Print

Please post once and this message will disappear! Introduce yourself, say hello, jump into a discussion...

[feverpitch]

And, Dravid bhaiyya, while you are at it, do try responding to http://www.cricketvoice.com/cricketforum2/index.php?topic=10238.msg129583#msg129583.

Please don't nag men like this. If a man does not respond, and esp if a group of them dont respond, you must get that they dont think your post is woth responding to. Refrain from creating ackwardness by seeking attention and nagging. Swallow it like a ...... 

You don't have to hide your 'incapability'! Its well known.

[feverpitch]

And, Dravid bhaiyya, while you are at it, do try responding to http://www.cricketvoice.com/cricketforum2/index.php?topic=10238.msg129583#msg129583.

Please don't nag men like this. If a man does not respond, and esp if a group of them dont respond, you must get that they dont think your post is woth responding to. Refrain from creating ackwardness by seeking attention and nagging. Swallow it like a ...... 

That was like swell

Behind every 'man', there's a... ... tangri kabab!

[feverpitch]

If copy-pasting were wisdom,

I have no wisdom. Just as you have no control on your verbal diarrhea, which is what exposes you for what you are — a sanctimonious johnny come lately.

the world would be enlightened in a day and we'd have no more of these debates.   

The very fact that you are back for so much more punishment proves that you are as much against The Enlightenment as Leopold Von Sacher Masoch.

I know you don't think much of originality, but please, for the sake of the nation you seem to care about, embody some it.

Why? That will earn me smarmy applauses from your AIIMS crowd? Try that elsewhere... ... I mean with your pet coquette, she's easy meat — and will give your injured ego a long suck, plus a lot more! 

Copying will get you some place, like the US, but never to the top 

Quit worrying about my future, and start protecting your credibility. You've been turned into a laughing stock, and no manner of bluster will save you from that. Better leave quietly and lick your wounds [or get them licked] before you start another tirade!

[feverpitch]

cos its the American corporate trait to attack,attack,attack.).

As their defense lawyer on this DG, you should know a thing or two... !

[feverpitch]

seriously dude... what an ambush! talk about pre-emptive action.

no need.

You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.

[feverpitch]

That was like swell

Hey, a man's gotto say 'nuff at some point right   

Moral Police : Take Note

Illegal hooking in progress. Response elicited.

[CLR James]

The real problem is not that Modi is a bad man or that the policemen in question behaved badly. It is that the Indian middle class has been content for too long to allow the police force to function as its assassination squad. Few of us have thought through the consequences of our attitude to encounters. If we did, we would recognise that incidents such as the Gujarat murders result inevitably from our readiness to ask our policemen to function as our willing executioners.

Thanks for posting saneguy. The article is a much needed one.

I think Sanghvi's analysis stops short of nailing the real problem. The problem isn't that the middle class is actually conscious of its role as backers of the police.  Or conscious of its silence. That would be attributing to them ability they don't possess. He assumes the people are capable of thought but are choosing to avoid it or arriving at the wrong conclusions just so they can continue their fairyland existence. In reality, not just the middle class, but the Indian people itself do not display a developed thought-power. We are really asking people to think on elevated lines, while the majority are incapable of that, and the general climate does not provide an environment to cultivate the faculty either.

As an example, how many on this forum, prior to living in this country, had concrete, formed notions of many things we now believe in, express routinely? Take for ex, the 'I'll defend your right to speech, even if I disagree with it'...  Many in India may practice this in their lives, but without consciously formulating the thought/principle. In my case, this particular ideal as well as many others only blossomed forth after living here in the US. Its not that this country inculcated new values but just that latent notions are allowed to mentally form themselves thanks to the general climate around. I'm guessing this is the case with most others on this forum. When you consider that many of us have got as good an 'education' as India could provide, it tells me that there must be something missing in our environment if our mental faculties widen only after leaving India. (Okay, these days you dont have to leave, there is the net and then increasing foreign travel). 

Based on this, I think whats called for are broad-based attempts to increase the thinking ability/interest or thought-power (or whatever you call it) in the Indian masses. An automatic result of a more thinking citizenry will be opposing the ills as one being dealt with in the article. Otherwise, you will be left at arguing whether criminals can actually be brought to justice because the police is equally or more corrupt than the lower judiciary, so as an aam aadmi shouldn't i just be wishing for my safety, which means someone killing criminals even if some innocents die? you'll never be able to convince the broader population on that one, cos the ability to think is under-developed.

TheWall,

This is precisely the point. A certain class does not understand its murderous intentions, its genocidal proclivities, or its pretty common tendency to exercise violence in society purely in its own terms. You see, 'intent' is a much inflated legal term used primarily to judge individual criminals. However, you cannot really use it to exonerate an economic group with their own 'interests'. That is because the class in power assumes that its interest is the universal interest. That is, It all begins with a naive and innocent desire to get rid of slums and 'beautify' the city, and ends with pious desires, sometimes fundamentally and sometimes 'liberally' articulated, to get rid of Muslims wholesale who are deemed responsible (again wholesale) for population inflation, terror, and endemic underdevelopment. This also includes an unconscious, almost reflexive desire for human communities to disappear when they come in the way of development. We know how the Nandigram problem was articulated by the media and handled by the state. Now think if oil was discovered under Chanakyapuri in Delhi; there would of course be a thousand litigations filed by the elite if they were to be asked to leave bag and baggage from their abodes. Next think what would happen if bulldozers and midnight police raids materialized to empty that divine part of Delhi? Would the ‘sacrifice’ be purely articulated in terms of national interest? I do not think so. People would certainly leave, but after a disproportionate looting of the national treasury (which would be way, way above what the erstwhile residents of the Narmada Valley would call ‘proper’ compensation). It is because the affluent and educated classes set up values, they decide what is legal and supra-legal (note the thread on 150 buses removed for a Minister’s son’s wedding) and what is truth, what is national interest and what is the science of development. When the elite say very piously that a war has to be fought or a generation has to suffer for structural adjustment, rarely do they mean themselves.

As you point out, all this is often by instinct, often unconsciously done. This is because matters are naturalized.

[keep-it-cool]

ROFL

 

If your posts are any indication, you are still rolling on the floor... please dont hurt yourself. Thats a desperate plea, not a threat. 

This one is really funny  ... almost missed it too amidst all the high brow stuff...

[feverpitch]

The real problem is not that Modi is a bad man or that the policemen in question behaved badly. It is that the Indian middle class has been content for too long to allow the police force to function as its assassination squad. Few of us have thought through the consequences of our attitude to encounters. If we did, we would recognise that incidents such as the Gujarat murders result inevitably from our readiness to ask our policemen to function as our willing executioners.

Thanks for posting saneguy. The article is a much needed one.

I think Sanghvi's analysis stops short of nailing the real problem. The problem isn't that the middle class is actually conscious of its role as backers of the police.  Or conscious of its silence. That would be attributing to them ability they don't possess. He assumes the people are capable of thought but are choosing to avoid it or arriving at the wrong conclusions just so they can continue their fairyland existence. In reality, not just the middle class, but the Indian people itself do not display a developed thought-power. We are really asking people to think on elevated lines, while the majority are incapable of that, and the general climate does not provide an environment to cultivate the faculty either.

As an example, how many on this forum, prior to living in this country, had concrete, formed notions of many things we now believe in, express routinely? Take for ex, the 'I'll defend your right to speech, even if I disagree with it'...  Many in India may practice this in their lives, but without consciously formulating the thought/principle. In my case, this particular ideal as well as many others only blossomed forth after living here in the US. Its not that this country inculcated new values but just that latent notions are allowed to mentally form themselves thanks to the general climate around. I'm guessing this is the case with most others on this forum. When you consider that many of us have got as good an 'education' as India could provide, it tells me that there must be something missing in our environment if our mental faculties widen only after leaving India. (Okay, these days you dont have to leave, there is the net and then increasing foreign travel). 

Based on this, I think whats called for are broad-based attempts to increase the thinking ability/interest or thought-power (or whatever you call it) in the Indian masses. An automatic result of a more thinking citizenry will be opposing the ills as one being dealt with in the article. Otherwise, you will be left at arguing whether criminals can actually be brought to justice because the police is equally or more corrupt than the lower judiciary, so as an aam aadmi shouldn't i just be wishing for my safety, which means someone killing criminals even if some innocents die? you'll never be able to convince the broader population on that one, cos the ability to think is under-developed.

TheWall,

This is precisely the point. A certain class does not understand its murderous intentions, its genocidal proclivities, or its pretty common tendency to exercise violence in society purely in its own terms. You see, 'intent' is a much inflated legal term used primarily to judge individual criminals. However, you cannot really use it to exonerate an economic group with their own 'interests'. That is because the class in power assumes that its interest is the universal interest. That is, It all begins with a naive and innocent desire to get rid of slums and 'beautify' the city, and ends with pious desires, sometimes fundamentally and sometimes 'liberally' articulated, to get rid of Muslims wholesale who are deemed responsible (again wholesale) for population inflation, terror, and endemic underdevelopment. This also includes an unconscious, almost reflexive desire for human communities to disappear when they come in the way of development. We know how the Nandigram problem was articulated by the media and handled by the state. Now think if oil was discovered under Chanakyapuri in Delhi; there would of course be a thousand litigations filed by the elite if they were to be asked to leave bag and baggage from their abodes. Next think what would happen if bulldozers and midnight police raids materialized to empty that divine part of Delhi? Would the ‘sacrifice’ be purely articulated in terms of national interest? I do not think so. People would certainly leave, but after a disproportionate looting of the national treasury (which would be way, way above what the erstwhile residents of the Narmada Valley would call ‘proper’ compensation). It is because the affluent and educated classes set up values, they decide what is legal and supra-legal (note the thread on 150 buses removed for a Minister’s son’s wedding) and what is truth, what is national interest and what is the science of development. When the elite say very piously that a war has to be fought or a generation has to suffer for structural adjustment, rarely do they mean themselves.

As you point out, all this is often by instinct, often unconsciously done. This is because matters are naturalized.

As usual, CLR, you are spot on.

Thanks for an articulated response.

[TheWall]

TheWall,

This is precisely the point. A certain class does not understand its murderous intentions, its genocidal proclivities, or its pretty common tendency to exercise violence in society purely in its own terms. You see, 'intent' is a much inflated legal term used primarily to judge individual criminals. However, you cannot really use it to exonerate an economic group with their own 'interests'. That is because the class in power assumes that its interest is the universal interest. That is, It all begins with a naive and innocent desire to get rid of slums and 'beautify' the city, and ends with pious desires, sometimes fundamentally and sometimes 'liberally' articulated, to get rid of Muslims wholesale who are deemed responsible (again wholesale) for population inflation, terror, and endemic underdevelopment. This also includes an unconscious, almost reflexive desire for human communities to disappear when they come in the way of development. We know how the Nandigram problem was articulated by the media and handled by the state. Now think if oil was discovered under Chanakyapuri in Delhi; there would of course be a thousand litigations filed by the elite if they were to be asked to leave bag and baggage from their abodes. Next think what would happen if bulldozers and midnight police raids materialized to empty that divine part of Delhi? Would the ‘sacrifice’ be purely articulated in terms of national interest? I do not think so. People would certainly leave, but after a disproportionate looting of the national treasury (which would be way, way above what the erstwhile residents of the Narmada Valley would call ‘proper’ compensation). It is because the affluent and educated classes set up values, they decide what is legal and supra-legal (note the thread on 150 buses removed for a Minister’s son’s wedding) and what is truth, what is national interest and what is the science of development. When the elite say very piously that a war has to be fought or a generation has to suffer for structural adjustment, rarely do they mean themselves.

As you point out, all this is often by instinct, often unconsciously done. This is because matters are naturalized.

CLR,

I take it that this is a connected comment and not necessarily a rebuttal to something I wrote, cos I did exonerate the middle class in what I wrote. To clarify, by saying that they aren't conscious of their backing of the police, my intention wasn't to make them look better.

I believe you are highlighting a problem that our whole society faces. Put in the 'middle class' state, you can expect every one to generally have the same values, same interests, same behavior of my safety and greed first. The middle class gene is in (nearly) all of of our citizens - its not the propriety of the current middle class. As long as this gene survives, changing the actors in the play wont help much. Who wins who loses may change but the problem remains, the game stays ugly. Hence my point that we need an across the board improvement of how we think and function so the game changes substantially. Just to reiterate, this is not meant to suggest middle class innocence or guard their interests. But to say that the long-term solution thinking has to go beyond immediate grievance redress,  as important as that is.

Of course, I agree the Narmada villagers can ensure themselves the same deal as the Delhi people.