Digging for Meaning

Its june 2020 now. its been five and half months since the start of the year. But it feels like decades now. Three months of being anxious and home-bound. Rising covid cases. Migrants dying of govt apathy. Cyclone ravaging parts of country. Police brutality everywhere. The inspirational Black Lives Matter struggles in US. Libya, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen in crisis. Mass unemployment across the world. Economy in tailspin even as stock market zooms up for god knows why. Earthquakes. Mudslides. Oil spill in Russian arctic. Oil well burning uncontrollably in Assam. Wildfires in US, Canada, Russia. Warming planet. Wild life in peril. World being led by idiots like Trump, Bolsonaro, our esteemed great leader. Only countries with women leaders fared better(Germany, NZ). That says something, doesn't it? Trust in authority is waning. news is suspect. facts are questionable. conspiracies lurk around every corner. So misinformation rules and scapegoats get crucified even as the real players conti...

Just read this - ‘I want to help humans genetically modify themselves’ So a guy is obsessed with a certain technology, feels he can be a pioneer to a brave new world and justifies it to himself in bad faith by thinking - " This technology that I’m trying to do is for all of us. Whether you’re a big corporation or somebody in their basement, you have access to this stuff – everybody does. People respond very positively to that." This, I believe is a dangerous belief - that tech can 'level the playing field' in a sense. It never does. Internet was supposed to be the great leveler. And for a while with Yahoo anonymous chat and early days of mushrooming internet cafes, it really did feel that way. But soon enough, the powerful people have turned it into a tool that is more advantageous to their interest at the expense of common people's. Governments use it for surveillance and propaganda. Companies use it to brainwash people into buying things they don't ne...

We, the people, are gullible idiots. C'mon, admit it. We have all been bullied into bad deals by powerful charlatans at some point or another. Governments are no different. The current one is getting away with our personal data and going about distributing our public resources and monies to its favourite cronies.This is no exceptional government. This happens all the time, in all the countries - to varying degrees. The varying part is important. I would much rather be in Norway where the leeway for such giveaways against the interest of public is small, compared to Angola and Nigeria where the oil bonanza instead has become oil curse. One of the important ways for moving towards Norway and away from Nigeria is for the public to become aware and educated about power. Education is a bad word now - what India creates in not educated people, it creates literate minions. By educated, i mean people who can reason, who can think critically, who can see the world from different perspect...

When you look at the history of middle east, you realise one thing - The mess we are in today, is in REACTION to impositions of ideas alien to the natives. For example - 1. King Shah of Iran forced secularism on a people for whom their religiosity was important. The reaction was the cultural revolution that overthrew the monarch and installed in its stead a religious leader at the helm of a nation. 2. Erdogan is turning a secular state into an Islamic state in Turkey with fairly popular support. This is in reaction to Ataturk's imposition of secularism in the first half of 20th century. 3. Saudi Arabia's extremist version of Islam is propelled elsewhere, in part because people feel their religiosity is under threat from western imperialism. And obviously, the Saudi monarchs are well aware of the case of another monarch in Iran being ousted who suppressed religion. So they double down on religious fervour and have weaponised the world view. 4. and ofcourse the whole mess i...

I strongly urge you to read 'The Dictator's handbook'. It is an excellent book to understand how the world works. A lot of things India's PM is doing is textbook strategy to consolidate and maintain power. The book helps us understand him not as a despot (as understood by the left) and messiah (for right), but a power hungry leader who will stop at nothing to consolidate his fiefdom. The beauty of his strategy is in the fact that he has managed to whip up sentiments of masses that allow him to strip them of their rights and wealth, without them even complaining. That is the best kind of shakedown. The point is - it is not about BJP or congress really. Any one in power would do these things to various degrees. What makes BJP more worrisome is its comfort to use hate to divide the people. Besides its sheer incompetence at planning - look at Aadhar, GST rollout for examples. The point is - no matter who is in power, they have to be seen as the one's in po...

I have friends who supports the current majoritarian dispensation in India - the cow-protecting ( killing muslims and scaring poor farmers in the process or as the real motive?), day dreaming (of imagined glories ), women berating (length of skirts and access to phones has again become a topic to deliberate), surveillance instituting ( aadhar is a support to the police state, not to conscientious people), economy breaking ( demonetisation , finance bill, GST mess, deaf to farmer's pleas ) establishment. These friends are film-makers, science educators, bankers etc. And I wonder how these people are supporting a majoritarianism that is killing their own trades, their own careers - Film makers - look what has happened at FTII and with the censor board. Film education is curbed, so is artistic freedom. Censorship is growing to ridiculous levels. It is a direct assault on the very practice of film-making and yet the bhakt film-maker remains blind.   The science educator - So...

Consider these three scenarios 1. A distraught wife - catches cheating husband. Husband outshouts her to the point where she begins questioning her own narrative - maybe she was to blame? She is terrified of ending the relationship. She ' needs to believe that she can trust her husband'. 2. An unemployed graduate who had voted for Modi's promises three years ago - Believed that Modi would usher us in a new world of opportunities and social justice - instead he has remained unemployed and has to prove his nationalist credentials to random hooligans again and again. He  'needs to believe in Modi's acche din promise' .  He is the 'andh bhakt' - the mother of karan and arjun (except for the fact that Karan and Arjun never turn up). 3. Consider a dalit farmer. He 'knows' he is being fleeced by the local strongman/ patil/ landlord... but he can't afford to question him. He is not afforded the freedom to ask questions when the procurement we...

What's the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship? The book says, not much. India, agrees. Current political dispensation especially agrees vigorously. " Soma " of hindutva and past glory + divided impoverished amnesiac masses + legitimised attack on individual rights + tremendous wealth shared among few = brave new world of oligarchical India. Essentially, democracies/ dictatorships etc., are simply variants of the same power dynamic between the ruler, essentials, influentials and inter-changeables .   Interchangeables are the nominal selectorate - the individual voters who have nominal (or cosmetic) power to choose leader - most of us. Influentials  are the real selectorate - the guys who really choose the leader. In US recently, the electoral college famously went against the popular vote and elected a clown as their president instead. In India, theoretically, the system is a bit better in terms of a wider base of influentials - it could be rel...

Ai Weiwei doing what needs doing, even if it is futile Can China exist as a democracy? Is it even possible? If it can't sustain as a democracy, what makes the single party factory-of-the-world system so special to ensure evolution rather than revolutions? Perhaps the ' dictator's handbook' can answer that question better. Today I was listening to the podcast "Intelligence squared", as I do with every evening walk from my office to home. The motion was that democracy perhaps is not suited for China. I thought that debate is preposterous - say that to an Uighur peasant or a miner dying of lung cancer or an indentured labourer at any of the big electronic companies. He/she will tell you the answer. What I was most interested by was the recurring rhetoric about the economic miracle of China, that this kind of economic growth is unprecedented. That it single-handedly brought 70% of world's out-of-poverty transformations. So on the one hand of the deba...

In any relationship, there are only every two possible operating conditions - Trust/ Love Or Power. You need to have either of these two things in a relationship for your own good. If you have neither, its best to walk away if you can. If not, the second best thing is to gather strength to fight for respect.   Ophelia: "incapable of her own distress" Any relationship is either based on trust based cooperation or competition for power. If you are lucky, your life will get entangled with a person who respects you and has your best interest in mind. The second possibility is that the  relationships turn into a game of power - where there are daily skirmishes to gain a leverage between the parties. But both these types of relationships have some sort of balance between the partners. The first is where the presence of love/ trust creates a nurturing atmosphere for both the parties. The second is where there might not be love, but at least there is give and take - some sor...

"Surgical strikes" of Mr. Modi Mr. Modi loves the metaphor of surgical strike - precise, effective, absolute. If surgeries are for flesh-and-bones bodies of living beings, the surgical strikes that Mr. Modi likes to unleash on are bodies of 'terrorism', 'corruption','poverty' etc. In a physical body, a 'surgical strike' can be contained. The target and the weapon is definite and known. The cause-effect are immediately visible. The metaphor loses its meaning when you try to use it on conceptually elastic exchanges such as terrorism and corruption. What I mean by conceptually elastic is - terrorism or corruption are fairly fluid in their meaning and depends on who is defining whom as being a terrorist or corrupt. 'Corruption' or 'Terrorism' is not a thing or a person that we can see, smell, touch. It exists between people as an exchange. Take for example the concept of "Terrorism" State sponsored terrorism is cal...

  21st century Weather report The world is reeling under the hate wave of right wing xenophobia, binaries of ' us v/s them '. The hate wave is projected to continue and expand as people turn their back on ideals of liberty and fraternity which had yielded unequal fruits for the majority in the globalised world of 20th Century. While the globalisation of 20th century opened up the barriers for free flow of money across the world, the flow of people has been artificially impeded creating great pressures at the arbitrary borders. The potential energy arising from the stalled flow is bound to turn into kinetic energy, overpowering the borders - sooner or later. And that possibility of bursting of dam obviously scares people on either side. Uncertain times, Uncertain times. In times of uncertainty, people obviously seek certainty - Certainty of 'walls ' to save their way of life. These hate filled winds have given wings to proponents of wall builders everywher...

How many among us are sure about our 'careers'? Doesn't it seem odd that in modern times, where we think we have answers to most problems, we are most clueless about our selves? Never in the history of human civilisation have we been so privileged to be confused about our 'purpose'. If you look at it from a certain high enough vantage, humanity looks like a drunk colony of ants. tittering around in uncertain directions - bumping into each other, getting lost even when around other people. 20th century would be seen as the time when these infant species won a lottery of hydrocarbons with which it fueled mindless orgy of consumption. 21st century would be the time when the species would be forced to 'grow up': To wake up with a hangover.   In that sense, 21st century humanity is really an 'early growth stage' civilisation. (borrowing from marketing jargon). We are far from maturity as a civilisation. We have no clue what humanity want...

Today, UK decided to leave EU. EU itself has now far more ‘far right’ xenophobic  parties in the European parliament than ever before in its history. On the back of very virulent xenophobia, Trump, otherwise a sideshow freak in the branding/entertainment industry, is now a presidential contender in USA – His promise of the ‘wall’ between mexico and USA garnering him followers among republican US citizens. India recently elected a right wing government with an unprecedented majority – putting majoritarian fictions in the central consciousness of the nation, instead of actual issues that need public debate. From Netherlands to Australia to Nigeria to Philippines… people everywhere are electing xenophobic parties and leaders. Are we collectively getting dumber? Or is their something beneath our collective psyches that needs recognition? The fear of loss of control If the last century was about opening the world with fast rails, conco...

JNU students are not stealing money from public banks. The powerful but immoral business men and their cronies in the nation's bureaucracy are. Beef eaters are not stealing your food; subsidizing for the politicians and driving farmers to kill themselves. The culprit are the flawed policies of the apathetic government shaped in no small measure by lobbying corporate and business-politician nexus. The 'Muslims'/ 'Hindus'/ 'Flying Spaghetti Monster worshippers' are not attacking your dignity as a human being. It is the capitalist power centers who would not let you organise and rise as equals. It perpetuates inequality and dreams of 'making it big', a lottery rigged from the start. The 'Anti-nationals' are only really anti-stupor . They are not endangering your survival. Your existence is being endangered by blind corporates and corrupt bureaucrats who subvert moral responsibilities , and who prioritise profit over human life. Jats/ Dali...

21st century humanity is the century of living in ' bad faith' . And if humanity survives through it, it will only do so by fighting its bad faith. So what exactly is this bad faith that I am talking about? I. What is 'Bad Faith'? Well, it quite simply is the web of lies we build around ourselves to avoid having to make hard choices. Bad faith is when you resist change or you refuse to accept the responsibility of responding to change or initiating change. It is a cocoon made of lies that keeps painful truth outside. It manifests every time we are forced to wade through an uncomfortable or even mildly critical question/ decision. It is a refusal to react/ act. It is a refusal to live consciously. So the next time someone points out your mistake and instead of acknowledging them or trying to understand why those mistakes were being pointed out, you fill your heart and mind with resentment and anger towards the messenger, you  are reacting in bad faith. You are cho...