Sunday Posts

Democracy is being contested. It didn't take too long for history not to end. Thirty years tops and the democratic euphoria is all gone. It's no longer an export product - Chinese made authoritarianism trumped it completely! It's even having trouble on its home turf, in Britain, United States and, in its promissory version, in India. Theories abound where it went wrong, blaming bad men and globalization in equal measure. There is a cutely optimistic streak in some of this analysis, a kind of nostalgia for the lost times and a loveable leap of faith that the pretenders will all be exposed and democracy will triumph. Everything will be alright at the end; if it's not alright, it's not the end - as they say in Marigold Hotel! Indeed, that's cute and loveable and entirely wrong. Democracy ascended not as a gradual revelation of any ultimate truth nor as gift of the benevolent, but rather as a compromise between those who had too much vested in the disappearing a...

Should we compare Trump to Hitler? Hitler is a real historical figure, but he is also a symbol, something we invoke perhaps a bit too often. Anyone disagreeable in government is called Hitler, as well as any act which smacks of authoritarianism is quickly branded, 'like Hitler'. So, it is not a surprise that the spectre of Hitler has been invoked, as Trump is unleashed on America. What is surprising is that this discussion is getting serious, with Liberals writing detailed comparison why it may be so, and indeed, an assortment of angry Conservatives denying any resemblance. Some of this Conservative case is easy to make. Contemporary America has nothing in common with Weimar Germany, at least at the surface. It has an evolved Republican tradition - the oldest in the world, in fact - and history of stable governments, and do not compare with the Republic that lasted for slightly more than a decade and regularly saw Chancellors come and go. Germany was blighted by econo...

There is so much being spoken (or written, or broadcasted) about US Presidential Election! I kept quiet, because I knew how embarrassing it is for my American friends and colleagues this discussion is. I am from a country which voted in a demagogue accused of genocide, and live in a country which just kicked the chair voting to undermine its own economic model: I know it hurts!  But what spurs me now is the latest twist - the 'locker room' tapes and the outcry since then - as it gave me, I believe, something to add to the conversation. With Donald Trump's ascendancy, there was always this shock and the outrage, in media and in educated public: Now, it has spread across further, in the Republican establishment. The politicians are lining up on TV to do what politicians do, stating the obvious in a solemn and ridiculous way - "I have three daughters, a wife, five sisters and a mother" - denouncing Trump's bragging of his predatory ways with women! Everyone...

One of the great contrasts between India, the world's most populous democracy, and America, one of the oldest surviving republics, is the differing approach what, paraphrasing the Founding generation (of United States), should be called the "Fear of the Caesar"! The American approach to this is perhaps best captured in the story of Benjamin Franklin. When a reporter asked, "Mr Franklin, what did we get - a Monarchy or a Republic?", while he was coming out of one of the meetings of the Constitutional Convention,  Franklin reportedly answered, "A republic, if you can keep it!" That fear of a Caeser, a strong leader who would undermined the republic, persisted. Another story, later recounted by Jefferson (told to Benjamin Rush in 1811), described a dinner that Jefferson hosted for John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Three portraits adorned Jefferson's room, and Hamilton reportedly inquired who those were. Jefferson said they were of the three...

English is fast becoming the world's language. While some Frenchmen are perturbed, and call the language penetrating even their universities 'American' rather than English, the Tower of Babel seems to be reaching a final solution.  Why does this matter? The apologists of English do not see this as an imperial project but a triumph of pragmatism, a natural corollary of globalisation and rise of an uniform consumer ethics. And, indeed, there is one view that it is the 'democratic' nature of English - the language can be molded and adapted to its host cultures infinitesimally - that makes it so popular. They claim this is not about English or American, but the story of many Englishes. So, you can speak any language as long as it is called English, which means an expansion of what some observers will call an Anglosphere. This is a sphere of influence of a certain kind of rhetoric, enabled by the unity of media and thinking. In one way, this is a function of te...

America finds India an unreliable ally, to its surprise.  George W Bush will be remembered for his many misadventures in Foreign Policy, but he claimed a legacy in this one important aspect - attempting to usher in a new American engagement in Asia through a deepening friendship with India. This hope was perhaps reciprocated at the time: India's outgoing Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, cites India's Nuclear Power cooperation with America as the biggest achievement of his ten years in power. At the time, the American engagement with India was hailed with an expectation to be as momentous as Nixon's engagement with China. However, this shift was contentious in America as in India. For Americans, it was some sort of a balancing act after decades of Pro-Pakistan stance after the inevitable seeding of democracy and street politics in that country. It is rather ironic that it was democracy that was cited as the reason for favouring India ever so suddenly: For Indians...

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According to a Money Magazine article, for over two decades colleges and universities across the United States have been increasing tuition four times faster than the overall inflation rate. After adjusting for financial aid, the amount of money families pay for college has soared 439% since 1982. The soaring costs of a college education has brought back the discussion of whether or not college education should be free. Let's take a look at the two sides of the debate. Arguments in Favor of Free College Education Student Debt : Many students graduate with an overwhelming amount of debt, which can significantly affect their lives. The average yearly cost, including tuition and expenses, of attending a public, 4-year school is close to $20,000. The costs of going to private for-profit and non-profit 4-year colleges are $30,000 and $35,000 per year, respectively (Source: National Center for Education Statistics; 2007-2008 school year). Fortunately, some students do receive grants and...

The world is divided on what President Obama said, and did not say, in his Nobel Lecture. An unlikely recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he felt hard pressed to present a justification for his various wars, but he should not have. The prize, in the world's eyes, was given to Obama The Symbol - of culmination of a long struggle of rights and dignity of the African-Americans - than Obama The Man. But, President Obama turned it into an endorsement of himself and his actions, and in doing so, he ended up justifying wars as a legitimate, and unavoidable, instrument of state policy. The point is, of course, that wars are not justified. In Obamaspeak , there were wars between armies, and then wars between nations, which has now turned into wars within nations. But, despite this evolutionary formula of war, there are some things which never changed. First, wars were between interests, which saw the world as a zero-sum equation, and parties which wanted to take all and leave none. Second,...

The Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to President Obama, was a distraction. The world's attention was focused on whether this is a just reward, given that the President, who assumed office on the 20 th of January, had just 12 days work to show for it [when the nominations closed on the 1st of February]. The stated reason from the Nobel committee pointed to various initiatives and policy pronouncements by the President, including a clear commitment to nuclear disarmament and an intent to engage in Arab-Israeli conflict. The President himself was far more practical in his reaction and said that he was 'humbled' by the Prize and views this as a 'call to action'. It indeed seemed that President Obama had got the prize just for the act of winning the Presidency itself, which marked the pinnacle of achievement of Afro-American rights movement, which intensified in the last 40 years and became the Civil Rights movement in general. So, this prize is somewhat for the Barack Obama...

I am contributing in the blog on the Institute of Wellbeing website. This is an interesting assignment, as this will allow me to reflect and write on various subjects on the news on British tele . Here is another post I sent last week. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alistair Darling is looking angry. He has a right to be - his dream job turned out to be one of 24x7 crisis management almost the day he started. And, just when he seems to be getting a grip, there is an embarrassing possibility that some bankers, the same bankers who gambled with their depositors' money and rewarded themselves with hefty bonuses, may be at it again. This time, they may play with taxpayers' money, of which Mr Darling is in charge. He can clearly see something coming. AIG , the ailing insurance company which was kept in business by a huge injection of taxpayer's money in the United States, decided to reward its executives and traders few months...

I was in India last couple of weeks and noticed the debate around 'selling out' of India following Hillary Clinton's visit to Mumbai and Delhi last week. The principal debate is focused on the End Use Monitoring Agreement that the Indian government agreed to sign with the United States, allowing, theoretically , Americans access to monitor all dual-use and military technology bought from them. The opposition parties immediately conjured up the image of US inspectors, mostly CIA operatives, roaming around freely inside our most secret and sensitive military facilities and Indian government having to ask the US bosses before they use an weapon. Much of this is indeed nonsense, as India has been signing such agreements in every high technology deal entered into since 1998 and this umbrella arrangement will actually eliminate the need of negotiating such arrangements for every deal. Besides, United States is only one of the suppliers, and there is indeed an open and competitiv...

Nations are ideas. We try to fashion them as territories. But how can a river, a mountain ridge or sometimes an imaginary line in the middle of a field can explain the wide division in the lives, thoughts and futures of the people who live on different sides? Nations are not the people too. Indeed, people build nations and become its body. But the soul of the nation is an idea: People come together on an idea to build a nation. While that's what a modern nation is - an idea - and that way exceptionalism is not an American exception, very few nations are as completely defined by an idea as Pakistan. There was hardly any political, geographic or military rationale of Pakistan other than the idea of an Islamic homeland in South Asia. [In that way, the ideological brother of Pakistan in the family of nations is Israel] This, abated by the short term political calculations of some backroom colonialists, created a modern state which must be solely sustained on that singular idea. Religi...

Fareer Zakaria puts a question on American Military expenditure in his very popular Fareed Zakaria GPS programme: Should the America reduce its military expenditure, currently at $651 billion? The logic is that this is way out of proportion with the comparable big power states, and should the nation keep spending as much money as it does. This is a loaded question and will indeed draw a lot of responses. I have my views too, but since I am not an American, I chose to reflect about this here rather than writing back to CNN. Let us start with how much America really spends on Military. This information is available at various places on the web, but I shall just compile this together here. First, a list of military expenditure by states reveal how much more America spends on Armed Forces. Here are some key statistics. United States spends $651 Billion out of the total reported global expenditure of $1470 Billion, or roughly 44% of the total. Interestingly, total NATO expenditure on mi...

For all my pessimism and preaching on the recession, I am obligated to say that suddenly the Wall Street is looking good again. I have made it a habit to watch CNBC Closing Bell throughout this last one year - whenever I am home in England - not because I am an investor, but because I wanted to have a feel of what's going on. Yesterday, I thought that zing was back - stocks going up, companies meeting [much lowered] expectation and commodities inching up. We are in such a sad state - when was oil reaching $49 a barrel good news - that any positive signals count. And, there is indeed a slight positive signal coming out of Wall Street. The signal is that we are near the bottom. We are not out of the woods yet, there is a huge housekeeping work left to be done at the banks and other financial institutions. But, this time, it seems pessimism has beaten the market realities and the recession shock made us cut back so harshly that production is way below down the supplies. This has had ...

We are technically an year into the economic crisis, with no end in sight. There have been big 'stimulus' on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the rest of the world, but the demand is still failing to pick up. There have been questions raised about stimulus all the time, and now more so, as the queue is forming for government money in all countries. Corporate America rather spectacularly and brazenly giving away the money they receive to stay afloat as bonuses to senior executives, further undermining the credibility of the bailout process. Besides, increasingly, the Obama administration is turning xenophobic and protectionist, to appease its voting crowd, and sending out precisely the wrong message for the time to the rest of the world. It was almost amusing, but for the human pain, to watch monetarism's demise. This recession is the nail in the coffin of the flawed thinking of Reaganomics/ Thatcherism . The policy that the economy can be controlled simply by monetary me...