Long back, I ported LSODA solver to C++ (https://github.com/dilawar/libsoda-cxx) for a neural simulator I was working on during my PhD. This port is almost the same as the reference C code except for STL containers and some other goodies (and some OB1 errors).
Today, I used Claude to improve unit tests and docs and enhance CMake integration.
First, I asked Claude to look in scipy codebase, search for LSODA related tests, and add them to my project. It did a great job and wrote a better commit message than I would have done but that’s not saying much! The tests Claude wrote used assert which is a noop in release build i.e. these assert won’t be there in release build so passing tests in release are meaningless. When I pointed this out, it replaced them with runtime exception that works with both debug and release build. Not cool, Claude but not bad either. Its C++!
Then I ask for a CMake harness so that folks can integrate my library into their CMake based workflow easily. I did OK at first attempt and made a boo-boo which was caught by Coderabbit review bot (free for open source). Claude fixed it later!
All of it took roughly 30 minutes!
If you are very very familiar with existing codebase then I don’t think Claude/AI tools add too much value. With hot cache, I could have done it in one hour. The advantages of 30 minutes of time saving may not be worth losing your touch with something you enjoy i.e. programming and story building in your head. I definitely feel that I am on “opium” when I use it for a long time.
Claude is very very good at things at which I am below average. Which is true for almost all the things I am doing with Claude thee days. So it is not unnatural that these tools enjoy great reputations among users. More objectively, good AI tools are perfect for things that feels like chores e.g. “translate tests from this Python implementation to C++” or “reproduce this bug and when you find it commit it on a branch” or “create a new project with this and that”.
At my last stint at a medium size org that lasted a month, we are asked to use Claude code as much as possible. Sure, I finished a task in half an hour that would have taken a person familiar with the codebase 3 hours but the PR is still pending review after 12 days! So where are the gains? Beware of Amdahl law as well!
As many have pointed out before that AI tools are very eager to achieve success. They will try to achieve it by any means. Once in a while they will stop and ask you but most of time, they will find a plausible solution. Ensure that your prompt has the definition of “success/done” and “properly” articulated. Discuss it with all stakeholders when a ticket is created otherwise you’ll get something that kind of work but it does not.
How important are people to the success of your startup? I believe the answer to be somewhere in between of “very” and “what else is there”. And so startups go hunting for rock-star, or 10x programmers.
Do you really need to hire a few 10x engineers to succeed? Of course not! One of my favorite band “Indian Ocean” has average musicians and yet they make great music. Afghanistan and New Zeeland cricket team has done remarkably well without having rock-stars. I firmly believe that a programmer who is barely 10% better at day to day chores is at least twice or thrice a productive as normal engineer over a course of a year! The reason is the non-linearity called compounding.
You may have felt it in school. A kid who puts 5-10% extra effort every day may become twice as accomplished at the end of the year. Folks who do well at competitive exams seem to understand this very well, though they articulate it as discipline (and hard work). A fund with 5% compounding interests doubles every 14 years, with 10% every 7 years, with 15% every 5 years. A mere 10% change in day to day activity can reduce the timelines by 10 years (and vice versa)!
I firmly believe that many day-to-day activities related to software development have strong compounding effect on its completion or quality, or both.
Finding force-multipliers
When I was in college, Prof. H. Narayanan told me once, “You are creative, but you should also be right!” I didn’t think much of it that time. When you like working with computers, you can’t stop appreciating how hard it is to get it “right”.
Is it possible to get hard problems right in the first or second try? Eventually yes. I mean, anyone can make good progress on anything given “enough” time with consistent effort! But if we are a startup, we don’t have the luxury of spending years. I think we can get it right in first or second attempt if you do the “planning”. You could break the hard problem down to simpler problems that your team and solve with minimal supervision. If you can’t, find someone who can!
Let me put it more concretely. Let’s say I can solve a class A problem 50% of time, class B 90% of time, and class C almost always, i.e., 99% of times. What are my chances of solving a problem if I can break it into two problems of class A, or four class B, or eight class C problems?
Class of sub-problems
Chance of solving one problem of this class
# Problems
Chance of solving all
A
50
2 of class A
25%
B
75
4 of class B
31%
C
99
8 of class C
92%
You have two options. Find someone who can solve the master problem with 92% chance, or find someone who can break it into eight class C problems. I always seek out the later type of people when I conduct interviews. People who can partition a problem into multiple simpler problems that can be delegated to others. These folks are force multiplier (positive compounding, that is)!
This leads to a corollary that 10x engineers are not necessary. I’ve not met one yet, let alone hiring one. There is an easier way. Search for normal devs who show signs of positive compounding. These folks are usually disciplined in some way, and excellent with tools. Add a force multiplier to the team, and you are done.
None of the musicians in the band Indian Ocean is what I’d call a 10x musician, but their work is of great quality and value. Why can’t start up teams be like that?
Managing Peopleware
A lot has been written about managing teams. You hire talented and energetic people, and they start off very well. You think everything is great but suddenly after a year or so, things are lukewarm at best. What is going on?
In case of young hires, the reason can be pretty really simple. It not always the case that management is evil. When you start a new job (or a PhD program), there is a sense of anticipation. And when you finish a hard project, there is a sense of accomplishment. At these stages, one feels good and life is good. It’s the middle years — after anticipation is over and before accomplishment — that are taxing. If you don’t want to spend time motivating your young hires then just don’t hire anyone under 30s. Though, I’d recommend hiring talented young folks but ensure that they leave for greener pasture in a year or two on good terms.
For experienced hires, perhaps the reason is equally simple. Everyone has a different set of values, and what you value most may not be on the top of their list. You may value product-market-fit and customer-satisfaction, or the next fund-raise above everything else, but the developer just wants to write Rust and clean up tech-debt rather than thinking about any of that! Can you figure out how to work with your peopleware without asking them to sort their values according to your list?
Small things also matter a lot. Programming is a form of writing, and writing is primarily a solitary activity. If someone is good at it, they must have enjoyed spending a considerable time alone learning the craft. Don’t disturb them every couple of hours by sending notifications and emails. Schedule your communication effectively. These minor irritant compounds negatively on a developer psyche, much like “Scar Tissues Make Relationships Wear Out” — John Ousterhout.
I know some very good programmers who are good at talking, and even documentation, but I haven’t seen one yet who loves being a social-butterfly all the time, and doesn’t hate context-switching.
Leadership ensures ‘Everyone Going In the Same Direction’
There is much more to leadership, but I am very much content with this view. It is effective enough for managing a project, if not the whole organization! Therefore, the primary job of team leadership is communicating to ensure that everybody going in the same direction.
While I love setting up processes and workflows, I do recognize the creativity comes from people and not from processes. So there must be some channels for expressing creativity. But beware! I think creativity always conflict with that boring thing called ‘getting things done’. Being creative is nice, but “creative thinking” or thinking outside the box always leads to a different path than what you’ve charted, else it won’t be called creative.
The hardest part for leadership is to say “no” to seemingly good ideas that could lead the startup astray. I don’t feel very comfortable saying no to people for ideas, so I just don’t encourage “creative” ideas in most of the meetings. Like a young Ph.D. student, startup will do well not to indulge into “creative” things. The benefits are imaginary if any, but the cost (time spent) is real! There is time for being creative when you’ve not charted your course.
Also, I am a big fan of incremental improvements. The important meetings must be well-structured and focused, and any attempt to steal the focus should meet with a friendly frown and discouragement.
There is another indispensable aspect of leadership which is required to overcome problems discussed in A Group is Its Own Worst Enemy by Clay Shirky. If you are in this situation, then good luck. You must act decisively or give the position to someone who can. Leadership becomes a bit like using a toilet: you either shit or get off the seat!
The advertisements during this IPL made me realize that safety can not be ensured by striving for security only. Safety is a superset of security. You can be inside a totally secure and trusted environment, yet harmful messages (or advertisements) land in your lap. Direct or surrogate messages to consume paan-masala or bet on cricket originate from trusted people, likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Shahrukh Khan.
Similarly, your endpoint may be very secure yet remain unsafe. A malicious PDF or email can land in your inbox from a trusted source over a very secure channel protected by TLS or VPNs or QUIC channels and still constitute a safety hazard.
Safety often requires users to exercise critical thinking and good judgment. Your people should be taught how to detect scams, and they must know how to detect scams.
Scam messages often appear to come from someone you know, if your contact list has been compromised. They almost always carry an element of urgency—for instance, “Help, I have lost my wallet and passport and need funds!” or “I don’t have time to get a gift for my friend. Can you send a gift card?” Some of these messages used to play on greed and now they trade on so many people’s willingness to help a friend. Some of the worst scams prey on people grieving lost friends or family or who want to help during disasters. [1]
But what do you do when your endpoint has no user?! How do you teach your endpoint to exercise critical thinking and sound judgment? Similar messaging tactics will fool your endpoint into running unsafe code. If you can turn your endpoint immutable, then you don’t have this problem, but what about endpoints that must remain mutable to function?
It is a tricky problem to solve. Zero-trust is a strategy in the right direction (though it means a lot of different things to different people). Nonetheless, any incremental progress toward a solution will always be a positive ROI.
First, securing the network is not enough. You need an agent on the device to stop malicious behavior or force the user to make a judgment call. Second, you can’t do the “data to decision” step in the cloud—it will be too late! We at Subconscious Compute are taking steps towards a good solution—a kernel agent called Shepherd (trust its instinct).
If you are early in your career and considering working for an early-stage startup (or any stage startup), consider the following points sincerely.
You are not being hired to “learn things” unless learning means solving their problems. Many folks I interviewed seem to have a strange view of learning as if it is like Brownian process. You can learn the rest of your life and don’t accomplish much. Learning == solving problems is a healthy starting point. This view doesn’t conflict with industry interests. In other words, don’t expect to be paid for learning things; you are paid to get things done.
Before interviewing, learn about the product or problem a startup is building or solving. Your time there will revolve around that. Consider yourself extremely lucky if you get to work at things you love. But you must be ok to do things you don’t terribly like. You don’t have to “love it” to get it done properly. Be professional! Also, great jobs don’t grow on trees; you have to earn them!
If you don’t value equity, you don’t value the startup game! There are not many good reasons to work at a startup (fewer to start one). Equity and working in trenches at the frontline are the only good reasons I can think of. I feel that it is okay if you only care for “here and now” things such as cash in hand, as long as you don’t take more than you deliver.
Startups may have money, but most of them usually do. But they are always short on time. If you tend to procrastinate, do not go near a startup. Everything must have been done yesterday. Speed is a virtue. Please consider again if you are laid-back and don’t enjoy the rush. There will always be a rush, and deadlines may bring out the worst in people. And if you also have thin skin, you are in a hell of a pickle!
You may have to do a lot of work you were not hired for. No startup can anticipate your role there. You may have to become a generalist rather than a specialist. Startup hiring advice: prefer generalists over specialists.
Netflix got this right: Your workplace is, at best, your team, not a family. I won’t work with my family or friends since most will be terrible co-workers. Being part of a team means always pulling your weight and some more.
Don’t go to a cricket field if you only care about batting. Your team will be better off without you, no matter how great you are at swinging a bat. In a startup, you may never get to bat and perhaps spend most of your time curating the pitch, watering the ground, and managing the gymkhana. You join for the whole game, not just for batting or bowling.
The disintegration of the Congress party over the last few decades is well-deserved. Many factors have contributed to this disintegration, including corruption, indiscipline, and the sheer ineptitude and lethargy of its aging leadership. Fortunately for the Congress, the old eventually die. The condition of Congress seems to be improving lately. In particular, its leadership’s paralysis in the face of even the most trivial sorts of crises in interpersonal relations has been improving. The success of Congress in the 2023 assembly election in Karnataka has been ascribed to this which is welcome news for Indian democracy.
The BJP has done remarkably well in last few decades and most of its success is not because the Congress is weak. BJP even managed to resonate with people outside the Hindi heartland, especially in West Bengal and Karnataka. I found BJP’s success in West Bengal quite surprising. A state that was in the firm grip of the Left party’s culture for over 3 decades now votes for BJP in large numbers! The vote share of the BJP in Karnataka is also very impressive.
20 years ago, If I were to sum up the BJP’s political culture in a single phrase, it was ‘*Hindu bano, Hindi bolo’*. I first heard that phrase when I was in school from an RSS pracharak. Though they started this slogan in the aftermath of the Emergency. In the great Hindi-speaking region of the country, it has an immediate appeal for all political parties, but it is the BJP that can articulate the sentiment behind it most effectively. The Congress has a different past which it cannot shake off very easily.
If it were only a matter of Hindutva (*Hindu Bano)*, the BJP would be able to spread its influence without too much trouble. After all, more than 80 percent of Indians are Hindus, of one sort or another. What would be the problem in adding Shiv and Durga, or even the Pir Satyanarayan, to Ram? But persuading people to embrace Hindi may be more difficult than persuading them to remain Hindu. Most politicians of South India, including BJP, will be more at ease in a Hindu temple than at a political rally where all the slogans are in Hindi. And this may be true for the vast majority of Indians outside the Hindi heartland.
Whereas Hindus make up more than 80 percent of the population, Hindi speakers do not add up to more than 40 percent by even the most liberal estimate. This must surely be a source of anxiety to the leaders of a political party identified so closely not only with the Hindu religion but also with the Hindi language. Mr. Narendra Modi, a Gujarati, may have succeeded in taking the attention away from the Hindi chauvinists for the time being, but I don’t think he can [keep them under control for a very long time](https://www.outlookindia.com/national/stalin-flays-hindi-for-jobs-proposal-of-parliamentary-panel-news-230335). Will they not do something about it that will give their party a different direction and a different image? I believe that they can do very little. In the age of mass democracy, it is easier to alter a party’s political programme than to alter its political culture.
Secularists liked to frighten themselves with the thought that as soon as the BJP comes to power in New Delhi, it will start a massacre of the Muslims. That has not happened so far but some of their fears had been justified. BJP doesn’t seem to have either a radically different economic policy or a radically different foreign policy. What the BJP has succeeded in hitting the hardest — in addition to democratic institutes — is education where, apart from the opportunity to distribute patronage widely, there is the bonus for demanding the expulsion of English. ‘Angrezi hatao’ expresses [hostility not just to the English language](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/22/modi-employs-new-tool-in-indias-war-against-the-english-language-hindi-medical-degrees) but to a whole system and [method of education](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01750-2).
Fortunately, education is largely a state subject, so whether or not the BJP remains in power at the center, the damage will not be equally extensive everywhere. The principal targets of attack will be those things that stand for progress and modernity in education and culture. This will affect economic development only indirectly, and its adverse economic effects will not be visible in the short term. Those who feel threatened by liberal modern culture are by no means all averse to the material gains from improved technology and more profitable international trade. And they will continue to be no less hypocritic in the future as they are now.
The politics of BJP, above all, is a politics of resentment. In India today, there is resentment against a great many things, not just the Brahmins or even the upper castes. That has now become a general feature of Indian politics to the extent that the tone and language used at national or state level politics is hardly any different than the one used during local panchayat elections in my village. The language of politics in the country today is the language of resentment. This style and language have acquired a particular emphasis in the Hindi heartland because of its backwardness where it far more easier to mobilize the masses causing resentment. Here the BJP has a clear advantage, for its target of attack is not just Islam, but the modern world, including its secular intellectuals.
My father is a farmer. He works and lives in western U.P., a relatively prosperous area in terms of groundwater and road connectivity. He is not sufficiently poor. He managed to pay for my college (circa 2007). I spent the first 21 years of my life in the village, often working on the farms. It is a hard life once you have experienced the alternatives.
We are sugar-cane farmers and are well organized. Usually, politicians don’t like to mess up with organized farmers. But a hyper-centralized state can. After all, everyone is living in their own bubbles these days. Some people, powerful or not, always believe that they know what is good for everyone else. This is not true even when they have the noblest of intentions and act in good faith. And this bill was not passed in a good faith.
We wouldn’t know the effect of this bill for a year or two. Strong fluctuations in prices is a routine for farmers, especially near harvesting season (can’t tell why!). But there is something odd about
this bill. Like demonetization, GST, and CAA, the long-term benefits of this Farm Bill are doubtful at best (call me anti-national), but the short-term dangers are real.
Let’s consider the simplest possible scenario. I spend 3 to 4 months on my rice or wheat crop. During these months, I paid school fees, medical bills (not all days are achche din) often by borrowing money from a local money-lender at an interest rate of 15% to 50% per annum (what? That can never happen in our glorious country. I must be lying! After all, the best government is at the helm. Off with an FIR!). As soon as I harvest my crop, the first thing on my mind is to pay back the loan and plan for the next crop. I can’t store for a very long time or delay the payment on the loan even if the loan is from a Sarkari bank. I am not Ambani, Adani, or that Kingfisher guy (I am sure this list is long!).
The local vendor (khalifa) comes to my village and offers me a price which is usually less than the minimum support price given by the govt. He picks up the crop from my house. Saves me the time and hassle of transporting the crop to the Sarkari mandi which is at least 30km away. Selling in Mandi usually means waiting in the mandi for at least one day, and for a couple of months for the money to arrive in the bank. And no, you still don’t get SMS when and if the money arrives in the bank.
If the vendor offers me 10 to 15% less than the Sarkari price, I happily sell it to him. If he offers less, I take the trouble to go to Mandi, usually in a group of 4-5 farmers. Unlike what others have been
telling you, farmers always had the choice to sell their corp to anyone. This bill brings nothing new in this regard! Isn’t it obvious? I’ll sell anyone who offers me MSP. The question has always been at what price? No vendor has ever, ever, offered more money than the MSP!
If all local vendors lower the price for a month or two then only a few farmers would be able to wait and watch till prices go up again. Almost all farmers will go for stress selling. It is worse for farmers who grow perishable crops like tomatoes and papaya. They can hardly wait for a week. It is not a hypothetical situation to malign the reputation of your favorite politician. It happens all the time: just talk to a real farmer in good faith.
Let’s take a leaf from your life and talk about education and health. You must have had some experience with these two sectors. I see them somewhat functional in the cities and towns, much better in the southern part of the country. These sectors have roughly the same social and economic dynamics and roughly the same arguments about public and private ownership.
If your local government school is bad, I bet, most private schools are only slightly better. Aren’t they? There is no incentive for a private school to do much better than the best government school in the locality. They do slightly better and get enough candidates. Not sure what is the situation is with your hospitals. My guess is that private hospitals need to do just slightly better in diagnostics but has to look much better (they have color TV at reception). I read all the fantastic stories about how nicely and humanely they treat their patients! Why would you think farmers will get any different treatment from similar corporates entities?
The government should strive for a decent baseline: MSP for crops, minimum wages, minimum education, and minimum health coverage, even when the private sector is helping and not exploiting the lack of government presence. This is not too much to ask from a government for its people, democratic or otherwise, left or right, sikular or fascist. And every decent society should strive for it.
The MSP is set at 1.5 times the cost of growing the crop. The real market can’t afford to give this much to the farmers hence the MSP was proposed in the first place. If you think that market must be able to pay that much or more then it does not matter if you leave the MSP alone. If you think the market is fair, then it wouldn’t matter if you leave the legal provision for appeal in the court there (it won’t ever be used). Even if you think, these are needless in your somewhat utopian view of markets, my request is to err on the side of caution.
There has been disagreement over what constitutes the basis of Indian society: caste or class. Both are very significant in our collective social life. However, a large part of our private lives is governed neither by caste nor class, but by factions. Factions are easily visible in the political domain, often forming around influential people in a political party. They are not limited to politics, but can be found in many other areas of our social life. Political scientists have paid attention to factions, but it doesn’t look like hat our sociologists have done significant empirical or theoretical work on them.
When not much data is available about a social process, people look to their own life experiences and common sense to understand the problem. Rural life — of which I have first hand experience — is simpler in terms of its organization. What matters most is personal relationships; rules are not as important. Since the community is small, this works well. People are able to take finer personal distinctions into account when interacting with each other. They turn to their relatives for both work and fun. In return, the family offers security to its members. I’m not saying that family and relatives always help each other, but they feel a strong moral duty to help and a moral right to ask for help.
Life in cities is different in scale and arrangement and is mediated by different kinds of institutions. The British introduced many new institutions into our country in the past, and, in our zeal for modernization, we have added some more since then. Whether we have the experience and ability to manage them or not, we cannot imagine our lives without them. Institutions in urbane India are supposed to work via impersonal rules and procedures. Still, it goes without saying that these rules do not count for much in most of our institutions. This is due to two main reasons: first, we did not have a tradition or “habit of hearts” which prefers “rules” over “people”, and second, the conditions do not exist in our institutions where such a tradition can grow and sustain a life of its own (See also Rule and Person).
If we are to analyze factions, we need to discard two widely held beliefs about them. First, that factions are essentially a by-product of peasant mentality, and their presence in white-collar professions or in the urban middle class is a traditional residue. And they are bound to disappear with more industrialization and modernization. Second, factions appeal to our baser nature and have little or no moral legitimacy whatsoever. If anything, I would argue that the appeal of factions is most intense in urban middle classes, and they are not without a moral legitimacy, whether or not we are willing to admit it in public. Perhaps the reason behind this is that we notice factions among others easily but fail to recognize them among ourselves.
We can learn a little more by looking at how an Indian in a village copes when he is confronted by a modern institute that supposedly runs according to impersonal rule. For a villager, a place where unknown people do work through impersonal rules is a scary place to be. Whenever he has to deal with such places – banks, police, hospital, etc. – the first thing he would inquire is whether he can find a person he can find some factional ties. If such a person does not exist, then the idiom of kinship needs to be extended. If a bank manager, doctor, or revenue officer happens to be from a different caste but from the same or nearby village, then the idiom of kinship is extended according to the village, even though everyone knows that kinship cannot exist between different castes.
On the other hand, if he is from a distant village or town, he will inquire about his caste and extends the idiom of kinship accordingly. It is this fluid nature of the idiom of kinship which enables villagers to find “connections” to get their work done in modern institutions. They must do it since they cannot be certain if their work will get done through written rules and procedures only. Also, factional ties appeal to them because it relieves them from the impersonal world of modern offices and brings them psychological relief by bringing them closer to their kinsmen — a sort of pseudo-family where an Indian feels truly secure.
The attraction of a faction (or a pseudo-kinship) is no less strong in our cities. The idiom of kinship is even more fluid among urban Indians. In colleges and universities, it can be extended to hostels, wings, batches, labs, and even to departments, not to mention academic lineage, if one has one worth mentioning. One can witness some of it during elections in IIT Bombay. Voting takes place on factional lines: wing, hostel, department, batch, etc. One notices many similarities here and voting based on “jati” in villages. In NCBS Bangalore, attendance patterns in journal club meetings depend largely on labs. Many attend the club meeting only when their own lab member is reading a paper. This pattern is often broken by the presence of faculty members, usually perceived to be authoritative figures on Indian university campuses.
The conditions and environment in which our institutions operate are both uncertain and malleable. In the face of uncertainty, people turn to their factions because there is nothing else to rely on. The rules won’t work or won’t work fast enough. The malleable nature of institutions offers vast opportunities to manipulate personal relations in factional ties. Once a pseudo-kinship is formed and acknowledged, one feels free to ask for some patronage or favor. It is remarkable how far people in positions of power in this country are willing to go to fulfill these requests for patronage. There is always some potential for material gain in all this, but one does it for the sheer satisfaction and social prestige it brings. In our society, a man in some position of power who does not offer patronage to his kinsmen is a man of no consequence.
The distribution of patronage among his kinsmen by a person in power has its own moral legitimacy in the traditional order. Nirmal Kumar Bose, the first generation of anthropologists, wrote about factional ties in the city of Calcutta; how city life was riddled with factions or ‘dal.’ These factions tried to outdo each other on public occasions with a lavish display of wealth. The wealth spent on these occasions was mostly private wealth. In recent times, the democratic processes in the country have made it possible, and to some extent even legitimized, to squander public wealth for factional displays of might and status.
The attraction of factions does not appear to be weaker, even in the most efficient sections of our society. It is remarkable that a person who appoints someone often feels that they now have a moral claim on the appointed one’s life-long loyalty. Perhaps the appointed one also feels that such a claim is morally justified, if somewhat uncalled for in the given institutional settings. What may appear to be a faction without any moral legitimacy to an outsider is, in fact, a humane arrangement of interdependence, loyalty, and security for its members.
The inefficiency in our institutions largely, if not solely, depends on the fact that the impersonal rules by which our institutions are mandated to govern themselves are either discounted or simply ignored. Discarding these institutions because they are now withering away in our tropical environment would not yield any gains. We need to rethink and appreciate the role of impersonal rules in modern institutional settings. Many of us with strong factional ties would agree publicly that impersonal rules must count for much in our institutions. However, not many of us are willing to give up the convenience of “cronyism” and “factionalism” that comes with it.
Many Indians seem to have realized the costs that some of our political institutions have to pay for accommodating families into them. However, it does not appear that we are too concerned about factionalism. In fact, many people are trying to paint a more humane face onto them [1]. If we are truly troubled by the sorry states in which we find our institutions today, we have to understand that factions (or pseudo kinships like IITians, Bengalis, Jats, Delhites, IASs etc.) – whatever advantages they bring to individuals – cannot have the same moral claim as real kinship. In the long run, factions are parasitic in nature, and a parasite cannot thrive unless it feeds on its host.
[1] Gurucharan Das and S Gurumurthy can be taken as two examples. One of them recently argued that, ”Instead of morally judging caste, I seek to understand its impact on competitiveness. I have come to believe that being endowed with commercial castes is a source of advantage in the global economy. Bania traders know how to accumulate and manage capital. They have financial resources and more important, financial acumen.”
I took my Master of Technology in Microelectronics and VLSI in the Teaching Assistant category from IIT Bombay between 2007-2009. Although project work is an essential part of this program, it is more or less a taught degree. In the first two semesters, one is expected to do a certain minimum amount of course work and contribute to a project alongside the course work.
The first two semesters prepare students for their project, which they are expected to contribute to in the final two semesters. The former is assessed through examinations, while the latter is assessed through project reports and presentations. When I was a student, we had to give a presentation every semester (a seminar in the first semester and a progress report in the other semesters). This has now been reduced to one presentation per year. Students spend more time reading and writing for exams than working diligently on their project, although there are notable exceptions. Sometimes one wonders how so many people who excel in coursework are so poor at their project.
Since IITs are expected to train manpower for industries, I guess they are not very alarmed at the low quality of work done in the projects. In any case, most of the students come from second-tier institutes, so they cannot contribute much to research problems even if they want to early in their program. The most sincere among them usually learn a lot. The dual-degree (B.Tech. + M.Tech.) program was designed to accommodate a better research project, but the quality of contributions made by dual-degree students is hardly any better than contributions made by M.Tech. students in general.
Microelectronics and VLSI is all about circuits on or in silicon. They teach you the basics of semiconductor physics and the mechanisms and models by which semiconductor devices can be fabricated and analyzed. Since they have a decent lab, they also teach you how to fabricate them. Designing is usually done on computers, so logical circuit design using a computer is also a part of the program. Some computer languages to describe and simulate the circuit using a computer, such as Verilog and VHDL, will also be there. You may also audit some courses in other areas as well.
If you are looking for an industrial job, then the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) provide many opportunities. If you are not confused about your career choices and are inwardly convinced that academic life is a good life, then you might like to explore some lesser-known research centers with a better academic culture. However, it is important to do a background check before joining any institute (if you have a choice). Try to do sincere work in your project; there is nothing better than “learning by doing”. There will be many in your class who love to make fun of those who are sincere and upright in their academic life; their philosophy of life is the philosophy of “trivialization”. They are yet to figure out what, if anything, is important to them. It will do you good if you learn to ignore their influence, if not their company.
In the extent to which societies are governed by rule or person, in traditional societies based on agriculture, personal factors count for almost everything. People are able to take finer personal distinctions in their businesses and other day-to-day work. In these societies, personal links can be used (or misused) for practically any purpose; and a certain sense of security is provided by the existence of such links. Now there are whole areas of life in complex industrial societies where such links are in principle irrelevant.
In complex industrial societies, social life is influenced greatly if not mainly by institutions. Here institutions are organized around impersonal rules. The treatment in hospitals, admission to schools, and services from police and courts are a few examples of such arrangements. In these institutions, if someone needs something which one is entitled to, there should not be any need on his part to have any personal links with people in these institutes.
In Indian villages based on agriculture, people are accustomed to getting things done through persons rather than the rule. To say this is not necessarily to pass a moral judgment. When society is small and everyone knows everyone, such an arrangement is both proper and expedient. A lot of problems, related to both corruption and efficiency, can appear without any tangible solution when these links are used in places where norms are defined differently.
Those who live in large cities depend on many public utilities and services. And in principle, they are so organized to serve each citizen irrespective of personal considerations. There are rules of procedure according to which any citizen is entitled to make claim on a certain service. But in practice, nobody seriously believes in rules alone. In cases when rules do not work for him at all or do not work quickly enough, he tries to reach out to someone in the right quarters through relatives or friends, or friends of a relative. Those who have no relatives or friends (connections as they are called) felt left out in cold. But it is just amazing, how just almost everyone in our society is able to activate a connection of some consequence.
It should be obvious to all of us that we are in a period of transition. Though the majority of people still live in small agrarian societies, they are increasingly coming in contact with different sorts of institutions they are not accustomed to, where the personal connection should or ought to count for little. In such a phase of transition, people often suffer the worst of both systems: they can not be sure if personal ‘connections’ will be sufficient, nor they can trust the appropriate system of rules alone.
In cities, especially for young people, the moral universe associated with it is both confusing and intractable. This could cause a sort of psychological stress which is rarely seen in villages. When an old person (not only in rural India) pays a bribe or uses his family connections to get something done, he is not burdened by the morality of his actions. For him, such is the way of life — an ordinary and normal thing to do. He would give you a lecture about the “art of living” if you point out the impropriety on his part. Younger people, and perhaps some among old too, do not always pay bribes or use family/friendly connections for their personal gain at the cost of someone else without a sense of moral ambivalence and indignation. The “queue” is one such place where such behavior can be easily observed: when someone gets a cut from a friend or relative, he takes it, often with an embarrassing smile or a show of arrogance, but the same person turns self-righteous and morally indignant when he sees others taking “cut” at his disadvantage.
More than often rules are defined vaguely. It allows those who enforce them to use their personal discretion rather freely if not arbitrarily. Different rules or different interpretations of rules are often applied on a case-to-case basis. And many times rules are bypassed altogether. Many wonder how people in a country where a substantial population is still illiterate get things done in a system with a plethora of rules. In the face of confusion, people get accustomed to bypassing or breaking the rules, especially when a person of some consequence is available at their disposal. Those who are responsible for making rules simpler or less confusing rarely lose sleep over them. Perhaps they believe people are used to such situations and have ways to deal with them.
The problem of corruption or inefficiency can easily grow to alarming proportions in such an environment for it is easy for people in positions of power to manipulate the system for their own personal gain by colluding with others. One can always find someone in any office who has really mastered the art of manipulating rules and finding loopholes in them. Such people are seen with both envy and admiration.
No doubt that a system is bound to be efficient when rules and procedures are followed by most, if not all. The personal favors which we are so used to receiving and granting can not have the same moral right in modern institutions as in the traditional order. Moreover, a typical Indian overvalues his convenience above most things, and following rules always cost convenience. He would not mind doing his part in undermining rules as long as it is convenient to him. A large proportion of our people do not, or perhaps can not, appreciate what rules are for. But there are many among us who probably know what they are and why we need them. It is doubtful that over time as we progress more towards a more complex society, even they will develop a moral commitment towards them?
“Randomness in Biology” is a graduate-level course offered at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore by Dr. Mukund Thattai.
This course follows, in spirit, Handbook of Stochastic Methods: For Physics, Chemistry, and the Natural Sciences by Gardiner and Stochastic Processes in Physics and Chemistry by Van Kampen. It offers a bag full of stochastic tools to biologists for modeling and describing experiments and hypotheses. The course is not intended to be mathematically rigorous, but remains very faithful to the spirit of rigor. The instructor strikes a balance between rigor and intuition really well.
The course focused on different types of Random Walk: discrete-time discrete-step, discrete-time continuous-step, and continuous-time and continuous steps; as well as Master equations, which can describe almost all of the chemistry. Stochastic differential equations and Fokker-Plank equations were also discussed. We conducted simulations using Langevin equations and Gillespie algorithms.
The assignments were pleasant to solve and they required good knowledge of some languages: MATLAB, Mathematica, Python, etc.
The instructor is full of energy and knows his subject very well. His ability to quickly switch gears and make connections is impressive. He is able to quickly understand questions asked and explain the fundamentals clearly. What is more important, he is not lazy when it comes to working out derivations and equations. It is a pleasure to watch him in action.
The classroom Safeda, named after a mango variety, deserves as much praise as the instructor for its spacious whiteboard. To sum up, it is a great course for anyone with a passable background in mathematics. For an engineer who had little exposure to stochastic processes, it was a joyful and enlightening experience, which the instructor did not ruin by setting up unreasonably difficult and routine examinations.
The rigor and enthusiasm with which economists have been advising government – and incidentally maligning each other – have naturally led some to reflect on the role of intellectuals in society. The role of social scientists has enlarged to a great extent in this world and they have come to play some sort of pre-eminent role in public policies and debates. At least in India, most if not all
social scientists regard their discipline as something more than just an intellectual pursuit. Such a view of their discipline compels them to seek a larger role in public life. There is nothing wrong in playing an active role in public life for I strongly believe that in any decent society everyone should be free to set a role for himself.
The role can a modest one of satisfying one’s curiosity or a spectacular one of changing the world by putting oneself in the service of government or people. But when a person sets a role for himself which enables him to speak in the name of the public, one should oneself be clear about, and be able to make clear to others, the basis and nature of expertise that gives one title such a role. In a country where learning has been a monopoly of a certain caste for millennia, and where a large section of people remains illiterate, people are easily baffled if not beguiled by experts of fictitious expertise.
Our finance minister, members of the planning commission, and others in key positions have been telling us their best predictions about inflation, rate of growth and employment, level of poverty, and education. A casual comparison of their predictions to what actually happened provokes one to ask if there is any basis behind such claims. The assumptions behind their claims are left undefined or too vague. In the end, we get theories that do little justice to reality or generalization from limited experiences whose theoretical validity is uncertain.
Let’s face it, we understand little about how our economy works and even less about how it will going to behave under unknown circumstances. The number of planning models this country has produced and their success rate is a good example. When technical expertise fails to deliver, people turn to rhetoric. The rhetorical style of arguing about almost everything around us is becoming extremely common. No doubt there is some scientific basis in what they say but it is obscured by a dense fog of rhetoric that accompanies it.
Intellectual professions, as one might expect, have their own codes and secrets; so from the point of view of a layman, there is a great deal of mystery about what they actually do. Intellectual skills are rather specialized skills and many constructs of common interests created by intellectuals look clear and “obvious” to those who possess these skills. As long as these skills are used in the academic circle, they remain both harmless and useless. But when experts claim to speak and work in the public interest, we must demand that the element of mystery be kept at a minimum. Those who have the capacity and skills to understand and elaborate the reality are expected to make it clearer to others. But something we might sincerely feel and have a right to understand is often made more obscure by those who are supposed to present it in a clearer light. When intellectuals themselves contribute to the mystification which they suppose to remove, we should ask how this comes about.
As I see it, there are two kinds of mystifies in the world: pundits or technical virtuosity on one hand and propagandists or radical rhetoric on the other. The former is essentially an academic abuse, it concerns mainly if not solely with the style rather than the content of intellectual activity. Pundits come from a certain kind of academic (and social) background and they jealously protect their style of functioning which looks esoteric from the point of view of a person who has a different background. Surely the argument against the style (or elitism) should not be turned against the maintenance of standard and quality.
The propagandists are populist in their mood and appeal, and prone to offer quick and simple solutions to difficult problems. It goes without saying that pundits and propagandists exist in all societies but they do not receive the same kind of treatment everywhere. When things are working fine, they are not given much attention by the public and much power by authorities to do either good or harm. But all this can change when the economic system seems to be running down and the political system seems to be falling apart. The government is most likely to appoint pundits to its ranks and the public is most likely to lend its ears to propagandists. This all leads to more confusion. Add “argumentative Indians” to this and we get a cacophony of the most mundane types sooner than later.
Punditry and propaganda alone can not very successful in confusing people, a certain combination of both is required. The radical way of arguing has always been a part of our intellectual culture. In recent decades, its appeal has captivated our intellectuals trained — or educated, depending on point of view — abroad. An education from European and American universities gives these people a certain kind of assurance about the theoretical validity of the diagnosis of ills of the society they make and the remedies they offer. They have their masters abroad who naturally commend the effort of their disciples in changing a society that would not change of its own accord. The command and mastery of these people over concepts such as “feudal”, “semi-feudal”, “quasi- feudal”, “quasi-capitalist” etc. gives them a formidable advantage in debates and polemics in public. What these people want to settle first and foremost is the question of methods. Anything which does not start with enough faith in their cherished method is bound to be ridiculed or condemned as worthless. Moreover, if a certain theory has been accepted by the “international” community as valid, isn’t it enough to confound the skeptics in India?
In India, those who are responsible for planning and its execution have always had foreign degrees. When their plans fail to deliver, all they do is blame a particular expert and his ideological orientation. If such is the case then why not plan a little more carefully and set the responsibilities of experts before and not after the plan is written? The success (or failure) or planning commission is enough to point out the limitation of foreign education. Since it has been most incompetent — although impressive in rhetoric and theories — in understanding the reality of our society, the reality has been largely ignored. Since they are convinced that they have the ultimate method by virtue of having the most elite kind of education, which will produce the desired result if only applied correctly, anyone who disagrees with them is either stupid or dishonest or both. It has been said that pundits everywhere hide their ignorance behind a show of arrogance. It has to be added with little exaggeration that it is here in India where they are most successful.
No doubt the densest fog in places where open and free discussion can take place is spread by those who combine technical virtuosity with radical rhetoric. They are already too many and their numbers appear to be increasing. Since they thrive on the confusion of time, they naturally contribute to it, knowingly or unknowingly.
The mind of a man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beam of things should reflect according to their true incidence: nay, it is rather like a enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture. — Francis Beacon
Prof. Andre Beteille — whom I owe a great deal of intellectual debt — wrote once that the aim of intellectual pursuit is to scratch the surface of confusion caused by experience and observation. He wrote this as a social scientist, being fully aware of the fact that curiosity of a social scientist about a society is not the same thing as the curiosity of a mathematician about numbers. Nonetheless, I find this claim to be extremely rich about the general nature of intellectual pursuit.
Is the purpose of a branch of natural science to “scratch the surface of confusion caused by experience and observation,” or perhaps, dare I say, is it the purpose of all sciences? While this may seem like a noble aim, it is important not to push it too far. Making such a claim brings “subjectivity” and “subject” to the forefront, while downplaying the non-subjective aspects of scholarship, namely the methods and routines that each branch of natural science has discovered and refined over time.
It is helpful to distinguish between Science and Scholarship [1]. Science is the pursuit of “reality” and requires mastery and refinement of methods in a workshop before one can strike out on their own. I do not deny the place of intuition in science, but I believe that there should be less room for individual virtuosity in science compared to Jazz or classical music. If a branch of natural science allows personal virtuosity and intuition to overshadow the methods and procedures of the laboratory and workshop, it suggests that the branch of science has not matured enough. In summary, echoing Max Weber, one could argue that while Science is a “slow boring of hard boards,” scholarship is flexible enough to accommodate other intellectual adventures, including those that may be useless or harmless.
If we agree that the purpose of science is to scratch the surface of reality, then I have reservations about the philosophy of science, which appears to have a great deal of variety. Some branches of philosophy have evolved into well-established branches of science. It has been said that what was once known as “Natural philosophy” is now called physics. I would like to comment on the “field view” of philosophy that I observe around me, rather than its “book view,” which is difficult to grasp unless one is initiated into its capacity to generate natural sciences in the long run.
First, the methods, facts, and arguments of science should be universal or at least universal enough. By universal, I mean that they should not yield different results or conclusions when correctly applied, simply because different individuals are working with them or they are applied at different times. Universalism does not seem to be a characteristic of much of philosophy, especially Indian philosophy.
Furthermore, it is not always clear if understanding reality is the ultimate goal of philosophy. I am not suggesting that philosophy, whether Indian or non-Indian, should adopt a different framework or approach, or that metaphysics is not worthy of our attention. However, the existing framework tends to undervalue, if not ignore, the “principle of reality” that science holds sacred.
Second, scientists study, or at least are supposed to study, reality as it exists. A philosopher would not be a philosopher if they did not create alternatives to reality. If philosophy is glorified as a guiding force for humanity, it must be acknowledged that it can easily become an obstacle to understanding reality. Perhaps I am not philosophically inclined, but to me, philosophy is confusing at best and misleading at worst. It is in the nature of the human mind to mislead others, not always unknowingly, and philosophy offers ample opportunities to mislead both others and oneself.
Third, newness in science and scholarship does not arise from a strong desire to create something that will improve the lives of many. Philosophy does not seem to have such constraints. One can freely build and refute theories to their liking. Philosophy can serve as a refuge from the harsh, tiresome, monotonous, and unpredictable world of scientific pursuit. Philosophy offers abundant opportunities for the intellectual art of squaring the circle.
As for me, philosophy seems to offer choices without revealing the costs of each choice. While this is certainly better than having no choice, I would rather turn to sociology, biology, or psychology when I feel confused about my condition.
“The problem of universals in Indian philosophy”, Dravida Raja Ram, Motilal Banarisidas. This is one of those rare books that deals with a general problem in philosophy rather than giving a general introduction. For a general introduction to Indian philosophy, See “Indian philosophy Vol 1.”, S. Radhakrishnan. On these lines, also see an informal essay by A. K. Ramanujam, “Is there an Indian way of thinking.”
I have been a teaching assistant at IIT Bombay since 2007. With one exception—a one-year stint in industry after completing my master’s degree—this has been a continuous association. I prefer programming- and lab-oriented courses. I also take a somewhat perverse interest in figuring out which student has copied an assignment. There have been many instances of cheating in these courses, and my intention here is to reflect on that phenomenon.
One of our professors, known for his bluntness in the classroom and widely regarded as extraordinarily hard-working (not just by local standards), once remarked that when someone cheats, he is essentially admitting his own incompetence. “Why would anyone cheat or import if he can do it himself?” he wondered. He went on to say that this applies not only to individuals but also to nations. This observation is true in its own context. I have known students who were technically weak yet did not cheat, and others who were sharp and technically sound but did not mind cheating when given half a chance.
During my M.Tech., I was close to a group of undergraduates. They were sharp and clever; one of them was perhaps brilliant. They were usually well-behaved, even in their private spaces, though their behavior during what they called “profile-reading” resembled that of a drunkard in my village during Holi. I remember visiting their hostel once and witnessing one of them call another “chutiya” while the rest looked on with amusement. It later emerged that during a lab examination, they had all been huddled in a corner cheating, and the so-called “chutiya” had refused to participate. An individual refusing to join a peer group in an activity he considers unethical is rare in our kind of society. It is also natural for a group to ridicule a member who does not take part in its activities, whether benign or evil. Still, one expects a group of students to be more tolerant of a so-called “black sheep.”
There is no doubt that cheating can be beneficial in the short run, and there are temptations—sometimes with seemingly valid reasons—to indulge in it. But we cannot ignore the fact that we live in a society that tolerates such dishonesty to a great extent. Individuals pursue their interests, not always consciously, but it is a mistake to believe that everyone pursues those interests at any cost, most of the time. What stands out here is the gall of this group in contemptuously ridiculing one of their own members for refusing to pursue benefits at the cost of his dignity.
How cheating is perceived and defined varies from individual to individual. What appears to be cheating to some may not look like cheating at all to others. Still, an academic community can define what constitutes unethical practice and can reasonably expect its members to honor that code. The best way to maintain such standards is through internal censure. When this internal censure weakens, dishonesty increases. Copy-and-paste practices in seminar reports submitted by our students are rampant and tolerated to a great extent. Last year, in a panel discussion titled “What Is Research?”, a professor remarked, “There have been cases of plagiarism in Ph.D. theses.” These cases were tolerated because they did not want to “appear on the front page of the Times of India.” This is odd: to admit, on one hand, that basic ethical standards cannot be maintained due to real or imagined fears, and on the other hand to demand greater autonomy.
Unless pointed out with great clarity, many students caught cheating do not like to see it as academic dishonesty—partly due to ignorance and partly to avoid the stigma of corruption. Who likes to see himself as morally crippled? Therefore, they devise ingenious arguments in their defense. I do not know many who support cheating in public without offering one reason or another. “Everyone does it” is one such argument they often give to their peers. It would not be hard to prove that not everyone, or even most people in this society, are cheaters. But proving a fact is one thing; being caught in a feeling is another. In a society where people constantly accuse one another of wrongdoing, it is not unnatural for individuals to believe that such behavior is the natural state of affairs.
I know at least one teaching assistant who made a case to the instructor—who was also her guide—in favor of such students. She argued that there is usually a “lack of time” to complete assignments and that it is therefore natural for students to “do what they have done.” I suspect there are many others with similar opinions. Her guide was not convinced, but he felt that punishment should not be very severe because “everyone in IIT does it.” There may be some element of truth in the insinuation that “all of them do it,” but I also suspect that the Indian mind is prone to comparing everything with the worst possible case.
Lack of time can hardly be an acceptable argument. That particular instructor had mentioned many times in class that if someone was having difficulty with assignments, he should approach him. Besides, why not submit a partial assignment? There is a very thin line between “discussing with friends” and cheating, and this line is often crossed. This need not be the case, but it is the usual experience. The “lack of time” argument for cheating is no more convincing than the argument academics often put forward for not honoring their teaching commitments—namely, that they spend too much time in meetings and committees (and, occasionally, in strikes). As far as students are concerned, this excuse sits oddly with my own experiences. These supposedly time-starved students spend an unusual amount of time being social butterflies. I do not recall many occasions when a hostel room was not either empty or occupied by more than one person chatting, watching movies, or engaging in loud and cheerful conversation. Doing individual assignments is a solitary activity, and spending time in solitude does not come naturally to an Indian who is extremely gregarious by nature.
Apart from the temptation to obtain as many marks as possible by fair or foul means, there is perhaps a conviction—consolidated by past experience and not entirely without reason—that they can get away with it, especially when they belong to a majority. This is perhaps why a cheater often begins his defense by saying, “Everyone does it,” attempting to draw strength from numbers. In a society where constitutional morality is weak and institutional foundations are fragile, the “rule of numbers” often prevails over the “rule of law.” As for the temptation to cheat, the promotion of brutal competition has its own costs: it can create a society that is callous and self-serving. In such a society, skills such as leadership, gardening, art, empathy, honesty, and the desire to help one another count for little (see The Rise of the Meritocracy by Michael Young).
Should universities or other institutions punish these errant members? There are arguments both for and against it. It is naïve to believe that those who cheat are merely “victims of the system” or acting solely due to a “lack of time.” They know what they are doing, and they know it well. They do it to reap rewards at the cost of their profession and their institution—and perhaps at the cost of their colleagues as well. Sympathy for the young aside, they are often tolerated by faculty because the faculty themselves once breathed the same air their students breathe now. Even if we accept that these students are acting under one illusion or another, there is a limit to what a university should tolerate. These students may not care about their own reputation and dignity, but when dirty linen is washed in public, it irreparably damages the reputation and dignity of the institution. There will then be demands for external censure, which will be hard to deny—even by those who strongly advocate academic autonomy.
An academic community must convince itself of the importance of strong internal censure. If it is inwardly convinced that this is not a serious issue, then such an institution is headed toward an unfortunate fate. Lack of competence may not force people to cheat, but those who cheat habitually are not only parasitic in character; they are often deeply incompetent. No institution can survive—let alone flourish—without a competent and dignified academic community that upholds even the most basic academic standards and ethics.
…For five years, I gave the shortlisted candidates for our M.Tech (IT) entrance a short second test. In one of the questions, I would ask them to write something in English about their family, then rewrite the same thing in their mother tongue or in any other Indian language they knew. Invariably, people who wrote bad English also wrote bad Hindi, bad Marathi, bad Telugu, etc. My belief, therefore, is that poor writing is a result of a lack of mental discipline to write properly. Also, it is language-independent. If you’re good in one language, it means you’ve disciplined your mind to write well and carefully. Then you usually imbibe that discipline when writing in another language. Inadequate preparation on the topic may be one aspect, but invariably, lack of discipline and training in writing is the problem.
— Prof. Deepak Pathak, CSE, IT Bombay, Raintree, Jan-Feb 2011
How terrible I am at writing! It occurred to me first when I had to write and submit my undergraduate project in college. I had no issue talking about it to anyone who cared to listen. But I found it very difficult to put it on paper. This bad writing I am concerned about here is not about spelling and grammar mistakes — this blog has an unhealthy number of them — but rather how I wove my thoughts together. The same feeling popped up once again when I sat down to write my M. Tech. thesis. After spending 3 years (and counting) as a teaching assistant and reading many reports and writing a few, I can say with much confidence that I am not the only one who lacks the ability to write well-structured prose.
Indians seem to be at much more ease with spoken rather than the written word. They speak eloquently and to a great length with evident pleasure but their writing is often hasty and careless. I am aware that there is a vast number of Indians who cannot put written words altogether. But many others have the capacity, and my purpose is to comment on how they use and misuse it. There are of course first-rate poets, writers, and columnists but my intention is not to comment on individual talent.
We just excel at the spoken words. Anyone who belongs to that large and very ill-defined category called ‘public intellectual’ can speak at any length and on any subject at hand. The curious fact about them is that the speakers hardly refer to any note or reference and often talk without much application of mind. Also, they do not like being interrupted or corrected while they are talking. I am not sure whether they feel the same way should anyone correct their writing.
Here, I wish to share an experience of Andre Beteille when he gave lectures at two premier universities each of which was chaired by the vice-chancellor of the university concerned. The first lecture was at the University of Cambridge where the VC was a distinguished medical scientist. He introduced him briefly and, after he finished his lecture, also thanked him briefly. As they were walking out, he told Beteille that he had greatly enjoyed his lecture. When Beteille remonstrated that he was merely being polite, he quietly took out the notes that he took during lectures which ran into three pages: he had come to the lecture to listen rather than to speak. At another lecture in the Indian university, the vice-chancellor arrived thirty-five minutes late while the speaker and audience waited. Having arrived late, he embarked on a lengthy and eloquent speech on the challenges facing the country and the need for teachers and students to rise up to them. By the time he sat down and Beteille began his lectures on whose preparation he had spent more than a month, it became evident that the audience had lost interest in it. As to taking notes, no self-respecting vice-chancellor in India takes notes at a lecture given by a mere professor.
Back in my village where literacy level is well below the national average, educated people are called ‘padhe likhe log’ (people who can read and write). For them, the ability of speaking is not impressive since all of them can speak at any length. For villagers, and perhaps to many others as well, speaking counts for little unless it is in English. Indeed, there is a peculiar attitude towards the English language, especially among the urban middle class. The command over the English language, which is very unevenly distributed among them, is not only a very important intellectual asset but also a yardstick to measure one’s social status. An Indian takes perverse pleasure in correcting and improving others’ English by which she establishes not only intellectual but also social superiority over others.
Perhaps lack of reading also hinders the growth of writing skills. It is also interesting to note that libraries in India are not only hard to find; they are also the least used on a per capita basis. Unlike many Western countries, buying and reading books for entertainment and pleasure is not in our culture. Indians prefer to buy a book only if it serves some specific purpose and has a long shelf life. I am of the view that one can not go very far in developing ideas without reading good books or conversing with thoughtful people. It is much easier to access the former than the latter.
Many believe that this lack of writing ‘good’ prose is due to the use of foreign language. If there is a problem with language then why do they use it; or chose to write at such immoderate length when the language is forced onto them? It is only a part of the picture as the experience of Prof. Pathak shows. Perhaps the most important reason is the lack of care and patience which is hard to notice while one is speaking. This same lack of measure and discipline shows itself vividly in a written discourse which can easily be found in our judicial and in academic prose. I often read in the news that Supreme Court judgments often run into thousands of pages. Mr. Nani Palkhiwala had once observed that this clearly shows the Indian preoccupation with eternity and infinity.
By their very nature, writing and reading are solitary activities. Speaking, on the other hand, is a way of being gregarious. The Indian is gregarious by nature. He finds it very hard to be alone unless he is a sanyasi or a poet. From childhood, he grows in the company of others: relatives of uncountable denominations. He is never allowed to be himself and made to believe that being himself is a way of being selfish and arrogant. And as he grows in status in society, so do his visitors in number and variety.
I find myself perplexed by the inordinate amount of time Indian academicians can spend in meetings. When do they get the time to think and work on their ideas? I do not have any experience of academic life in the West but it is easy to notice the difference. Just look at the amount of time they put into writing. It rarely happens that an Indian professor prepares notes to make them available on his home page or to circulate in the classroom. In the West, it seems to be a primary activity among academics. Their home pages are filled with notes, information, and tutorials even though similar material is available outside. That much of writing is not possible without spending a significant time in solitude. It is not to say that academicians in the West do not spend time in committees and meetings but they must be aware of the time they need to be by themselves. Successful Indian academics like to complain endlessly about the time they have to spend on committees and meetings, but their complaints need not be taken seriously. They cherish nothing more than being surrounded by people before whom they can hold forth; what they cannot bear is being themselves.
The ability to write good prose does not emanate entirely from intelligence or the facility with the language. Writing is a solitary art that requires patience and care and a certain kind of emotional investment. If a person spent so much in being gregarious, she can not put a concentrated effort into writing. Of course, there are masters of both spoken and written words. These individuals are outstanding and therefore are not confined by the circumstances but can rise above them.
In engineering colleges, in which I have first-hand experience, this lack of patience and care is evident in the code or design students submit for their assignments. These erroneous designs and buggy codes, and their carelessly written reports which say little about the design or the implementation is of little worth. But they are accepted and graded. What is troubling is that even the most technically sound student writes hastily and with little care for the reader. Often her writing does not match her technical abilities. Contrasting this with my experience on many online discussion forums mainly located in the west; I was amazed to read carefully written and extremely lucid answers provided by academicians to questions posed. In these online communities, they are very strict about the style of writing and community standards, and they protect them jealously. It would not strain one’s credulity to believe that there is some difference in general orientation between cultures towards this very important academic activity as Prof. Andre Beteille puts it, ‘some cultures tolerate careless, vacuous and disjointed writing while others discourage it.’
