I am Hungry

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article is of the individual author's only and not to be construed in any manner as the official views of IIT Madras.

How I see the world..

How the world sees me..

I may do it willingly or unwillingly.. I don't know anything.. I don't care about anything..

There is a similarity between me and the society: I don't care about them, nor they care about me. "The world" and "me" are complete strangers to each other. I don't know anything. I just know my stomach is empty and it need to be feed anyhow.

The society is the river. I will flow in the river the way it want me to flow. The society can use me anyhow it need. They may be aware or not of the long-term consequences.

May be.. my current situation is profitable to some of the individuals.. may be it is a long term loss to the society as a whole.. may be people are conscious about each and every aspect of the child labour.. I don't care about anything because I am foolish, unaware, ignorant..

People are ignorant too, they don't know how a economy works. I am contributing to the GDP of the country, yet there is loss involved for the country.

Society's responsibility is to build me.. my responsibility is to contribute.. I am playing my part, the society is not playing its.

If the country invests on me now, the return will be far more of which I am contributing now.

The most interesting point is I am I am doing this unknowingly.. I am ignorant..

I am unknowingly contributing.. individuals are unknowingly/knowingly exploiting.. the society is ignorantly experiencing loss..

I just know one thing.. I am hungry and have to feed my stomach..

Contributed by Sumit Singh Thakur. Sumit is a Dual Degree student in the Department of Civil Engineering,IIT Madras

When No Is Not An Option

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article is of the individual author's only and not to be construed in any manner as the official views of IIT Madras.

Women empowerment is the ever-trending topic around the globe and in India, too. We see politicians talk about it. We see videos becoming viral. We see hashtags trending in social media. And there are articles, like these, about women empowerment floating around in the web in huge numbers. But, are they actually helping the cause in any way? Does a country whose laws do not provide a married woman with the right over her body stand a chance in this mission to empower its women?

Marital rape is not a crime in India. For those who are wondering how rape can happen in a marriage, rape is defined as a sexual assault perpetrated against a person without that person’s consent. And to think that a mere thaali gives the “husband” the right over her body is plain male chauvinism and the idea does not deserve a place in today’s society.

A society which sees marriage as a union of two equals remains utopian to us. We live in a country where the female sex enjoys a better representation in temples than in the parliament. We name our gods, life supporting rivers and earth after women and yet continue to allow such inhumane crimes against them. Ah! How ironic?!

Recently, Mr.Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, the minister of state for home said, “It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context”, citing that marriages are treated as “sacrament” in the country. This only makes one wonder if we are losing too much in an effort to uphold the so called Indian tradition and culture. If, for argument sake, we do consider marriages to be sacramental, how does it make Marital Rape any more legal than in other countries?

Let us see the state of marital rape in other countries. The United States criminalized marital rape in mid 1970s and most of the European nations did so in the 1990s. Australia made it a crime in 1992. The United Nations’ recommendation to India to criminalize the same was turned down by the government. Justice Verma Committee’s Report of 2013 on sexual violence laws said that the exemption for marital rape “stems from a long out-dated notion of marriage which regarded wives as no more than the property of their husbands” and recommended its removal. However, the Criminal Law Amendment passed by the UPA following the report avoided the marital rape question!

What might be the reason for India not doing something which seems so obvious to a rationally thinking individual? Is it the practical difficulty involved in the implementation of the law? Is it the fear that this law, if made, will be exploited by women just like the Anti-Dowry Law? Or is it because of the sad fact that the government is run by a bunch of ultra conservative people who are giving religion more importance than it deserves and are so adamant in upholding its sanctity that they tend to oversee the adverse effect it is having on the society?

Well, it’s a combination of all the above reasons. In India, marriage has a “holy” characteristic associated with it. And a woman is expected to uphold the sanctity of the marriage and to hold intact the fabric of family, even though the man and woman both constitute the institution of marriage. Woman is seen as the bearer of a family’s dignity and esteem. All these so called “duties” of a woman weigh her down and makes it all the more difficult to come out and report a case of domestic violence. Exempting marital rape from legal punishment is only making things worse for her.

Refraining from passing a bill because of the associated implementational difficulties is not a good sign for a developing country like ours. Challenges are everywhere. We cannot dream of becoming a superpower if we resent challenges. There are countries where laws are in place to check these crimes and a study of them will definitely give us a starting point.

With all this said, it will be too optimistic to think that the law will eradicate our society of these heinous acts. A major perceptional change is required to fix this problem. A broadminded, well informed society backed by well structured laws is required to fix this problem. And, we make the society.

Words can only initiate thoughts. Thoughts lead to actions and only actions can bring changes!

Let’s act, for a better India!

Contributed by Karthikeyan S Durai Pandian. Karthikeyan is a Dual Degree student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering,IIT Madras

Feminism in India

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article is of the individual author's only and not to be construed in any manner as the official views of IIT Madras.

“I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been.” – William Golding

A slapped bottom and a gang rape, a senior IAS officer and a village woman from Rajasthan, both have moved the courts, seeking justice for all women. Both have stood up in the public arena to say that they have been robbed of freedoms supposedly guaranteed to them by the Constitution of independent India. Rupan Deol Bajaj of Chandigarh and Bhanvari Devi of Bhateri village have focussed attention on Indian feminism. Yet, notwithstanding the publicity given to the most famous derriere in India at the moment, women's groups say they have been "heartened" by the media response to Bhanvari Devi.

When the social worker from Rajasthan addressed a press conference, almost every newspaper carried the story the next day. The district judge may have declared the upper caste men do not rape, but nobody doubted Bhanvari's word. The campaign for a law on sexual harassment in the workplace has gathered momentum because of Bhanvari's experience and women's groups are planning several demonstrations in Jaipur in support of her. Rupan Bajaj may be a talking point, but Bhanvari Devi is the rallying cry. In Nineties India, a poor village woman has become a feminist symbol.

From anti-dowry campaigns in the '80s, to anti-rape demonstrations in the '90s, Indian feminism has taken a trajectory that has brought it into closer contact with the spontaneous struggles of women throughout the country.

Feminism in India has been a long, unsettled debate which is still persistently prevalent in various forms. The emergence of “Feminism” has been a powerful challenge to the prevailing power structures and gender equations at the level of the family, the economy and the polity. The term “feminism” evokes many positive associations and connotations when used in the Western context. Undoubtedly, this revolutionary movement played a vital role in liberating the status of women. This evolved from women’s own awareness and their struggles against power structures which excluded them from equal participation in many aspects of the economic, social and political life of their society.

For most Indians, except a microscopic number of highly westernized, elite people, the term “feminism” means nothing. Neither does that particular term have any equivalents in any of the Indian language. If anything, the term has acquired many negative connotations in recent years. Most urban English-speaking Indians are familiar with the term “feminism”, but their understanding of it remains vague. Among the urban literate, the awareness of feminism is largely confined to what is perceived of as the moral corruption of women.

For most Indian males feminism has contained to be an “obnoxious” word, which they feel have tremendous negative effects on the minds of Indian females. Since the Indian female has always been a considerably more conditioned product, totally custom-made and usually coerced into a mindless acceptance of male diktat, the possibility of a reasoned, open-minded approach to the concept of feminism has been at best sporadic. Indians are so biased and prejudiced against the concept of “feminism” that they mark out each and every person working for or supporting the women’s cause, are inevitably tabooed as if she/he is a terrorist, exploding anti-social elements and ideas, and corrupting Indian traditions and cultures. In fact, anyone working for women’s rights irrespective of the nature of their work, is automatically assumed to be a conscious or unconscious feminist, and allowed no choice on this issue.

Since the situation of women in India is quite miserable and a great deal needs to be done on their behalf, it is important that Indian feminists understand the Indian context thoroughly. Indian feminists need to phrase and frame their criticisms, their arguments and their demands keeping in mind the sensitive issues and sentiments related to the Indian society.

Contributed by Mamidi Vijaya Bhaskar. Vijaya Bhaskar is an Undergraduate student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering,IIT Madras.

The Glorious Past Theory and the predicament of a student of Science

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article is of the individual author's only and not to be construed in any manner as the official views of IIT Madras.

History is anything but just his story; not even as an allegation. I am not referring to the embedded gender politics, something which cannot be done away with, over here. The ideas about the past are not the concerns of specialists (academic researchers, hobbyists and quizzers) alone. Even though such an allegedly elitist scenario is more desirable against the games which have been going on in the Colosseum of the Indian political theatre, it is just a wishful thinking. In fact, there is quite a lot to worry about the kind of narratives that claim invention of plastic surgery, genetic science or aeroplanes citing stories from mythology, discovery of sophisticated Mathematics based on ambiguous history, and giving legitimacy to pseudo sciences. In the latest edition of this entertainment unleashed for the public consumption, the posturers (and their poster boys) seem to be on an impressive victory streak against the tiny minority who argues for maintaining scientific temperament and historical reasoning based on evidence. This situation should be a delight to the Neros from the past. As they would have said then, the score is: Lions 1, Christians Nil. The continuation of such a scenario will have disastrous consequences not only to the scientific and academic establishments, but also for the social life of the nation.

Nationalism and History

Glorification of the past, often in gargantuan scales that tend towards absurdity is a part and participle of the idea known as nationalism. Although this might appear condescending to many a people from this nation whose modern identity is defined based on a certain nationalist premise, may I request such a reader to bear with me and engage with the chain of reasoning proposed here. Nationalism as an ideology,recognises the power of a shared myth. It holds the supremacy of a shared myth as a material and intellectual source within a real or mythological territory- the holy land. It could be a promised land, as in the case of Israeli Jews, the land of the pure whom they snatched from the infidels as in the case of Muslims of Pakistan, the Golden land (Shonar Bangla) for people speaking the same language with shared cultural bonds, as in the case of Bangladesh, an ageless civilization build up on Vedas, as in the case of Hindu Nationalism in India. Of course, there are milder and harsher forms of the same expression with varying degree of inclusiveness. All of them share one common characteristic- being mostly wrong and exaggerated.

Nationalism has a certain idea about “who we were” which forms its central premise unlike many other competing secular ideologies, which too might have their own unique dealings with the past, though not in such an exclusive scale. This very structure necessitates the creation of an imaginary other, the fifth column as per the logic of a staunch nationalist. If you pursue the logic, it becomes clear that the idea of a perceptual cultural war is embedded in the nationalist fabric; there is our culture and their culture,and we have to defend ours' supremacy in our holy land. Of course,most of the organised religions too work on the same principle, with the territoriality constraint relaxed.

The inherent logic behind the conception of nationalist identity, whether its proponents are conscious about it or not, is straightforward. Human beings moved to the top of the food chain by forming close knit communities, which helped their survival and improved efficiency as hunter gatherers during the birth of early civilisations. Ability to communicate abstract ideas (common language, symbols and idioms), collective imagination (myth and religion), sense of past (identity and history), insider-outsider rules (the patriot and traitor),territorial assets (holy lands) etc. were keys to the survival of early communities, even though material efficiency of the system might have served as the motivation for forming communities.

After the early stage of anthropological evolution when relatively small,simple and homogeneous communities were formed for material reasons,there were competing communities. For this reason each had to device stricter  rules of engagement for people within (the earliest laws) and discriminators to determine the insider from the outsider.Growth was inevitable because of the security and relative prosperity provided by this arrangement. With growth came strife, both within and with outsiders. The reasons ranged from immediate material concerns like food, shelter and mating rights, to struggles for power and prestige. Kinship and bloodlines could no longer be the major binding factor for the larger community, although it did matter for the passing of the baton of  power or the rudimentary property rights. The earliest cultural expressions found in Bronze age communities testify to the fact that flourishing abundant communities had a strong cultural binding as evidenced through the ancient centres of worship or common burial sites. They have most probably achieved this through maintaining common myths, however little we know about them. The Ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia, the Pyramids of Egypt, the palace of Knossos in Minoan Crete, Delphi in ancient Greece, Kalibangan in Indus valley etc.  were all more than places of religious worship or ritual. They were symbols of collective imagination that bound the community, often by ruthless force and social policing.

We must remember that during the formation of such communities or tribes, human beings knew very little about nature. This played a major role in coming up with imaginary deities associating them with the powers of nature - the earliest religions. Fear was the idea and wonder was the ink. They probably were also the institutions that laid down common meeting places and rules for social cohesion, at a time when life was harsh and leisure time to ponder freely was not within the reach of most people. We know this to be true at least about the early agrarian societies. This urge for a binding culture,often expressed through religion, is very much a part of the nationalist discourses.

During the inception of such communities the average life span was not more than 35 years. Given the number of uncertainties that could arise from natural causes, future was a big enigma. Naturally past was cherished . This helped the creation of common myths and a sense of identity for there was hardly any incentive for people at large to invest in the completely unfathomable future, which they wish they knew better. Interestingly, this ability to see past through rosy glasses is the result of the evolution of human brain to protect itself from trauma. An average pre-modern human being, generally speaking, had invested more in a sense of past, than pondering about ways for a bright future. Changes were usually extremely slow and most often arising from the catastrophic failure of one type of system. This was an experiment that went on for the largest period in the history of the species homo sapiens.

Let us just pause and add all these together. We see an average nationalist's cultural anxieties, exaggerated sense of territorial and cultural identity, appearing right in front of us. They are not completely illogical, although the underlying logic is just a tribal notion of self preservation which we can, and I would argue must,forsake for good in this era.

Objections to the Glorious History Project

All human beings, even those who live in sophisticated, technologically advanced, modern, liberal societies, crave for a sense of identity.It has to be admitted that our perception of the past is inextricably linked to our sense of belonging and being. But the question is whether we have to invent a past to bolster the collective ego of the population. In my opinion that would be a folly even if done in moderate proportions. I would argue my case with four reasons.

The first reason to argue for an evidence based world view as opposed to an imagined glory is that exaggerations and wild speculations does no value addition to this field of knowledge known as history. Every serious student of knowledge has a serious commitment towards truth,which has an intrinsic value whatever be its practical implications.The second reason comes from a long term utilitarian premise. A sense of glory and feel good can possibly fake confidence, but erodes away the intellectual and questioning ability of the population, directly  affecting the scientific temperament and creative abilities required for growth and flourish. When faced with real challenges of the modern world, critical thinking ability counts well above blind faith in honour. My third reason has a psychological premise. The exaggerated sense of identity is a kind of fate belief. In many cases, it ties people down to a logic that we can do better because we did better once up on a time. Some people might consider this harmless, but when you substitute the work ethic and resolve to excel or succeed with some kind of imaginary genetic, territorial or cultural spirit, more often wrongly, the result is a stagnant mind.This in turn would produce a stagnant society where critical enquires cease to exist . Last but not the least,given that the history of all human cultures is filled with violence and aggression, there can be no glorious past without defining the 'others'. While, one can argue that there could be groups which might have done more harm than the rest in certain regions, during various time periods in history, perpetuating a sense of victim-hood of own imagined people, or excessive triumphalism over one's cultural prowess, will create more human victims. This is well evidenced by the history of genocides. As a corollary to the same argument, it should be noted that successful, developed modern societies are not relatively less exclusive. Their ability to co-operate with other groups and deal with each other more compassionately are important in a globalised world.

Glorification Vs  Rational Discourse

The often taunted argument from the nationalist side is that the non-nationalist discourses suffer from biases and deliberately underplay the contributions of the dominant majority, whose voice they assume themselves to be. It is possible that at least some of their criticism against other schools are well founded. But glorification, in my opinion, is not a good defence mechanism against other dominant political discourses. It is a kind of psychological imbalance. At the very outset, this is a political claim which could very well be true on occasions, but largely a statement to stake a claim to legitimacy because of alleged fault of other schools than own merit. I would not like to meander to the political dimensions of this claim here. As a student of science, I do have reservations against this form of special pleading. History is perspective. But as they say in media, the facts are sacred, the comment is free. The facts which we tend to agree on historical knowledge, more often,comes from analysing material evidences. There is a scientific process which cannot be bypassed in reaching those conclusions. The narrative woven around it should also fit all the possible evidences(as much a possible), consistent with the established timeline and satisfy the Occam's razor. Often the nationalist history about ancient past forgets about the Occam's razor, and goes for a sky hook. This is very much evident when people claim Vedic civilisation dates back to 10,000 BC, planes were invented in ancient India or such interesting arguments. This approach, I would argue, comes from an extreme sense of self-importance or insecurity, which does not go well with the spirit of science or the process of building knowledge.

If such is the condition, what could possibly be the rational discourse about the past, for amateurs? In my opinion, the beginning of a sensible understanding about history should start from detaching the question who we are from what we can do. In a strict biological sense this need not be true. But we must remember that biology is the story of millions of years while history, at best,have a few thousands to talk about. The second proposal is to put things into perspective. We do not need to deny legitimacy to the truly inspiring, verifiable, stories from history, but must avoid falling in the trap of a supremacist view point. Remember that we are just a bunch of evolved primates whose early grand parents happened to have settled on this particular landmass (the alleged holy land)some time during the last 100000 years or so, probably after migrating from East Africa. But then, we are also just one among the millions of species currently non-extinct, which is a tiny minority among the huge number of species that has ever existed, on a remote planet which is known to be 4.5 billion years old. Even our planet is just one among the more than 100 billion ones present in the Milky Way, which is just one among the more than 100 billion galaxies in the known universe, which is around 13.7 billion years old. Actually,we, language, ethnicity, religion, culture, society and pride, are truly that unimportant! It is important that we keep this in mind,which ever field of knowledge we might be dealing with.


I cannot rephrase the conclusion any better than Carl Sagan's own words, which is as much applicable to history as science:

“This adventure is made possible by generations of searchers strictly adherent to a simple set of rules. Test ideas by experiments and observations. Build on those ideas that pass the test. Reject the ones that fail. Follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything. Accept these terms, and the cosmos is yours.”

Contributed by Ayyappadas A.M. Ayyappadas is a research scholar in Applied Mechanics Department of IIT Madras