A Question of Identity – Who Am I? July 24, 2006
Posted by chitranshu in Personal.1 comment so far
I am often faced by this question – who am I? The simplest answer is my name, which is, thankfully, quite unique (I know of only about 3 or 4 people who share my first name, and I don’t know them personally; I only found them through Google 
). However, a name is only a way of addressing someone, and in most cases, it tells you nothing ‘about’ the person. I have something to say about myself on this space, but that is exactly how this question arose in the first place – when I sat down to write ‘about me’.
What I have finally written on that page is, in some sense, an advertisement – it is supposed to give a sense of familiarity to those who know me already, and to impress those who don’t; at least impress them enough so that they become regular readers of my blog 
. An advertisement cannot escape being superficial; it just shows you the best of someone/something and hides the rest. I have no intention to reveal my shortcomings here, though.
Another simple answer is my ‘official’ identity, e.g. what my passport says about me – an Indian national. If it’s about geography, I can call myself a Mumbaikar (Bombayite) and a townie, as that’s where I have spent most of my life, or a northie, as that’s where I, or my parents, come from. However, I believe ‘townie’ and ‘northie’ are really not apt for me, and I might leave Mumbai soon, perhaps never to come back. An Indian, yes, I will remain an Indian wherever I go, so that provides part of the answer, but it’s clearly not enough.
Another way of describing oneself is ‘professional’ identity. I have friends who are, or will be, engineers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, etc. I am also supposed to be an engineer (or maybe a physicist, or both, or neither… there you go, see the confusion?). Some of my ‘engineer’ friends can now call themselves consultants, investment bankers, managers, etc., but I am not any of that either. I can call myself an IITian… yes, I think that tag will stay, but there is a hitch. Very few IITians do what I am going to do for a living. That tag will surely have nostalgic value for me, just like my school or junior college, but it does not help much in answering the ‘identity’ question.
I am beginning to think that this dilemma is because ‘I’m not like everybody else’ (have you seen that IBM ad?). However, that is more an effect than a cause, more a coincidence than a conscious effort. I obviously did not choose my own name; when I was in school, I always felt that my friends and I would remain together forever; even in IIT, at least for three of the four years, I felt I would do what most IITians do. It was only after the decisions were made and the paths were set and the goodbyes were exchanged, that I realized I had set off alone.
Anyway, there are two more identities which are important to a lot of people, especially adults – religion and political orientation. Orkut asks for these, and you can choose not to answer, though I have answered it on my profile – Agnostic and left-liberal, respectively. However, these answers are just the best from a list of finite options; they are only approximations.
Yes, I am agnostic by belief, and this was verified by an online quiz, but I am also Hindu by birth, and I still say my prayers regularly. I think my prayers are more a way of organizing my thoughts than reverence for a Supreme Being (blogging, among other things, serves the same purpose for me). In any case, it is a private matter. I also believe in secularism, and more importantly, multi-religious tolerance, and it is mostly due to my personal experience (especially at school, where I had a lot of Muslim, Christian and Zoroastrian friends), and not a fundamentalist belief in an anti-religious ideology. By the way, a recent book I am very impressed by tells me that Hinduism has always had enough space for atheist and agnostic beliefs. I also believe that Hinduism is not just a religion, but a ‘way of life’ (though I do not agree with the usual proponents of this idea on the conclusions that they draw from it), so I guess my answer to the ‘religion question’ can be ‘Hindu agnostic’. However, religious identity is just one of many different components of one’s identity.
The political orientation question is a more difficult one. Firstly, I do not agree with the single-axis classification of political opinions (the whole ‘Left-Right’ thing), and secondly, any such classification is relative. I may be called liberal, conservative, centrist, leftist, or rightist, depending on what I talk/write about and who listens/reads and calls me names after that. Some more isms that can be added to that list are internationalism, humanism, pacifism, anarchism, and environmentalism, and some that are definitely not applicable to me are fundamentalism, fascism, (neo-) Nazism, and authoritarianism. I have also been called ‘communist’ on at least two occasions, which I thought was quite amusing. Also, a couple of online quizzes told me that I was philosophically an existentialist and politically most like Old Democrats (in the American context). In any case, I have no intention to enter that labyrinth now, so I’ll move on.
So far, in all the answers that I have got to my original question, there are some qualms which prevent me from freely using those epithets to describe myself. In any case, it is easy to answer ‘who’ you are by just telling your name; all the above confusion appears when you begin to think ‘what’ you are. Thankfully, my name is unique enough for long-lost friends to discover me easily (as some have done recently through Orkut, for example). I hope that that name continues to suffice for my identity always, and that it does not get lost in a maze of other identities.
The ‘Enlightened Society’ July 23, 2006
Posted by chitranshu in Personal, Society & Politics.add a comment
In an earlier post on polymaths and power, I had briefly mentioned the concept of an ‘enlightened society’. The basic idea is that the average person is usually not ‘well-informed’ enough to decide what is best for the ‘greater common good’. This makes the general public opinion prone to manipulation by those with powerful ‘vested interests’. As I mentioned earlier, this theory is quite ancient, going back to Aristotle’s criticism of democracy as ‘dangerous mob-rule’.
The conclusion that is generally drawn from this theory is that the right to vote should be restricted to those who are ‘enlightened’ enough to make good use of it. Simultaneously, there should be an effort to ‘enlighten’ the others, before granting them the vote. Historically, this line of thought has been used to justify restricted suffrage, with the criteria usually being wealth, education and/or ownership of property. The criteria have not only been inclusive but also exclusive, e.g. to exclude slaves, women, and/or other ‘lesser citizens’. In most cases, there has been little, if any, effort to ‘enlighten’ those who are excluded. The examples of this in history are well-known; however, I am going to offer here an example from a more personal experience.
A few months back, in my last semester at IIT, I heard the news that in at least two of the hostels, efforts were being made to decrease the ‘relative weight’ of the votes of the postgraduate (PG) students in the hostel council elections, as compared to the votes of the undergraduates (UGs). The problem was to get this approved from the hostel warden and other powers-that-be, and the explanation offered by the students behind this move (who were, quite obviously, UGs) was that the PG students are usually not ‘well-informed’ enough to make good use of their vote. They are generally very busy with their academic commitments, while the UGs are responsible for organizing all types of extra-curricular activities and overseeing the maintenance of the hostel and the mess. In short, the UGs do all the work, so it is not fair to give equal weight to the PG votes (especially since the ratio of PG students to UGs has significantly increased over the last few years, and is still headed upward).
Another reason was that since the PGs were not ‘well-informed’, it gave some ‘mischievous’ UG candidates a chance to influence their opinions in their favour. When it was asked that why could this influence not work on both sides, the explanation given was that most of the PGs were from a particular region, and so were the ‘mischievous’ candidates, which made it easier for them to resort to such measures. By the way, ‘we always contest the elections fairly, giving more importance to the issues, while they always create trouble by bringing up regionalism, etc.’
The proposal was scuttled, but not before some debate on the issue. I was largely an amused spectator at that time, but here’s my take on it now. At a broader level, the issue is timeless (as I have already mentioned), so it’s not as if it’s too late.
Firstly, it is quite true that the PG students are generally busier with their academics and less involved in the activities that would make them ‘well-informed’ (in the eyes of the UGs). However, there are also a lot of UG students who have no idea about or involvement in extracurricular activities, while there are some PG students who do. As for mundane things like hostel maintenance, everyone has an equal stake in it, irrespective of their interest or involvement. The problem here is with the generalization that ‘all’ PG students are incapable of, and ‘all’ UG students are capable of making good use of their vote.
Secondly, despite the fact that everyone has a vote, there are some people who are more influential than others. They are better informed about the issues, people ask for their advice, candidates ask for their help, or they know how to influence people’s opinion and get their votes (in which case they are known as ‘kingmakers’). Whatever be the way of putting it, the fact is that there is scope for the ‘well-informed’ to use their influence. There is also scope for the ‘mischievous’ to misuse their influence, but that cannot be avoided just by tinkering with the ‘system’. Thirdly, as for invoking regional biases and the like, I believe someone who votes for a particular candidate because a friend/senior/wingmate told him to (and there are a lot of people like that, both UGs and PGs) is as biased or prejudiced or ill-informed as someone who votes along communal or regional lines. The basic problem is with paying more attention to a ‘restricted’ identity of the candidate, than to his credentials.
Fourthly, if the voting decision really requires more information than the average person is expected to have, the solution is to have a restricted electorate by including those who have that information, and not excluding those who don’t. In the latter case, there is a greater chance that the exclusion will take place more on the basis of a ‘restricted’ identity than on merit. For example, if it is widely believed that the general electorate is not qualified enough to vote for the cultural council, then the electorate should include only those who are involved in the concerned activities, and not exclude PGs or UGs or whatever.
All these arguments can be extended to our public life, and to elections at the national/state/local level. To put it in perspective, there was considerable debate in our Constituent Assembly at the time of Independence on whether the illiterate should be allowed to vote, and the basic outline of the arguments and counter-arguments in that case was the same as above. There is another key argument, which can be better understood at this level. It was argued that the illiterate masses of India do not have any idea about national policies regarding, say, defence, finance, external affairs, etc., so how can they be entrusted with the right to elect those who would be responsible for it? A very simple counter-argument for this is that how can urban-bred English-speaking individuals expect to know about the problems of the villages, and even if they do, how can they be relied upon to act on them, if they know that the opinion of the illiterate rural masses does not count? Also, an important distinction to make here is that the masses only elect the legislators as their representatives; the executive powers of any ministry are an additional endowment to some of the ‘well-informed’ ones among them.
The gist is that the issue of who is ‘enlightened’ or ‘well-informed’ and who is not is very subjective; it depends on who decides and for whom. Such a subjective judgment cannot, of course, be satisfactory to everyone. On a different note, I do agree with the late Professor John Kenneth Galbraith that the masses are not only ill-informed, but also deliberately kept that way by those who benefit from it, and that there should be a conscious effort, by the government as well as individuals, to correct this situation. This requires ‘power’ to be vested in those who are capable enough, but the subjective decision regarding this capability should come from a system that gives everyone an equal voice, however ‘ill-informed’ they may be. In the end, the ‘mischievous’ will have to be combated within a democratic system.
Aside: To end this long post, I’ll come back to elections in IIT. I have a friend who once contested one of the GS elections with the determination to win only by campaigning, and without any malice. The other two candidates were not so straightforward though, and on the last day, he also resorted to such measures. He won.
An American Conversation July 22, 2006
Posted by chitranshu in Society & Politics.add a comment
I found the following lying somewhere on my computer. Had originally got it in a forwarded mail. It’s an old joke, and the style is brusque, but it neatly sums up my worldview. Here goes:
Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction honey.
Q: But the inspectors didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction.
A: That’s because the Iraqis were hiding them.
Q: And that’s why we invaded Iraq?
A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.
Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction, did we?
A: That’s because the weapons are so well hidden. Don’t worry, we’ll find something, probably right before the 2004 election.
Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?
A: To use them in a war, silly.
Q: I’m confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn’t they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?
A: Well, obviously they didn’t want anyone to know they had those weapons so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.
Q: That doesn’t make sense Daddy. Why would they choose to die if they had all those big weapons to fight us back with?
A: It’s a different culture. It’s not supposed to make sense.
Q: I don’t know about you, but I don’t think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.
A: Well, you know, it doesn’t matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.
Q: And what was that?
A: Even if Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.
Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to invade his country?
A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.
Q: Kind of like what they do in China?
A: Don’t go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.
Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it’s a good country, even if that country tortures people?
A: Right.
Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?
A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Isn’t that exactly what happens in China?
A: I told you, China is different.
Q: What’s the difference between China and Iraq?
A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba’ath party, while China is Communist.
Q: Didn’t you once tell me Communists were bad?
A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.
Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?
A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Like in Iraq?
A: Exactly.
Q: And like in China, too?
A: I told you, China’s a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.
Q: How come Cuba isn’t a good economic competitor?
A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being Communists and started being capitalists like us.
Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn’t that help the Cubans become capitalists?
A: Don’t be a smart-ass.
Q: I didn’t think I was being one.
A: Well, anyway, they also don’t have freedom of religion in Cuba.
Q: Kind of like China! and the Falun Gong movement?
A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he’s not really a legitimate leader anyway.
Q: What’s a military coup?
A: That’s when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.
Q: Didn’t the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?
A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.
Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?
A: I never said Pervez Musharraf was illegitimate .
Q: Didn’t you just say a military general who comes to power by forcibly overthrowing the legitimate government of a nation is an illegitimate leader?
A: Only Saddam Hussein. Pervez Musharraf is our friend, because he helped us invade Afghanistan.
Q: Why did we invade Afghanistan?
A: Because of what they did to us on September 11th.
Q: What did Afghanistan do to us on September 11th?
A: Well, on September 11th, nineteen men, fifteen of them Saudi Arabians, hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into buildings, killing over 3,000 Americans.
Q: So how did Afghanistan figure into all that?
A: Afghanistan was where those bad men trained, under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.
Q: Aren’t the Taliban those bad radical Islamics who chopped off people’s heads and hands?!
A: Yes, that’s exactly who they were. Not only did they chop off people’s heads and hands, but they oppressed women, too.
Q: Didn’t the Bush administration give the Taliban 43 million dollars back in May of 2001?
A: Yes, but that money was a reward because they did such a good job fighting drugs.
Q: Fighting drugs?
A: Yes, the Taliban were very helpful in stopping people from growing opium poppies.
Q: How did they do such a good job?
A: Simple! If people were caught growing opium poppies, the Taliban would have their hands and heads cut off.
Q: So, when the Taliban cut off people’s heads and hands for growing flowers, that was OK, but not if they cut people’s heads and hands off for other reasons?
A: Yes. It’s OK with us if radical Islamic fundamentalists cut off people’s hands for growing flowers, but it’s cruel if they cut off people’s hands for stealing bread.
Q: Don’t they also cut off people’s hands and heads in Saudi Arabia?
A: That’s different. Afghanistan was ruled by a tyrannical patriarchy that oppressed women and forced them to wear burqas whenever they were in public, with death by stoning as the penalty for women who did not comply.
Q: Don’t Saudi women have to wear burqas in public, too?
A: No, Saudi women merely wear a traditional Islamic body covering.
Q: What’s the difference?
A: The traditional Islamic covering worn by Saudi women is a modest yet fashionable garment that covers all of a woman’s body except for her eyes and fingers. The burqa, on the other hand, is an evil tool of patriarchal oppression that covers all of woman’s body except for her eyes and fingers.
Q: It sounds like the same thing with a different name.
A: Now, don’t go comparing Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are our friends.
Q: But I thought you said 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were from Saudi Arabia.
A: Yes, but they trained in Afghanistan.
Q: Who trained them?
A: A very bad man named Osama bin Laden.
Q: Was he from Afghanistan?
A: Uh, no, he was from Saudi Arabia too. But he was a bad man, a very bad man.
Q: I seem to recall he was our friend once.
A: Only when we helped him and the mujahadeen repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back in the 1980s.
Q: Who are the Soviets? Was that the Evil Communist Empire Ronald Reagan talked about?
A: There are no more Soviets. The Soviet Union broke up in 1990 or thereabouts, and now they have elections and capitalism like us. We call them Russians now.
Q: So the Soviets? I mean, the Russians, are now our friends?
A: Well, not really. You see, they were our friends for many years after they stopped being Soviets, but then they decided not to support our invasion of Iraq, so we’re mad at them now, & also at the French and the Germans because they didn’t help us invade Iraq either.
Q: So the French and Germans are evil, too?
A: Not exactly evil, but just bad enough that we had to rename French fries and French toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.
Q: Do we always rename foods whenever another country doesn’t do what we want them to do?
A: No, we just do that to our friends. Our enemies, we invade.
Q: But wasn’t Iraq one of our friends back in the 1980s?
A: Well, yeah. For a while.
Q: Was Saddam Hussein ruler of Iraq back then?
A: Yes, but at the time he was fighting against Iran, which made him our friend, temporarily.
Q: Why did that make him our friend?
A: Because at that time, Iran was our enemy.
Q: Isn’t that when he gassed the Kurds?
A: Yeah, but since he was fighting against Iran at the time, we looked the other way, to show him we were his friend.
Q: So anyone who fights against one of our enemies automatically becomes our friend?
A: Most of the time, yes.
Q: And anyone who fights against one of our friends is automatically an enemy?
A: Sometimes that’s true, too. However, if American corporations can profit by selling weapons to both sides at the same time, all the better.
Q: Why?
A: Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for America. Also, since God is on America’s side, anyone who opposes war is a godless un-American Communist. Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq?
Q: I think so. We attacked them because God wanted us to, right?
A: Yes.
Q: But how did we know God wanted us to attack Iraq?
A: Well, you see, God personally speaks to George W. Bush and tells him what to do.
Q: So basically, what you’re saying is that we attacked Iraq because George W. Bush hears voices in his head?
A. Yes! You finally understand how the world works. Now close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.
Q: Good night, Daddy.
(If the above was not brusque enough, have you heard Denis Leary’s song ’Asshole’?)
The Enemy Within July 21, 2006
Posted by chitranshu in Society & Politics.1 comment so far
The title for this post has been gleaned from my earlier post on ‘what we are up against’ (it is also the title of several controversial books, but let’s keep that aside). The context was the Mumbai bomb blasts, and my point was that all of us are aware of terrorist organizations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba, but we do not pay enough attention to ‘the enemy within’. I am not saying something new; this has been discussed threadbare on almost every news channel after every such incident.
I shall paraphrase a statement from one such recent discussion (I do not remember the channel or the person who said it, but he seemed to be a non-fundamentalist intellectual), ‘The SIMI is a terrorist organization no doubt, but so is the Bajrang Dal’. There was another ‘similar’ statement by an ex-leader of the SIMI on another channel, ‘We condemn all those who try to use terror to achieve their ends, whether it is Bush, Blair, Advani, Modi, or anyone else’. The striking similarity of these two statements is what made me write this post.
On face value, I would tend to agree with both the statements. There are important differences, however. The former statement seems sincere, and the speaker seeks to draw our attention to an important facet of the problem that we tend to ignore. We tend to look only at the actions of extremists, and not the thoughts that propel those actions. The latter ‘condemnation’ seems to be ‘lip-service’ at best, and the speaker seeks to deflect attention from the main problem. This can be best understood by imagining the same statement in a private meeting, where it might be part of a speech to enthusiastic activists, ‘they (Bush, Blair, Advani, Modi, etc.) are trying to use terror against us to achieve their ends. We shall teach them a lesson’.
This is the problem. The whole world is divided into ‘us’ and ‘them’ camps, and violence is justified when it is used by ‘us’ to defeat ‘them’. The victims of this violence are not members of either camp; they are ordinary people with mundane concerns. After every major ‘battle’ in this ‘war’, however, the leaders of the camps go out among these ordinary people to preach the righteousness of their cause, and thus, to replenish the lost numbers.
Let us keep aside the ‘camp leaders’ and their statements for a moment, and look at ourselves. Since childhood (when the 1992-93 riots and blasts happened), I have heard many statements, by friends, relatives, and acquaintances, ‘These Muslims are always trying to create trouble’, ‘The Government should have sent all of them to Pakistan at the time of Partition itself’, ‘They must be celebrating now, after these blasts’, ‘They never believed in our Constitution’, ‘For them, religion is greater than the country’, ‘These statements about peace and harmony are all a pretence’, ‘Even if they are not actively involved, they must be offering financial/logistical support’. There are many more, but these are sufficient for me to move ahead with my argument.
Now imagine the statements in the last paragraph, only this time in a typical Muslim household, say, after the Gujarat riots. I have never witnessed such a discussion myself; in fact, I have never even asked any of my Muslim friends whether or what they feel about such issues (‘ghettoization’ can be blamed for this lack of interaction). However, it is easy to imagine that there must be similar ‘anti-Hindu’ statements by ‘hot-headed’ individuals in many otherwise peaceful Muslim families. If it is still difficult for you to imagine, recall Aslam’s elder brother in ‘Rang De Basanti’. Now, if ‘we’ can often forget the difference between being ‘Hindu’ and being ‘Indian’, it is quite possible that ‘they’ might similarly forget the difference between being ‘anti-Hindu’ and ‘anti-Indian’.
What do you do when you hear such statements? I used to hear them out quietly, as they were made by mostly older persons in typical ‘drawing-room’ discussions with my parents. I did not agree with them, but I kept my thoughts to myself. A few days back, however, while my uncle was on one such tirade, I interrupted. He was apparently not used to such interruptions, but it led to a debate between the two of us (I was not being disrespectful or offensive, though; it was a debate and not an argument). His statements were predictable, to say the least, and his mind seemed to be closed to anything I said. I do not care much about that, as he is not going to ‘do anything’.
However, it is not always easy to distinguish between those who will not ‘do anything’ and those who will. Depending on socio-economic and religious identity, the person sitting in front of you might be a part of the ‘killer mobs’ during the next riots in Gujarat or wherever, or he might be one of the ‘bomb-keepers’ in the next serial blasts (though I highly doubt that terrorists, when interacting with ordinary people, must be giving even an inkling of what they feel or believe).
Our security forces are on the trail of the terrorists, and we have been asked to keep an eye out for anything suspicious around us. What we should also do, is to keep an eye out for insane arguments and opinions. If anything, they help conceal the ‘real’ terrorists in the crowd of ‘armchair extremists’. If we remain silent, it would only confirm the old saying, ‘for evil to succeed, it is sufficient for good men to do nothing’. The worst thing to do would be to join one of the camps, as that would only increase the population of ‘armchair extremists’, and maybe even ‘real’ terrorists.
On Polymaths and Power July 20, 2006
Posted by chitranshu in History, Personal, Society & Politics.3 comments
A few days back, I was searching for something in the dictionary, and came across the word polymath: A person who knows a lot about many different subjects. This discovery sent me off on a little ego trip, thinking whether I could call myself a polymath. The answer is not straightforward, as the definition itself is not precise – how much is ‘a lot’ and about ‘how many’ different subjects?
The first choice between two subjects that I made was at the end of class 7, when I chose to continue with Hindi in senior school, instead of learning French (and thus, gave up the chance to become a polyglot ). Then, for class 11 and 12, I chose computer science over biology, but now, seven years later, I don’t think I know ‘a lot’ about either. At IIT, I chose an obscure branch called Engineering Physics. In four years, I obviously studied a lot of physics, but there were courses also in electrical engineering, the usual mathematics, and other stuff that engineers are supposed to study. I also had one introductory course each in economics, sociology and English literature, plus two in sociology in the final year. This was as far as formal education is concerned. Besides, my interest in quizzing has also helped me sustain ‘a lot’ of sundry knowledge.
A practical example of the sundry nature of my knowledge is the dilemma I faced when choosing what subjects to offer for the UPSC exams. Physics was an obvious first choice, but for the second subject, I looked at the syllabi of maths, chemistry, history, geography, sociology, economics, and public administration before zeroing in on political science. The dilemma with each subject was to decide whether what I knew was ‘enough’, or could be increased to the level of ‘enough’ in a short period of time. So, I guess I do know ‘a little’ about ‘many different subjects’, but I have some way to go before I can call myself a polymath.
Historically, a lot of ‘learned men’ can be called polymaths. From Plato and Aristotle to Fa-Hsien and Hsuen-Tsang, from Leonardo Da Vinci to Isaac Newton to Benjamin Franklin, and from Albert Einstein to Amartya Sen, there is a long list of individuals who refused to be straitjacketed into any one domain, and who influenced our thinking in more ways than one, even though each of them is best known for one particular field of endeavour. In fact, the archetypal philosopher-thinker was usually well-versed with philosophy, metaphysics, theology, astrology, astronomy and mathematics, and most scientists even up to the days of Einstein were supposed to be well-acquainted with philosophy. In ancient India, one can find many examples of ‘specialized’ scholars, like Chanakya (economics and politics), Panini (grammar), Aryabhatta (astronomy), Charaka (medicine) and Sushruta (surgery), but the number of polymaths was also no less than in ancient China, Greece or Arabia.
Now, let’s look at the other half of the title. ‘Knowledge is power’, as the old adage goes. Therefore, it might be said that if one’s knowledge extends over several domains, it would give the owner that much more power. In fact, investigating the linkages between the distribution of knowledge and the distribution of power in social structures is one of the important concerns of social scientists. I will not get into the heavy-duty stuff, though; I have a different point to make here.
I accept that there is much truth in the saying that ‘knowledge is power’. As I said, all the names mentioned above have influenced our thinking in many ways. However, if we look at power as mainly political power, none of them, except maybe Chanakya, has really had immediate power in his own time. To contradict this, one can point out, for example, the influence of Einstein’s advice on the American decision to go nuclear, but that is exactly my point – that academicians or ‘persons with knowledge’ have at most been ‘advisors’ to practicians, or the people with real executive power. This has been as true in autocracies throughout history as it is in today’s democracies.
Quite obviously, it has been a cause of concern to many ‘learned men’ and ‘thinkers’. Their subsequent tirades against autocracy are well-known, but there have also been several against democracy, from Aristotle’s caution against ‘dangerous mob-rule’ to John Kenneth Galbraith’s advocacy of the need for an ‘enlightened society’. It seems obvious that those with ‘greater’ knowledge would always be skeptical of a system that gives equal power to those with ‘lesser’ knowledge. However, I believe that this equitable distribution of power is still a mirage; democracies may give a political voice to everyone by giving them the vote, but there are other components to power, and greater knowledge does translate to greater power even when everyone has an equal vote. Nevertheless, the ‘knowledgeable’ persons actually get stuck at the second rung of power, while the top is occupied by those who can manipulate that knowledge to get there.
The explanation for this also seems quite straightforward; that the single-minded pursuit of knowledge, without accompanying attention to its application in practice, leads one to a kind of ‘disengagement’ with the world around. This might explain, for example, why Dara Shukoh did not notice while his brother Aurangzeb went around accumulating military power. This theory also coincides with the conventional image of ‘learned men’ as ‘hermits’, or vice versa.
I mean all this as plain ‘food for thought’ and not as a criticism or appreciation of any one person or one system over another. I shall end this convoluted discussion here, but I have two more points to make. Firstly, the arguments framed above may be revisited by considering the distribution of wealth, along with knowledge and power. There is a general coincidence between the three, but it is not absolute. Secondly, if I have to become, say, the Prime Minister of India, do I stop studying and concentrate on being more manipulative?
