Viswanathan K's Thoughts

I have great sympathy for the teachers of kids my daughter’s generation. After all, these Gen Z kids (born between 1997 and 2012) consider themselves to be peers of everyone – their parents, their teachers – and treat all those folks with the same derisiveness. This drives parents up a wall (and worse), but those teachers have to suffer this fate at the hands of so many kids. Plus, while parental love can help tide over such treatment, what about the poor teacher? It turns out the teachers have found ways to cope with such, er, abuse. ~~   Now that my daughter has entered the feared board exam year (10 th ), the teachers try to, er, motivate the kids by telling them that they are going to end up on the streets, so it is time to shape up.   One kid responded to this (separately, out of class) pointing out that she lived in a 4 BHK, had a Mercedes, so she was definitely not homeless. Upon which a classmate cheerfully corrected her saying that the teacher’s comment wasn’t about h...

Last up Hyderabad. In March, 1948, it was the only princely state that hadn’t gone to India or Pakistan. Surrounded by India, in the backdrop of Partition, its attempt to stay independent was viewed through a religious lens by India, explains Sam Dalrymple in Shattered Lands .   The Indian Army, which had commandeered Hyderabad’s military equipment for World War II, now refused to return those arms – why arm a secessionist state? The Nizam tried hard to get weapons smuggled in, but there was no easy way to do that in enough bulk.   By this time, more and more groups were entering Hyderabad, some pro-Hindi, others pro-Muslim. Law and order fell apart with the presence of these armed groups, who also went about slaughtering people of the other religion. In response, the Nizam fell upon on a local militant group called the Razakars. Their anti-Hindu rhetoric evoked fear in the Hindus in Hyderabad and 4 lakh would leave the state. At the same time, 7.5 lakh people would en...

The alignment problem. A phrase Yuval Noah Harari uses in Nexus to describe the mismatch and thus the problems created by today’s information systems. The Internet started off by being free (content), but companies had to find a way to make money. They found ads. But that created a second-order consequence – it became necessary to show more ads, which meant it became key that users spent the maximum possible time online. User “engagement” has thus become the mantra of the Internet, quality (let alone truth) of content be damned. And outrage outsells tranquillity by a mile.   Clausewitz, a Prussian general, wrote a book called On War , in which he famously said that: “War is the continuation of policy by other means.” In his view, wars should not be based on emotions or egos or even righteousness. Rather, war should be used as a political tool and even then, only if it aligns with some overarching political goal. (Indira Gandhi in Bangladesh is pure Clausewitz; George W B...

Kashmir had a Hindu ruler and a Muslim majority. It was for this reason Jinnah just assumed it would come to Pakistan, and did little to nothing to ensure the outcome. Nehru, on the other hand, had a personal connection to the state, writes Sam Dalrymple in Shattered Lands .   The Partition led to massacres in Punjab, some of which began to spill over into Kashmir. When Muslims in Poonch appealed to Pakistan to do something, an informal go ahead was given but not via the Pakistani Army (that would have amounted to war). Instead, the Muslim League National Guards (somewhat similar to RSS) were assigned the task. They added a tribal army ( lashkar ) to their troops. What about payment? They were authorized to loot places as payment. A fateful decision, as it would turn out.   The troops would spend an inordinate amount of time looting Muzaffarabad, in turn delaying their taking all of Kashmir, most importantly Srinagar airport. The Maharaja of Kashmir asked India to in...

Throughout history, propaganda and hate have existed. Is social media just a new vehicles for what’s always been there? Or is it different/worse, asks Yuval Noah Harari in Nexus .   Yes, he says, social media is different. Because what is seen/shown is determined by non-humans, i.e., algorithms. AI has only added fuel to that fire, but the problem was visible even before AI. Algorithms, for example, auto-play the next video in your feed. They decide what to show you based on what you’ve already liked and seen. They show more of content that provokes outrage and anger. Why? Not out of malice, but because they want to maximize the time you spend online (More time online = more ads = more money). “In a completely free information fight, truth tends to lose.” This is why Harari believes that more information doesn’t always lead to good outcomes. It was true up to a point – countries with free press were better than dictator-controlled news systems. But no more.   Over ...

Let us go in detail into a couple of princely states and their tales of “dethronement” (it’s the title of another book dedicated to the topic, I decided to use that term). Or as Sam Dalrymple puts it in Shattered Lands : “There is arguably no other revolution in world history that ended so many monarchies in so short a span of time.” ~~   Junagadh first. It had “neither the romance of Kashmir, nor the opulent wealth of Hyderabad”, yet being close to Gujarat, it carried an emotional connect to Gandhi, Patel and Jinnah (all Gujaratis, remember?). Its ruler was a Muslim; the majority of his subjects were Hindu. The Nawab, based on assurances from Jinnah, decided to join Pakistan.   But India was keen to prevent this for multiple reasons, including the presence of Somnath and Dwarka in it. Upon learning of the decision to join Pakistan, Home Minister Patel sent forces to surround Junagadh. Coal and petroleum couldn’t enter, the phone lines were all tapped. As its econ...

In Nexus , Yuval Noah Harari goes deeper into information networks involving humans. Early religions had a problem – how did one know whether the narrator/priest was indeed conveying the original instructions? What if he was changing things, accidentally or deliberately?   The invention of the book offered a solution. “After tens of thousands of years in which gods spoke to humans via shamans, priests, prophets, oracles and other human messengers, religious movements… began arguing that the gods spoke through this novel technology of the book.” In theory at least, all copies of the book could be identical.   Religions of the book (Semitic ones) though then ran into a new problem. “Who decides what to include in the holy book?” After all, the first copy didn’t come from heaven. But the faithful decided that a “once-and-for-all supreme effort” with the wisest and most trustworthy men could stitch the first book together. (It still led to debates on who would for...

Partition eventually produced India and Pakistan (East and West). But for a while, a 3 rd group existed in parallel – the princely states, writes Sam Dalrymple in Shattered Lands . The British even considered handing power separately to the provincial governments (they were honest in its name – Plan Balkan). How large a part of India were these princely states? This map is worth a thousand words (BROWN = India; GREEN = Pakistan; WHITE = “independent” princely states)   Nehru was apoplectic at the idea. So Mountbatten turned to the most competent civil servant in his staff, VP Menon, and gave him a single night to come up with an alternative proposal. Menon came up with the idea that each of the 565 princely states would have to pick a side; they couldn’t say “None of the above” (not just for independence. The kingdom of Dir, for example, considered joining Afghanistan !).   A senior political advisor to Mountbatten, Conrad Corfield didn’t agree – he wanted the princely states...

For humans to function as a group, records became critical, writes Yuval Noah Harari in Nexus . This makes sense – leaving things to memory led to disagreements. Over time though, the record didn’t just represent an aspect of reality (a loan, for example) – the record became the reality! “If somebody repaid the loan but failed to “kill the document”, the debt was still owed. Conversely, if someone didn’t repay the loan but the document “died” is some other way… the debt was no more.” This is exactly why during all revolutions, records are destroyed (That doesn’t work in a networked, digitized world though).   As societies advanced, the volume of records exploded. This created a new challenge: Retrieval. This need to organize information to make it easy to find led to the rise of the bureaucracy . “Bureaucracy too tends to sacrifice truth for order. By inventing a new order and imposing it on the world, bureaucracy distorted people’s understanding of the world in unique ...

For a man who would found the only country based on religion, Jinnah drank whiskey, ate pork, and was highly Anglicized! In fact, early on, he believed in a united India. He even married his Parsi girlfriend. What made such a man become the force behind the demand and eventual creation of Pakistan? Sam Dalrymple’s Shattered Lands provides some answers and clues.   After his marriage, Jinnah found the Parsis would never accept him or forgive his wife. It would sow the seeds of Jinnah’s belief that (independent) India would never move past religion.   Gandhi bringing religion (spirituality?) into the freedom struggle annoyed Jinnah. Why? Because it induced fear that an independent India would mean Hindu rule. Lastly, as mentioned in an earlier blog, the creation of Burma on racial lines and the ethnic cleansing that followed there added to the fear about the fate of Muslims in a Hindu majority (independent) India.   In the Indian national elections of 1937, Jin...

In Nexus , Yuval Noah Harari uses the phrase “naïve view of information”. What does he mean by that? It is the belief that information is a good thing, and the more of it that we have/get, the better. Information, in this view, leads to truth which then leads to wisdom.   That is not true. Corrupt politicians get re-elected; film stars remain popular no matter what they do… even when the information is available to everyone. It is because, says Harari, people don’t connect to a person; rather, they connect to a story about the person. ~~   The other view of information, throughout history, is that order is critical for humans to thrive. Chaos and anarchy are to be avoided at all costs. For order (and thus governance) to exist, a group of people need to feel some sense of unity. Hard facts rarely serve that purpose. Good fiction, on the other hand, does the job splendidly. Why? Because the truth is always complicated, messy and has its share of dark episodes. “In ...

I realized how little I knew of British India as I read Sam Dalrymple’s Shattered Lands . British India extended from Yemen all the way to Burma, but not as a single continuous landmass, as this map shows. By the end of it all, British India would break into 12 nations, hence the book title.   ~~   The first partition of India was with Burma. As the British came under growing pressure and protests, they considered granting more autonomy to (British) India. But with areas as diverse as Baluchistan, Bengal and Madras: “How would they write a single constitution for a landmass larger and more diverse than Europe?”   It will seem surprising now, but back then, Burma was the largest and richest province in the Raj! So much so that people from all parts of British India flocked to Burma for jobs and better opportunities. Yet Burma was sidelined in Indian politics (it was even called the Cinderella province).   The British felt the Burmese were racially different and felt a...

After the Copper and Bronze Age, Tomas Pueyo goes into the Iron Age . Iron’s melting point is way higher (1538° C) than what those kilns could achieve, which is why it took a long time for iron to be used by humans. As bronze spread and became increasingly important, metallurgy and furnaces improved and we began to stumble upon iron as a byproduct. But: “Iron is harder to smelt, you also can’t work iron cold, and it’s actually softer than bronze! What’s the point, then?”   Iron, unlike the other metals listed so far in the series, is widely available. As opposed to bronze which, remember, needed tin and thus trade lines. Iron has another key property. Mixed with the right amount of carbon, we get steel – stronger, lighter and less corrosive. Since carbon was part of the fuel (wood, coal) used in furnaces, so the chances of stumbling upon steel was reasonable.   Iron and steel “turbocharged” everything bronze had been doing: (1) Tools to clear forests and increase a...

The caste census. Not to be confused with the population census. The last caste census was conducted in 1931 under British rule. If it wasn’t conducted for almost a century, why is it being conducted again now?   Advocates for it say it is necessary to know the right numbers to serve as the basis for upliftment schemes and reservations. Opponents say it would only entrench the caste-based identity even further; that it would foment sub-divisions within caste as each group tries to grab a bigger share of the scheme/reservation pie.   Anand Teltumbde wrote a book on the topic titled The Caste Con Census . I haven’t read it and have only read Pranay Kotasthane’s review of the book . Kotasthane says he read the book because the author is a “data science professor, a Marxist”. In other words, a person who understands data and how it can be used, and with a worldview that most of us (Kotasthane included) do not subscribe to. Always good to read the views of someone you do...

After the Copper Age came the Bronze Age. Again, it was a “mix (of) history, geography, physics, geology, and chemistry”, explains Tomas Pueyo in his post . But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First mankind had to find tin and lead.     Why those two? Again, from chemistry, same column (group) = similar chemical properties. In this case: “Because you can make them in a normal fire pit!” Lead melts at 327° C. A wood fire easily reaches 600-800° C. If the ore of lead found itself in a pit fire, the lead got separated. “But lead is not very useful because it’s heavy and way too soft. It couldn’t work as a tool or as a hand-held weapon.” The common ore of lead, galena, has traces of silver. It is likely that humans began to smelt galena for the silver and lead was just a byproduct. ~~   Tin has an even lower melting point of 232° C. But it is brittle and rare, hardly a candidate for a useful metal. But in many copper mines, tin is also present. And c...

Last December, the chaos and flight disruptions created by IndiGo were enormous and terrible. The penalty imposed on them was a paltry ₹22 crore (no prizes for guessing what must have transpired behind the scenes).   The root cause identified by the DGCA (Directorate General for Civil Aviation) though did make sense: “an overriding focus on maximising utilisation of crew, aircraft, and network resources”. Such an (over)emphasis then “significantly reduced roster buffer margins” and “adversely impacted operational resilience”.   But, while the above reason is valid, it wasn’t complete. IndiGo had clearly assumed the new regulations (on rest hours between flights) would not be enforced by the government and therefore had not prepared to meet them (by reducing flights or hiring more pilots/crew). And why did they make that assumption? Because they held a 65% market share, and they assumed that if they couldn’t/wouldn’t meet the new regulations, well, surely the governmen...

Tomas Pueyo wrote this excellent post on how metals shaped human civilization. A “mix of history, geography, physics, geology, and chemistry”, as he calls it. The first 3 metals used by humans were… he points to the Periodic Table!   Gold, silver and copper. Why those three? Because, to recap chemistry, same column (group) = similar chemical properties. The similar property of relevance here is that they can all be found in “native” form, i.e., pure form. ~~   When rocks erode, the heavier and inert gold gets left behind, which is why we found gold first. Gold was valuable because it is rare, malleable, doesn’t oxidize, found in nuggets, and yes, shiny. All those characteristics meant it became a store of value. But it was too heavy, too malleable, so it was of no use to make tools.   Silver is more common than gold. But it tarnishes (it reacts with other things). Which is why it is harder to find in native form. Again, not of much practical use.   ...

In an earlier blog , we saw how a coin tester was responsible for the “discovery” of Ashoka. The story we know today goes like this. Conquers Kalinga in a brutal war. Experiences extreme remorse. Converts to Buddhism. Spends the rest of his rule in positive acts of governance.   But is that what really happened? Devansh Malik explores the question. One , Ashoka lived 2,300 years ago and there are very few sources of info. Two , those famous inscriptions on rocks and pillars, well, Ashoka got them done, so can we be sure that they weren’t just “ancient press releases - public messages carefully crafted to shape his image”? Three , Buddhist descriptions of him were written centuries later, so how accurate were they?   To make matters worse, the different sources don’t always agree. In fact, they often flat out contradict each other! One thing they do agree on is that as a prince, Ashoka was very capable at administration and at military strategy. But he wasn’t the favou...

It was a British coin tester who found out that the emperor Ashoka even existed! His name was James Princep, writes Devansh Malik. Before 1837, sure, there were references to Ashoka in some Buddhist texts, but were they historical fact? Or just stories? “There was no historical proof, no documented history, nothing.”   Princep was born to rich parents and seemingly destined to be an architect in Britain. Then, at age 20, a severe eye infection struck damaging his eyes so badly that architecture was no longer an option. His father used his wealth and connections to get James the job of testing coins in Calcutta. It was at the Calcutta mint that Princep met Horace Wilson, a Sanskrit scholar who had translated the Rig Veda. “Through Wilson, James developed a deep fascination with Indian history and culture.”   When he moved to the mint in Varanasi, Princep began to notice something about the older coins of India. First came the punch-marked coins (any odd shape, but ...