh problem. It is a conditionality problem.

The below quotes of Søren Kierkegaard, the famous Danish philosopher always kept coming to my mind. I used it to convince myself that what we are seeing is a fresh problem by a different set of conditions which has led to a reality which we need to experience.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”

I wanted some hope and some result, to get myself motivated to fight for a better tomorrow for all our children. This result was in one way a final straw for me, I wanted to see some hope for humanity. I began to wonder if it was right for me to even have a child in this world. Should I have put another being through this? Will people stand up for one another? I don’t know if my child is going to be straight or gay. Irrespective of that, I want her to feel good about who she is and live a peaceful and happy life. I hope people vote yes at the least for selfish reasons.

My expectation

I did some rough back of the envelope calculation. With every bi-party election, I always expect 30% of people to be on either end of the spectrum. 30% who will for sure vote Yes and 30% who will for sure vote No. I wondered about the remaining 40%, which is where most elections are decided. The No campaign didn’t lack any conviction apart from talking about scriptures and freedom of religion. The postal voluntary vote was a clever move from the pseudo-liberals. The 30% people who wanted to vote for No will always vote. For the No campaign to win, they need to convince the east number of people on the other side to come to vote. I expected people to stand up and do what is right. Further, I wanted people to see through the facade of the No campaign. When they talk about infringement to their freedom to practice their religion of their choice in this context, what they are actually saying is they want the freedom to discriminate. The expectation from the far right is not that they are allowed to follow their religion in the private space, they want their personal views to be

Further, I wanted people to see through the facade of the No campaign. When they talk about infringement to their freedom to practice their religion of their choice in this context, what they are actually saying is they want the freedom to discriminate. The expectation from the far right is not to follow a religion in their private space, they want to impute the public space with their medieval biases. I expected people to understand and reject this.

The Result and my analysis

Overall Result
79.5 %(12,691,234) of the eligible people responded
7,817,247 people – or 61.6% – voted ‘yes’.
4,873,987 people – or 38.4% – voted ‘no’.

I am happy and rather relieved at this result. I am not elated for the below reasons.

20.5% of people didn’t want to respond to this survey. Either they were indifferent towards the issue or felt one side is going to win over the other comfortably. Whatever be the reason, it is a significant majority. Such a percentage have the ability to tilt scales in any direction. The total number of people who didn’t vote amoung to 3,172,808 (approx). The difference between the two sides is 2,943,260. This is too close for comfort. Depending on how they voted, it could have tilted the scales.
38.4% of people who voted or 30.7% of the total eligible population have actually thought that it is fine to side with discrimination and infringing in other’s liberties, even if it doesn’t affect me. As much as it validates my hypothesis that 30% of the people will always be on the wrong side of all issues, it is a rather disturbing thought.

This result is a resounding success for the community which has been marginalised. I now hope that same-sex marriages are legalised without any hurdles. We have lived through the past and there is no point in wanting to relive it. Quoting Baruch Spinoza, the famous Dutch Philosopher,

“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past”.

We should also not try to recreate the conditions thinking it will lead us to the past. It is not possible and in the search of recreating the past, the far right will create a future not worth living. This issue should not raise its ugly head again. No one deserves to be treated unfairly and one cannot cry for fairness when their right to discriminate is taken away. The battle for a progressive future should continue and has to continue. Now, we have some breath of fresh air and gained some momentum to fight this battle.