Reviews: The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns

I had heard a lot of good things about two novels published by a new Afghan author, and decided to try them out. When I began with the first novel, I expected a kind of quasi-documentary on Afghan history. As it turns out, I was wrong.

First things first. Khaled Hosseini, the author of the two novels is, as mentioned, an Afghan, settled in the US and is also a member of the UN refugee agency. His two novels are set in Afghanistan, and they tell two quite different stories in a breathtakingly powerful manner. The first novel is not a new one; but I got around to reading it only recently.

The Kite Runner is Hosseini's first novel. Beginning in the 1970s, it tells the story of two young boys, the narrator Amir, and his friend Hassan. They are nigh inseparable, the thickest of friends as you would suspect – but not quite. Hassan is not just a friend of Amir – he is also the son of Amir's servant. And a Hazara, a race that is considered a lower caste. For these reasons, Amir never really admits that Hassan is indeed his friend. Nor does he ever stand up for Hassan whenever other Pashtun kids jeer at his race.

The book's name comes from the kite-flying competition (something the Taliban later banned). Amir struggles to gain acceptance in the eyes of his strict father, who he knows admires Hassan more. Amir is no sportsman, though he is a gifted teller of stories and a poet, but his father appreciates neither. The only avenue left to gain his father's favor is to win the annual kite-flying competition. The competition is a game of skill, requiring participants to cut opponents' kites and be the last man standing. The kite runner is a boy who chases fallen kites and tries to catch them before other kite runners do. Hassan is renowned as one of the best kite runners, and when Amir finally wins the kite competition, it is Hassan who retrieves his last opponent's kite.

But Amir's cowardice culminates in an incident that will haunt him for the rest of his life. It is the beginning of what, for him, is a nagging feeling of guilt that demands redemption.

One of Hosseini's many gifts is the ability to seamlessly weave in real events with the events of his story, giving you the perspective of how those events altered the lives of real people in Afghanistan.

When the Russians invade, Amir and his father, who are among Kabul's elite, escape Afghanistan to land up in the US, where, years later, Amir becomes a famous writer. Yet the ghosts of the past continue to haunt him until one day in 2001, he receives a call that will send him back into the cauldron that Afghanistan has become thanks to the efforts of the Soviets, the Mujahideen and the Taliban.

It is to the author's credit that he does not make the Afghanistan trip look like an adventure. Instead, he focuses on showing a nation that has crumbled, been pummeled by history. No one has been left unscathed and unscarred by the years of battles is what Hosseni tries to say, and he succeeds at it.

The novel is dedicated to the children of Afghanistan. And the sheer terror that the Taliban has inspired is again shown very well. But the best part, the most gripping, is the depiction of the friendship between Amir and Hassan in the first half of the book.

The Kite Runner was a novel that I had difficulty believing was a first attempt. Hosseini deftly manages to put in enough pathos, history and tragedy without making it look forced for the most part. The one minor gripe I had with the book is that at some places, the flow wasn't too smooth, especially Amir's life in America. But perhaps that could be justified to show the contrast with life in Afghanistan.

I thought The Kite Runner was powerful stuff. It was indeed a very engaging story, told with every ounce of sensitivity and quite touching. But as good as it is, The Kite Runner is greatly overshadowed by the shining brilliance Hosseini's second attempt, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

As the cover suggests, this is a novel about the women of Afghanistan. It begins with the story of 15 year old Mariam, who is a harami, a bastard daughter of a rich man and his servant. The word, for obvious reasons, is one she hates, but it is the word that all around her use to describe her. Staying near the town of Herat with her epileptic mother, she longs to join the family of her father.

Tragedy strikes and her mother dies. Mariam's father, who never wanted her, is forced to take her into his household. This arrangement doesn't last for long though, and Mariam is hurriedly married of to Rashed, a man thirty years her senior. And an abusive husband to boot.

After moving to Kabul with Rasheed, life quickly goes downhill for her, and at one point you think it just can't get worse. That is when Hosseini shows that the word "worse" has a different meaning for women in Afghanistan.

Because Laila, a neighbor of theirs, and a girl almost twenty years younger than Mariam is about to undergo a tragedy far worse than even Mariam. Laila is the direct opposite of Mariam. She is a literate girl, with a father whose ideas would be considered very progressive. He strongly believes in getting her an education and later a job – these were days when women could work in Afghanistan. With him, and her boyfriend Tariq, she visits the Bamiyan Buddhas, the same that the Taliban would later destroy.

It's too good to last though. As the war with the Soviets begins, Tariq and his family move to Pakistan, leaving Laila with her family. And her family do not stay long either. They are killed in a blast, of which she is the lone survivor. In these circumstances, Rasheed takes her in, and she is pressganged into marrying him as his second wife.

Predictably, this does not please Mariam, and a cold war begins. On this blog, it may sound the stuff of our dreary TV serials. But that impression couldn't be further from the truth, as you realize when you go further. The ordeal and hardships just get worse with the onset of the Communists, the Mujahideen, the warlords and finally, the Taliban. There was a real progression in barbarity in these successive regimes is used to full effect to show how it influences the lives of these two women.

The barbarity of the regimes is paralleled by the barbarity of Rasheed, which also increases in a similar progression. The women who began as adversaries soon find themselves befriending each other in a world where they have no other friends and no other options.

The novel begins on a slow note, but once the author has shown the contrasts between the two women's individual lives, and brought them together, the story simply becomes more heart wrenching with every chapter. Some points in the novel deserve special mention: the meeting that Laila has with Zaman, an orphanage director and one of the “few good men” left in Afghanistan; Mariam's interactions with Laila's children; Mariam's decision at the end of the book and Laila's reaction to it; and of course the ending itself, which I will not spoil.

While Laila's ordeal seems the harsher of the two, Mariam's role most closely mirrors of Hassan's in the previous novel, and her character simply wins all sympathies by the heartbreaking end.

The events may sometimes seem improbable – its often too barbaric that it may seem artificial. But many Afghan women have experiences that are arguably just as dramatic as as the one presented by Hosseini. Certainly, the barbarities that Laila and Mariam are subjected to, both at home and outside, are not something we've not heard, but stringing them together into one story that is more shattering and devastating than what we are normally used to. And while that may look unreal, we only need to read the Taliban's decrees to know that it was chillingly real.

The novel is not without its share of flaws – some parts in the beginning of Mariam's story are a bit melodramatic and Bollywood-ish, and the epilogue seems a bit too stretched, though a fervent message of hope redeems the final pages.

But in essence, Hosseni's second novel is gripping, extremely powerful and deeply touching. There have been very few novels I've come across that have been as moving as A Thousand Splendid Suns. It is indeed one of the most powerful and honest novels I've ever read.

Both the novels bring you face to face with a country which has been utterly destroyed, ruined and shattered, like the peace of mind of Amir and the lives of Mariam and Laila. But just as there is redemption for Amir in The Kite Runner and a new life for the women in A Thousand Splendid Suns, the novels raise a desperate hope that Afghanistan and its people will never have to again undergo what they have undergone these last thirty years.

...Lekin aap to santusht hain!

I was once watching a children's quiz on a regional channel. The participants were all in their early teens or younger, and one of the rounds involved asking the children the spelling of some common word. Up came an eager-looking kid who gave the spellings of words such as “excellent” excellently, though he did stumble at words like “hazardous”. Finally he was asked the spelling of the word “vacuum”. He seemed to be confused, but ended up answering “vacyum”. The correct answer, as the quiz master and the on-screen display said, was “vaccum”.

That reminded me of a quiz I had participated in many years ago. It was held on the eve of independence day, and students from 5^th to 10^th class were all participating. At the end there was a tie between our team and another, and the tie-breaker was the question: who was the iron man of India. We hit the buzzer and answered confidently, “Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel”, only to be told it was Lokmanya Tilak. All participants from the 5^th to the 10^th claimed it was Patel, but the quiz master (mistress?) batted for Tilak.

Of course, what had happened was that the quiz master had probably selected the questions from one of the handy quiz books and had by mistake, perhaps copied question 141 and answer 142. Or maybe the quiz book itself was wrong; because certainly every single book of history says it was Patel, not Tilak. And anyone familar with school textbook history would know why.

Now look at it in a bigger context – people conducting a spelling competition where the organizers don't know spellings themselves and their knowledge of Patel is weaker than those they are testing. “Vacuum” is an easy word to spell wrong, but if the organizers had just typed the word into MS Word, they would have seen a red underline below it. That was the bare minimum that was required to ensure quality for the quiz. The other quiz organizer could have referred to any history textbook before asking questions, but she didn't. And when all students from 5^th to 10^th class were saying unanimously that it was Patel, perhaps a fact check was in order. But that never happened. It was as though the allegation of inaccuracy did not even merit a verification! It sounds funny, a kind of “life is unfair” moment, and that's perfectly acceptable.

What is not acceptable though, is the total negligence of quality. A quiz that tests others should be first and foremost, impeccable in its own general knowledge and diction. But these quizzes weren't, and this disregard for quality isn't confined to quizzes. It is part of almost every dealing we've had in our lives.

Service for any internet provider is an example. In my own dealings with three prominent companies, I've seen that none of them have the slightest idea of the technicalities involved. Running my system on Linux, I was facing some problems which I tried to resolve with one of them. As it turned out, the tech support guys said they had no idea about Linux. Well, the moment a networking guy tells you he doesn't know Linux or Unix, you can be sure he's a fake. Networking is taught on these operating systems, yet people running an internet service have no idea about it. But as I later found out, I had been expecting too much from the company, because as it turned out, the customer service of the same company had no idea how their own company billed its customers – the very customers they were supposed to be servicing!

Be honest: when was the last time any Indian company floored you, as a customer, with its sheer service quality? Look all around you, from your internet to your cable TV provider, your telephone service to your passport agent, anywhere. When was the last time you could book a ticket online without a glitch? When was the last time you faced a technical problem that was solved in one call?

Is it because we Indians can't provide good service? No, that is simply not true. Good service is the reason why companies like Dell and HP and McAfee put their call centers in India. It is documented for many companies that technical and customer service available in Indian call centers is better qualitatively than support provided in China or Philippines or sometimes even the home country of the company itself! My own friends in some international call centers told me that if they were as clueless as the customer care in Indian companies, they would be fired from their jobs.

Then why are we unable to provide the same world-class service to our own people? In fact, why is world-class different from the class offered to fellow Indians?

The free market should have solved this problem. The amount of choices we have today is drastically greater than the choices we had even 5 years ago. This should have meant, in theory, that market forces would have favored those companies that provided good service. But theory hasn't worked.

There was a recent ad by Shahrukh Khan which I think has the answer. Khan talks about how cable operators provide grainy coverage, fewer channels and paltry service, and he taunts the viewer sardonically, “... lekin aap to, santusht hain,” (but you guys are still satisfied). In other words, we are easily satisfied with even the poorest service that we get. We don't produce quality for our own countrymen because our own countrymen never demand it. We are, as Khan puts it so brilliantly, “santusht” with poor quality.

Which is why we have ATMs that don't work for a whole month in a city like Bangalore. We have customer support who don't know when, how and where a bill payment must be made. We have cable operators who put their phone off the hook because they say too many people complain about their services. And we have quiz masters not knowing who the iron man of India is or what the spelling of vacuum is.

The same ad also suggests a solution: “please, please and please, don't be santusht! Thoda aur wish karo.” Don't be satisfied with poor service. Don't be satisfied with people who don't know what they are doing. Wish for more and ask for more. Demand excellence.

There is a story about a shoemaker who provided the whole town with shoes. But the shoemaker himself, and his family, walked barefoot because he was never able to make shoes for any of them, because they never asked him to make shoes for them. So the question is, do you want to be that shoemaker's family?

Whats wrong with the loan waiver

The biggest news about the budget has been the Rs 60000 crores loan waiver. It's a brave move, we are told. The government, of course, would like us to believe that it is a silver bullet that will solve the problem of farmer suicides. But will it?

I'm no economist. But based on what I've been reading for the last few days, there are some things that I have tried to get a grip of on the subject. Now I'm not much concerned by the ideological argument that government should not interfere or that loan waivers encourage financial irresponsibility. If people are driven to commit suicide, I think we can forgo those considerations if it that will stop them from doing so. Besides, such freebies are given quite often to corporates in the form of SEZs, tax reliefs and the like. So the ideological opposition is moot. What I'm concerned with, is whether this waiver will actually serve its purpose.

To begin with, the loan waiver is only for those farmers who have 2 hectares. Those who have more have the option of having 25% of the loan waived if they pay the remaining 75%. That's where the trouble begins. Not all crops are the same. They don't have the same requirements of soil nutrients, land size etc. Nor do they have the same price. Some require more land, some less. For example, in Vidarbha, has been one of the most infamous for farmer suicides, average land holding is 3.5Ha.

But the waiver takes none of this into account and seems to assume that 2Ha of cotton is equal to 2Ha of sugarcane is equal to 2Ha of apples.. As P Sainath further explains in this article, even the timing is going to hit the farmers:

The cut-off date of March 31, 2007 works against even the small group of Vidarbha farmers who do benefit. Loans in the cotton regions are taken between April and June. In the cane growing regions, they are taken between January and March. This means the Vidarbha farmer has one less year of loans waived than the others.

Besides, there are a number of farmers all across India who are below the 2Ha limit, but not facing a crisis, such as in Kerala, as the article also points out. These people will also benefit from this waiver. Some of you may wonder why this is a problem. It is because, as Mohammad Yunus (Grameen Bank founder, micro-credit pioneer and Nobel Peace Price laureate) suggests, mixing the needy with not-so-needy within a programme leads to the not-so-needy driving the needy out of the benefits of the deal. In other words, the not-so-needy tend to dominate the benefits.

What's worse is the fact that loans from private moneylenders are not covered in this waiver. Why is this a bad thing? Because over three-fourths of people in MH alone are under loans from private moneylenders, as this report prepared by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and tabled before the MH High Court, says.

The farmers took their first loan from banks (banks gave loan only once, with a further loan possible only after repayment of the outstanding loan). The later loans were from private parties to repay the bank loan (default of which would result in attachment of the land or mortgaged house). Even for those with an ability to get loan from the formal sector, access to informal sector loans was indispensable. Thus, over 75% of the farmers had loan commitments to non- formal sources.

And now comes probably the most dangerous aspect of the whole issue. On one hand we have a loan waiver that does not target the most important source of loans ie private loans, and on the other, we have the startling news that one rural commercial bank has been closed every day for the last 15 years.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy (2006-07) shows there were 30,639 rural branches of SCBs in 2007. That is, 4,750 less than the number in 1993. In other words, an average of 26 bank branches shut down each month, or one every working day.

However, branches in metros shot up from 5,753 to 11,826 in the same period. In other urban centres, the number climbed from 8,562 to 12,792 in this period, while also going up in semi-urban locations from 11,356 to 16,214.

And the rate, as that article further explains, was the highest in 2006, which was after the TISS report I mentioned earlier.

So putting these pieces together, we see that, rural commercial banks (whose loans are covered) have been closing down at an alarming rate while private moneylenders have been entering to fill their space, thereby worsening matters. This does not betray the intentions of a government serious about solving the problem of farmer suicides.

In short, the loan waiver suffers from a problem of targeting: its audience has not been targeted and nor has its timing.

Some people claim that, bad as it may be, it still is better than nothing. That is missing the point since, after all, the argument is not that nothing would be better. The point is that this loan waiver is not the best usage of the money the government has on its hands.

Farmer suicides is a complex crisis arising out of many factors. A research on these factors, and identifying which factors are most dominant in which areas would have yielded a policy which addressed specifically those points of concern. A loan waiver with terms tailored to meet the differing requirements, or maybe different smaller loan waivers, one for each concern area, would have proved a more effective use of taxpayer money.

The solution being offered by this blanket loan waiver is akin to a doctor who blindly gives Crocin to any and every patient who comes to him, ignoring the fact that the patient may actually in need of a tetanus injection or an antibiotic, or may even be having a fracture, all cases in which Crocin is hardly of any use.

In dealing with any complex problem, identification of its causes is the key and addressing those causes is how one proceeds. That is the practice used in engineering; it is the same practice that is lacking in this loan waiver.

As I said, I'm no economist. But as an engineer, as a citizen and a taxpayer, I refuse to believe that the best economists and researchers cannot come up with a solution that addresses the specifics of the factors causing suicides and utilizes public money in a more effective way. One size does not fit all

Enough of the nautanki, now kick her out, please

So it’s finally come to this. Taslima Nasreen, after being hounded out of Kolkata to Rajasthan and finally to Delhi, has been told to stay out of Kolkata and reportedly, also out of sight. And it isn’t one of our artistic-minded and secular Communists saying this – it is the honorable Foreign Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee. Though I wonder what Pranabda has to do with the entire issue, (this should ideally be the responsibility of the Home Minister) it seems that the government stands by his view on the matter.

Let me go back a bit in time for those who’ve not been following the issue. During the height of the Nandigram agitation, riots broke out in Kolkata by Muslims protesting the fact that the CPM was victimizing the people of Nandigram, most of whom were Muslims. For some mysterious reason, Taslima Nasreen also got dragged into the issue, citing the alleged derogatory references to Islam and Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) in her book Dwikhandito.

I read somewhere that the whole incident might have been stage managed by WB CM Buddhadev Bhattacharya (who, as Comrade Sitaram Yechury says, is not, I repeat not at all similar to Modi, no matter what the atrocities in Nandigram may suggest) to divert attention away from Nandigram. Regardless of that, however, is the fact that she was whisked by the police to Rajasthan and then to Delhi, and the Buddha passed on her buck to the Center.

Making the whole bedlam much more "colorful" was the inimitable Narendra Modi, who was now rolling out the red carpet for Nasreen. Of course, having done his very best to promote freedom of speech in Vadodara and also in the case of Aamir Khan’s Fanaa, and belonging to a party subscribing to the highest ideals of liberalism as they showed with MF Husain, Modi painting himself the mascot of freedom of speech in the country was entirely justified.

The Center, having been saddled with the responsibility of a woman wanted by the peaceful gentlemen who only wanted her head, went for the only option that any civilized, liberal, free society would take – they told her, in almost as many words, to shut the fuck up. Okay, they may have missed the "fuck" part.

So why is the government keeping her here at all? Since they very well do not want her to exercise any freedom of speech, why this whole charade of giving her refuge? Just declare her a persona non grata and throw her out. That would spare us all the daily nautanki that the mad Mullahs, the secular Communists and the wannabe soap-opera-queen Nasreen (“life is miserable”) are subjecting us to. While you’re at it, please also make it clear that, as someone pointed out on the NDTV.com columns, the only people who have freedom of speech in this country are those who are willing to use violence for shutting up other people.

“Freedom of speech does not mean you can hurt anyone’s sentiments”

This is a common refrain often heard in this issue, and nothing could be more wrong. I don’t need – nobody needs – freedom of speech to praise someone or something. I don’t need freedom of speech to say “Islam is good, the Prophet is excellent”. Freedom of speech is required only when I need to criticize something, when I want to explain why I don’t approve of Islam (or in fact most religions) when it comes to women’s rights and tolerance.

When something is criticized, it goes without saying that someone’s sentiments are going to get hurt. Freedom of speech which requires you to not hurt someone is a sham. When the anti-Sati movement began, it did hurt the sentiments of those who believed in the practice. The same is true for the anti-casteism movements. If the “don’t hurt anybody” philosophy had been in place in the times of Ram Mohan Roy, we wouldn’t have seen his movement to eradicate these evils.

Maybe Nasreen did actually hurt sentiments. But when a group of nuts thinks the best way to counter this is by physically assaulting her (as they did in Hyderabad) and then driving her out of the state, as done in West Bengal, the job of the government is to draw a line and tell them to get a life. Or maybe indulge in some kinky sex, if that is what cools them down. Instead the government attained the height of irresponsibility by virtually holding her responsible for the fact that some loons knew no better way to respond than Neanderthal violence.

There are many things that hurt my sentiments – for instance, the fact that people in the 21^st century believe in Creationism/Intelligent Design and without knowing the slightest bit about evolution, proceed to criticize it. But I don’t think the way to answer them is violence – it is simply education or a debate. Telling them to shut up doesn’t prove anything other than the fact that I don’t have the slightest idea how to answer them.

Similarly the best way to answer Nasreen, if she is indeed propagating mindless hatred as alleged, is debate. Have the worthies, the Shahi Imam or anyone from the Deobandi Ulema challenged her to a discussion, or are they too busy telling her to get out?

Maybe I’m being too harsh. The Imam and his mad mullah friends in all probability have lesser brainpower than a Neanderthal. Their actions strongly suggest it. But surely someone like, say, Shabana Azmi would be an effective counter? She is intelligent, articulate and is a Muslim woman to boot, effectively countering Nasreen’s nonsensical and melodramatic “I’m victimized because I’m a woman” claim. What better way, what better candidate can be found to counter whatever Nasreen says about Muslim women’s status? Javed Akhtar and Aamir Khan are two other names that I can think right on the spur of the moment. Don’t tell me there aren’t any more moderate Muslims who have what it takes to debate her.

“We don’t like a foreigner criticizing our religion”

The above is another common argument given for seeking her expulsion. Unfortunately, the argument is an attempt at putting a smoke-screen on the whole issue. Firstly, Islam is, as Muslims themselves say, a religion not confined to India but a religion for all humanity. Naturally it follows that a person need not be constrained by national boundaries when criticizing it.

Secondly, are they alleging that the nationality of Nasreen is the reason they are opposing her? Why then do I hear a deafening silence from most Muslims, including the Shahi Imam, on the issue of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants? Unlike them, Nasreen has been officially given refuge by the Indian government, and so is here legally. Surely the outcry against the immigrants should be greater?

Thirdly and most importantly, are they trying to say that if Nasreen was an Indian Muslim saying the same things, they would have been cool with it? That would be the height of intellectual dishonesty, since the fate of Salman Rushdie is well-known.

So let’s not fool ourselves. This is not about her foreign origin, nor is it about “responsible freedom of speech”, whatever that means. It is simply about stifling an opinion that a group of people don’t like and don’t have the slightest idea how to respond to. It is simply about shutting up any points of view that do not toe the conventional line.

I for one would look forward to an honest discussion on Nasreen’s claims. Alas, no one in the Muslim community so far seems to have realized that this is also an option. And so, the Government of India, led by self-proclaimed “secular” parties, sees fit to not tell the mad mullahs to go take a hike, but to kowtow to them. I used to attribute it to “pseudo-secularism” like most people, but I don’t think that’s the whole truth. It doesn’t explain why the government, after presenting an affidavit stating (correctly) that there was no historical evidence for Rama’s existence, withdrew it after protests.

The bigger reason is simpler than that: the Congress, and in fact most secular parties, are actually cowards. They kowtow to any community that protests the loudest or takes religious issues seriously enough to vote on them. In most cases this is the Muslim community, but when the government bites off more than it can chew, as in the ASI affidavit, Hindus can be just as belligerent too.

The trouble is that the Congress knows it did not win the 2004 elections; it was the BJP which lost them. The Congress, way short of a majority in a house and experimenting with its first major coalition in the Center, doesn’t want to lose an opportunity it knows it got by sheer luck. And so it tries to please all, and thus emerges a toothless party not ready to take a no-nonsense bold stand on any issue. This is not to say the BJP was very bold, but then, they are a communal party, remember? I thought the secular Congress was supposed to be better. Secularism, democracy and liberalism would demand that the government take a stand favoring Nasreen, but that would take a courage the party lacks.

And so I come back to what I said in the beginning: when they don’t have the courage to walk the talk, why pretend? Why not simply accept that the government cannot protect Nasreen and kick her out? If the government wants to please the mad mullahs, it may just as well go the whole nine yards. At least they can do that properly, without the usual half-measures. We’ve had enough of the nautanki.

Refined Creationism

In the course of my debates on evolution, I have discovered that creationism is not a monolithic theory. Of course, I strongly feel creationism is not a theory in the first place in the scientific sense of the term. However, creationism isn’t just about a hypothetical supernatural creator dropping Adam and Eve down from the garden of Eden.

A more refined form of creationism that I have encountered seeks to achieve a marriage of sorts between creationism and evolution. Though the details are quite nebulous and vague, the gist of the theory is that while humans and all other organisms have indeed evolved from single-celled ancestors, those single-celled ancestors had been created by a Creator. Another version of the theory, which is called “theistic evolution”, says that evolution was ‘helped’ along the way by a Creator.

"Refined", here means just that the theory is a more nuanced version of creationism, an attempt to bring it in tune with actual science. However, something that is founded on shaky ground can never be a profound idea.

As an agnostic atheist, I am naturally wary of both the above theories. However, it would be unscientific to let my personal prejudices influence a sane evaluation of the two theories. I shall try to stick to the logical problems that the above two theories create.

The problem with both the above theories is that they invoke a god (repackaged as a “creator”). But the trouble is, the existence of god has never been proven. Also, the question arises why god is required at all to explain evolution.

Theistic evolution actually goes against the very essentials of evolution. Evolution, in a nutshell, involves genes which mutate randomly. Some genes have a positive effect on survival and reproductive chances; some have a negative impact and some have no impact. Natural selection simply is the process by which the mutations which help an animal survive and reproduce better, get propagated more to future generations. Mutations that have a detrimental impact reduce in frequency because their “carriers”, the organisms, survive and/or reproduce less.

Now if you bring in an invisible hand “guiding” evolution, the question arises: how exactly does it guide evolution? Mutations are by definition random, which is why some of them are harmful and some of them useless. Clearly, if the hand is guiding mutations, then mutations should have been only beneficial and the component of natural selection would not be needed at all. On the other hand, making the hand guide natural selection is even more absurd.

Natural selection is not a guided process any more than gravitation is. How absurd would it be to claim that an invisible hand “guides” an apple to fall to the earth?

Incidentally, this part has been parodied well by Uncyclopedia here. It’s of course not a serious site, but it shows the problems with the Intelligent Design and creationism theory quite well. The same parody can be applied to theistic evolution too.

Also, we would question the necessity of the invisible hand to guide gravity. The theory of gravity explains everything quite well without the assumption of a god; bringing god into the theory would require an explanation of why he is required in the theory. The situation in evolution is pretty similar - it can be equally well explained without god; god certainly adds nothing to our understanding of the process.

Theistic evolution, thus is essentially an attempt to force god into something that never really requires the presence of any supernatural entity. A very special explanation is required to justify bringing god into the picture here, and that justification is not forthcoming.

Coming to the other form of refined creationism, the one which says god created the first life, and then allowed it to evolve. I call this “creation + evolution”.

The more you think about it, the more you realize that “creation + evolution” is pretty well covered-up non-theistic evolution. It must be a very lazy god who created the first single-celled organism and left it to its devices ever since. The question naturally arises, what has he been doing ever since?

And of course, the same question of the need for god in this theory, arises. Why at all do we need god to create the first life? Research is progressing in the field of abiogenesis, which seeks to explain the emergence of life from non-living substances. Miller and Urey demonstrated that complex organic molecules could have come about from simpler chemicals, which means that the possibility of life originating from non-living substances is quite real.

Of course, the probability of abiogenesis is quite low. But consider this: there are an estimated 100 billion billion planets in universe¹. Even if the probability of abiogenesis were one in a billion billion, we could still expect 100 planets in the universe to have had life.

Of course, on earth itself, life is thought to have originated between 4.4 billion years ago to 2.7 billion years ago, which means that we may actually consider abiognesis to have much lower probability than even one in a billion billion. In fact, as Richard Dawkins explains in The Blind Watchmaker, we should be concerned if the probability was not extremely low, because then it would be unusual that the whole universe wasn’t teeming with life.

Evolution has been proved and requires the presence of no creator at all. Of course, one may introduce a creator. But bringing in a creator is neither required, nor does it enhance our understanding of the theory in any way whatsoever. Abiogenesis offers an interesting possibility of life arising without a god’s intervention, as a purely random process.

God, thus, remains an unnecessary, redundant and superfluous explanation forced upon perfectly natural theories that are no poorer without the imposition of the supernatural.

1. The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins.

Sitting on a powder keg?

The recent Gujjar protests in Rajasthan, which have now spread to Delhi, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, are assuming alarming proportions. It began with Gujjars (who are officially designated as OBCs in the state) demanding that they be included under the Scheduled Tribes category. This would entitle them to a better quota in jobs and education.

This was opposed by the Meenas, who are the only Scheduled Tribe in Rajasthan at present. Granting the ST status to the Gujjars will, but obviously, eat into the Meenas' share. While earlier they would have to compete only against fellow Meenas, they will need to compete with Gujjars too for the same opportunities. As a result, the Meenas have opposed this demand and there have been violent clashes. There is also hectic political lobbying by both sides.

I will not go into whether or not the Rajasthan government bungled, or whether the demand by the Gujjars is justified or not. The question here is about the explosive scenario we seem to be moving towards.

However you look at it, it seems difficult for any govt to please both factions - the Meenas and the Gujjars. If the Govt of Rajasthan rejects the Gujjars demands, it will precipitate a further caste war between the Meenas, who will be seen as the saboteurs, and the Gujjars. There is bound to be a lot of bad blood there.

But it would be far worse if the government were to accede to the demands of the Gujjars. Consider for a moment the implications of such a move. It would signal that violence pays. Armtwisting the government through rioting is a feasible way to get your demands met. It will also send the message that all a caste needs to do to get into an SC/ST bracket would be to indulge in violent protests.

While the Gujjars and the Meenas may have a lot of antagonism for each other as a result of this issue, they would both unite if a third caste were to agitate for the granting of ST status to it. We would see bigger caste clashes.

There may be possible workarounds like giving the ST status to Gujjars, but making the Meenas a special sub-category of STs, like a quota within a quota. I'm not sure of the constitutional validity of this, but such a workaround too is bound to fail, since it will soon be questioned why Meenas are given this special treatment, and worse, other castes will demand the same "special" treatment.

It is becoming clear now that there is unlikely to be any easy, mutually acceptable solution. A solution that pleases the Gujjars will anger the Meenas and vice versa.

It is not inconceivable or even improbable, that soon other castes with adequate muscle power will protest for an SC/ST status, even if they really are not backward in any sense. With each demand, it will become increasingly harder to justify one caste having reservations, while the other doesnt. And when the stick, the gun and fire are the preferred means of negotiation, justifications, whether they make sense or not, are bound to go unheard. We seem to be now sitting on a powder keg which may blast at any given moment. What the anti-reservationists have been crying themselves hoarse over, about the divisive power of reservations, seems to ring true.

"I told you so" is sometimes called the most painful sentence in English. But it seems the most apt in this scenario - tragically so.

The Trouble with the Domestic Violence Act

The Domestic Violence Act which was passed last year has received a lot of bouquets and brickbats from the expected quarters. The act is deeply controversial due its insistence that firstly, the person who commits domestic violence is always a male, and secondly, that on being accused, the onus is on the man to prove his innocence.

The second point is what I shall focus on more here. When the onus is on the accused to prove his innocence, it means that he is automatically considered a criminal on being charged. The person doing the charging is not obliged to first prove the guilt. In short, guilty unless proven innocent. The problem is obvious: a woman can blackmail her husband with the Damocles Sword of the DVA, since it is his headache to get the proof that he did not indulge in DV.

Many feminists support this law, not realising, perhaps, that it is eerily similar to Pakistan's Hudood Ordinance which puts similar guilt by default on women.

Let me make my stand clear on Domestic Violence first, before someone misunderstands. Domestic Violence on women is a crime, committed by weak, witless so-called men who bring a bad name to all men. A real man does not hit a woman¹, whatever provocation may exist. Thus, I fully support a law against domestic violence. However, that does not mean I support the law that has been passed.

That is not a contradictory stance. I do support laws against murder, but I would not support a law which demands no evidence to prove that the accused has committed the murder.

I have discussed this issue with some feminists and have come across with arguments which I shall try to counter here. I do not believe the feminist friends I have spoken to support the DVA out of any misandry, but because they sincerely believe the act is good, and see the problems mentioned as minor loopholes. With all due respect to them, I believe that the act is neither good, nor are the problems loopholes and nor are they minor.


But first, a few of the most common arguments made by the feminists in their justifications for the law.


1. "Yes, the law will be misused by unscruplous women, but this will be a minority"
This is the most common assertion made to support DVA. I call this "the numerical argument". It says that there will be unscruplous women, but very few. The numerical argument is also invoked to explain why the law does not hold that men can also be victims of DV. Because there are very few men who will actually be victims of DV.

Firstly, this is a very major assumption they are making, which in turn is based on the greater assumption that women are somehow more truthful than men and hence will not misuse the law much. Clearly a sexist assumption. Had it been asserted instead that men are more trustworthy, feminists would have opposed it, and rightly so. But this is still the lesser problem with the numerical argument.

The numerical argument sounds reasonable when you first hear it. But then the more you think about it, the more you realise that it doesnt make any sense at all. Even if we do assume that the cases of DV on men are lesser, it does not mean they do not deserve justice.

Similarly, just because the misuse will be lesser (another assumption) it does not mean that the misuse is tolerable, nor that it should be ignored. This relates to my response to their second argument.

To turn the question around to feminists, would Domestic Violence be any less heinous if the crimes on women were much lesser than they are right now?


2. "Which law is not misused?"
This argument rests on the premise that a lot of laws are misused. And that is true. Due to our poor law enforcement and corrupt society, it is possible to fabricate evidence, or bribe your way out, and that does undermine the system a lot.

Hence this statement is true. But it also makes for a very lazy argument.

While it is true that laws are misused, that does not mean that laws should be misused, or that we should make provisions in the law that increase the chances of its misuse. Nor that we should make it easier and more lucrative to misuse the law.

Instead, we should be trying to reduce the chances of misuse here, eliminating those provisions that may throw innocents into prison. And the first requisite for that is proof of guilt. The accuser should be required to provide evidence of the guilt of the accused. This is not something extraordinary; it happens in all criminal cases.

Consider how the DVA can become a tool of terror. It defines even shouting as a form of DV. (It is completely ignored that even women can shout at their husbands, thus constituting DV, but lets leave that for now)

Say a woman accuses her husband of shouting at her in private. Remember the onus is on him to prove his innocence. Is there any earthly way for him to prove he did not shout at her? Surely not.

Consider another situation: a wife shouts at her husband, and it is not DV. Getting angry when being shouted at is a common human tendency. In his anger, if he shouts back, it becomes DV. Now he has no recourse to the law and is instead considered a criminal for doing no more than what his wife had done.

Of course, in both these cases, the man can try to manufacture evidence, to cook up something. However, as Shiv Khera once remarked "a corrupt system is something that forces an honest person to do something dishonest to achieve an honest objective." That is precisely the problem here.


3. "It is difficult to get evidence for DV"
This argument is most easily countered. Referring to my first example about the shouting situation, the accused too has no way of getting evidence for his innocence. How can a system that holds a person guilty by default, and then gives him no way to prove his innocence, how can such a system be termed "just"?

Besides, just because getting evidence is tough, does not mean we can forego the need for evidence. Evidence may hard to come by even in a murder case. The judge would not respond to that by waiving the requirement for evidence.


4. "Evidence can be manufactured"
This is again true. But then, evidence can be manufactured in cases of murder too. That never stopped us from requiring evidence for murder in the first place, did it?


5. "But a law is needed"
I agree that a law is needed to counter DV. DV is a crime, as I said, committed by inferior men (I have no regrets for using that word - it describes them most aptly). I fully support a law against it. However, I contend that this particular law is not the law for it. If the law were to state that the wife must first provide incontrovertible evidence for the DV, I would support it.



The emancipation of women is not going to come about by labelling men as villains and proclaiming a law for it. If you are a feminist reading this, bear in mind that we are in a democracy and you need the support of people for emancipation of women. In this regard, image counts for a lot. And blatantly one-sided laws like the DVA only spoil that image by making it look like feminists dont really want equality, but want to turn the tables on men. It doesnt help, either, when feminists go on to oppose the Hudood, which puts on women the very same "guilty-by-default" burden that DVA puts on men.

Betty Friedman, the famous feminist, once said, "It is better for a woman to compete impersonally in society, as men do, than to compete for dominance in her own home with her husband". Those supporting the DVA may take note and analyse whether the DVA is not really doing exactly that.


¹ obviously, this does not include hitting a woman in self-defence. Also, it applies both ways. A real woman would also not see any need to hit a man except in self-defence.