Comparison of Gujarati Muslims' Progress with Muslims from Other States – A Baseline Study Using a New Metric (Preliminary Report)

Comparison of Gujarati Muslims' Progress with Muslims from Other States – A Baseline Study Using a New Metric

(Preliminary Report)

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Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 29 March, 2013

Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar.  All Rights Reserved.

For other articles by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, please visit http://www.leftbrainwave.com

You can reach me on twitter @KumarSeshadri.

Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.

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Mr. Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, has recently attracted worldwide attention with his convincing victory in Gujarat for the third time in state elections.  There have been calls from the lay public all over India for him to be declared the frontrunner for the post of prime minister in the event his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, wins in the 2014 elections.  A lot of this clamour is based on his tremendous success in developing his home state, Gujarat, and the tremendous progress and prosperity he has brought to his state.  Many Indians wish for the same model to be executed all over India.

Yet one fact seems to hinder Mr. Modi’s rise to the top, and that is the 2002 post-Godhra riots, where several hundred Muslims and Hindus lost their lives.  I have already discussed this event at length in another post, so I will not repeat my arguments here regarding that event.

For the purposes of this article, it is sufficient to mention that the post-Godhra riots are often claimed by media panjandrums to be evidence of Modi’s hatred for Muslims.  Modi, of course, has denied such allegations and points to the development work carried out in Gujarat – development that benefits both Hindus and Muslims.

When one has been in power for a long period of time, the ultimate test of whether he is antipathetic to a particular community is to see how that community has progressed under his leadership.  It is this aspect that I am trying to advance in this article.  The long-term progress of a community is more definitive in establishing intent than one particular or specific incident.

The Sachar Committee Report

For this purpose, I am utilizing the Sachar Committee Report, 2006.  The Sachar Committee was a committee formed by the Union Government of India to determine the latest social, economic, and educational status of Muslims in India.  The committee was headed by former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, Justice Rajinder Sachar, and included six other members.

Although the Sachar Committee Report is 7 years old today, it has very detailed data on the condition of the Muslim community, and is therefore very useful.  One drawback of this source of information as it pertains to evaluating Narendra Modi is that much of the Sachar report is based on the results of the 2001 census, when Modi had not yet taken power in the state of Gujarat; hence much of this information only provides a baseline as regards Mr. Modi.

Comparison Methodology

This is a preliminary report; and hence the analysis of the data is not comprehensive.  At the time of writing this article, I have only addressed one issue, viz., literacy.  One of the vital things that determines the progress of communities is the literacy rate of that community.  To that extent, I have analyzed the literacy and economic data provided in the Sachar report.

The Sachar report gives figures for overall literacy rate in the country, for individual literacy rates in each state of the Union, and community-wise breakups in the literacy rate, both in the country as a whole and in individual states.  The different communities for whom data is reported are Hindu, Muslim, SC/ST (Scheduled Castes and Tribes) and All Others.  One of the goals of the Sachar committee appears to have been to see how Muslims in India were faring at the time relative to SC/ST groups. (See Appendix Table 4.1 of the Sachar Report for details).

The Sachar report also gives detailed economic information on the different communities, specifically on Monthly Per-Capita Expenditure (MPCE) in Rupees per month, which is a measure of the standard of living.  The report details the MPCE in India as a whole, with breakups for Hindus, Muslims, SC/STs, and Others; similar breakups are available on a statewide basis.  This information is provided for both rural and urban populations in each state and in the Union as a whole (see Appendix Tables 8.2 and 8.3).

To complete the picture, the overall populations of different communities are given, so that one can understand how much of a given state’s population is urban and how much is rural.  Using this information, the overall weighted MPCE for a community can be obtained by correctly weighting the rural and urban MPCE values.

The ratio of the literacy percentage to the weighted MPCE is then taken.  This ratio, multiplied by 100, is what I refer to as the Income-Weighted Literacy Index (IWLI), and represents the amount of literary development weighted by the economic condition of that community or state.  This enables us to compare, for instance, a prosperous state like Gujarat with a much less prosperous state like Uttar Pradesh (the two states that have been chosen for comparison in this article). 

The IWLI recognizes that a poor state like UP cannot possibly have greater efforts expended on literacy at the cost of other developmental needs, when compared to a state like Gujarat.  The literacy outcomes in UP are therefore weighted by the per-capita expenditure in UP.  The same logic applies to different communities.  It is generally recognized (and is a conclusion of the Sachar report) that the Muslim community is by and large depressed in India, and performs poorly on all social indicators.  One should not, therefore, expect that the Muslim community should do as well or better than the majority Hindu community, which in general is more prosperous.  Hence, a literacy index which is weighted by the standard of living provides a basis for comparison.

In particular, what the same number means for two different groups with different standards of living is that the state has taken proportionate efforts to build development in both groups.  If, on the other hand, we find that the IWLI applied to two groups, one Hindu and another Muslim, in the same state, yields a higher number for the Hindu group and a lower number for the Muslim group, we can conclude that preferential treatment is given to the Hindus over the Muslims even after accounting for their relative prosperity.  It is a fact of life that prosperous groups will, in any case, fend for themselves and provide themselves with higher levels of literacy and other measures of progress; it is the depressed groups for which state help is often needed and their measures which provide a real indicator as to whether governance is effectively addressing their needs.

Results of the Preliminary Study

For the preliminary study, I have chosen two states, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, and of course the entire country of India as comparisons. 

U.P. has been chosen as the first state in the comparison because it has been governed for the longest time by either the current ruling party at the Centre, the UPA, or other parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP) or the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), parties that like to describe themselves as secular or as champions of the Muslim community.  It is therefore a baseline to see how states which are avowed supporters of Muslims are actually treating them.

Table 1 shows the results of the comparison study.  The reader is advised to focus on the columns and rows marked in yellow, as they represent the final result of the comparison.  He or she can review the other data provided in the table for confirmation and double-checking, even checking the Sachar report if s/he chooses to.

Table 1. Literacy Indicators in Gujarat, UP and the Whole of India

The final results show that India as a whole has an IWLI rating of 8.96, with ratings of 8.94 for Hindus and 9.47 for Muslims.  This indicates that the literacy outcomes for Muslims are better than that of Hindus, when their standard of living is taken into account, which indeed should be the case.  If the state had done a perfect job of making access to education the same, irrespective of income level, then both Hindu and Muslim communities should have the same literacy percentage, and the IWLI for the Muslim community should be higher than that of the Hindu community by the ratio of their MPCE values, i.e., by 727/623 =1.16, which would yield a value of 10.43.  That the value is only 9.47 indicates that the relative poverty of Muslims dooms them to a lower level of literacy.

We next consider the case of “prosperous” Gujarat, which has an overall rating of 8.07, an IWLI value of 7.89 for Hindus and an IWLI of 9.93 for Muslims.  Again, if both communities had the same literacy rate (which implies ideal governance), the IWLI for the Muslim community should be = 7.89*862/745 = 9.13.  Gujarat, therefore, with a value of 9.93 for Muslims, is performing better than ideal in this respect.

Lastly, we come to the case of Uttar Pradesh.  UP has an overall rating of 9.18, with a Hindu IWLI of 9.15, and a Muslim IWLI of 8.88.  Considering that the weighted MPCE values for Hindus and Muslims are 634 and 541 rupees respectively, the ideal IWLI value for UP would be, based on the Hindu IWLI value = 9.15*634/541 = 10.73.  That it is, in fact, only 8.88, indicates a serious underperformance of this state in this respect.

Conclusions

A new index, the Income-Weighted Literacy Index (IWLI) for measuring the literacy rate, taking into account the relative prosperity of a group, was proposed.  This index was applied to Hindu and Muslim groups in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, as well as the Republic of India as a whole, based on 2001 census data as reported in the Sachar committee report.

Based on this data, it is seen that the state of Gujarat outperforms both India as a whole and the state of Uttar Pradesh.  Further, it is seen that the weighted literacy index in Gujarat is even better than the ideal case if Muslims were to have the same literacy as Hindus.  Consequently, one can conclude that the Gujarat state government was (as of 2001) excelling in its governance of its Muslim subjects and enabling them to be part of an educated future.

India as a whole needs to do better from the point of view of literacy.  What comes out starkly in this study is how poorly the state of UP, which is home to 18% Muslims (as opposed to 9.1 % Muslims in Gujarat) is treating its own Muslim residents.  Even after accounting for the generally lower levels of prosperity in UP, this state has grievously failed its residents in governance (as measured by this indicator alone).

It should also be repeated that this was based on data only up to 2001.  From most accounts, Gujarat has progressed tremendously under Mr. Modi’s stewardship.  If a similar study were to be done with current data, one might be able to objectively assess the improvements in Gujarat under Mr. Modi.  Perhaps such a study can be done with the results from the 2011 census data.  The present report therefore is to be construed only as a baseline analysis.  I hope to get up-to-date data on these indicators soon and publish a second analysis.  This article is useful only in defining the methodology and knowing the baseline values.  It is notable that the literacy indicators for Gujarat, even in 2001 when Mr. Modi took over, are quite impressive.

And finally, this study considers only the literacy data.  Considerably more data is available in the Sachar committee report, and all of that can be mined to give a more multi-dimensional picture of development.  The data also needs to be compared across more than just two states to get a comprehensive picture of statewise development and the progress of the Muslim community.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Dhananjay Patankar for giving me the idea on weighting the literacy rate by the income level in some way, as a basis for comparing literacy rates in different groups with different levels of prosperity.

Go to Jail. Go Directly to Jail. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.

Go to Jail.  Go Directly to Jail.  Do Not Pass Go.  Do Not Collect $200.

The Denouement in the Sanjay Dutt Criminal Case

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Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 22 March, 2013

Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar.  All Rights Reserved.

For other articles by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, please visit http://www.leftbrainwave.com

You can reach me on twitter @KumarSeshadri.

Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.

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On March 21, 2013, a 20-year-old legal case of national importance finally came to an end in the halls of the Supreme Court of India.  This was the well-known case of the 1993 Bombay serial blasts, in which 257 people lost their lives and 713 people were injured in a terrorist attack masterminded by Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his associates.  

In the investigations that followed, the police unearthed links to many people, and one of the prime accused was Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, who was found to have been in contact with the brother of Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai, Anees Ibrahim, and various other associates of Dawood; who was found to have possessed 3 AK-56 automatic rifles, 20 hand grenades, 9 magazines, 450 rounds of ammunition, and a 9 mm hand pistol, in his residence, before, during, and after the attacks; and who attempted to destroy the AK-56 rifles by having an accomplice melt the guns.

The case was prosecuted in Mumbai and, initially, the police interrogated Dutt with third-degree methods, which was to be expected from Indian police, given the depth of his involvement and the scale of the terrorist attacks.  However, due to the influence of his father Sunil Dutt, a popular member of parliament (MP) after his highly successful film career in Bollywood, and the help of many other rich and influential people, Sanjay Dutt managed to get bail after 18 months.

The TADA Court Verdict

With the case crawling through the infamously-slow Indian justice system, it took until 2007 for the special TADA (Terrorist And Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act) Court to pronounce its verdict on the 189 accused in the case, some of whom had died in the interim.  The court, very surprisingly, exonerated Sanjay Dutt of the charges of terrorism against him, but found him guilty of illegal possession of prohibited arms and sentenced him to six years of rigorous imprisonment.

That this itself was a travesty of justice can be clearly seen by reading the detailed Tehelka article on the 2007 verdict on Sanjay Dutt.  The article clearly details how:

1.       Sanjay Dutt was closely connected to Dawood Ibrahim’s brother, Anees Ibrahim, as phone records clearly show.

2.      Sanjay Dutt was clearly associated with many criminals and terrorists closely associated with Dawood Ibrahim’s gang, many of whom were convicted on terrorism charges by the same court.

3.      Sanjay Dutt had in his possession 3 AK-56s, 450 rounds of ammunition, 20 hand grenades, 9 magazines, and a 9 mm pistol.  Possession of just the 3 AK-56 rifles or the 20 hand grenades alone would have been sufficient to sentence him as a terrorist under the TADA act.  But the CBI, for reasons known only to them, chose to press less serious charges against him.

4.      Other accused in the case, whose involvement with Anees Ibrahim wasn’t even shown, who were less consequential second-level middlemen, and who did not even have in their possession similar quantities of arms, were sentenced under TADA, whereas Dutt was not.

5.      Sanjay Dutt had strong connections with the well-known associate of Dawood Ibrahim, Abu Salem, and there was clear documentary evidence linking the arms found in Sanjay Dutt’s possession to the cache of arms being smuggled around the country by Abu Salem.  The CBI chose to de-link Sanjay Dutt’s case from that of Abu Salem’s.

6.      Dutt, on knowing that the police was on his trail, asked accomplices to melt down the AK-56 rifles found at his place – a case of destruction of evidence.

Anyone else would have wept with joy and gratefully accepted this huge leniency of the justice system towards a criminal and a terrorist who should be behind bars for the rest of his life and, had he truly changed in the years after 1993 and regretted what he did, not oppose the sentence but immediately gone about serving it.

But not Sanjay Dutt.  He is among those who believes that the rich answer to a different law.  After all, this was the person who had many run-ins with the law during his youth on drug-related offenses, and gotten out of jail’s way mainly due to the influence of his rich and powerful father.  This, he probably felt, wasn’t anything different.

So he appealed his sentence in the Supreme Court.  He also moved bail in the Supreme Court, and in another shocking show of leniency (not shown to other co-accused) he was allowed to freely move about and pursue his profession of acting while his co-conspirators counted the bars in their jail cells.  Dutt continued to act in high-profile, money-making movies in the time he should have been serving his sentence while his co-conspirators continued to rot in jail.

Supreme Court Verdict of March 21, 2013

On March 21, 2013, the Supreme Court finally pronounced its verdict on all the appeals in the 1993 Bombay blasts case, bringing the case to a close.  The Supreme Court did not acquit Dutt, but commuted his sentence from 6 years to 5, with 18 months of that sentence treated as already served.  The court ordered Dutt to voluntarily surrender within 30 days.

The reaction of Mumbai’s film industry has been expectedly self-serving, cowardly, and bereft of any national spirit.  Many of them rushed to post tweets of sympathy for Dutt.  Many were concerned that their film projects would now be stalled because of the conviction.  But all this was expected.  Mumbai’s film industry is really the last place you would expect any sort of serious reaction to such matters.

The Hypocrisy of Markandey Katju

But what was not expected was a reaction in support of Dutt from, of all people, retired Supreme Court Justice and current Press Council of India Chairman Markandey Katju.  Justice Katju wrote an open letter to Maharashtra Governor K. Sankaranarayanan asking him to pardon Sanjay Dutt.  The letter is such a cynical and unprincipled letter that had I not seen for sure that it had been penned by Justice Katju, I would not have believed it.

Katju appeals for leniency for Dutt on the grounds that

1.       His parents have done social service for the nation.

2.      He played the role of a Gandhi-lover in a film (“Lage Raho Munnabhai”).

3.      The event happened 20 years ago.

4.      Dutt has already suffered a lot because the trial took so long and everyone assumed he was a terrorist all these years.

5.      "He had to undergo various tribulations and indignities during this period. He had to go to court often, he had to take the permission of the court for foreign shootings, he could not get bank loans, etc."

6.      Govt. pardoned Commander Nanavati, who was guilty of murder, many years ago, and murder is a much more serious crime than possession of prohibited arms.

Is Katju serious??? Here are the problems (pointwise) with his nonsensical argument:

1.       Dutt's parents' social service has nothing to do with him.

2.      Dutt played a role in a movie as a Gandhi-lover. This has nothing to do with what he really is. It's just a role in a movie.  As one friend commented on facebook, by this logic, Ben Kingsley could not be convicted for anything anytime after playing Gandhi in the eponymous movie of 1982.

3.      When the event actually happened is irrelevant to the demands of justice. If a criminal commits murder or robs a bank and goes into hiding for 30 years, should he not be sentenced once found?

4.      If Dutt suffered a lot because of the long trial, so did all the other undertrials. Did they get off scot-free? Why this special treatment for Dutt?

5.      Any under-trial has to undergo all these inconveniences. The amazing thing is the amount of discretion and leniency shown to Dutt. How many others accused of such serious crimes would be allowed to go abroad, or allowed to make a handsome living making crores of rupees as a movie star while under investigation for such crimes? And it isn't that he was found innocent. How many of us ordinary Indians would be allowed all these privileges if we had been caught with an AK-56 and 20 hand grenades in our home?

6.      Each case is different. If Katju's argument were to be used, every convict who has been convicted of any jail sentence could ask for a presidential pardon because they didn't commit murder. This is an idiotic line of reasoning.

All this is highly unbecoming of a man who once held the August office of a Justice of the Supreme Court of India. Even an illiterate in law can tell that what he is asking is contrary to basic justice and equality under the law. If the principle of equality under the law is applied, then what applied to the other undertrials should have been applied to Dutt. That they haven't so far is already a travesty. Giving a pardon to Dutt would be a complete mockery of justice in India.

And it is odd that this is coming from a man who has been decrying the nonstop focus on celebrities and movie stars in this country and who has been arguing for a rational interpretation of the law. Katju has proved that he is not above anyone else in being starstruck and pandering to the basest instincts. He has also thereby lost the moral right to lecture the media on the way they are focused on celebrities and movie stars.

Concluding Thoughts

Sanjay Dutt committed a crime. He committed treason against the country.  He aided and abetted terrorists.  He got away on the very serious charges of terrorism because he had contacts in high places and because he was the son of a sitting MP with the ruling party.  But at least the TADA court convicted him on the lesser charge of illegal possession of prohibited arms.

He should pay for at least this crime the same way you or I would have to, had we been convicted of a similar crime. An ordinary Indian found in possession of an AK-56 rifle and 20 hand grenades would not have seen the outside of a jail for the last 20 years. Dutt has been allowed to roam free, make movies, travel abroad, live a generally grand life. In that sense, he has already been allowed more privileges than any of the rest of us have or will ever have been allowed.

It is time to stop this nonsense and enforce the idea of equality under the law.

Let him at least spend the next 3.5 years in jail serving a sentence of rigorous imprisonment.

And let us never again dignify the nonsensical pronouncements of a certain Justice Katju, who by his latest ramblings has completely lost credibility.

My Annual Performance Review if I had Rahul Gandhi's Family

My Annual Performance Review if I had Rahul Gandhi’s Family

Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 21 January, 2013

Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar.  All Rights Reserved.

For other articles by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, please visit http://www.leftbrainwave.com

You can reach me on twitter @KumarSeshadri

Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.

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(I open the door and enter my boss's cabin.  My boss is facing me in his chair.)

Boss:

Come in, Kumar, have a seat.  Let's discuss your performance evaluation.

Me:

Thank you.

Boss:

I'd like to start off by saying that it has been a while since you were in the company.  So this year’s evaluation is a significant performance evaluation – it’s more than an annual evaluation.  So, rather than the usual routine of listing out the previous year's accomplishments, I'd like you to talk about your total experience in the company since you joined.

Me:

Sure, thanks.  Ok, let me start off with my involvement with the young workers group of the company.  I have always asked for more representation of the young rank-and-file workers in the company.

Boss:

Yes, your goals at the time were to bring in more honesty in the workplace and to improve morale by increasing transparency and representation.  Have you met those goals?

Me:

Well...actually, no.  There were many people fired for dishonest practices - people who belonged to the young workers group.  Several people were asked to leave for indulging in corporate bribery and other crimes.

Boss:

So you did not meet the goals.

Me:

That's right.

Boss:

Ok, let's move to the next major goal.  You were trying to win business for our company in a major market where we used to have maximum market share a couple of decades ago and had lost ground.  It was a chance for you to prove your leadership.  How did that go?

Me:

We lost all our contracts in that market.

Boss:

Would you say you failed to meet that goal?

Me:

Unfortunately, yes.

Boss:

Let's get to the next major goal.  In the largest market we are competing with our products in, you promised a game-changer, and said we would eliminate the competition.  How did that work out?

Me:

Uh...uh...we ended up with even lower market share than we had at the time.

Boss:

Would you say that was also a failed expectation?  Another unmet goal?

Me:

I guess so.

Boss:

And coming to the last major goal on your list, you had promised to rally the company’s performance in the western region so that we could neutralize the emerging threat to our company’s existence in India.  What happened there with your marketing blitz?

Me:

We utterly failed to dislodge the threat.  That company is now planning to completely eliminate us in India.

Boss:

What do you think should be your evaluation?

Me:

I guess I haven’t performed to expectations, and need to improve?

Boss:

Wrong!  Quite to the contrary!  You did not mention your biggest accomplishment - you are the son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of past CEOs of this company!!  

In addition, you have tried to boost our company’s business by having dinner at several clients’ homes – especially those belonging to the lower economic and social strata.  

You have made several random speeches around the country on how things should change in the company.  

You have also attacked our competitors by accusing them of unethical practices.  Although the accusations were false and could not be proved, it was still a bold move on your part to make them.  (Our competitors could have been careless.)  

You have even made the inspired suggestion that “improving sales” should be made part of the company’s vision document and that a formal amendment should be proposed in the next board meeting.  

All these moves are bound to bring back sales and restore our company to its past glory.

Hence we are promoting you to second-in-command of the company.  You will be Managing Director with direct charge of Marketing and Sales, effective immediately, reporting only to the chairperson (your mother).

Me:

Thank you, Sir!

Boss:

Congratulations on your new appointment!  I am sure you will continue to do the company proud!

Me:

Thank you very much, Sir!  ...Sir, are you crying?

Boss:

Don’t mind me - these are tears of joy.  And please don’t call me “Sir” any longer.  You are now my boss - Sir!

The Sounds of Silence

The Sounds of Silence

Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 24 October 2012

Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 2012.  All Rights Reserved.

Please see http://www.leftbrainwave.com for more articles by
Dr. Seshadri Kumar

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Today is Dussehra, or Vijayadashami, the last day of the Navratri festival in India.  This very important Hindu festival is supposed to represent the victory of good over evil.  Very specifically, it relates to a few myths of Hinduism: the victory of prince Rama over Ravana, the king who abducted his wife, in the epic poem Ramayana; the killing of the demon Mahishasura by the goddess Durga; and the end of the 13^th year of exile of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata epic.

But for me, the main significance of Vijayadashami is that the noise is over.

The Navratri festival, nowadays all over India, but specifically in the western part of the country, and very much so in Mumbai, is associated with the traditional Gujarati practice of garba or dandiya dance, a lovely community dance set to lilting rhythms.  It is an opportunity for the whole community to mingle and let their hair down.

Garba and dandiya are nice both to watch and to participate in.  However, when this tradition originated, hundreds or thousands of years ago, people did not have high-powered amplifiers and huge speakers at their disposal.  It was a nice folk festival.  But when tradition meets technology, all hell is let loose.  Let me explain.

Folk Tradition Meets Modern Audio

I live in a housing society in Mumbai, and for two days over the weekend they had garba/dandiya for the society members in the open community area in the society.  Our society has about 600 families living in about 8 high-rise buildings, each about 17 floors high.  I had hoped to participate in the function, mainly to get to know more people, but fell ill and had to rest in bed.

My rest was rudely interrupted at 7 pm on Saturday by the sound of loud drums and a voice screaming to the heavens.  The society had hired a powerful music system and huge speakers to broadcast garba and dandiya music to the entire neighbourhood.  Seeking to protect myself from the avalanche of noise, I promptly got up, closed all the windows of our 10^th floor flat, closed the bathroom doors (because the noise could come from the air vents), turned up the fan to shut off the noise from the outside, even turned up the a/c – all to no avail.  The noise was so loud that the windows I had closed were vibrating audibly with each beat.  

Everything I tried to forget the insistent noise – play some music on the system, turn the TV on, forget about the noise by talking to a friend on the phone  - was futile.  I was not feeling well enough to get up, get dressed, go down and complain about the noise levels, but I doubt it would have done much to improve the situation.  I wrote an email to the society’s secretary in desperation, but even 4 days later, it hasn’t even been acknowledged.  Eventually, 3 hours later, with my temperature rising and with a pulsating headache, the noise thankfully came to an end, only because the society had to abide by the city’s 10 pm shutdown rules.  The same routine was repeated the next day.

Noise Pollution During the Ganesh Festival

What is it about Indians that makes them so inconsiderate of their fellowmen (and women)?  And why is it that Indians feel impelled to compel everyone else to join in their celebrations?  This noisy Navratri celebration is certainly not unique.  Growing up as a kid in Mumbai, I was used to 10 days of nonstop noise every year during the Ganpati puja celebrations.  Our own street had a big Ganpati idol, and somehow the elephant-headed god cannot be satisfied with offerings of modaks and mantras chanted in his name.  Oh no.  You have to play the latest Bollywood hit songs at maximum volume nonstop for 10 days from 10 am until midnight to gratify him.  We used to have trouble listening to the TV or stereo in our living room because the noise from the street was so loud during Ganpati puja time. 

When I was growing up, the South Indian don, Varadaraja Mudaliar, also known as Varadabhai, was the main mafioso in Central Mumbai.  He lived in Matunga, where we lived, and so in the huge vegetable market of Mumbai there were decorations and festival lights everywhere (all funded by money extorted from all the shops in the market), in addition to a huge Ganpati pandal near the Matunga station.  The station Ganpati was Varadabhai’s showpiece.  That, and the decorations in the entire market area, were symbols to remind people who was boss.  

We used to walk from our home to the market to get vegetables, provisions, etc.  During these ten days of the Ganpati puja, to go to the market meant to suffer the sound of innumerable loudspeakers all over the market blaring out the big Bollywood hits of that year.  So certain Bollywood songs are etched in my mind from repeated listening via shopping trips: “Deva ho deva Ganpati deva, tumse badhkar kaun” (from the movie Humse Badhkar Kaun), “Nainon mein sapna, sapnon mein sajna” (from Himmatwala), and “Pyar ka tohfa tera, bana hai Jeevan mera” (from Tohfa).  It was an ordeal to get through that.  Bad as the noise from our local street Ganpati was, it was nothing compared to the noise in the market, and I was so relieved when I got out of the market and back home.  As they say, between the devil and the deep blue sea.  

And of course, the worst noise is when the Ganpati idol is on its way to being immersed in the sea – and when the idol procession passes your balcony, the din of the drummers is so loud that you need earplugs to save your hearing. And immersion processions move slowly, so you had to get ready to put up with something like 120 db noise for 15-20 minutes as the procession passed your street.

Air Pollution and Noise Pollution during Diwali

And of course, Dussehra is not the last noisy festival of the year. In a few weeks we will have Diwali, in which everyone will light noisy firecrackers that will cause both air and noise pollution, make life miserable for asthmatics, scare animals and babies, rattle older people, and disturb patients in hospitals.  People seem to revel in noise during Diwali – the more the better.  The worst are those 10,000 and 20,000 series electric crackers, which create prolonged noise for 5 or 10 minutes at a stretch.  And then there is the ear-splitting noise from the “atom bombs” – at 2 or 3 am in the morning.  To make things worse, there are those creative geniuses who line up the 20,000 electric crackers along the length of the road and tie the atom bombs to the electric crackers every 10 feet so that the steady noise from the electric crackers gets punctuated with an ear-splitting explosion every 30 seconds.

Indian Wedding Processions

And, as if this is not enough, we have to suffer noise every time someone gets married.  Since the time I was a kid, I have had to suffer marriage bands perform “Meri pyaari behaniya banegi dulhaniya” (often besura, or out of tune, which to a musician is even worse than just noise) and other Bollywood-based marriage songs.  The Bollywood songs performed by brass bands are interrupted only by the 50,000 electric firecrackers which are a way for the families involved in the wedding to announce to the world how happy they are.  But see, I DON”T CARE!!!  Why are you forcing your happiness down my ears?  You really think I am going to wish your marriage well after you’ve ruined my evening?

A few years ago, I had occasion to visit Jalandhar on business in the month of February.  I was staying in a hotel and had to get some rest because I had to go early the next day to the Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala (about an hour’s drive from Jalandhar) for some work.  I had an early dinner and turned on the TV, hoping to get some sleep soon, but was disturbed by a lot of noise from downstairs.  I called the reception to ask about the source of the noise and the receptionist informed me that it was a wedding procession – the wedding party had booked the main hall in the hotel.  The noise was so disturbing that I couldn’t get any rest.  Finally, after several complaints, the hotel reception informed me that the celebration should be over by 10.30 pm.  I eagerly waited for it to end, and it finally ended by 11 pm.  Thinking that I finally could sleep, I switched off the light and started to doze off.  Unfortunately, I was rudely awakened in about 10 minutes by more wedding noise.  I immediately called the reception and asked the guy what was going on.  He said they were not to blame – the procession noise I was hearing was coming from the hotel in the next street!  He was sorry for my trouble – said that unfortunately, this was marriage season in the Punjab, so these kinds of noise sources were unavoidable.

The Good of the Many Outweighs the Good of the Few

There is a different perspective one has when one is involved in the festivities and when one isn’t.  So, for instance, the marriage procession is pure noise to me because I have no connection at all with either the bride or the groom.  Similarly, when you are down there at the Navratri function, you might be able to hear the music clearly, and if it is a good song, it might even be enjoyable.  But even then, such high volumes can affect your hearing.  In any case, by the time the sound reaches the 10^th floor, the song is sufficiently distorted that you cannot enjoy it – but it is still loud and noisy.  And, as in my case, you might be ill – or there might be an elderly person or a baby – both of whom don’t take well to noise.  

And lest you think this is only one person who takes umbrage at this, let me tell you that I looked out of the window and did a rough count of how many people were enjoying the festivities.  I would say not more than 200 people in all would have participated – and that is out of a total of 2000 residents of the society.  So the majority of the people are passive sufferers.  Does it make sense to inconvenience 90% of the population for the enjoyment of the remaining 10%?

Attitudes towards Noise in the US and in India

I have probably been spoilt by my long stay in the US.  Growing up in India, you get used to noise that you can even sleep soundly through all this.  But 16 years of living with concepts like privacy and silence has spoilt me.  I am also conscious of the deleterious effects of loud noise on my hearing and on my stress levels, something you don’t worry about as a child.  In the US or the UK, you are forced by the law (which is enforced) to care for the effects of your actions on other people.  I once had a noisy neighbour in Salt Lake City, Utah, who used to invite friends over for parties every night.  He used to have loud music up to 5 am in his parties which would ruin my sleep.  I tried talking to him a few times, but every time after he lowered the volume, it would come back up in 15 minutes.  In desperation, I once called the police, and they promptly paid him a visit and forced him to shut up.

Concluding Thoughts

What is it about our culture that makes Indians so incredibly inconsiderate of others and so insensitive to the effects of their actions on others?  And why is there this overwhelming need to have such a public celebration?  I am very sure that even if our housing society had used only 20% of the volume they did, everyone down there could have still heard it loud and clear, and we on the 10^th floor would have had a little more peace.  Why do people have this urge that others should be forced to listen to, and by implication, join their celebration?  Is their own happiness not enough?

We, as a nation, need to take issues like this more seriously.  One may argue that there are more pressing issues, like poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and unemployment which plague India, but I aver that those issues cannot be addressed as long as Indians cannot think beyond their own personal and hedonistic needs and as long as they cannot think of the needs of their fellow Indians.

Keep your happiness to yourself – and I might even wish you a happy married life.