A short [and incomplete] history of Kashmir

[This is an attempt to quickly summarize the history of Kashmir without personal opinions or judgment.]

Provincial map of Kashmir

Disputed Area map of Kashmir

Pre 1947

• Kashmir was one of the largest princely states in British India, with a spread out thin population.
• It primarily composed of five regions -- (a) the Hindu dominated Jammu in the south, bordering Punjab with large arable land; (b) Valley of Kashmir, to the north of Jammu, largely Muslim in demographics; (c) Ladakh, to the east of the Valley, bordering Tibet, largely Buddhist; (d) Gilgit and (e) Baltistan, both west and north of the Valley, mostly Muslim but Shia and Ismaili rather than the Sunni dominated Valley.
• Many historical texts credit the Mauryan king Ashoka as the founder of the city of Srinagar. Kashmir was definitely under the Mauryan rule in 3^rd century B.C. and later the Kushanas.
• The Gonandiyas ruled Kashmir for many centuries, with a break in the 5^th century A.D. when Kashmir was ruled by the invading Huns (Toramana and Mihirakula).
• After the Gonandiyas, there were the Karkota, Utpala, Kutumbi, Divira, and Lohara, ‎[14] until Muslim rule came into Kashmir in 1349.
• Then followed 4 centuries of Muslim rule under Durrani (from Afghanistan), the Mughals, and the Afghans.
• All these Kashmir territories were brought under one kingdom (state) in the mid 1800s by the Dogra Rajputs.
• Following the two Anglo-Sikh wars ‎[18] and the subsequent cash payment deals with the East India Company, part of Kashmir remains with the Sikhs and part is ceded to the East India Company.
  

1947-1948

• The importance of Kashmir in the whole story of independence of India and Pakistan is primarily because of its geographically strategic location.
• Sharing borders with Afghanistan, China, Tibet, separated by a small piece of land from USSR, and of course wedged between India and Pakistan, Kashmir was of everyone's interest.

• The story of Kashmir is the story of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah ‎[10].
• Lowly born Abdullah received his Master of Science degree from Aligarh Muslim University, and led the revolt against Raja Hari Singh's rule in Kashmir.
• He founded the National Conference (earlier known as All Jammu Kashmir Muslim Conference) which included Hindus and Sikhs, and fought against the princedom asking for a representative government based on universal suffrage.
• National Conference closely aligned with Indian National Congress, following close friendship between Abdullah and Nehru

• In 1946, Hari Singh imprisons Abdullah and plans on keeping Kashmir independent from India and Pakistan
• 1947, Lord Mountbatten visits Kashmir and tries to convince Hari Singh to accede to one or the other nation, but fails
• Gandhi visits Kashmir after that, but only meets workers and students who want Abdullah released
• Come Aug 15, 1947, Kashmir offers a "standstill agreement" to allow free movement of people and trade through the state; Pakistan signs it, India still waiting and watching.
• Prime Minister Nehru (himself an ethnic Kashmiri) wants Kashmir to accede to India; Home Minister Patel although initially inclined to let Kashmir accede to Pakistan, changes his mind in Sep 1947 when Jinnah accepts the accession of Hindu-majority Junagadh. That instrument of accession was violated, and finally Junagadh reversed its decision. More details on Junagadh in an article by A.G. Noorani at this link ‎[19].
• End of Sep 1947, Abdullah is released, and he immediately demands a government of the people in Kashmir, in his words, "A popular government, not of any one community; a joint government of the Muslims, the Hindus, and the Sikhs. That is what I am fighting for."
• Pakistan expects a Muslim-majority Kashmir to naturally join them, while India with its religion-is-irrelevant-secular ideals expects Kashmir to join India due to the closeness between Indian National Congress and the non-sectarian National Conference.
• In Oct 1947, Hari Singh still wants an independent Kashmir, and the deputy PM of Kashmir is quoted to say "The only thing that will change our mind is if one side or the other decides to use force against us".

• In two weeks, end of Oct 1947, Pathans from the North Western Province (now part of Pakistan) invade Kashmir from the North.
• Even today, there is no clear answer to why-they-came, or who-supported-them.
• Its just called the "tribal invasion of Kashmir" and no historians or anthropologists are able to answer this question.
• However, at the time, India believed Pakistan had supported this invasion. Pakistan disclaimed all responsibility and said this might be a spontaneous support of the Pathans for fellow Muslims being persecuted in a Hari Singh led Hindu kingdom.
• In two days the invasion had pushed its way through to the Valley.
• In Baramula they lost sight of the larger goal, and decided to loot and rape [and lost their standing claim for fighting a holy war]
• Even strategically that cost the invaders since it delayed their access to Srinagar [capital of maharaja Hari Singh]
• Hari Singh, in 2 days, asked the Indian government for military assistance.
• Sheikh Abdullah also urged that the Indian government send troops immediately to push back the invaders.
• Lord Mountbatten suggested that India should get Kashmir's accession before committing any forces to its defense.
• This was acted upon and the Instrument of Accession was signed ‎[15].
• Indian troops [and Air Force] managed to push back the invaders. A more detailed version with step-by-step map of force movements is well documented in a Wikipedia article ‎[17].

1948-1951

• Upon Nehru and Gandhi's endorsement and insistence, Hari Singh appoints Sheikh Abdullah the Prime Minister of Kashmir.
• For both Nehru and Gandhi, Abdullah is the face and symbol of secularism and interfaith harmony; not so much for Pakistan and Liaqat Ali Khan who openly denounce Abdullah as a pawn of the Indian government.
• In 1948 Nehru takes the Kashmir issue to the United Nations.
• Sir Zafrullah Khan presents a great case for Pakistan and Kashmir is cast as unfinished business of the Partition now
• The Security Council alters the "Jammu-Kashmir Question" agenda to "India-Pakistan Question" -- a symbolic defeat for India
• Pakistan demands withdrawal of all armed forces and a plebiscite
• India agrees to that under National Conference's agenda; only after withdrawal of all armed forces from all parties and the resolution is signed ‎[16].
• Abdullah's government formalizes the accession to India in 1951.
• No plebiscite for the people to decide formally if they want to join India, Pakistan, or be independent
• In all fairness, full withdrawal of armed forces has not occurred either

• Ramachandra Guha in "India After Gandhi" ‎[1] says this about Abdullah --
• Whether or not Abdullah was India's man, he certainly was not Pakistan's. In April 1948 he described that country as 'an unscrupulous and savage enemy.' He dismissed Pakistan as a theocratic state and the Muslim League as 'pro-prince' rather than 'pro-people.' In his view, 'Indian and not Pakistani leaders. . . had all along stood for the rights of the States' people.' When a diplomat in Delhi asked Abdullah what he thought of the option of independence, he answered that it would never work, as Kashmir was too small and too poor. (91-92)

• Although Abdullah accepted the accession to India, he always thought of Kashmir as a Nation. The full text of his speech to the J&K Constituent Assembly ‎[12] (always read Nation as Kashmir here) after his election in 1951 makes a very interesting read and gives an insight into Abdullah's ideas for the Nation of Kashmir.
• He continues to call for the plebiscite even after 1951.
• Later in life, when asked what he thought of the option of Independence, Abdullah answered that it would never work, as Kashmir was too small and too poor. Besides, said Abdullah, "Pakistan would swallow us up. They have tried it once. They would do it again." [in Y.D. Gundevia, The testament of Sheikh Abdullah ‎[13]]

• Abdullah deliberated enough, and even worked with the ambassador from United States on whether the US would support an independent Kashmir.
• By then, the US had allied itself with Pakistan, given its critical geographical proximity to the USSR, and any openly anti-Pakistan move would not be supported by them.
• Finally, Abdullah rejected the option of independence as impractical.
• The option of joining Pakistan as immoral (he called it a "landlord ridden feudal theocracy").
• But, Kashmir would join India on its own terms -- including retaining its state flag, and the designation of its head as Prime Minister.
  

1952-1963

• April 10^th 1952, Abdullah in a public speech says his party would accept the Indian constitution "in its entirety once we are satisfied that the grave of communalism has been finally dug. Of that we are not sure yet." He also says that the Kashmiris "fear what will happen to them and their position if, for instance, something happens to Pandit Nehru."
• The Praja Parishad Party [consisting largely of Hindus from Jammu] opposes the two-flags, two-constitutions, and two-prime-ministers system and vociferously protest.
• Abdullah saw the Praja Parishad movement as way to force a solution of the entire Kashmir issue on communal lines.
• Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee leads the Praja Parishad and campaigns heavily for Kashmir to be wholly part of India.
• In a subsequent arrest, Mookerjee falls ill, and later dies of a heart attack while in jail.
• This triggers a much larger protest and the Jan Sangh in India heavily oppose the Nehru government's support to Sheikh Abdullah.
• It is purported that Sheikh Abdullah is seeking independence for Kashmir (not clear which part of Kashmir since Jammu was clearly controlled by the Praja Parishad, and the Northern Areas were already part of Pakistan) and in a move supported by the Indian government, the head of state Karan Singh (son of Maharaja Hari Singh) dismisses Sheikh Abdullah from his Prime Minister's position.
• He is also arrested within two hours of that, and jailed, while his deputy Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed moves into power. Later biographers explain this as a way by which Abdullah was kept "quiet and safe" in prison, because as a free man he would easily mobilize popular sentiment in his favor. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed starts his role of Prime Minister in a populist style, holding darbars to hear the grievances of the public. Among things he did, he raised the procurement price of paddy; made school education free; approved new state sponsored engineering and medical colleges; and abolished customs barriers between J&K and rest of India.
• More development in the works, as Rajendra Prasad (then president of India) visits Srinagar to inaugurate a hydroelectric project on the Jhelum river.
• The State's own Constitution comes into force on January 26, 1957 under which the elections to the State Legislative Assembly are held for the first time on the basis of adult franchise the same year. This Constitution further reiterates the ratification of the State's accession to Union of India.
• The Sheikh is suddenly released in January 1958, after no charges were brought against him since his arrest in August 1953.

• He makes his way back to the Kashmir Valley, where he is met with a stunning reception.
• Within 3 months, in April 1958, he is arrested once more; and this time on the charge of plotting with Pakistan to break up India, create communal ill-feeling and disharmony, and receive secret aid from Pakistan in the form of money and bombs.
• Although the Sheikh may have contemplated independence for Kashmir, it is clear to all that the charges are easily exaggerated.
• In his trial, the Sheikh says that he stands for a single objective: the right of self-determination for the people of J&K. Also repeats his commitment to secularism, admiration to Gandhi, and once strong friendship with Nehru, who even now "would not deny the right of the people as the final arbiters of their fate".
• While the Sheikh is in prison, Nehru personally (financially) takes care of educating the Sheikh's son Farooq Abdullah in Jaipur.

1964

• Post China war, Nehru's position in the political sphere of India is heavily undermined. Many signs that the man is failing in health as well.
• In April 1964 Nehru decides to put an end to the matter of the Sheikh, and after obtaining the consent of the Chief Minister of J&K orders the release of Sheikh Abdullah from a decade in the prisons.
• Sheikh Abdullah in his first speech on the day after his release, says the two pressing problems of communal strife and Kashmir should be solved during Prime Minister Nehru's lifetime; and that after him a solution of these problems would become difficult.
• Abdullah travels through out the Kashmir valley and is cheered heavily; before traveling to New Delhi to meet with Nehru.
• The Congress party as well as the Left party (and of course the Jan Sangh) are very concerned about the prospects of talks between Nehru and Abdullah, as they all see Abdullah as one with a design to detach Kashmir from India.
• Nehru receives support from two unexpected sources – the radical socialist and Sarvodaya movement leader Jayaprakash Narayan; and Nehru's former political opponent and one-time close associate C. Rajagopalachari.
• Rajaji openly says that the freeing of Abdullah should act as a prelude to allowing the people of Kashmir to exercise their human right to rule themselves as well as they can.
• Meanwhile in Kashmir, the open corruption of the Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed's government had turned popular sentiments against India.
• April 29, 1964, Abdullah meets with Nehru for a week and discusses many details of a solution for Kashmir with Nehru and his deputy (officially he was a minister in the Cabinet without any portfolio) Lal Bahadur Shastri (also a fellow Kashmiri).
• Rajaji writes to Shastri urging that Kashmir be given some kind of autonomous status. Rajaji described the self-determinatino of Kashmir seems to be a lesser issue than reducing Indo-Pak jealousy.
• Abdullah visits Rajaji on May 5^th and after a long meeting and are purported to have come up with an ideal solution for the Kashmir issue. The Hindustan Times carries the headline: "Abdulla, CR, evolve Kashmir formula: Proposal to be discussed with PM".
• May 6^th, Abdullah returns to Delhi and has long discussions with Nehru. It is not clear what exactly this plan was, although there were hints at a possible condominium over Kashmir by both India and Pakistan (along the lines of autonomous Andorra, whose security was guaranteed by both France and Spain).
• Abdullah openly says he wants to visit Pakistan with more than one alternative.
• Rajaji in an article writes that asking Field Marshal Ayub Khan to cede Azad Kashmir will scuttle the entire plan; and probably the Sheikh should focus all his attention on Kashmir valley, leaving Jammu as a counterpoise to Azad Kashmir, to be presumed to be integrated to India without question.
• On May 11, Abdullah openly asserts that despite his weakness (in health), Nehru is the symbol of India, and that after Nehru he did not see anyone else tackling these problems with the same breadth of vision.
• May 16^th, Nehru talks about these alternatives, and says that unless we succeed, India will carry the burden of conflict with Pakistan with all that this [these alternatives] implies.
• May 22^nd, Nehru declines to disclose the details of all the alternatives saying he does not want to prejudice the Sheikh's mission to Pakistan. Just says that his government is prepared to have an agreement with Pakistan on the basis of their holding on to that part of Kashmir occupied by them.
• May 25^th, Sheikh Abdullah meets with Ayub Khan in Rawalpindi for over 3 hours and end of it says he found in Rawalpindi, the same encouraging response as in Delhi; and that there is an equal keenness on both sides to come to a real understanding.
• May 26^th, another long meeting between the Sheikh and Ayub Khan, and the Sheikh is seen coming out beaming. He informs the crowd, that on the basis of these talks, the Pakistani president has agreed to a meeting with the Prime Minister Nehru in the mid-June.
• Dawn, Pakistan's written forum for its intelligentsia, complains that Abdullah had taken up a role of an apostle of peace and friendship between Pakistan and India, rather than that of the leader of Kashmir, whose prime objective should have been to seek their freedom from India.
• May 27^th, Nehru dies, and with him, these campaigns for peace.
• Hindustan Times quotes a Pakistani newspaper as, "The death of Nehru meant the end of a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue. Whoever succeeded Nehru would not have the stature, courage and political support necessary to go against the highly emotional tide of public opinion in India favouring a status quo in Kashmir."
  

1964 – 1982

• After Nehru's death, the Sheikh is interned from 1965 to 1968 and exiled from Kashmir in 1971 for 18 months. The Plebiscite Front is also banned. This was allegedly done to prevent him and the Plebiscite Front which was supported by him from taking part in Elections in Kashmir.
• 1965, the Indo-Pak war ends in a stalemate, and following a UN-negotiated ceasefire, the Line of Control is still maintained.
• 1971, another Indo-Pak war, this time for the freedom of East Pakistan – Bangladesh is formed.
• Sheikh Abdullah watching the alarming turn of events in the subcontinent realizes that "for the survival of this region there was an urgent need to stop pursuing confrontational politics and promoting solution of issues by a process of reconciliation and dialogue rather than confrontation".
• Abdullah starts a dialogue with the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, being keenly aware of [as he put it] imminent danger of the breakup and balkanisation of both India and Pakistan with disastrous consequences.
• In 1974, the Sheikh-Indira accord ‎[20] is signed, whereby the Sheikh gives up the demand for a plebiscite in lieu of the people being given the right to self rule by a democratically elected Government rather than the puppet government which till then ruled the State. Following this Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah becomes the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
• Congress Party withdraws its support and mid-term elections are called again in J&K.
• Abdullah's National Conference again wins with overwhelming majority, and Sheikh Abdullah becomes the Chief Minister again, and remains the CM until his death in 1982.

Post 1982

• Dr. Farooq Abdullah, son of the Sheikh, is elected CM after his father's death, and remained CM until 1984.
• Ghulam Mohammad Shah succeeds Farooq Abdullah as the CM between 1984 and in less than a year, President's rule imposed on J&K.
• Farooq Abdullah returns as CM in 1986 and remains CM until 1990, when another term of President's rule is imposed, this time for 6 years.
• Again between 1996 and 2002, Farooq Abdullah returns as CM, after President's rule is lifted for 6 more years.
• Following the instability after the Kargil conflict of 1999, President's rule returns to Kashmir in 2002, and continues to be in place even as of today.
• During this post-82 period, much infiltration by jihadis and a lot of atrocities by the army of the Indian Union are documented all over the valley and along the Line of Control.

An extended reading list: [that this document heavily draws upon]

[1] Ramachandra Guha. India after Gandhi – The history of the world's largest democracy. [http://www.amazon.com/India-After-Gandhi-History-Democracy/dp/0060198818]

[2] Romila Thapar, A history of India. [http://www.amazon.com/History-India-Penguin/dp/0140138358]

[3] Romila Thapar, Harbans Mukhia, Bipin Chandra. Communalism and the Writing of Indian History.

[4] A. L. Basham. A cultural history of India.[http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-History-India-L-Basham/dp/0195639219]

[5] Wikipedia article on Kashmir. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir]

[6] BBC News In-Depth – The future of Kashmir. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/south_asia/03/kashmir_future/html/default.stm]

[7] Kashmir Information Network. [http://www.kashmir-information.com/]

[8] Maps of Kashmir. [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/kashmir.html]

[9] Conflict in Kashmir – selected Internet resources. UC Berkeley Libraries. [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/SouthAsia/kashmir.html]

[10] Wikipedia article on Sheikh Abdullah. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Abdullah]

[11] A comprehensive note on Jammu & Kashmir – the Indian government's stance. From the web pages of the Indian Embassy in Washington D.C. [http://www.indianembassy.org/policy/Kashmir/Kashmir_MEA/introduction.html]

[12] Full text of Sheikh Abdullah's speech to the J&K Constituent Assembly, 1952. [http://www.kashmir-information.com/LegalDocs/122.html]

[13] Y. D. Gundevia. The testament of Sheikh Abdullah. [http://www.amazon.com/Testament-Sheikh-Abdullah-Y-D-Gundevia/dp/8170174686/]

[14] Kalhana. Rajatarangini – Early history of Kashmir. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajatarangini]

[15] Instrument of Accession executed by Maharajah Hari Singh on October 26, 1947. [http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/documents/instrument_of_accession.html]

[16] Resolution adopted by the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan on 13 August 1948.
(Doc No.1100, Para. 75, dated 9th Nov, 1948). [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/uncom1.htm]

[17] Wikipedia article on the First Kashmir war. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Kashmir_War]

[18] Wikipedia article on the Anglo-Sikh wars. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Sikh_wars]

[19] A.G.Noorani. Of Jinnah and Junagadh. In the Quaid-e-Azam Papers, Volume 5. [Chronicled in two parts in the Frontline reviews. Part1: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1820/18200780.htm; Part2: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1821/18210760.htm]

[20] Wikipedia stub on Sheikh-Indira accord. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_Indira-Sheikh_accord]

Links from Austin's Thursday Open Mike discussion list:

[21] Arundhati Roy. Land and Freedom. [http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/18528]

[22] Yogi Sikand. Rethinking Kashmir politics. In The South Asian. [http://www.thesouthasian.org/archives/2008/rethinking_kashmir_politics.html]

[23] BBC News In-Depth – Kashmir Flashpoint. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/south_asia/2002/kashmir_flashpoint/default.stm]

[24] Yogi Sikand. Dangerous portents in Jammu & Kashmir: A view from Doda. In The South Asian. [http://www.thesouthasian.org/archives/2008/dangerous_portents_in_jammu_an.html]

[25] Yogi Sikand. Dreams of Harmony once dreamt. In The South Asian. [http://www.thesouthasian.org/archives/2008/dreams_of_harmony_once_dreamt.html]

United and democratic after 61 years! How?

No one gave us a chance. No one thought we will preserve democracy all these 61 years, barring a 2-year aberration during the emergency years. Statistically, India's democracy is a major outlier. Given its low levels of income and literacy, and its high levels of social conflict, India was "predicted as [a] dictatorship during the entire period" of a study conducted recently on analyzing the relationship between democracy and development in 135 countries. Statistically countries go through dictatorship and authoritarian regimes through their poverty eras, before becoming democratic, and it was found that "the odds against democracy in India were extremely high". The forces that divide India are many, caste, religion, language, class, to name a few -- with gender a uniform discriminative axis across each divisive force. Enough has been written about these divisive elements. What are the forces that keep India together? What are these elements that have helped us transcend or contain the cleaving forces of caste and culture?

In the general elections of 2004, 400 million voters exercised their right. Back in 1952, in the first general elections 46% of India turned out to vote in what was world-wide termed as the "biggest gamble in history". Over the years this has increased and since the late 1960s, three in five eligible Indians have voted come election day. The corresponding percentages in local assembly elections have been even higher. India is probably the only democracy where the voter turn out of the marginalized classes are higher than that of the privileged groups. So, is the right to choose, freely and fairly, a uniting factor for all Indians? You only have to take a gentle look behind this process, and the picture is less than rosy. Most political parties are family firms. Most politicians are corrupt, and many come from a criminal background. Many institutions central to the functioning of a democracy, including a justiciable code of laws and their fair enforcement, have declined precipitously since their days of inception. The percentage of truly independent minded civil-servants has declined, as has the percentage of completely fair-minded judges.

Typically most nationalist movements (in the western world and otherwise) have been glued by a common language or a common religion. By contrast, the Indian nation does not privilege a single language or faith. There are sufficient examples to see the success of minorities in India through the system. It may not be far fetched to say that the unity of the Indian nation and pluralism of language and religion are inseparable. Yet, once again, the contradictions are not hard to see. From the original Jan Sangh slogans of "Hindi, Hindu, Hindustani", to Delhi in 1984, to Godhra and Gujarat of 2002, the minorities have suffered grievous loss of life and property. And in further keeping with the contradictions, for the most part, the minorities appear to retain faith in the democratic and secular ideals of the Indian constitution.

Was the fact that English survived as a language in India a uniting factor? It is easily arguable that large parts of India dont speak or understand English. Yet, it was English that was chosen as the language of governance at various levels, and is easily the language of the pan-Indian elite. The percentage of folks bound by English is not trivial, and as the historian Sarvepalli Gopal writes, "the knowledge of English is the passport for employment at higher levels in all fields". Javed Akhtar, a noted Hindi and Urdu poet once remarked with great insight -- "Apart from all the geographical states, there is one more state in this country, and that is Hindi cinema". Bollywood has undoubtedly been an enormous contributer to the national unity as well.

The question then to ask is, is India a proper or a sham democracy? Can electoral rights, pluralism of language and religion, a foreign language (English), and Bollywood keep India together? Building democracy in a poor society was always going to be hard. Nurturing and rearing secularism in a just-divided country was even harder. And in these 61 years we have come a long way in fulfilling these dreams. There are many holes that need to be plugged. Holes so large, that they threaten to flood the boat. And yet, India stands afloat today, mostly proud.

Today, outside of the political and economic sphere of India, there are many discussing the true meaning of individual freedoms. Many who are pointing out the chinks in our armour. For a liberal democracy, India treats individual freedoms of its citizens with great disdain. But a new generation of young India is discussing this. In small groups, in small pockets, and making little changes.

For those who wish to see it, the pattern is obvious. A hundred years ago, the idea of political freedom in India was a matter of debate in the parlors of the educated elite. In small groups, in small pockets, and making little changes.

Happy 61!

Statistics and Rural India

Statistics are to be interpreted with the right eyes to make some meaningful sense. We earlier saw the story of two India's -- the India shining and the tottering India; the India of credit cards and the India of farmer suicides; the thriving business India and the collapsing agrarian India. To really understand the problems of India from a statistical viewpoint, particularly of rural India, one needs to look beyond narrow definitions, and look at holistic pictures.

Human Development is measured by the eponymous index Human Development Index (HDI) and is annually reported by UNDP's Human Development Report. HDI goes beyond GDP and calculates human development as a measure of three chief charactersitics (the last of which is the GDP per capita).

• living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy),
  
• being educated (measured by adult literacy and enrollment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level), and
  
• having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income).

According to the UNDP website,

The index is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development. It does not, for example, include important indicators such as gender or income inequality and more difficult to measure indicators like respect for human rights and political freedoms. What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being.

Under this (slightly more) comprehensive measurement (than just GDP), where does India rank?

1. India ranks 128 (out of 177) countries in overall HDI, just below Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. Sierra Leone is bottom at 177.
   
2. Life expectancy at birth: India ranks 125, just below Pakistan and Comoros.
   
3. Adult literacy rate (ages 15+): India ranks 114, just below Rwanda and Malawi.
   
4. Combined primary/secondary/tertiary education enrollment: India ranks 122, just below Namibia and Vietnam.
5. GDP per capita (PPP US$): India ranks 114, just below Syria and Nicaragua.

In all these categories, India seems to be ranked well below sub-Saharan Africa. (This is not to generalize a stereotype of sub-Saharan Africa. India deserves to be ranked at what she has been. And, many sub-Saharan African countries have really been improving over the years. However, due to governmental policies, and gains for the elite of powerful countries, India, in all forms of press, is portrayed as an emerging super-power, whereas, the other countries ranked around us are treated with much disdain on their development curves in the same media.) The much talked about 9% growth rate of GDP is just that, a growth rate, indicating the growth of the elite in India. By absolute numbers per capita, even by GDP count India ranks in the bottom third of all countries in the world, even below war ravaged Nicaragua. None of these countries that are around our rank are "potential super powers", or "software power houses", or "next-gen nuclear power". So who in India is benefited by this 9% growth?

1. India is 4th in the list of most US$ billionaires in the country (behind US, Germany, Russia).
   
2. 50 countries on either side (together) of us on the HDI rating put together have lesser US$ billionaires than us.
3. According to Times of India, in a period of 3 months between July and Oct in 2007, the collective wealth of the top 10 billionaires of India increased by 27% -- which translates to collectively Rs.2 crores per minute.

Now, think about rural india and the farmer. The farmer has not had a Rs 20 increase in wage in that whole period, forget about per minute.

That portrays a rather grim and bleak picture of rural India. Where then is the hope? At this crucial juncture in our political history when every elected people's representative is wondering about what will happen to the Indo-US Nuclear deal, Asha for Education and Work an Hour 2008 have chosen to run a campaign focusing on rural India and are showcasing 15 such hopes. These projects are all over India, and each in their own way are addressing the problems leading to the appalling statistics we just recounted. Do read about them, donate, and discuss means and methods to mitigate these problems here on this post and in the comments section.

P.Sainath said it right after this March's Union Budget:

"As Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate, said, 'Faster growth rate is essential for faster reduction in poverty. There is no other trick to it'." So said P. Chidambaram in his budget speech. Drawing on his words must have seemed a politically correct thing to do. Mr. Chidambaram might want to add another quote to his cupboard. This one from the late Edward Abbey, environmental activist and writer. "Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell."

Few things grow as relentlessly as a cancer cell. Its up to us to demand for change; to demand for justice, equality and fraternity, promised by the preamble of the constitution; and to demand that we stop marginalizing our rural brethren and to stop making self-indulgent and thoroughly meaningless attempts grown out of a guilty conscience to ameliorate the lot of the under-privileged, and instead build an egalitarian future where dignity of the individual is honored above his/her net economic worth.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed." -- MLK.

References:
[1] UNDP's HDR report on Human Development Index, India Fact Sheet. http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_IND.html
[2] Sainath's article in India Together after P.Chidambaram's Union Budget of March 2008. "Growth Idealogy of the Cancer Cell". http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/mar/psa-cancer.htm
[3] Sainath's article based on the HDI fact sheet for India. "India 2007: High growth, low development". http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/dec/psa-i2007.htm
[4] UNDP's Human Development Report's Statistics page. http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
[5] Asha for Education
[6] Work an Hour 2008

Non-hierarchical? or a mai-baap sarkar?

Guillermo Nugent, a professor of Sociology in Peru says this of Latin America:

In Latin America we “sense” the ruler to be a father figure, and the ruler “senses” his power as if the country he rules were his own hacienda. The army and church hierarchy are powerful models of untouchable power and customs have more weight than laws. We aren’t democracies. Why is this? What can help us explain it?

How do organizations structure themselves? In what professor Nugent explains above in the case governments is a lack of democracy due to a mai-baap sarkar (a father figure). However, we in India, have a "democracy" and a "mai-baap sarkar". More closer than that, we are all part of organizations, at a professional level, at a personal level in working for development in marginalized India. So how do organization structures work? Everyone understands the professional structure with a top-down CEO to worker structure. Then there are the more esoteric, idealistic, egalitarian all-are-equal organization sans all hierarchies.

A tree-structured organization is one in which every member except one has a unique superior. The exception is "at the top" and has no superior. A non-hierarchically-structured organization is one in which the superior-subordinate relationship does not exist at all.

What are the problems with a tree-structured organization? At first glance:

• information is not equally available to everyone in the organization
• people not involved in the daily working of the organization make bulk of the decisions
• superior-subordinate relationship leads to unequal distribution of power/status
• compartmentalizes the members of the organization

Decentralizing decision making which leads to increasing workers' commitment to the organization's goals is a way to mitigate the above problems. Solutions in this line eliminate the tree structure and replace it with a group of equal members. These are "collectives" or "participatory democracies", in which the formal structure of the organization is no longer defined by a set of roles, but by a set of procedures that allow the group to function efficiently in an egalitarian way, such as rules for job rotation and group decision-making. Inequalities in influence and specialization of skill or knowledge are regarded as harmful, and are specifically avoided.

For such non-hierarchical organizations to work, some or all of the following conditions should hold:

• The organization is small
• The environment is unpredictable, the task complicated, and calls for innovative solutions
• The members are motivated by principles and goals and values of the organization and not by money or power
• All members have the same and equal knowledge of the workings of the organization
  
• The members understand and have a personal commitment to non-hierarchical structures.

In traditional organizations, inequality is used as an incentive, and therefore an egalitarian structure may be less motivating for some individuals.

[Notice the parallel with competition here. Some might argue that inequality among competitors can be an incentive to improve in the skill being competed for. Whereas, in an egalitarian structure, there is no such inequality. Therefore, without a personal commitment to a non-competitive ideology, promoting it in an adhoc fashion is most likely to fail.]

According to [Mansbridge, 1973] and [Kanter, 1972], a common problem for non-hierarchical groups is that small disagreements tend to expand and involve the whole membership. Group meetings become tediously long, debating matters that are relevant only to a few people. To avoid this observation, the organization needs a barrier to catch the smaller problems before they spread to waste time and cause division.

The primary point in the non-hierarchical model is that there is no unity of command. In a classical system, with only one superior, no member has conflicting instructions. But in the non-hierarchical systems, a member might be asked to follow decisions of several other members, which may be mutually inconsistent. Even though this violates the principle of unity of command, the organization will be able to function very efficiently by mutual discussion.

Members will be able to make voluntary adjustments given they have sufficient communication with each other. To achieve an egalitarian organization we will need to require that every member communicate directly with the exact same number of others. [A simple version of this would be to have one common list and every member communicates with every one else. The rationale behind all this communication requirement is that the requirement of an egalitarian organization is an equal knowledge shared amongst all members.]

Any thoughts? Please write back to vinod.2v@gmail.com

Murder by the government: slow and meticulous

Where then the clean water, air, and earth;
That the government promised to stand for.
Where then the liberty, the equality, the justice;
That the constitution promised to stand for.

What price, the words of a leader,
In today's Nano-Nuclear market!
What price, the lives of a people,
In today's Poor-Toxic Bhopal!

Cry, My Beloved Country!
http://bhopal.net

Moment of Silence -- Emmanuel Ortiz Part 2

A beautiful poem. Again, sans comments....

The wikipedia entry has the following to say...

Moment of Silence is a controversial poem by Emmanuel Ortiz published on September 11, 2002, the first anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks. The poem links the history of colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, the War on Terror, environmental racism, and structural violence to the attacks.

The poem goes on to critique the notion of a moment of silence, perhaps best summed up by the lines: "From somewhere within the pillars of power, you open your mouth to invoke a moment of our silence and we are all left speechless" and "This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written." The majority of the poem serves as a list of historical crimes by the West against indigenous peoples or the Third World and how the structures which perpetuate those crimes slip through the cracks whenever people take a "moment of silence". Essentially, Ortiz believes a moment of silence "cut[s] in line" by failing to acknowledge previous and ongoing forms of structural violence.

A MOMENT OF SILENCE, BEFORE I START THIS POEM

Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon last September 11th.
I would also like to ask you
To offer up a moment of silence
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,
disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the
hands of U.S.-backed Israeli
forces over decades of occupation.
Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
mostly children, who have died of
malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year U.S.
embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of
concrete, steel, earth and skin
And the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people,
not a war - for those who
know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their
relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of
a secret war ... ssssshhhhh....
Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have
piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas
25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found
their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could
poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of
sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...

100 years of silence...
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half
of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand
Creek,
Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the
refrigerator of our consciousness ...

So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be. Not like it always has
been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.
And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa,
1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison,
New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and
Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window
of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the
Penthouses and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all...Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing...For our dead.

EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002.

Here's a link to an mp3 rendering of this poem!

I Wanted to Write an Anti-war Poem -- Emmanuel Ortiz Part 1

Emmanuel Ortiz is a Chicano (native born Mexican), a Puerto Rican, an Irish American.. but foremost an activist and a spoken-word poet. He works with the Minnesota Alliance for the indigenous Zapatistas. I've been reading his poems lately and I'm putting up two of his poems here, sans comments. They are to be read in entirety and given subsequent introspection.

I Wanted to Write an Anti-war Poem, But...

Ever since the war started,
One year ago today,
I have wanted to write an anti-war poem.
For each of the last 365 days
I have been trying to write
To voice my opinion
In opposition to this war.

But nothing has come out.

After five days of watching
And not watching
Bombs fall on Iraq
I thought I had it
When some white boy
During a soccer game
Told me to "go back to Baghdad"
And as my fists found his temples
In retaliation for the bombs that were obliterating theirs
I remember thinking to myself
Amidst the slow-motion home-movie haze
"This will make a great poem"
A poem about
How he mistook
Mesoamerica for Mesopotamia
Borinken for Babylon.
And why Baghdad
Instead of Brasilia, Beijing, Beirut, Bogotá, Bombay,
Even Bi-racialville U.S.A.

I swear I was gonna write a poem about that white boy
About how his words were acts of errorism
Misguided missiles
Missing their marks
Leaving brown bodies burning
Turning soccer fields into battlefields
Turning mosques and marketplaces into burial grounds
I wanted to write that poem
Testimony to our bodies
How they have always been battlefields
And burial grounds.

I wanted to tell that white boy off
In a poem
That said
Go back to Nazi Germany
Go back to Imperialist Britain
Go back to Hollywood
Go back to the Oval Office
Go back across the Mason-Dixie line
Go back to Oklahoma City
Go back to Jasper, Texas
Go back to the suburbs
Go back into every red-white and blue-blooded American home
Crawl back inside the weapon of mass distraction
That is the centerpiece of your living room
Back into the studios of CNN
You can go anywhere you want to, Mr. All-American White Boy
As long as you go
Back
Because where else do you go
When you've reached the top of the world?

Damn, I wanted to write that poem.

But I never did.

Instead
I traveled
Crisscrossing the country
Wrote and read other poems.
I think I wrote a poem for my brother
Who has never seen the island that gave birth to our grandmother
Wrote one for a lover
Who I lost to another
But no poems against war.
I played soccer
And video games
Watched the Super Bowl
Skipped the halftime show
But wrote no poems against the war

But I swear to you
I wanted to
Been meaning to
Write that anti-war poem
Even had deadlines
But then Haiti made headlines
And that war hit close to my ancestral home again
My heart was a hurricane
And I felt a need to start over again
Searching for the right words to say
As a grandchild of Borinken
To the people of neighboring Ayiti
To the heirs of Caonabo and Anacaona
Children of Toussaint L'Overture.

Wanted to write that poem
But there were rallies and meetings to attend
And I needed a new job
One where I wasn't plagued by white liberals
Asking where I come from
And trying to speak Spanish

Wanted to write my anti-war poem
Standing on firm ground
But I'm looking for a place to live
Can't tell you where I will call 'home' in a month
Been questioning where I call home even now

I wanted to write a poem
That meant something
That made a difference
That could stop bullets
Topple empires
A poem that would rebuild marketplaces
Breathe life back into burnt brown bodies
A poem that could cross rivers
With two names
Rio Grande y Bravo
Tigris and Dijla
Euphrates and Furat,
Traversing Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia

I swear
If these wars ever end
The one that rages always over there somewhere
And the one right here in my heart
If these wars ever end
If my brother ever makes it to Puerto Rico
If my lost lover ever comes back to me
If I ever find home
Work with meaning If the war that just wants peace and love
If that war over there
This war right here
If these wars
Ever end
If I can ever find a moment's quiet
Peace of mind
Then maybe
Just maybe
I'll write that poem.

Age of Tranquil Mistrust -- Wodehouse Nugget 2

From Something Fresh (aka, Something New [American edition]) --

Among the compensations of advancing age is a wholesome pessimism, which, though it takes the fine edge off of whatever triumphs may come to us, has the admirable effect of preventing Fate from working off on us any of those gold bricks, coins with strings attached, and unhatched chickens, at which ardent youth snatches with such enthusiasm, to its subsequent disappointment. As we emerge from the twenties we grow into a habit of mind that looks askance at Fate bearing gifts. We miss, perhaps, the occasional prize, but we also avoid leaping light-heartedly into traps.

It must be your fault -- Wodehouse Nugget 1

As a huge fan of P.G.Wodehouse's writing, I figured might as well start a series of quoting interesting Wodehouse-ian nuggets. This one is from Sam the Sudden.

It is a curious fact, and one frequently noted by philosophers, that every woman in this world cherishes within herself a deep-rooted belief, from which nothing can shake her, that the particular man to whom she has plighted her love is to be held personally blameworthy for practically all of the untoward happenings of life. The vapid and unreflective would call these things accidents, but she knows better. If she arrives at a station at five minutes past nine to catch a train that has already left at nine minutes past five, she knows that it is her Henry who is responsible, just as he was responsible the day before for a shower of rain coming on when she was wearing her new hat.

Omar Khayyam, the Rubaiyat and other stories

His name means tent maker. His most renowned book as a mathematician is "Treatise on Demonstration of the Problems of Algebra". He is supposed to have calculated the length of a year as 365.24219858156 days. He was made famous by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859 in a different field.

That was Omar Khayyam, the Persian mathematician, poet, astronomer, and philosopher, of course. Outside of Iran, thanks to Edward Fitzgerald, he's mostly famous for his Rubaiyat. Rubaiyat derives from Rubaiyaas, which derives from the Arabic word for the number 4, meaning a verse with four lines, or a quatrain. The Rubaiyat is a collection of Khayyam's quatrains -- he wrote 1000s of them. One of the more famous ones (Edward Fitzgerald's translation) --

The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Even though Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, Jr. have quoted the above quatrain in their speeches (MLK, in his speech Why I oppose the war in Vietnam says, "It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to come back home. Come home America. Omar Khayyám is right 'The moving finger writes and having writ, moves on.'"), probably Omar Khayyam's biggest contributions are in the fields of mathematics and astronomy. He wrote the Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra. Importantly he generalized the algorithm for solving cubic equations (and some higher power equations). In his book, Omar Khayyam has this to say --

From the Indians one has methods for obtaining square and cube roots, methods which are based on knowledge of individual cases, namely the knowledge of the squares of the nine digits 1², 2², 3² (etc.) and their respective products, i.e. 2 × 3 etc. We have written a treatise on the proof of the validity of those methods and that they satisfy the conditions. In addition we have increased their types, namely in the form of the determination of the fourth, fifth, sixth roots up to any desired degree. No one preceded us in this and those proofs are purely arithmetic, founded on the arithmetic of The Elements (of Euclid).

On the lighter side, an extremely hilarious and interesting take on the theatrical managers of 1920s in Broadway by Wodehouse (from Little Warrior urf Jill the Reckless).

Mr.Goble is a theatrical Manager on Broadway and is putting on a musical comedy written and financed by Mr. Pilkington from England. Wally is an established writer and composer. Mr.Goble has just come to the sets during practice and has cut out a line about a watermelon from the hero's script.

The gentleman who was playing the part of Lord Finchley, an English character actor who specialized in London "nuts," raised his eyebrows, annoyed. Like Mr Pilkington, he had never before come into contact with Mr Goble as stage-director, and, accustomed to the suaver methods of his native land, he was finding the experience trying. He had not yet recovered from the agony of having that water-melon line cut out of his part. It was the only good line, he considered, that he had. Any line that is cut out of an actor's part is always the only good line he has.

"The speech about Omar Khayyam?" he enquired with suppressed irritation.

"I thought that was the way you said it. All wrong! It's Omar of Khayyam."

"I think you will find that Omar Khayyam is the--ah--generally accepted version of the poet's name," said the portrayer of Lord Finchley, adding beneath his breath. "You silly ass!"

"You say Omar of Khayyam," bellowed Mr Goble. "Who's running this show, anyway?"

"Just as you please."

Mr Goble turned to Wally.

"These actors . . ." he began, when Mr Pilkington appeared again at his elbow.

"Mr Goble! Mr Goble!"

"What is it now?"

"Omar Khayyam was a Persian poet. His name was Khayyam."

"That wasn't the way I heard it," said Mr Goble doggedly. "Did you?" he enquired of Wally. "I thought he was born at Khayyam."

"You're probably quite right," said Wally, "but, if so, everybody else has been wrong for a good many years. It's usually supposed that the gentleman's name was Omar Khayyam. Khayyam, Omar J. Born 1050 A.D., educated privately and at Bagdad University. Represented Persia in the Olympic Games of 1072, winning the sitting high-jump and the egg-and-spoon race. The Khayyams were quite a well-known family in Bagdad, and there was a lot of talk when Omar, who was Mrs Khayyam's pet son, took to drink and started writing poetry. They had had it all fixed for him to go into his father's date business."

Mr Goble was impressed. He had a respect for Wally's opinion, for Wally had written "Follow the Girl" and look what a knock-out that had been. He stopped the rehearsal again.

"Go back to that Khayyam speech!" he said, interrupting Lord Finchley in mid-sentence.

The actor whispered a hearty English oath beneath his breath. He had been up late last night, and, in spite of the fair weather, he was feeling a trifle on edge.

"'In the words of Omar of Khayyam' . . ."

Mr Goble clapped his hands.

"Cut that 'of,'" he said. "The show's too long, anyway."

And, having handled a delicate matter in masterly fashion, he leaned back in his chair and chewed the end off another cigar.