The Importance of Being Jain

This article is written for the alumni of SP Jain institute of Management, the group I am a part of.

The title mimics the brilliant play by Oscar Wilde and I am amused at the strange and unforgiving recurring patterns of history. In the year 2005 there were a spate of mails that had polarised the alumni group about the decision to globalize SP Jain institute (apart from an appointment of a director who was anyway out within a year) with several members commending and others including myself condemning the same. It was not globalisation that was on contest, however though that was the ostensible reason which made some of us look like Luddites opposing the inexorable march of global capitalism (forget the occupy protesters). It was the curious case of the Jains trying to buy back what they considered as truly Jain i.e the brand name. Let me clarify. That global brand dream has soured. The decision to go global at SP Jain was being questioned not because globalisation was bad but because there seemed too much at stake in diluting the brand, intersecting dissimilar governance systems between a profit and a non profit organisation, a larger than needed proportion of the Jain family members on the governing council and likelihood of uneven standards especially in admission despite the inadequate strength of core faculty being spread like peanut butter or rather salt from Dharangadhra Chemical Works of the Jain business lines.

The Hedgehog and The Fox

The Hedgehog and the Fox


A Srinivas Rao
23 October 2011

“The fox knows a great many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing” wrote Archilocus a Greek poet, making scholars down the centuries scramble to decipher those dark words. Probably all he meant was that the hedgehog’s single great defence was better than the varied wiles of the fox. It was the polymath Isiah Berlin who gave a plausible interpretation to them. Berlin believed that scholars and thinkers and human kind in general are divided on a deep chasm of contesting visions. On the one hand are those who hold a central vision, one system, and one single organising principle in terms of which all they say and think revolve around, more or less coherent and on the other hand lay those who pursue a diversity of ends often unrelated and disparate, connected only fleetingly, unrelated to any moral or aesthetic purpose. Berlin’s essay was really about dividing writers into two camps; on the one hand were the hedgehogs Plato, Proust, Hegel, Dante, Dostoyevsky, Ibsen and on the other were the foxes Aristotle, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Joyce etc. Berlin’s concern was where to place the complex figure of Tolstoy who he concludes was probably a fox who tried to be a hedgehog.

A Brief History of Disbelief in India

A Brief History of Disbelief in India


A Srinivas Rao
1st October 2011

Recently I watched Jonathan Miller’s presentation of his television series on Atheism a History of Disbelief on the BBC and was quite impressed by the programme while being rather disappointed by Richard Dawkins ‘Root of All Evil’ another serial on atheism on the same channel. It was not just that disbelief tends to verge on the polemical as was the case with Richard Dawkins (who seemed to claim that religion by corollary was incapable of any good), but that it tends to be as fanatical in its dismissal as the assertions of centuries and legions of theists. Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins over the last decade by adopting their polemical stances seem more antitheists than atheists. It is not in the content and assertions of indefensible beliefs that the understanding of atheism comes from. They come from the motivations deep within the human breast, of the need to make sense of the great uncertainties of life which are death disease and decrepitude. Anthropologists have maintained that the origins of belief lie in random interventions of unseen beings or forces that are pliable to mischief, placation and propitiation; not in the contesting portrayals of monotheistic patriarchal (and senescent) deity who intervenes in the trajectories of our lives. These rather early hypotheses that uncertainty in our daily lives are caused by extra empirical forces/beings/agency and that they can be mitigated by placating them is the beginning of science and religion. They no longer are scientifically valid but belong to the realm of myth which is a domain of early attempts to model the workings of the world and its diverse inhabitants. They were in other words ‘working hypotheses’. Neither can we dismiss belief altogether as it is not belief but the content of them which is subject to interrogation. We cannot survive without belief which is shorthand of our mental models of our ethical and political assumptions that underscore our social behaviour. It is only certain kinds of beliefs that are beyond the pale of our modern faith in empiricism that are held suspect, as they suffer from their un-verifiability by independent inquirers; whose converse is the touchstone of thinking in our times.

The Tyranny of Virtue

Democracy is the bludgeoning of the people, by the people and for the people remarked Oscar Wilde. Nothing else captures our present times as well. I also wonder whether the truth as the Buddha sought is in the middle path, to avoid a dangerous polarisation of ideology and practice. For the extremity in virtue is often as tyrannical as the naked wielding of coercive power. Over time we begin to believe what was merely a rhetorical device as part of the dogma of being different and then suffer the same hubris, though born of our rival claims to virtue. The Anna Hazare phenomenon seems to strain between form and content. Often most seem to forget that the form of protest substitutes for our responsibility to examine content of the Lokpal bill in context of existing and proposed legislation; more so the likelihood of creating a short circuit to formal legislative process by civil society. (However ironically the real problem was that it was started by the government when they started the National Advisory Council as civil society with no representation from the  opposition and based on an in-transparent selection.)

Sheje Amar Janmabhoomi

A Srinivas Rao

I was surprised when someone I know was wishing others the national day of his adopted country, a state which is also unfairly sometimes called a ‘nanny state’. It was not the incongruity but the intriguing idea of solidarity and loyalties (however divided) to the lands of our adoption. The lands in question are not merely those of geography but mental worlds. “We Are All Palestinians” was the emblazoned lettering on the Tee shirt that one day flashed across the street, provoking me to wonder whether that was true. Palestine to the author of this shirt sleeve slogan was more than a nation without a state. Palestine is a ‘state’ of exile. Maybe we are all Diaspora, exiled in varied ways from what we imagine as ‘home’. In other words, is ‘home’ an imagining of a golden childhood, inaccessible except through longing, a nostalgic hankering for the “holy grail”? Just like the saccharine refrain of Dwijendralal Roy’s song “Amar Janmobhoomi” a mere fictitious idyll. Are our loyalties really divided between our native lands and the places of our adoption (and our freshly minted citizenships markers to a yearned difference in our self identities and descriptions and demonstrated by declamations of loyalties)?

Vanaprastham: Retirement and Institutional Imagination in Hindu Thought

A. Srinivas Rao
20th July 2011

This article has been written for a dear friend of mine with whom I had spent many hours during my graduation years at engineering college discussing various ideas and whom I admire much (who recently got in touch). He is now a Swamiji at a well known ashram and editing a Gujarati magazine on spirituality. He was lamenting the loss of the institution of the vanaprastha in modern times where retired couples spent time in quiet contemplation and in preparation for the next ashrama the sannyasa, not to mention the mahaprasthaana or final journey. He suggested that I write something about it. I am not sure I sufficiently understand or appreciate the idea but thought I shall write this for him. I believe that institutions evolve with the nature of society but we often hearken to ideas of antiquity with nostalgia and possibly saddle them with ill fitting modern demands.

There are three ideas of Indian antiquity that seem inextricably intertwined in our thinking and form a troublesome formulation. The idea of varna or caste, ashrama or stage of life and purushartha or goals of human striving. The three ideas did not spring forth full blown like the four castes out of the Purusha or Supreme Being as the poem Purusha Sukta of the Rik Veda suggests. But like the Purusha Sukta itself which was a later interpolation into the Rik Veda, these ideas had evolved as a response to a challenge to the Brahmin orthodoxy by the Shramanic thinking like Buddhism, Jainism and also Sankhya. We shall not get into the caste or varna system which is complex and controversial but bear in mind that the ashrama system and the purusharthas were considered appropriate only for those elect of the dvijas or twice born (regardless of the allegorical veneer modern apologists have sought to apply). In other words those who were not twice born were not expected to seriously reflect on the aims or stages of life. Let us therefore set aside the varna system and look at the other two in some detail to place the “vanaprastha” in context.

The seemingly monolithic and elegant constructions of both these ideas of purushartha and ashrama need to be examined closely before we can comment about Vanaprastha. There are according to Hindu thought four goals whose pursuit occupy our lives viz. Dharma or the pursuit of the ‘Good’ in terms of a just ‘order’’, Artha or pursuit of prosperity and power, Kama or the pursuit of desire and their objects, and finally Moksha or the pursuit of liberation. While seemingly an elegant and innocuous formulation it must be remembered that originally there were only two such goals, Kama and Artha. This seemed like a descriptive order of kama desire being the prime mover of human action and artha or the instrumentality for fulfillment, providing the resources. In its formulation, Kama also encompassed desire for apart from sensory objects the “good”, for knowledge, virtue and also liberation; artha encompassed wealth and power as well as effort and capabilities. It seems that the other two non material goals that are added at the beginning and the end to bracket the first two were added in response to Buddhism in particular and Shramana traditions in general. With such a bracketing the descriptive order (what is) becomes normative (what should). Thus the purusharthas became from what are to what ought to be the aims of human endeavor.

Overreach

A. Srinivas Rao

Icarus in Greek mythology was given a pair of wings by his father the first great engineer Daedalus in attempting to simulate flight. Daedalus also put on his pair of wings and they began with level flight off a cliff on the Agean coast. Daeldalus however cautioned Icarus not to soar too high as his wings were designed only for a limited range. Iracus despite the warning tries to reach for the sun which melts his waxen wings and hurtles to his death. Our abilities and our equipment enable us to perform some of our tasks very well and meet their limitations beyond a certain point. Often success in one field or enterprise is no guarantee of a midas touch elsewhere.

Overreach was a term used when a horse struck his front hoof with the back hoof. It also means trying to defeat one’s own self by trying to do too much. Now you have all kinds of overreaches these days. This is the flavour of the season. Overreach is a kind of boundary bashing (across functions, domains, areas, geographies, disciplines) and claiming competence in another person’s area of work and then actually believing what you say. Earlier in organisations, bosses used to overreach the levels to pull up people and get work done; just that the guys who were responsible stopped after a while as they believed that they had no authority. Likewise judicial over reach, the civil society overreach etc. It is the subversion of institutional mechanisms, not by intelligent and participative dialogue to examine the problem and work through a solution. It is when we believe that we can reform the system from the ‘outside’ and not respect constitutional mechanisms and cavalierly ignore all caution. It is what the NAC does, it is what the so-called civil society does, and it is what Ramdevji does. But then this is also the age of impatience where we think that to do anything we must have “dus ka dum”.

Jai Babaji -A Satire

"The characters in this satire are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This is especially so if you are sensitive to matters of religion and faith.”

A. Srinivas Rao

Jai, Babajiki. He is not just India's answer to Superman he is the avatar purush who is going to bring back the sone ki chidiya which has left the shores of our subcontinent because of climate change (global warming you know….of course some say it is lying in some Swiss locker deep inside the Matterhorn or Mt Titlis where the Gandhi family had secured it for posterity but that’s a conspiracy theory- you don’t credit that family with such foresight). After all this Babaji maybe an avatar of Rishi Patanjali, (who according to some was the avatar of some primeval serpent the Sheshanag) who will destroy the demon of corruption a Brashtasura who has kept India behind in all development indices and usher in the Treta Yug (golden age of Ram).

History and Identity: Some Vignettes from Africa

History and Identity : Some Vignettes from Africa


A. Srinivas Rao
31st May 2011

It was a searingly hot afternoon in 1992, in the village of Pupu somewhere in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe; as the local orderly from the Ndebele people and a member of ZAPA (Zimbabwe African People’s Union) scanned the site for the ancient ritual the Umbiyiso to be held that night under the starry awning. It was to be “Heroes day” the next day. The Mugabe government was suspicious of this spirit ancestors’ ceremony and the switching of the loyalties of the Ndebele people. Mugabe never liked the ZAPA and he had achieved notoriety by killing several of their members. Many of the non-Ndebele people of Pupu were unhappy that their nationalist struggle would be credited to Lobengula, last king of the Ndebele. The evening falls langrously, the ceremony commences and the Svikiro or medium is beginning to feel the heady punch of the local brew rapoko beer. Several beer pots dot the end of the hut, on the ceremonial table is a plate of snuff and another one of ground maize and meat (sadza nenyama) and beer that has been offered to the ancestor spirits of the realm of Amadlozi. The gathering chant “woz ekhaya”…'come come' and pour small pots of beer on the head of an ox inkomo yamadlozi. There is a silence as the medium grunted and fretted and declared his identity. The non-Ndebele seemed relieved that he was an ancient spirit Rozwi mambo a ruler of the local people even before the Ndebele. The medium then exhorted the gathering to seek to recognize the older past and heal the wounds of the violence before he broke into incoherence. It was an order to transcribe their history.

Ram Rajya and Organisational Leadership: Origins and Pathologies

A Srinivas Rao

Ram Rajya Baithe Trailoka
Harshit Bhaye Gaye Sab Shoka
Daihik Daivik bhautik Tapa
Ram Rajya Nahin Kahuhin Vyapa
Bayar Na Kar Kahu San Koi
Ram Pratap Vishamata Khoi
Nahin Daridra, Koi Dukhi Na Deena
Nahin Koi Abudha Na Lakshan Heena
Alpa Mratyu Nahi Kavaneu Peera
Sab Sunder Sab Viruj Sareera.

“When Ram Rajya was established in the three worlds, all were enveloped by happiness and sorrow disappeared. None were afflicted by pain, material, physical, and psychological, and enmity vanished. Under the influence of Ram, there were no differences. There was no poverty, misery, nor indigence, humiliation or ignorance, all were virtuous. They were blessed with longevity and were handsome and healthy.”

Such is the description of utopia (purportedly by Tulsidas-source unknown) which in India is referred to as Ram Rajya. Such a utopia is based on the residual consciousness of an unvarying, settled agrarian society which over the millennia has internalized the rhythms and imagery and their metaphors and idioms. Such a vision is based on a stable environment unperturbed by political, economic, demographic and technological turbulence. In the language of images, old Indian films would end with one huge smiling family cast in the iconic image of Rama and his large extended family marking that ‘they lived happily ever after’ (e.g. Hum Aap Ke Hai Kaun). In the absence of a history of political institutions apart from those of kingship and tribal republicanism, the idea of such a utopia still animates the consciousness of most Indians. In India the joint family is the fundamental unit and basis of institutional analysis. Often we are found to carry these same ideas within the organizations and institutions we populate despite their anachronism. This is especially true in family run businesses, political parties and other such formations. It might be of use to outline the history of this idea and tease out its implications about the values it underscores, its assumed norms of conduct and guidelines for leadership, organizational health or pathologies thereof.