I will be posting the papers I write for Champlain courses. I am required to maintain the "academic standards" and thus my language in these kind of posts might be dry and boring. But I have really done research for these. So take them seriously.

The India Story

Hrishikesh Choudhari ID#0525248 – COR-240-03

 

There has been a lot of disconnect between different countries. In today’s connected age, when stock traders transfer billions from one country to another within minutes, culture still takes decades to move from country to neighboring country. The social networking sites that proliferate today help us bring together people that think alike; act alike and aspire alike. But what about people who are different? What about those differences in our cultures and behaviors that make us what we are. India has a long tradition of ‘Unity in Diversity’. Such themes are very good in pompous times; when things go bad the animal instinct in everyone takes over and each tribe then protects what it loves. If young people today want to learn and speak about universal love they should also be prepared to lose their nationality as they know it. Love and respect cannot be universal if you describe yourself as an American or Indian or European. For Platonically speaking, if you love America, they you need not love non-American territories.

I shall consider my Exchange Program to go waste if I don’t highlight where we are going, and how we can go there together. I want to talk about four major issues today.

1.       Middle class

India has a burgeoning middle class. While the upper class of rich kings and the bottom layer of poor farmers have always existed, it is the middle class that is pushing India forward. More and more people from the poor classes are joining the middle class to dream the Great Indian Dream; more and more rich people and middle class people are sharing the influence to run the country.

 

2.       Government

India has long been known as colonial territory. Democracy was a gift by the West to India (and to the rest of the world). While there have been many blocs favoring many different ideologies, India is firmly retaining its stand as the largest democracy in the world. Also, I shall highlight how the ‘1991 Vintage’ shall wrest control from ‘Midnight’s Children’ and reshape India. I shall also highlight how ‘true democracy’ functions.

 

3.       Entrepreneurs

India has been on a dream run since the early 90s, and in this section I shall introduce the main players of the Indian industry. These are the people who are putting India on the world map, and are playing an extremely vital role in global politics.

 

4.       India-USA relations

Being a democracy, India is the preferred partner of the US in Asia. Both countries operate on the same principles, but in vastly different ways. The intent of both countries is the same, but the implementation of their intents is different. And we shall see how it is.

 

 

 

An old Arab proverb declares: he who speaks about the future lies even when he tells the truth. No one can predict the future.

 

The Great Indian Middle class.

 

There will always be rich people, and there will always be poor people; but as Aristotle once said, a good society is one where the middle class outnumbers everyone else. India has its share of the super rich that might put even the most flamboyant western billionaires to shame, and India also has a quarter of its people 'living on less than a $1 a day'. We shall soon see how the living standards of this class measure up to their counterparts in America.

 

Much of the clamor about economic reforms has focused on this group. The conventional wisdom is that this middle class is some 300 million strong — larger than the entire domestic market of the United States, say the marketing gurus — and, together with a very rich upper class, has both the purchasing power and the inclinations of the American middle class.

 

Now what does this middle class look like? What are its characteristics, what are its metrics, what are the aspirations and needs and wants and desires of the people who make up this middle class?

 

The most fundamental characteristic of a middle class family is to live a life of sufficiency. Not a life of extravagance, or of starvation. And to reach this sufficiency, the annual income of that family has to be in a certain range. That range is put from Rs. 200,000 to Rs. 900,000. It is in this range of annual income that you will find the vast majority of the middle class. While their incomes would place them below the poverty line in the United States, things are much cheaper in India.

 

This range encompasses workers from traditional factories to IT companies, and professionals practicing diverse professions, and millions of small time traders and merchants. Families having this kind of income can avail of many facilities that are at par with their western counterparts. A family car, a computer, a laptop with internet connection, mid-range mobile phones, eating out on the weekends, movie nights at the local multiplex, and the occasional splurge at the shopping mall – are a few of the facilities that such a family can enjoy. Of course the cost of goods and services produced locally are often extremely cheap as compared to western economies. For example, the monthly grocery bill of a mid-sized family is often equal to what an American teenager might spend on a large pizza. Middle class families are the largest users of public transportation, and all tickets are within the reach of even the poorer sections of society. City buses, suburban buses, metro trains, taxis and auto rickshaws form the total spectrum of public transport available.

 

As the seismic wave of income growth rolls across Indian society, the character of consumption will change dramatically over the next 20 years. A huge shift is underway from spending on necessities such as food and clothing to choice-based spending on categories such as household appliances and restaurants. Households that can afford discretionary consumption will grow from 8 million today to 94 million by 2025.

The weakest area of modern life is that of non-ascribed associations. Professional relations rarely metamorphose into deep friendships and, when they do, are strictly status and gender bound. The average male flees from interaction of even the weakest sort with female colleagues. When family meets family, sex and status are sharp dividing lines. Woe betide the single professional woman (and modern India has many of these and few single men) who tries to establish friendship with a male colleague. She can be tolerated in the corridors of the professional arena, rarely admitted into the sacred portals of the home.

 

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Thomas Friedman said it right - the flattened world can spring competition for existing businesses from any corner of the world. Here I am not talking just about competitive businesses but new, creative and innovative businesses. The knowledge economy, where overheads are low, is a fertile playground for Indian entrepreneurs. The success stories of businesses built on a great idea executed by a talented team have great appeal in India, where access to capital is scarce and regulation has often created barriers to success. I believe India has an extraordinary talent pool with virtually limitless potential to become entrepreneurs.

In some sense people in the Indian entrepreneurial societies are running faster than their rules and laws can keep up. So they are creating the rules as they go along. And entrepreneurship is, after all, doing things in new ways, ahead of social norms and customs, and establishing the rules and laws. These processes are unfolding not just in the mainstream business sector but in society writ large and even in politics and civil society. So what exactly is different about entrepreneurship in America and India?

The extent and type of government involvement and the nature of openness are 2 dimensions in which the countries are different. These dimensions pervade all aspects of societal existence, whether that means raising capital to start a new business, the nature of markets, copyrights, the media, movies, and religion, as well as the ways in which both countries themselves project their power, the way they deal with each other, and the way the village economy works.

In India, some islands of excellence notwithstanding, the government remains inefficient for the most part, and most pockets of entrepreneurship—interesting, vibrant new ways of doing things—are in the private sector or civil society, staying far away from government intervention. So here the private sector leads many significant initiatives; in China, the lead is often provided in a top-down manner.

The Indian Government

There are two distinct voices among India today. One of these voices is a louder voice. It is that of empowered India, an India that has shown the world what it is capable of doing, an India that is educating, an India that is moving forward rapidly. There is another voice in India today. It is a deeper voice and it is reverberating around the country. It is not as loud as the first voice. It is the voice of the disenfranchised people of India. This voice is no different than the people who have done well. These people too have the potential that other people have. They too are hard working and self-reliant and they ask only to be given an opportunity.

Some believe that the progress of these two Indias is not just separable but mutually exclusive. some believe that India can shine only if direct attention and resources to only those Indians that have already soared while ignoring the aspirations of the disempowered. Others believe that the poor can flourish only if we stifle the entrepreneurial spirit of our nation. Our government believes that India’s development is symbiotic and that these two Indias are inseparable. Our philosophy is not to choose as to which India to nurture, but to grow together.

There are two reasons for this view. First, the poverty of our people is an assault on our principles. Freedom from poverty is not a matter of charity or luck. It is a right. I am proud that under the leadership of our prime minister, our government has recognized and institutionalized this idea. The Tribal act, delivers private ownership of land as a right, the Right to Information Act of 2005 delivers information as a right. And the Rehabilitation And Recycling Bill seeks to resettle those who have been displaced. Second, the speed and continuity of our economic growth depends on inclusion. A small resource-rich section of India cannot grow indefinitely, while a vast disempowered nation looks on. If opportunity is limited to a few, our growth will be a fraction of our capability as a nation.

Somewhere in the mass of frustration - understandable frustration - I think we've lost track of a fundamental reality: just how challenging India is to govern. It's not just the size - it's the diversity, along every dimension you choose to name. We're linguistically and culturally more diverse that Europe; our people fit economic profiles that range from feudal-era serfdom through to 21st century technopreneurship; we're ethnically more diverse than the United States. The challenges, consequently, of developing policy and governance mechanisms that are general enough to be relevant across this diverse spectrum - and yet flexible enough to address specific elements within it - are truly immense. And remember that we're trying to do this within the framework of political and economic freedoms that have yet to be paralleled anywhere in Asia (save perhaps post-war Japan) - no short cuts.In short, we are attempting a level of achievement that is frankly rare - historically, and geographically. This is simply because the demands of governance in India are often more complex than they are in many other regions. Of course we've been less than successful in achieving this; we've been striving for a very long time, without always seeming to get anywhere; and we can most certainly do better. But these challenges can't be wished away, and they take time to overcome. Look at the US in the 1900s, over a full century after its founding - was the Tammany Hall Machine representative of the world's greatest democracy? Did Victorian England's economic achievement always translate into better quality of life, for the urban or rural masses? That took a century to sort out too. I'm not making excuses for our truly second-rate politicians. I know the frustration of having to live under them, and of wanting to make a difference in our often sclerotic system (especially if you're young, and want to get cracking!). But I do think we should retain our sense of perspective here, amidst the frustration.

 

 

 

Indo-American Ties

Across a range of measures, Indian public opinion is consistently pro-American. The 2005 Pew Global Attitudes survey found that about seven-in-ten Indians (71%) have a favorable view of the United States. Of the 17 countries polled in the survey, only Americans themselves hold a more favorable view of their country. And while U.S. favorability ratings have plunged in many countries, Indians are significantly more positive about the United States now than they were in the summer of 2002, when 54% gave the U.S. favorable marks.

 

Concluding remarks

The past twenty years have probably seen some of the greatest changes in human history. The biggest shift is that the 88 percent of the world’s populations who live outside the West have stopped being objects of world history and have become subjects. They have decided to take control of their own destinies and not have their destinies determined by Western-dominated global processes and institutions. They believe that the time has come for the West to cease it continuing domination of the globe.

Sadly, despite such a huge shift in history, Western intellectual life continues to be dominated by those who continue to celebrate the supremacy of the West, not by those who say that the time has come for the West to give up its global domination and share the power gracefully. Power is rarely ceded easily. It is perfectly natural to resist any transfer of power. The West will find it difficult. First, there is a near-universal refusal by most Western minds to even acknowledge that the West dominates and controls the world in order to serve Western interests. If you deny you are in power, you cannot cede power. Second, there is an even more deeply held belief in Western minds that Western civilizations represent the apex of human civilization, and that any alternative would portend a new dark age. Any people who believe this must also believe that they have a moral duty to preserve the supremacy of Western civilization. They cannot conceive that a better world could emerge without Western supremacy.

The era of Western domination has run its course, bringing good as well as harm and destruction to human history. It is futile for the 12 percent of the world’s population who live in the West to imagine that they can determine the destinies of the remaining 88 percent, many of whom feel newly energized and empowered. For now, the majority is willing to work with the West. However, if the West tries to continue its domination, a backlash is inevitable.

This is why humankind stands at a critical crossroads of history. So far, the West has refused either to admit its domination of the world or to contemplate sharing power in the New World Order. This is a prescription for eventual disaster. The clash between Western values and Western interests has brought the current administration to its knees. In the short term – that is to say, now – it will produce a progressive delegitimization of Western power, accompanied by a matching cultural backlash. We have entered the turbulent era of de-Westernization.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Alam, Irfan. "A Suitable Business." Economist 18 Dec. 2008. Economist.com. 18 Dec. 2008. Economist. 25 Apr. 2009 .

Currie, Duncan. "The Importance of India." The Daily Standard 15 Jan. 2009. American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. 25 Apr. 2009 .

Das, Gurcharan. "The Respect They Deserve." TIMEasia Magazine 29 Nov. 2004. TIME. 22 Apr. 2009 .

Farell, Diana, and Eric Beinhocker. "Next Big Spenders: India's Middle Class." BusinessWeek 19 May 2007. McKinsey&Company. 28 May 2007. McKinsey Global Institute. 25 Apr. 2009 .

Friedman, Thomas L. The World Is Flat A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Gupta, Rajat. "Creating Indian Entrepreneurs." India Today 12 Feb. 2001. McKinsey&Company. 12 Feb. 2001. 25 Apr. 2009 .

"India: America's indispensable ally." The Christian Science Monitor 11 Mar. 2009. 24 Apr. 2009 .

"India says it will oppose U.S. 'protectionism'" CNN.com/asia 20 Feb. 2009. CNN. 24 Apr. 2009 .

Khanna, Tarun. Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures--and Yours. New York: Harvard Business School P, 2008.

Maney, Kevin. "Indian entrepreneurs increasingly go home to join tech-industry explosion." USATODAY.com. 23 Aug. 2006. USAToday. 24 Apr. 2009 .

Martin, Michael F., and K Alan Kronstadt. India-U.S. Economic and Trade Relations. Rep. no. RL34161. 31 Aug. 2007. Congressional Research Service. 25 Apr. 2009 .

Mitra, Sramana. "The Smartest Unknown Indian Entrepreneur - Forbes.com." Forbes.com - Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News. 22 Feb. 2008. Forbes. 24 Apr. 2009 .

Nilekani, Nandan. Imagining India:The Idea of a Renewed Nation. Penguin P, HC, 2009.

"Pew Global Attitudes Project: India: Pro-America, Pro-Bush." Pew Global Attitudes Project - A series of worldwide public opinion surveys. 28 Feb. 2006. PewResearchCentre. 19 Apr. 2009 .

Radjou, Navi. "Recession-Hit Indian Firms Experiment with New Innovation Strategies." Harvard Business Publishing (2008). HarvardBusiness.org. 7 Nov. 2008. Harvard Business Publishing. 17 Apr. 2009 .

Ray, Bipasha. "The Evolving India-U.S. Strategic Relationship." 20 Oct. 2008. Project on Defense Alternatives. 23 Apr. 2009 .

Robinson, Rowena. "The Great Indian Middle Class." HinduOnNet.com 14 Jan. 2001. The Hindu. 25 Apr. 2009 .

Rothermund, Dietmar. India The Rise of an Asian Giant. New York: Yale UP, 2008.

Tharoor, Shashi. "Who is this middle class." Weblog post. ShashiTharoor.com. 22 May 2005. 25 Apr. 2009 .

US-India Friendship About US India Relations. 24 Apr. 2009 .

Vikram. "Thought's on India's Middle Class." Weblog post. An Academic View of India. 6 Feb. 2009. 25 Apr. 2009 .

 

 

 

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I will be posting the papers I write for Champlain courses. I am required to maintain the "academic standards" and thus my language in these kind of posts might be dry and boring. But I have really done research for these. So take them seriously.

Special Update: I received one of my other assignment entitled "Whats in it for me" after it was graded and my professor made an observation that my writing style is a bit too harsh. He observed that my "tone is angry, perhaps even snide, but I cannot find any evidence in your article supporting your assertions." Well, the article above is supposed to be an opinion piece, and I have not cited, and will probably never be able to cite, any sources in a bibliography. This article just voices my own opinion. And opinions of mere mortals like me may change some time later - Only the fools and the gods dont change. Secondly I want to say something about my writing style. I never try to "make" any of my writings polished. All of the posts here on this blog are the first drafts. In fact all of my essays, project reports, articles, etc that I have ever written till date are the first and only drafts. I write in a "stream of conciousness" fashion. And I never proofread any of them. Also, I wasnt aware till now that my language is angry. Nobody ever told me that. Of course my previous professors called my articles "cold and hard-hitting", but I never drew any conclusions. I am sorry if I had ruffled a few feathers because of that.

The race for being the better one…

Hrishikesh Choudhari.
Champlain College, Burlington, VT, USA.
March, 2009.

Coming from India, which many Westerners still think is a country of snake charmers and naked godmen, I had high respect for American education. I also had high expectations. I study in Champlain in the Software Engineering program. However, on the third day of classes itself I found that the professors are wasting my time. In many classes they were saying anything that I already knew, while in other classes I wouldn’t have any idea of what the professor is talking about. I spoke to my friends here and they too were in the same boat. I decided that I shall do something about it. Being an outsider, I was aware that I would be taken seriously by the authorities. I observed my classmates and my professors – why they were doing whatever they were doing. For two months I kept observing.

The students here don’t like the general studies courses. They think it is a waste of their precious time. They have all the more reasons to dislike these courses because their books are priced much higher than average, and they have to buy multiple books, ranging from 3 to 7. The books often have high literary value, but this is lost on the students.

I understand that the intent of the syllabus formulators must be noble, but the intent should be carried through in the implementation as well. Such courses often help creative people draw on inspiration in their field of work. Often the most overarching works in computers were accomplished by drawing on inspirations and metaphors from other fields. The reason why milestone products such as the Macintosh and the iPod are so intuitive is because their creators were artists - painters, singers, philosophers, dramatists. But they also happened to be the best computer engineers, and their creative influences enabled them to create products that are not just commodities but jewels in the industry. The students should be impressed upon by giving such examples. And it should be done repeatedly. Not only during the orientation sessions. Good professors often highlight this importance during the course of the program, but smart students are generally skeptical whenever a professor gets into “this-is-important-because..” mode. This should be done by some higher authority, or better still, someone from outside the institution.

My other observations led me to find that the teachers in C++ are very hands-on and make sure that each and every student’s queries are answered in the classroom itself. I say this at least with respect to the software professors. We have a code jamming session in every lecture. Code fills our class. During the class, the professor writes a program from scratch, exemplifying whatever concept / chapter we are doing. During this session, all of the syntax, libraries, and minor errors are discussed. The students (or at least myself) gain a full understanding of the concept. What happens at Champlain (and I guess in the whole the United States) is that during the class the professor just elaborates on the esoteric points of the concept, spending time on speaking about the rarest exceptions that occurred in his/her career before he/she became a professor. I just gaze at the professor and have no idea of the underlying concept.

Let me give you an example. Let’s saying I am learning a new language (computer or spoken). The first step should be to teach the alphabet of that language. Then the grammar. Then phrases. Then sentences. However in Champlain, after having breezed over the alphabet, the teacher then jumps to figures of speech, and as a real life example squeezes in Shakespeare’s exquisite work. As an assignment we get to write an essay. How, at the lord’s mercy, are we going to write a whole essay having just learned the alphabet? But we are left to figure it out and complete the assignment.

Maybe I am picking too much here. But I am highly dissatisfied with the way a technical class is being conducted by American professors. Maybe they were taught the same way. But then there isn’t much value coming from the teacher to the student. The real value then comes from the websites we get our answers from. And then, rightfully so, we start to respect that website more than the professor in the classroom. I don’t know if this is due to the cultural differences between the 2 countries (or is it because of my learning habits that are attuned to Indian habits).

At the end of the day, what we see are huge numbers of American students dropping off from American colleges, and the respect for professors declining. In India, either the students don’t make it to engineering colleges, or else become full blown delinquents. This difference in teaching has some sociological consequences too. Due to the Indian teaching pattern, Indian institutes produce a huge load of efficient software engineers. They students know what they are supposed to do, and they do it efficiently. This method has worked out well, and India now has reached critical mass of software engineers available. Maybe that’s why we get them cheap. On the other hand, the American method produces a few geniuses and a big mass of mediocre engineers who cannot compete with the engineers from India. The American geniuses who graduate know how to do new and innovative things. The mass produced Indian engineers know how to implement and maintain those new things. The average American software engineer is left in the dust.

In conclusion, the combination of Indian professors with American curriculum is utopia. Champlain has always tried to be at the cutting edge of education and has prepared the new CORE curriculum. I am taking one course with a legendary professor who also taught for one semester in India. But again, the intent of the formulators is indeed very noble, but this intent is lost on the students. Nowadays students don’t need to know only their books, but also why they are doing those books. Relevance is the key word here. Meritocratic education is the gift that American had given to the rest of the world. It is time the giver keeps up the value of the gift.

We can't afford mediocrity when competing with Indian kids: Obama

20 Mar, 2009 0051hrs IST IANS

WASHINGTON: "We can't afford our kids to be mediocre at a time when they're competing against kids in China and kids in India," US President Barack Obama has said. 


Interacting with local residents at California's Costa Mesa town hall Wednesday, Obama said, "It can't just be a single high-stakes standardized test — but we do need to have strong, powerful measures of performance, because schools are like anything else." 


"We can't afford our kids to be mediocre at a time when they're competing against kids in China and kids in India who are actually in school about a month longer than our kids. So, there's a whole bunch of reforms that we're going to have to do," Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying. 


He exhorted American parents not to put "all the burden on a teacher". 


"If you're not making sure your child does his homework, if you're not reading to them, instilling a sense of excellence and a thirst for knowledge in them, then they're not going to do very well, no matter how good your teacher is. Okay, so that's very important," he said. 


Referring to the AIG bonuses, Obama said: "I know a lot of you are outraged about this. I'm outraged, too. It's hard to understand that a company that is relying on extraordinary assistance from taxpayers to keep its doors open would be paying anyone lavish bonuses. It goes against our most basic sense of what is fair and what is right. It offends our values." 


He went on to say that these bonuses, "outrageous as they are", are a symptom of a much larger problem. 


"And that is the system and culture that made them possible - a culture where people made enormous sums for taking irresponsible risks that have now put the whole economy at risk. So we are going to do everything we can to deal with these specific bonuses." 

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I will be posting the papers I write for Champlain courses. I am required to maintain the "academic standards" and thus my language in these kind of posts might be dry and boring. But I have really done research for these. So take them seriously.

“Plato has segregated the citizens of the Republic into 3 rigid groups. Do you think this hierarchical society can be successful if it came into existence? Evaluate the drawbacks and the benefits of such a government. Which type of government do you think would ensure contentment and happiness to all strata of society -- Democracy? Monarchy? Communism? State your views explicitly.”

Plato divided his kallipolis into three classes – namely the producers, the guardians and the rulers. Plato was adamant not to provide any social mobility in his kallipolis. When interrupted by Adeimantus that the most powerful people in his city were to lead an almost ascetic lifestyle, and the manual laborers were allowed more freedom to carve out their own social habits, Plato hit out by saying that his aim was to make the whole city happy, not just one section of the population. If just one section were bestowed too much freedom and wealth, it would create discontent among the rest, and spite among the rich.

Plato was of the opinion that if we make something so beautiful that it doesn’t seem what it was supposed to seem, then it is a lost effort. If the farmers and craftsmen lolled around in heaps of gold, Plato said, and ignored their craft, then that wouldn’t harm the city much. However, if the guardians themselves regaled and celebrated, then the city would be open to attack – from the neighboring cities from the outside, and the brewing discontent from the inside. They wouldn’t remain ‘just’ rulers. Plato said that the teachers of the guardians will persuade them and condition them in such a way that the guardians would willingly set aside material wealth and embrace their duty with their body and soul.

Such a situation is portrayed beautifully in Peter Jackson’s movie – ‘The Lord of the Rings’ – the movie about the mythological Middle Earth. While the citizens rejoice after defeating the enemy in a major battle, the rulers still continue to anticipate the Dark Lord’s last attempt to vanquish the Humans. A similar scene was shown in ‘Titanic’; the passengers aboard continue their drinks and dance – while the ships officers fight for time for the sinking ship.

Plato further says that the profession of a son must the same as that of his father. The bloodline of the guardians must be preserved. Only the descendants of a king shall be the rulers, only the descendants of the courtiers shall enjoy the nobility and the sons of farmers would continue toiling in the sun. This would enrage any twenty-first century libertarian human rights activist. Such restricted social mobility is often frowned upon in our times. We all want to go to America, where anyone can become rich – where anyone and everyone can build up a fortune based upon his own talent, ability and resourcefulness. For those who do not think internationally (or are patriotic), Mumbai is their City of Dreams. A place where a suburban boy could become big in Bollywood, where an illiterate young man could build a business empire. This is dream is shown perfectly in the movie Bunty Aur Babli, where the highly ambitious Bunty wants to leave his sleepy town of Fursatganj and come to Bambai, because this is the city which rewarded the Tatas, the Birlas and the Ambanis. Plato would certainly not have approved of Mumbai, New York and London.

Ok, now let us consider the above three cities. Mumbai is the nerve centre of the world’s largest democracy. New York is supposed to be the world’s financial capital, while London is the last remaining civilized place in the world. Mumbai is housed in a democracy; NY is under the federal government while London used to be under a monarchy. The reason these cities are the nerve centers is that these cities absorbed everybody. These cities are pursued by the ambitious because these are the places where one can smell, taste and touch success. To live (or exist) in such shimmering places is regarded by many as their only goal in life. Why? Because it allows mobility. Never will a young person will dream of making a career in Beijing or Sao Paolo or South Africa or the Middle East. Unless that career is in drugs or guns. The public in these places is never allowed to live free. To make a fortune in such cities will require extremely powerful connections in the right places. No one from a middle class background would want to go there. The cities which boast of a track record of rising billionaires will attract more aspiring billionaires. The cities which are doused in blood and gun powder will attract the scavengers.

This sets the record of classifying the citizens straight. If a city may follow Plato’s blueprint of the kallipolis may find itself embroiled in constant revolts. The peasants, after having tasted wealth, would want more, and rob the merchants. The merchants, having gained money, would now want power. The guardians, if all too powerful, may impose tyrannical rule over the city. While it is possible to condition and program the minds of the guardians to stay away from all vices, the chain of the bloodline rulers will always have a weak link. Once the barter system was done away with, and currency was recognized as value, everyone would want to have a piece larger than one gets.

The British monarchy understood this long before. Having faced a couple of revolts, the rulers came to realize that sharing the power with the citizens will quell the uprisings. This gave rise to the representational form of government, which is now being used almost globally. The citizens were satisfied. The rulers were allowed the right to the Title. And the armed forces were controlled by the representatives of the masses. The monarchy was transformed into a democracy. Everything seemed to be rosy. Or so it seemed.

The scenes behind the curtains hid the maneuvers of the rulers. Even though they no longer pass laws, they have an inordinate amount of influence over the ones who do. Those who once beseeched the kings now are lobbyists, playing for their clients, and getting the laws and judgments passed in their favor. In India too, those who once owned the lands as kings in olden times now own the same lands through corporations. Democracy is just a façade put up on autocracy. And it is a beautiful façade too.

The voting public believes it has voted for the best man for the job. Yet they fail to realize that they have voted for the one who has marketed himself well to the public. They fail to realize that the best man might not even have contested for the elections and follow the herd, where the herder is a ruler in disguise. Those who do contest are photogenic people with ‘charmth and warmth’ and have good rhetoric skills. These are not required of a ruler…they are required for an actor. Yet, these politicians all over the world do put up a good drama, as they dance to the tunes of the same bloodlines, which once used to seat in the royal throne, but is now in the CEO’s chair, behind a corporation.

There are many reasons why democracy is loved all over the world. The most important selling points of democracy is the promise of better life, and illusion of a share in the administration. These may not be achieved by a person outright. If the person fails to find what he wants, then democracy sells Hope too. Never to lose hope is what our wise old men have taught us. Having been unable to uncover the sham of the government themselves, they forward it to us in the category of ‘values and culture and tradition’. Secondly, since everyone is entitled to have a say in the administration, confusion and chaos soon engulfs the parliament halls, and the powerful among us strike at the right moment to have their way. Free mass media, one of the crown jewels of democracy, is measure of the public memory. The mass media decides what the public should listen to, what should be the headlines, and what should be mentioned in the sidelines. The mass media is one of the most powerful weapons in the autocratic rulers’ arsenal. Only that they wield it subtly.

Democracy is a necessity based on an idea of a ‘social contract’. People want to be free, but too much freedom can be dangerous. Hence, we surrender a few of our liberties in exchange for curtailing others’ freedom and for our own protection. Government, and by consequence, democracy is a form of social restriction. It makes no sense to say “I love democracy” and “I love freedom” in the same breath.

Communism, as described by Karl Marx, seems an ideal concept. Communism, as put into practice in the USSR and China, is a form of government totalitarianism that has led to brutalizing the populace. While Nazis and communists are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, they use the same means to achieve their goals. India is a nation born from revolution against authority. It was founded on the ideal that ultimate power rests in the hands of its citizens. Communism dismisses this individual empowerment as ‘greed’, and assigns power to the State, commonly called the ‘collective’.

While democracy and brings in capitalism into a country, communism wants to abolish that capitalism and the competition that comes with it. So now democracy wants to remove communism from its country, but it can’t. Because a bunch of intellectuals and puppeteers just go on squabbling. Up comes a ruler, known as Hitler, and creates fascism (which promotes the genetic advantage in its propaganda), which hates communism. So capitalism and fascism together hate communism and they have war. Then fascists kill many people – and the world is afraid. So here comes democracy to the rescue again.

After having gone through all these ‘-isms’, I think that a conclusion can be reached - All form of government was designed to ‘control’ the disasters that crazy people could do. No government was ever designed to keep people happy.

Now we come to the final question – which is the better one? The indecisive among us might want a cocktail of all the three. They might try to take the good of each and leave out the bad of each form of governance. Big mistake. Nehru decided to make a mishmash of things, and create the Indian constitution from capitalism and socialism (i.e. communism) combined. This decision, taken with a personal bias, doomed India to almost forty years of economic struggle.

All forms of government were raised from personal ambitions. The young men of old times, in quest for power decided to organize things a bit. They had set their sharp eyes on the pinnacle of power and ultimate control. They got it. But once they got there, they got lonely at the top, and their vision blurred, and they faltered to keep their government alive. This is the usual power cycle.

What I would personally like, though, is the creation of a soft power. A government like water. If the government is too lethargic to set trends, then at least it should follow the trend. A country like France has always enjoyed respect across the globe. But it doesn’t figure anywhere at the top of many lists. It doesn’t have the largest military spending, it doesn’t have the best educational institutions, it doesn’t have the best geographical boundaries, nor is it an economic superpower in the literal sense. Yet, it is admired by everyone. The terrorists too, do not take it seriously. France is treading a very fine path. France has welcomed the capitalists into its fold. The renaissance artists, the cultists, the ones who want to enjoy life – all find a “Welcome” mat in France. That’s what governments should work like.

This one was written in Feb 2008. And holy cow I scored a hundred. All I spent was around 3.5 to 4 hours writing this paper at 2 in the night on some Saturday. Aarti Ma'am gave me a glowing statement which pumped me up - "Never have I given 100 to any philo assgnmnt. ButI cant give you even one mark less. Brilliantly written and thought about, You are an assett to my class, Keep it up." But then on this day, I grasped the Zen concept of disconnectedness. Did my thought change before or after this comment by my teacher. Should there be any connection between the Rishi of yesterday and the Rishi of tomorrow?

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I will be posting the papers I write for Champlain courses. I am required to maintain the "academic standards" and thus my language in these kind of posts might be dry and boring. But I have really done research for these. So take them seriously.

“Elucidate Glaucon's views on the common man's views on justice. Compare the life of a just and honest historical personality with that of an unjust one. Explain your views with the aid of one or more examples from world history. Who do you think leads a better life?”

Glaucon was Plato’s younger brother. In Plato’s The Republic, Plato portrays Glaucon as the youth of the times. His character was painted such that he personified the pragmatic , smug and self-opiniated youth.

Glaucon was of the opinion that “to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice is naturally bad.” People, naturally, want to behave in a selfish and self-indulgent way all the time, even at the sufferings of other poor souls. They do not want the sufferers to get back at them, because being at the receiving end of injustice is absolutely unacceptable to them (to all, in fact). Thus, both the parties arrive at an agreement whereby both neither do injustice nor suffer it. This is a sort of compromise. People do not want to live with this compromise, but neither do they want others to get full power of performing injustice.

This brings us to Glaucon’s next point. He says that “those who practice justice do it unwillingly and because they lack the power to do injustice.” This is the most exotic conclusion, I thought, any philosopher could have ever reached. However, on closer inspection, it seems perfectly true. We mere mortals do not possess the power to do whatever our psyche tells us. We are afraid of our parents, our friends, the social authorities, the law of the land. Well, there are psychotics who are not bothered by any of the above. So, society developed an omnipresent guardian – god – to watch over all wrongdoers. When little children go to school, they are given text books full of moralistic stories. I remember a story in which a group of kids go on to steal cookies from a neighbor’s kitchen, and the boy who was keeping a watch cried out. When he was asked by the kids the reason, he said sagely that “God was watching.” In that particular situation, the kids had complete power to steal – there was no one watching. Yet, one child, programmed by his authorities not to do such things because a powerful source is always watching, played spoilsport. But this case has a caveat. If god was the ever powerful being, then what about the atheists? Would they be free to do anything? Well, the vanguards of society found an answer to that also. They created a phantom object – the conscience. If god won’t bother you, then your conscience definitely will. All of these are efforts to undermine the wild imagination of humans, and to make them follow the path of justice.

Then those who follow the just path also run the risk of ridicule. If one is presented with an opportunity to further one’s cause, and if that person passes it up in order to follow the just path, then that person will become the object of public ridicule. The crowds will regard him as a coward. The best example is of a student from my class. He gives the most politically correct answer to the questions asked in class. Once, when another student gave him a hundred rupee note and told him to do the ‘most just act’ he could do, he simply returned that note to the owner. His contention was that giving a lost property to its rightful owner is the most just thing to do. Needless to say, he became the number one bumpkin of our class. He raised the bar for stupidity. However, I asked him later, that if he found a hundred rupee note somewhere and no one’s watching, then what will he do with it? How will he find its ‘rightful owner’? He was silent this time.

This brings in to focus Glaucon’s third point. “No one believes justice to be a good when it is kept private.” The student in question might have put up a great show of fair play when presented with money in public, but the question is, will he display the same equitableness when faced with a similar situation alone. The Page 3 socialites who adopt different NGOs do it to gain mileage with the press. Why do they require the camera to do some good? After the public eye is closed, the same ‘socially responsible citizens’ turn in to anti social elements while they drink and drive and mow down laborers. One good example that I can give is of the founder of Infosys Ltd., Mr. Narayan Murthy. His wife has set up the Infosys Foundation, a trust for the underprivileged. Now Mr. Murthy goes and donates two and a half million rupees (that’s 0.06 million dollars) to the Foundation. The media is there to give coverage to the event, the flashes his face on the front pages, calling him the most socially responsible entrepreneur. However, they remain ignorant of the fact that the Foundation is just a ‘money park’, a tax shelter. The same Foundation provides housing to the servants who work at the homes of high level Infosys executives. This way, the only beneficiaries are the Infosys executives, who don’t have to pay for their servants’ housing.

This is all wish-wash. We have had instances of entrepreneurs who have given away whole estates worth more than a hundred million to the local constituency, and even then remain anonymous. There is the British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson who is giving away more that two billion dollars annually for developing alternative jet fuel. And he is doing that even though he is the chairman of the Virgin Atlantic Airways. Nobody asked him to do it. He did this of his own volition. Now that’s what I call justice. Or magnanimity if you want.

This emphasizes the fact that Glaucon says – “People do not want to be just but want to be believed to be just.” History is rife with examples of poor farmers and dainty princesses living a life of hell, and of headstrong generals and crafty courtiers living in pure bliss. The just person is always the one to bear the brunt of any negative situation. The scheming ones will slip away by using their persuasive skills or high contacts and leave the just and honest ones to take full blow of the axe. The public at large pity the just and honest ones, but do not want such a life for themselves. Yet, they strive to be just and principled and delude themselves that they are always just. They want everyone only to believe that they are just. Who wants to live a life of hardship and blight? And even then, that belief is also a delusion.

We always equate hardship with justice. The difficult path is always the correct path. The road of vice begins beside you; while the road of virtue is across the mountain. Why is it that the just way of living of always less colorful. Why do we say that the just will get to sit beside god, while the evildoers will burn in hell. Who has seen it happen? Isn’t god one of our own creations? Why is it always necessary to be poor and live an ascetic life if you have to be just and honest and enlightened? Why is the way to get a billion dollars always an unjust path? Why aren’t the just and honest people the richest and the most powerful on this planet? Why is simple and just living so revered if it is so hard? Why do we follow the ‘correct’ path unwillingly if we almost always follow the wrong path? Why don’t we just interchange the labels of these paths?

The answers to these questions (may) lie in cultural programming. The way we are brought up and the stories we hear from our elders at a young and impressionable age conditions us to believe so. It is our elders who have glorified the just and the honest. But we need not take their word for granted. We can think on our own, don’t we? We need not subscribe to the dogma and sham put up by society. It is completely okay if we live by the work hard and party harder mantra.

I personally believe that Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison did more good than Gandhi and Socrates and Karl Marx and other philosophers and religious gurus put together. Gandhi, to those who know him closely, understand him as a stubborn child who never grew up. Most of the other religious gurus and philosophers led very uninteresting lives. Maybe the people around them did not understand them at while they were alive. I think Socrates became ‘Socrates’ just because he gave up his life to stand by his ‘ideals’. And he was glorified to no end by the historians. But the two other examples – Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison – led legendary lives; in fact, Steve Jobs is leading a legendary life. But by all means they were not just, nor were they honest in all of their transactions. I think greatness in this life is much much more desirable than greatness in heaven (or the next life, if there is one).

Going by the definitions of a just person given by Socrates, a just and honest person should not do anything for honor and glory. Thus, if he ever achieves fame, without his/her volition, only then can that person be said to have led a successful and just life. So, the people who come to my mind who fit the bill are Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. There may be many more about whom I am ignorant. And I have purposely left out religious leaders out of this. And the people who led an unjust and successful life that come to my mind are Dhirubhai Ambani and Robert Mugabe. Now let us analyze why I have categorized them as such.

First the ‘unjust’ ones. Dhirubhai Ambani was a man of tremendous ambition and energy. He was born in a poor family. He did not want to remain poor. He used all means to increase his wealth. However, he often left corruption and low work ethics in his wake. By hook or by crook, he achieved his end. He enjoyed tremendous wealth in his lifetime. He had antagonized many; and he had made millionaires out of many.

Next is Robert Mugabe – the current President of Zimbabwe. Born to a carpenter, he rose rapidly through the ranks of the international intelligence agency KGB while getting eight degrees from the University of South Africa. He arranged massive coups to take over from the previous rulers of Zimbabwe. His Presidency comes at the cost of twenty thousand innocent lives which were massacred by his underground troops. He even ordered mass murders in 1983. Yet, now the country is having a GDP growth rate of twenty six percent year-on-year. This progress indicates that though Mugabe’s rise was marked by violence, his stay will be marked by hyper growth.

Now, let us have a look at the ‘just’ category. While Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, was a strong opponent of apartheid, he became a symbol of freedom and equality. He has been presented with more than four hundred awards, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize of 1993. Mother Teresa needs no introduction. She is the most respected, most loved person on this whole planet. It is said that when Mother speaks, the whole world listens. Even though she is no more now, the world’s respect to her has not faded an iota.

Now, what we understand from these four lives is that we need to live life on the extremes if we ever have to become successful. Either be totally unjust, have no regrets about doing unethical activities and just ram your way through to achieve your end; or be the most loving and principled person known. We need to attain biblical proportions in our behavior – we are either completely just or completely unjust. There is no room for mediocrity.

I wrote this probably in mid-January 2008 for PHI 210. I got 95 for this one. My teacher, Mrs. Aarti Walia, really appreciated my work. She complimented me by writing - "That was impressive. You couldnt have written better." Thats all I needed to get more into this philostuff.

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