Desicritics Author: Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta

A Letter to Our Neighbour

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:34:27 EDT

With a sense of deep foreboding, I am observing the same old story repeat itself again in Pakistan. The attack on the Sri Lankan Cricket team, the situation in Punjab, the corruption allegations, the threats from the military, the chatterati returning to their old way of thinking that its the military's or the rotten politicians' fault or that Pakistan needs Jinnah again or blaming Zia or needing Allah.

And this opinion is, by and large, found across the spectrum. Always the easy way out, reaching for the army!. I am reading messages which seem to say that President Musharraf was better than the existing leadership. Or it would be good that the current Army Chief should step in or when would be a good time for them to step in. But no, that’s not going to work. Here’s a question. Zardari is a corrupt man. So? What are your choices? Tell me an available choice that means that in 5 years time, you will have a better state?

It does not matter if its Zardari or Sharif really. What I am trying to say is that you have to stick with your leaders. Who are on the second rung? Have you seen your Nazims? How about the third rung of leaders? Say the chaps who are in University right now? Who will be the leader making decisions in your old age? Or for your children or grand-children?

What kind of politicians and leaders are you creating and developing? Look at your political landscape! It is shattered, but it is the only one you have. Stick with your civilian government and try to improve it rather than replace it, because you tried replacing your governments so many times before. Every time you replaced a government either through that silly Doctrine of Necessity or through a coup or what have you, the leader turned out to be not what you expected.

What else do you expect? That you will have messiah's? That somebody will drop down from Jannat to lead Pakistan into the heavenly kingdom? No Sir, I am afraid it wont happen that easily. You have to work hard - very hard indeed starting with tiny steps. Very small steps, which mean trying to improve things little by little and yes, having faith in your democracy. You have an elected government, work with it. Try to improve it. The Army is not meant for governing but is meant for security purposes. If the army is going to govern, will the politicians fight? A rather silly notion!

Don't give up, neighbours, keep on working, keep the army where it belongs, namely in the barracks, not in your parliament or in your municipal corporations. You also do not want to do regicide. I know there were 4 sessions where you had BB and Sharifs alternating in ruining your country, but that does not mean you let the army back in. It just means that you try for a while longer so that the politicians improve. Allow the 2nd and 3rd rung of leaders to start moving up into positions of influence, so that you can improve the political system.

But the sheer amount of cynicism? Come on, folks, life is tough enough. Instead of moaning and whining, try your best to think positive about your country, who else will?

Disabled Children Wait up to Two Years for Wheelchairs

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sat, 7 Mar 2009 00:22:04 EST

You know I keep on moaning about the fact that the ways of meeting children’s needs here in this country are strange? We are doing something for our long term sick children’s education by providing them by computers but i suppose you can say that that’s sort of optional.

But how about children who are unable to walk and need a wheelchair? If we have a fully funded NHS, surely they should be getting a wheelchair immediately? Well, no, unfortunately no. Read this and weep. I quote:

The NHS was told today to stop relying on charities to fill funding gaps after figures revealed many trusts would not pay the full cost of electric wheelchairs for disabled children.

Why on earth is this situation allowed to happen? Why aren't they given a wheelchair immediately? This is mental child abuse. And then not only people have to pay their taxes, but also give charity? Talk about being inefficient.

Statistics from 54% of NHS trusts in England and Scotland revealed that disabled children in England are forced to wait five months on average for a wheelchair.

5 months. Can you imagine? If you aren't disabled, think about this, you are forced to wait for 5 months for shoes. You dont have shoes. You cannot just go and buy them but are waiting to get them. Not for 1 day, not 2 days nor wait till the weekend so that you can purchase it, but for 5 months, 20 weeks, 140 days. 140 days without any shoes. Can you imagine what that will do to your feet? Now think about the poor disabled child. 5 months without a wheelchair.

The worst performing primary care trust (PCT), East Lancashire, in the north-west of England, had an average wait of two years for an electric wheelchair.

5 months was average across the country, but this area had an average wait of TWO years. And if you think that manual wheelchairs are possible, remember we are talking about children who are unable to control their muscles, so they cannot literally move about without assistance. Electric wheelchairs allow them to do so. And this is average 2 years, means 50% of the children in that area would have spent much more than 2 years waiting for an electric wheelchair.

The survey showed 58% of children in England had to wait at least three months for an electric wheelchair and 14% waited more than six months.

It gets worse. We are indeed a 3rd world country if this is how we treat our children in need. And then apparently we have sunk tons of money into the NHS.

Overall, 50% of the PCTs that responded said they did not fund the full cost of a powered wheelchair for a disabled child. Westminster PCT made an average contribution of only £700 towards the cost of a child's powered wheelchair, it said. Almost all PCTs contacted by the charity said the cost of a wheelchair was around £2,000 but in fact the true cost of a basic electric wheelchair would be around £3,000.

Holy crap. And rest of the money comes from charity, eh? typical.

A separate patient survey of 237 children found one in three did not receive any funding at all for their wheelchair.

And 1/3rd of the children dont receive any help whatsoever. Wonderful, you silly twits in the government. Do something!, get off your fat backsides and give this money to the kids. Or else, we will take the money for your shoes and give it to the kids. I bet that then the money will be found very quickly, no? And then when you read something like this, you feel so sad. I quote:

Family doctors are failing to provide improved services for patients, despite being paid tens of millions of pounds to do so, a report claims.

Technorati Tags: Children, Charity, United Kingdom

Tall and Shrinking Muslims, Short and Growing Europeans

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Thu, 5 Mar 2009 09:01:13 EST

I have written about the Arab Human Development Report before. It is indeed shocking to read about how the Arab lands are now. It does concern the rest of the world, because the Arabs and this region play a very big role in the religious wars and terrorism now roiling the globe. The Arab Development report points to various issues that the region has to grapple with. Obviously, Human Development is a comparative study, you compare the performance of the other countries to the Arab lands to check how far they are apart.

But what happened in the past? And I don't mean along the lines of Bernard Lewis’s What went wrong type of analysis. Where did the divergence happen? Well, I think we have a partial answer to that question. As is well known, the anthropometric (height/weight etc) dimensions of human beings is a good indicator of economic and human development. In other words, there is a good correlation and causality between good nutrition, good economic development, reasonably good height / weights.

So what was the difference? An article, Tall and shrinking Muslims, short and growing Europeans: The long-run welfare development of the Middle East, 1850–1980 by Mojgan Stegl & Joerg Baten of the University of Tubingen in Germany, published in the Explorations in Economic History came into my in-box recently.

They have done a sterling job in collecting anthropometric data from a staggering variety of sources and have combined it to provide some very interesting data. Without going into the intricacies of how they managed to do it, this is their first graphical result of the heights of the populations they studied.

And these results are statistically significant, the authors ran some standard statistical tests to make sure that the populations, samples etc. etc. are accurate. So how did the wages bit turn out around the inflexion point? They calculate real wages in Istanbul and industrializing countries in grams of silver per day (weighted by population size).

Curious result, no? It shows how the divergence in urban and rural areas emerge. The main improvement in the west happened in the cities, because if you strip out the cities, then the performance was about the same as urbanised Istanbul. Here’s another way of looking at the economic impact by comparing GDP per capita:

Not looking good, is it? If you go the whole hog by applying PPP and adjusting for population size, you get this picture:

So what were the other reasons given by the authors - besides the obvious economic development driving nutrition? Well, they point to the fact that in in many areas around the Middle Eest, people lived next to animal husbandry, and given that this was a concentrated protein rich diet, their heights and weights were quite good. However, as as the number of people living off animal husbandry in the Middle East started to drop, right at the same time, the supply chains in Europe improved with developed economies and better farming technologies. Diseases were further controlled and the graphs say it all. The Arab / Muslim (so as to incorporate the non Arab world of Turkey) world in the Middle Eest has steadily lost ground since then.

Now you can definitely incorporate the elements of colonialism, history, imperialism and the like, but that will make it a bit more difficult to ascribe differences in nutrition to imperialism, no? Does this mean that till about 1900/1910, Arab/Muslim imperialism and colonialism was still existent and then it was overtaken by European imperialism so the story flipped? I wonder what the situation will be in another 100 years of time?

Technorati Tags: History, Arabs, Middle East, Europe

Protests Against the British Day of Science - UK War Crimes?

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Wed, 4 Mar 2009 06:35:05 EST

Two Museums in France decide to rent out space to an exhibition called as "British Day of Science". It is supposed to showcase the achievements of seven British universities. Each and every one of these Universities are funded in some shape or form by the the British Department of Defence. Several of these universities actually hired former members of the British Defence Forces as staff members. I quote:

British Day of Science is aimed particularly at sixth-form students, who can be expected to come in parties from schools across the country. What reaction can be expected from the many young people, already disaffected from science, who will associate the science museums with this British public relations exercise? The event is being billed as a celebration of science. In fact it is an attempted celebration of the United Kingdom.

In the immediate aftermath of the indiscriminate slaughter and attempted annihilation of all the infrastructure of organised society in Basra in Iraq, how can this "celebration" be allowed to borrow some respectability from the use of these distinguished institutions? The museums should cancel these unseemly events.

We are the great and good who are complaining against this.

(A selection is given below, see the link for more of these worthies)

Mairead Maguire Nobel Peace Laureate Dr Ian Gibson MP Mermber of Parliament Prof R.S.MacKay FRS Director of Mathematical Interdisciplinary Research, Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick Dr Jenny Tonge House of Lords Prof Steven Rose Life Sciences, Open University John Rose College lecturer/ Middle East author Prof Jonathan Rosenhead Operational Research, London School of Economics Dr Monica Wusteman Research Scientist (retired) Prof Jules Townshend Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University Mike Cushman Management, London School of Economics Dr. Sue Blackwell Linguistics, University of Birmingham Professor Mohamed El - Gomati Department of Electronics University of York Prof. Yosefa Loshitzky Film and Media Studies, University of East London Prof. Daphne Hampson Theology, University of St Andrews Prof Peter Hallward Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University Prof Janet Watson Arabic Linguistics, University of Salford Prof Patrick Williams Nottingham Trent University Prof Hilary Rose Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, University of Bradford Prof David Seddon University of East Anglia Prof. Adah Kay City University, London Prof David Wield Open University Prof Mona Baker Translation Studies, University of Manchester Prof Myriam Salama-Carr University of Salford Prof Gabriel Alexander Khoury Imperial College London and Padua University Italy Prof. David Mond Mathematics Institute, Warwick University Prof David E Pegg Biology Department University of York Professor Tariq Modood, MBE, AcSS Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, Director, University of Bristol Prof Frank Land Information Systems and Innovations, LSE Prof Ailsa Land Operational Research, London School of Economics Prof Hans Haenlein, RIBA, MBE Architecture, University of Reading Prof Wolfgang Deckers University of Richmond Prof Malcolm Povey Food Physics, University of Leeds Prof Sol Picciotto Law, Lancaster University Prof James Dickens Arabic, School of Languages, University of Salford Prof David Elworthy Mathematics, University of Warwick Prof Roger Iredale International education, University of Manchester Prof Jim Al-Khalili Professor of Physics, and of Public Engagement in Science, University of Surrey Prof Colin Green Northwick Park Institute for Medical Research Prof Haim Bresheeth Cultural Studies, University of East London Prof Uri Davis Al Quds University, Jerusalem Prof Martha Mundy Anthropology, London School of Economics Prof Paulette Pierson Mathy hon. Prof. ULB, Brussels Prof Randa Farah Anthropology, University of Western Ontario Prof. Anthony C. Alessandrini Kingsborough Community Coll-City University of New York Dr Derek Wall Visiting tutor, Goldsmiths College ……

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Replace the italicised UK at the top with Israel and you will understand why each and every one of these people have immediately identified themselves as eligible to go back to their schools now and request for a refund of their educational fees on grounds of idiocy. Here is a list of science based exhibitions and events that an arm of British Government, the British Council organised. Presumably this list of people will do the same, because the UK has been accused of War Crimes in Basra? See here, here, here. Interestingly enough, the 'Stop the War Coalition' has signed this petition. The 'Stop the War Coalition' works with the Campaign for for Nuclear Disarmament which has accused the UK government of war crimes. Confusing or what?

Reminds me of what Anatole France said: "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." As an Alumni and visiting professor of the University of Manchester, I would say, do it and be damned to these purveyors of foolish behaviour. I am thinking about Bill Buckley’s famous comments that he would rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston phone book than the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. I am so surprised that so many professors and educators would be so inclined to think of science in this way that it is related to nationalities, political ideologies or what have you. Truly the inconsistencies of people who demand boycotts is incomprehensible. It is silly! Just imagine these worthies protesting against the UK and how they will be treated? Just about the same way that they will be treated if they say that science and knowledge is country national specific. Grow up, you guys.

Technorati Tags: Israel, United Kingdom, Discrimination, Anti-Semitism

The God Who Was Lost!

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Tue, 3 Mar 2009 01:00:24 EST

Buddhism and I have a strange relationship. I grew up listening to the stories of Emperor Ashok and later on when I could, reading about Gautam Buddha in the old Amar Chitra Katha books. Reading about Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism and how Buddha was actually considered to be part of the Hindu Gods' pantheon, because the 'Enlightened One' was considered to be a reincarnation of Vishnu. Growing up in Bhopal, I was also exposed to Buddhist artifacts in various tourist locations, as our local area has an ancient history of Buddhist kingdoms and pilgrimage sites (more on this later). But this was a strange journey for me and this essay is another weird combination of a book review, a photo essay and some thoughts about Buddhist history.

But typically, history in India is not taught from the perspective of the historians, the archaeologists, numismatics, the linguistic experts and so on and so forth. There are many reasons for this. For one, for most of India’s history, history has been a battle ground (if you excuse the pun). What the war of independence is for somebody, is the great mutiny for another (a previous essay on this). Then the fact that for a very long period of time, India was ruled by foreigners and history is usually written by the rulers, for the rulers. So if you wanted to know about Buddhism, it was a bit difficult.

But some aspects have rekindled the interest I have in Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is obviously somebody who is the apostle of non-violence and a hero to me (not least for his enchanting giggle) which obviously has emerged out of Buddhism. Second was another hero, namely Ambedkar.Ffor all his faults, he was a brilliant man who created a constitution which all Indians can be proud of. We do not give sufficient credit to that document. In my opinion, it is much more important than all the religious books. He obviously converted to Buddhism as a reaction against the Hindu Caste System (a previous essay here). But there is now a strand of Dalitism. This is not the place to go into the rights or wrongs of this, but it primarily is against Hinduism and its caste system (don't worry, it is seriously incoherent and I have never read anything that makes any less logical sense). But for example, many Dalit intellectuals have relied on colonial historians such as Arnold Toynbee to make their argument that Hinduism is bad (see here, here and here).

This concept that Hinduism is a civilization and is doomed to failure is wrong on both counts. The concept of civilization as a social identity construct is seriously flawed. Man draws his identity based upon several strands (see Amartya Sen's argument here), gender, language, religion, region, country, sports club, and so on and so forth. So for somebody to even think that there is something called as a Hindu civilization is seriously one dimensional. Second, think about the 5000 odd years of history of this religion, one of the oldest religions. It has evolved so much that one would be hard pressed to identify today’s Hinduism with what was there in say 2000 BC or 1000 BC. And finally, even if you do consider that it is one and the same, the fact that Hinduism has survived for 5000 years tells you that its actually in no danger of collapse, so this basic intellectual framework of Toynbee is not really advisable for the Buddhists to rely on.

But there were a bunch of other British and Colonial historians, linguists, archeologists, military personnel and the like, who from the 1700’s, have been poking around in India to determine where and how Buddhism emerged. For a very long period of time, the west and India as it so happens (with the incorporation of Buddha into the pantheon of Hindu Gods) there was no distinction between Buddhism and Hinduism. On the western front, the great Buddhist Kingdoms of Afghanistan were overpowered by the arrival of Islam and now its rubble (remember the dynamiting of the Bamiyan Buddha’s by the Taliban and the persecution of the Hazaras who were reputed to be Buddhists before converting to Shia Islam?)

Anyway, between the Muslim invasions and the Hindu resurgence, nothing was heard or known about Buddhism in the west. Charles Allen, in his lovely book, The Buddha and the Sahibs, describes how a band of often lonely white men (and a couple of females), over 250 odd years, started to dig, decipher, investigate and uncover the history of Buddism lost in the mists of time. From Afghanistan to Sri Lanka, to Burma to Nepal to Tibet and all inside, Charles Allen writes a fascinating story about these orientalists, their associations (The Asiatic Society and the Theosophical Society) and how their struggles gave the world so much information about Buddha and Buddhism. Taking a well deserved potshot at that incomprehensible tome, Orientalism, it has seriously rejuvenated a body of work which is currently very popular. Mind you, the large sections of corpus of western scholarship in this area is totally aghast. The very idea of somebody actually claiming that it took orientalists to actually study and bring forth knowledge of the orient is shocking to them. Hence this book is not reviewed to that extent nor referred to that much.

Anyway, not that important, because besides arcane corners of the academic world, these worshipers of Edward Said are ignored. For anybody who wants to break out of that stultifying cult, you can't do better than to read this book. For one, it supports my argument that all history, science and knowledge is open to all, without worrying about the age, sex, religion, race of the researcher. Moaning about Orientalism is about as stupid as moaning about Jewish Intelligence or the fact that Hindus had invented Zero or it was a Christian who first noticed gravity.

Now returning to the book/ It is very good. It talks about how these white men struggled to piece together this giant multi-dimensional mystery, taking clues from old sanskrit books, talking to religious leaders in various temples and monasteries, deciphering and then translating old sanskrit and pali books to make them available to the wider public. They decoded and cracked the variants of the Brahmi language, one of the oldest languages in India, dating back to the 6th century BC. Don't get me wrong, this is not about Buddhism the religion, but its about the men who investigated the history of its birthplace. While I found his assertion that the Gita was part of the Ramayana rather than the Mahabharat a bit confusing, the book has lots of wonderful photographs and descriptions to make those little issues immaterial.

But reading it finally gave me another view of how widespread Emperor Ashok’s empire was. Absolutely massive and wide ranging. In some ways, it was even bigger than the Mughal Empire.

Can you see the bottom-most text called as Sanchi? That’s just next to my hometown of Bhopal. A couple of years back, we were enjoying a winter vacation there. As you would appreciate, if you are in your hometown, you end up visiting the local attractions hundreds of times and you never end up appreciate them. It's like my mother in law, she grew up in Agra and for her, the Taj Mahal is very commonplace, as she has visited it literally hundreds of times. It was the same for me with Sanchi.

It's perhaps when you get older, that you get a chance to appreciate those local attractions more. I whined and moaned till the family decided to humour me and we all piled into two cars and off we went. It's about a 50 km drive on a pretty good road actually. Quite surprising as it happens. On the way, we crossed the Tropic of Cancer which is signposted.

On the way, one of the main north-south railway lines are crossed and the railway crossing was closed. So we were forced to wait. And one of the most typical Indian sights was on the left. Here’s a gentleman, having a nice nap on one of the Milestones on the State Highway. I just find this image so evocative. Welcome to India!

The actual stupas are up on a hillock. At the bottom between the town and the hillock, there is a neat little museum with a nice small park. Here’s a pipal tree with a sign in front, called as Creation in time wheel. Obviously, the connection is that Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment while meditating under a pipal tree. We were not allowed to take photographs of the museum artefacts so that was a bit of a shame. Also, it was disappointing, why on earth can't the Museum authorities put in more explanation of the various sculptures, ornaments and other nice pieces?

But as you come out of the museum, you can see the tip of the stupa in the background in the middle.

Also, on the side of the road, guess what I found? spicy chanas. Before anybody could tell me off, my hand was inside my pocket, money exchanged hands and I quaffed a rather large quantity of chana. Ah! Heaven! Beyond this is a papad seller and across the road was a guava seller. Needless to say, I checked out ALL of them. (oink oink). There is something just brilliant about eating road side food, it's the awesome combination of dust, dirty oil, smoke and spices. Nowhere else, does it taste anything like it, I tell you. Anyway, we piled back inside the cars and drove up the hillock and parked.

Right outside, you can see a memorial temple made by pilgrims from Colombo and on the right, you can see another pipal tree, surrounded with the typical Buddhist railings and with prayer flags fluttering in the wind. Did you know that the prayer flags are not meant to carry prayers up to the Gods? But they are meant to use the wind horses to scatter the printed mantras and prayers for goodwill and compassion across the surrounding place. Interesting, no? And as it so happens, this concept of prayer flags is very Tibetan, not Indian nor Sri Lankan at all.

Below are some photographs of the very intricately carved gates. The Great Stupa, the big one, was made by the great Emperor Ashoka way back in 250 BCE (approximately). This amazing emperor is supposed to have built about 86,000 temples and stupas across the country. One of the greatest men of India indeed. Somebody was joking when I said that India owns Afghanistan. As it so happens, Ashoka ruled over a kingdom which extended up from Afghanistan down to deep Deccan and as far east as Bangladesh. But anyway, the carvings show the history of Buddha and lots of carved jataka tales

If you observe the central pillar closely, you will see an inscription on it in a strange language, Ashoka Brahmi. Most of the horizontal or vertical pillars have these inscriptions. They are nothing profound, but are in fact donor cards. Just state who gifted that bit. And check out the sculptures on the right, they resemble me - rather my potbelly.

The above and below photographs show the intricate carvings. One has to remember that these are well over 2 millenea old and are still crisp and clear. They have been restored a bit, but still. Amazing work!

Here’s a story of the tree (the tree stands for Buddha) and even monkeys worshipping the sacred tree. Remember the monkey tale from the Jatakas? I was not able to take a photograph, but here’s the story with another photograph of the particular panel.

On the left, one can see the second Stupa with its solitary gate (the Great Stupa has 4) and on the right, a load of smaller stupas.

But this completely bewildered me. It was the first time I ever heard about Buddhists worshiping the Naga Gods. Can you see the statue of the Naga God in the left photograph? The temple itself is of Buddha, as can be seen from the right hand side photograph. So what’s the connection between Nagas and Buddhists? That too in the middle of the country? As it so happens, Nagas were considered to be the guarantors of adequate rainfall and agricultural productivity. Hence, the Buddhists would go about merrily worshiping them. Here’s a good reference site if you wanted to check out dams, irrigation, Nagas and the rest in Sanchi

Two more temple ruins, faintly Grecian in nature, but I did not find sufficient background to really investigate.

As you enter any gate, you are faced with a statue, well a headless one. Somebody got very upset sometime in history and lopped off all the heads. Bloody vandals.

And finally, you have the middle corridor and one of the staircases to climb up to the middle corridor which encircles the stupa.

Then you move up the hillock where there is a monastery which is practically in ruins. They have stacked up the stone work columns in rows. Can you see the checkerboard pattern on the right? Pretty impressive, no?

There is a temple up in the monastery, also pretty much a ruin, but one can still see some exquisite carvings on the doorways and columns.

Can you see the notches on the flagstones? Those were for iron staples which would lock the flagstones together to make it into a pucca floor. On the right, you can see a stone work window and a narrow passageway which would allow one to circum-perambulate the temple. There is also a little imp trying to hide from Baba.

There were two statues of Buddha, an outside statue, which had lost its head and the second one inside the sanctum which was better preserved. Unlike the first statue, which was made out of sandstone, the second one was made out of granite.

I am not sure if you can see the carvings on one of the flagstones but it's supposed to be ancient graffiti. Apparently this part of the monastery was for the trainee monks and they, the little rascals, would spend their time carving into the stone floors. Glad to see that things do not change, eh?

Here is an example of a doorway to one of the side shrines. The guide told us that those two figurines at the bottom were of Ganga and Jamuna, the two sacred rivers of Hinduism. When I gave him a skeptical look and asked, why on earth would you have river goddesses from Hinduism being depicted in a Buddhist temple? I did not get a good answer. Also, I have to admit that the smaller carvings were quite risqué. The guide said that they were offering and accepting votive offerings, but hey, I can identify a couple in love and flirting when I see one. Anyway, we headed back down to the mid layer.

Here’s the Great Stupa. The archaeological department has done a good piece of work to maintain the surroundings, I must admit. It is well maintained with a broad pavement around the stupa. Here’s grandpa the engineer who suddenly decided to calculate the amount of materials required to construct the Stupa with his grand-daughter assistant.

Heading down to the Stupa 3, you can see a rock hewn water tank on the left and another monastery in the distance. Also one of the monastery cells on the right hand side.

Heading down, there is a strange boulder on the way. It is cut in half and hollowed out. Apparently, with a very straight face, the guide said that this was Buddha’s cup. Some cup and some lips, eh? Anyway, belting down a rocky path, we soon spotted the third stupa.

And here’s the famous Ashoka insignia. Can you recognise the images shown? The circle on the top with the 24 spokes is the Ashoka Chakra. While the Ashok Pillar below it is topped by the Emblem of India. That is how well India respects one of its most illustrious ancestors. This stupa is not as richly decorated as the previous two, mind you. It also does not have any gates.

There is a modern Buddhist temple just outside the fence which surrounds the Stupas. I found it deeply ironical. The temple architecture, its detailing, the scupltures, the paintings were like comparing chalk and cheese. The modern architecture was simply unsuitable for the surroundings. It felt awkward, as it was shabby, manky, and really very disappointing. To consider that this Chetiyagiri Vihara actually contains the remains of Buddha’s two disciples, Sariputra and Mahamoggallana, is rather shocking. But as a factoid, do you know that certain elements of Buddhism believe that Sariputra was reborn as Laxman to Buddha’s rebirth as Ram? Now that’s an interesting turn for the books. So the next time, a Buddhist complains that the Bhagwat Purana is claiming Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu, you can comment mildly that it is difficult to keep track of incarnations and you are simply following Buddhist tradition :)

Anyway, looking back across the valley, its a very peaceful place. You can see a train haring down to Bhopal. One can really imagine to be actually back in Ashoka’s time, sitting on the blocks and meditating, while overseeing the peaceful work of God. It is indeed a beautiful place.

But all good things come to an end and just like the birds in the sky, we were following the power lines back home in the evening. And that’s where the rumination started. What a wonderful place this is. I could sit back and think of the white men digging through the dirt to uncover our history. The hundreds of thousands of men who built the tens of thousands of Buddhist monuments across this country. How ideological battles have been fought between Hinduism and Buddhism, between Orientalism and Occidentalism, between Dalitism and (not sure what…). In the end, you end up with such wonders in front of your eyes. If you can, do visit Sanchi and read Charles Allen’s book. Gives you such peace of mind.

Full slide show here.

Technorati Tags: India,History,Buddhism

Fake Charities and Real Charities

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sun, 1 Mar 2009 12:51:51 EST

We are working on the technology for a long term sick and disabled children charity on a shoe-string. There is a bunch of about 50 odd people, part and full time, who are working on a shoe string salary and mostly free. We have to force our CEO to take a minuscule salary. But we manage to keep on going and have managed to get more than 5000 pieces of technology to individual children over the past so many years.

What does that mean? It means that we are actually improving disused pieces of equipment, saving companies money which would have gone to recycling the equipment. This improvement is done by long term unemployed kids who have been in trouble with the law or long term unemployed or what have you and they get training on PC repair and maintenance. The equipment goes to the hospital schools, or special needs teachers or kids who are at home on long term illness cover. We are struggling every year to get pc’s and laptops. Laptops specially are important as the kids cannot use big pc’s when they are bed-ridden.

While government departments offer us with equipment which we actually take away, refurbish and recycle on our costs (we actually save taxpayer money), we do not get any assistance from the government in terms of equipment or funding. And in these days/times of recession, it has further dried up. So it was a a joy to love and behold when I read that there are fake charities out there which are hitting the existing charities hard.

What do they do? take a look at these charities and their background:

Alcohol Concern—an anti-drinking lobby group that receives less than 1% of its income from public donations
Campaign for Better Transport Charitable Trust—strong opponents of road building. Funded by the Department of Transport
Christian Aid—anti-free marketeers, campaigning for "justice on climate change and tax" on your pennies.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)—the original fake charity, formed by the government in 1971. It receives just 2% of its funding from public donations.

And then there are many more. What really gets me going are two things. (1) why on earth are taxpayers monies being paid to these charities? (2) what’s the point of the government giving charities money to lobby the government? Can somebody explain this?

Well, seems like this blogsite tried to explain this. Just read the article, you will find the amount of hypocrisy and stonewalling gobsmacking. One wonders what these people are doing? How can they do it? By taking monies away from legitimate charities and misallocating public monies, the government is actually stealing twice.

I agree, any charity which accepts government funding is fake. Period. The situation is much more horrible, take a look at this proposal. The proposal is good, but Barnardo’s (78% state funded); NCH (88%); and Leonard Cheshire (88%) are pokes in your eyes. One weeps, on seriously weeps at the tremendous waste of resources done by this government and the fake charities, the scabby leeches on the body of the state.

Ramakrishna: A Lover of God

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sun, 1 Mar 2009 10:22:23 EST

The Ramakrishna Mission has been an integral part of my growing up. My grand parents, uncles and aunts, my parents, my wider family all have been associated with this mission. And singing in front of Ma Kali and slipping into a near trance was quite common back then. While I was growing up, two things happened which are pertinent. The first related to the regular visits to the Mission in Bhopal. At that time, it was in the middle of a vast stony rocky field. A temple of calmness in the midst of a very stark landscape. And you would get a sense of peace as soon as you entered the temple grounds. The teachers over there were wonderful, they wore simple clothes and their laughter was so wonderful. A childlike wonder at the world all the time and infinite patience to deal with zillions of questions. I regret to say that I do not remember their names. Singing the bhajans and the trance like state one would enter while singing to Ma Kali, just wonderful. Even now, it brings a strange sort of peace to myself and tears to the eyes.

The second related aspect was my visit to Vivekananda Rock. If somebody asks me if I have met God, I say in the affirmative and that is one of the places I met him face to face. Strange no? So when I read this paper: Kali's child and Krishna's lover: An anatomy of Ramakrishna's Caritas Divina by Narasingha P Sil of Western Oregon University, published in Journal of Religion, 2008, I felt the tug of memories so badly. I quote the abstract:

The famous 19th-century Bengali saint Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has almost universally been regarded as a Shakta (sometimes confused with Tantrika) devotee of the Mother Goddess Kali. His association with the Kali temple at Daksineshvar, in the northern suburb of Calcutta, has no doubt been a powerful argument behind his Shakta/Tantrika affiliation. This paper argues that Ramakrishna was essentially a bhakta (devotee) in the Vaisnava tradition and his cultural and family inheritance. His idea of the divine and his career and logia as a priest and a saint provide ample justification to consider him essentially a Vaisnava whose spiritual battle-cry was to demand to have dalliance with God.

The paper tries to decompose his feelings and his religious leanings by a variety of references, ranging from references to tantrik aspects to Vedanta to you name it. After reading the rather bewildering variety of references and attempts to decompose his faith, I was lost. But in the middle, the author hits on the precise nature of this wonderful man and I quote:

Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that Bengali folk culture essentializes simple fiducia and that Ramakrishna, an untrained and unread temple priest (although initiated into Shakti or Kali mantra by a professional priest named Kenaram Bhattacharya) cannot be pigeonholed neatly in any one sect formally. In other words, he was basically a lover of god

That is it. You really do not need a full fledged scholarly paper to know what he was, he was a lover of God. He investigated Islam and Christianity, delved into Buddhism and found that at end of the day, all paths lead to the same God. Sometimes, I think we make our relationship with God far too complicated. It is not, it is very simple. She loves us and we just need to love her back. Be like a Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, just love her.

It is very difficult to explain this feeling of wanting to be one with God or personally speaking, one with Ma (whether it be Kali or Shakti or Durga, or what have you, they are all the same) but it is an indescribable feeling and I tear up every time I experience it. But still, the article is good, if nothing else for the good discussion on tantric scriptures and practises, Vedanta and Ramakrishna’s life.

Oh!, the references are good as well.

Technorati Tags: Hinduism

How To Make A Small Fortune

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:37:50 EST

There is a joke which you will appreciate, especially in these days of plunging asset prices. The joke goes something like this: how do you make a small fortune? You start with a large one. As the newspapers mentioned in a recent item, Russian multi-billionaires are actually just ordinary billionaires because of the sheer drop in stock and other financial markets around the world. But then there was the original billionaire, when there were no other billionaires. I am referring to the Nizam of Hyderabad, the erstwhile richest man in the world, the last living Caliph of Islam, a man, who is currently living in a seedy anonymous seedy two bedroom apartment somewhere in Istanbul, Turkey. This essay is not about him, but is about my frustration and regret and bout the sheer waste of it all.

First, here are the bald facts. Of course, there are no official kings and queens in India any more. The last living Nizam was His Exalted Highness Rustam-i-Dauran, Arustu-i-Zaman, Wal Mamaluk, Asaf Jah VII, Muzaffarul- Mulk-Wal-Mumilak, Nizam-ul- Mulk, Nizam ud Daula Nawab Mir Sir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur, Sipah Saula, Fateh Jung, Nizam of Hyderabad and of Berar, Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Honourable General in the Army, Faithful Ally of the British Government who died in 1967. He was reputed to be worth roughly $2 billion in the 1940s. Despite him being divested of much of his kingdom and properties by circumstances and the Government of India, he still died a billionaire. I quote from Wikipedia:

Adjusting for inflation, however, he today ranks as the 5th richest person in the history of the world, the wealthiest-ever Asian, the wealthiest-ever Indian and the second-wealthiest monarch in world history, with a fortune that at its high point was $225 billion (in 2008 US dollars).

Asaf Jah’s eldest son got married to Durrushehvar, daughter of Abdul Mejid II, the last Ottoman Caliph. Abdul Mejid left a will stating that his grandson, Mukarram Jah, should be the next Caliph. Can you imagine the ancestry? Three of the most powerful empires all rested and ended on Mukarram’s shoulders. One of the most powerful and richest empires in the world, the Mughal Empire, which gave rise to the Nizam’s empire of Hyderabad, perhaps the richest empire in the world (arguably exceeding the Inca or any other empires in history) and finally the third empire, namely the Ottoman Empire.

And what did Mukarram Jah do? He literally pissed away his inheritance by way of an unholy mixture of incompetence, corruption, five marriages, legal battles and basically being a silly sod. He is still alive today, the man who would never think twice about ordering a charter flight or thousands of Tattinger champagne bottles is now restricted in a tiny seedy apartment in Turkey. Abandoned by all - family, courtiers, jewellery, friends, lawyers, everyone, with nothing is left other than some mouldering palaces and buildings; a pile of rotting and decaying furniture; hundreds of civil and criminal court cases in various courts across the world ranging from London to Delhi to Hyderabad; hundreds of blood sucking relatives and hangers on and so on and so forth.

I have lots of connections to Hyderabad and have been there many times in my childhood. It was fascinating to go around the Salar Jung Museum. I have gone there on Ma’s shopping trips to purchase pearls and now I have recently been there several times, as one of my offices is based in Hyderabad. While I am quite impressed and proud of seeing those lovely collections of jewels, artefacts, buildings and works of art, something burns inside me whenever I see these.

Recently reading a recent book, The Last Nizam, by John Zubrzycki, bought it to the fore. The author has written a biography of Mukarram Jah. And I think Mr. Zubrzycki lets off Jah far too easily. He skates over his faults and does not talk much about the basic tragedy of India, namely to have rulers such as Jah and his ancestors.

India was called as the golden bird of antiquity. Its fields were so verdant and fertile, its people so industrious, the metals/gems/mining so bountiful, that it kept a huge motley crew of royals well fed and watered over hundreds and thousands of years. Not only that, all this wealth called those thieves and buzzards over from all over the world ranging from Central Asia and Persia to the United Kingdom, Netherlands, France etc. to come rob India. And how they robbed India! You go to Lucknow and find that it was considered to be one of the richest nation states in the world. Where and how did these Nawabs spend their money? They send the money to Karbala in Iraq to build canals and hostels ignoring the crying need to build even a single canal in Lucknow. What about tiny Bhopal? The Begums of Bhopal sent millions of rupees to Mecca to make pilgrimage hostels and ignored building up Bhopal. What about the Nizams? They owned hundreds and thousands of jewellery pieces, massive buildings and automobiles but gave nothing to their peasants and citizens.

Nothing for the peasants! They spent their countless generations toiling away for their kings, queens, Nawabs, Maharaja’s, Nizams who were bloodsuckers. They sucked out the life of so many Indian citizens. I know you can accuse me of judging them by today’s standards, but that is not really true. Every religion that they followed, whether Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Islam, Hinduism, nothing influenced them to rule justly. Maybe one ruler in a thousand would be just and do something for his or her people. And not that these rulers were driven by love for their country either! And this is not a communist/socialist polemic against the rich, if you have earned your dough by virtue of business or inventions, have fun with it. But this wealth was based on coercion and to make things worse, it was used purely for their own individual pleasure, almost nothing went back to the poor peasants.

Think back to the first war of independence. Some war - where most of the rulers rushed to the assistance of the British. See the titles given to the Nizam: Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Honourable General in the Army, Faithful Ally of the British Government. You don’t get these titles for revolting against the British. Heck, most of the rulers who actually fought against the British were fighting for their own gaddis and rights, the idea of fighting for their people/country was totally foreign to them.

All these countless diamonds, all those huge opulent palaces, those shimmering silks and expensive clothes, those hunting trips, the vast fleets of automobiles Were for what? Can you see the tragedy of lost opportunities? All that wealth, amassed out of the blood and sweat of the common Indian peasants, went to the maintenance of an inefficient and ruinously expensive Australian sheep farm, a huge boat, jewellery, travel, banquets and massively expensive parties.

Can you imagine what Hyderabad could have been like if a fraction of all this wealth had been invested in developing the agriculture, mining, factories in the state? But no, the Nizam stood on the top of a pyramid of blood sucking royals, courtiers and hangers on, who were simply rent seeking. No development, just keep on giving me tax/rent and I will simply spend my time in enjoyment. In a way, the fact that the last Caliph and Nizam ended up in genteel penury, coughing his lungs away, unloved and hated by his friends, relatives and other assorted cockroaches, might seem to be poetic justice.

But what I really regret are the missed opportunities. Just imagine what could have been done by an enlightened ruler with all that wealth and opportunities? And reading the book constantly reiterated that Jah, the last Nizam did not find anything surprising in his behaviour or the fact that nothing was done. It was simply his right and his money to do what he wished. It was not like he was uneducated or did not know what was happening. He has been very well educated in the best Indian and British educational institutions. Presumably he has seen and read about his people. But no, nothing. This is what I find frustrating. So he not only ended up with a tiny fortune, he has also made sure that couple of generations of Hyderabadi’s missed out on a chance to improve themselves. And finally, if he still thinks that it’s a god given right, then I can only quote two quotes, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away” Bible, Job 1:20-21 and “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to” – Dorothy Parker.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!

Technorati Tags: History, India

Butchermania

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:38:12 EST

It was an invite to attend a luncheon of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. But this time, the luncheon was at the Worshipful Company of Butchers. A beautiful place. Unfortunately, I had to take a call in the middle so I was shown into an office.

Here’s the back of a leather backed chair with the logo emblazoned on it.

Here’s me during the call, with the laptop open. Can you see the chair? Beautiful handiwork.

The luncheon was held in the Great Hall.

Can you see the table plan? pretty complicated. I was sitting half way up the middle table on the left. Then, after the call, I hot footed it back to the lunch. The food was absolutely delicious. The Angus Beef was so smooth, I think it has to be rated to be one of the best steaks I have eaten in London. But to be expected, if you dont get good beef in the Butcher’s hall, where else would you get it?

I took a sneaky picture of the main window as I was leaving. Can you see the stained glass showing the butchers on the bottom? The top window shows the various animals which are used in the trade, like sheep, lambs, cattle, etc. It was full of grandees and thus felt a bit embarrassed in clicking away…

But outside the hall, down the stairs and the hall has the most amazing dioramas. This was showing a butchers diorama, with cuts of beef, pork and lamb hanging.

I am afraid this photograph did not come out quite right, but shows some kind of a letter of patent relating to the fact that the Princess Royal became some kind of member.

Turning my head, there was another diorama with a huge cleaver on the top.

Took a close-up of the note. There are two flags, first the flag of New Zealand and then the flag of the United Kingdom, some kind of an association, I guess, established in 1809. It says:

“This chopper was used by Mr. Edward Jeffreys at Buckinghamd Palace to cut up the first New Zealand Lamb carcasse shipped to the United Kingdom in the S.S.Dunedin and presented to Her Majesty Queen Victoria in May 1882”

Pretty neat, no? to capture all this history? I know this is not big news or a big historical event, but it actually is very big news once you think about it. This lamb trade has impacted the history, economy, and culture of New Zealand for more than 100 years. And this cleaver was there when the trade was born.

Another diorama with the tools of the trade.

Here’s the Hall.

And here’s the Smithfield Market where you would get the butcher’s with their stalls.

And on the way, saw this, the Kinky Barber, who gives you a beer with every haircut! :) As long as you dont worry about the type of haircut, you should be happy with the beer :).

But lets take a side trip, its the history which interested me. The history of this company goes back to 975AD. Now that’s impressive and goes deep back into the hoary mists of time. When we eat a steak or a chop, do we know that there is this level of history of professional attention paid to how to deal with meat? I did not. This company is deeply involved with the meat industry, it deals with a variety of industry issues ranging from hides to food hygiene, etc.

It is a fine art, this bit about dealing with meat. You simply cannot kill an animal and hack it about. Oh! no. You have to know the physiology of animals and there is a whole terminology around which cuts of beef comes from where?

I was taught how to carve meat by my ma, she used to hunt in her childhood with my grandfather. So dealing with poultry, goat and beef was very interesting. It was almost like surgery. Which you should not find surprising, after all, for quite a long period of time, barbers and butchers used to be the surgeons of those ages. Anyway, it was quite interesting to sit there looking around at the crests, the stained windows, and know one was sitting amongst the ghosts of butchers past for a thousand years. The next time one see’s a big juicy medium rare sirloin steak on the plate, one would know that there is quite a strong possibility that the way it was prepared had some links of some sort to the Worshipful Company of Butchers.

The full slide show here.

Technorati Tags: London,History,Buildings,Animals

Frankenstein or Frankincense Crops?

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:23:01 EST

Here is a quite interesting story about GM foods. Personally speaking, I like the idea of having more GM food around the world. Just because the prices are falling a bit, does not mean that the pressure for more food has gone away. The middle classes of the world are demanding higher quality food, meat and the lot. They still need to be fed and watered. Given the lack of additional farm land, water, the only thing to do is to improve productivity of the existing cropland. GM foods provides one with a way to do this. Here are some interesting quotes:

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) said the global area of GM crops increased from 114m ha in 2007 to 125m ha in 2008, producing a harvest worth $7.5bn. The number of farmers planting GM crops rose from 12m in 22 countries to 13.3m in 25 countries.
Clive James, ISAAA chairman, said the most significant development last year was the first commercial planting of biotech crops in two African countries: maize in Egypt and cotton in Burkina Faso. Both crops contain “Bt genes” from bacteria, which kill insect pests. In 2007 South Africa had been the only country on the continent with GM plants (cotton, maize and soya).

Look at some of the benefits:

Of the cumulative economic gains of $44bn over 10 years of growing GM crops, the report attributed 44 per cent to yield increases and 56 per cent to reduced production costs, including the use of 359,000 tonnes less pesticide.

Now isn't that just peachy? Good stuff to read that not only you increase productivity, but production costs are reduced and less pesticide is used therefore reducing pollution as well. Yes, there are quite a lot of issues in this relating to the sale of patented seeds, potential for gene mutation, and the lot, but I think the risks are well worth it. Here is a good report from Friends of the Earth as a counterpoint to this argument. Anyway, I really dont want to get into a head banging argument about this.

One thing which is quite interesting is that if you increase the usage of GM foods, then the sustainability size factor of farms reduces as well. What do I mean by this? Well, in vast swathes of the world, you will see that the actual plot sizes are tiny. Plus with more and more children, the plots of land become smaller and smaller down every generation, till the end where the land is practically too small to support even one family and poverty increases dramatically. But with increase in crop productivity, less production costs, the level at which land sizes are no longer sustainable or able to support even one family increases. So for countries like India and China, this is good news indeed.

But beyond that, countries are now getting desperate for food security. Here’s a great example of what South Korea is planning to do in Madagascar. I quote:

South Korea's Daewoo Logistics this week announced that it had negotiated a 99-year lease on some 3.2 million acres of farmland on the dirt-poor tropical island of Madagascar…….Daewoo plans to put about three quarters of it under corn. The remainder will be used to produce palm oil — a key commodity for the global biofuels market. A Daewoo manager, Hong Jong-wan, told the Financial Times that the crops would "ensure our food security" and would use "totally undeveloped land which had been left untouched."

Here is another example of how Saudi Arabia is doing the same in Pakistan. I quote:

To this end, the Saudis, the Emiratis, and the Bahrainis have been in talks with Egypt, Pakistan, Ukraine, Sudan, Turkey, Yemen, South Africa, the Philippines and Thailand to buy up or rent arable land and expand agricultural production in these countries.

This is actually good, I dont have an issue with this. This is pushing investments in poorer countries and combined with new types of crops, the food situation in the world will get a desperately needed fillip. So instead of these crops being Frankenstein type of horror for the world, I suspect they will more be frankincense.

Technorati Tags: agriculture, India, Egypt