Can you Compare Today’s Rape Victims to Draupadi?

Can you Compare Today’s Rape Victims to Draupadi?

Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 04 May, 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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In recent times, there has been a tendency in India to invoke the name of Draupadi, the unfortunate heroine from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, in a variety of contexts.  Satirists and cartoonists often liken the nation (India) to Draupadi herself, with politicians stripping her of everything through scams.  Mother India, as Draupadi, beseeches the Prime Minister for help; as Dhritarashtra was in the epic, Manmohan Singh is silent at this injustice.  Others, outraged by the several recent incidences of rapes of women in India, compare the plight of the rape victims to that of Draupadi being disrobed in the assembly during the game of dice.

How valid are these comparisons?  What was the status of women at the time of the Mahabharata?  Was Draupadi really the model of a liberated woman who insisted on getting justice for the wrongs done to her, and succeeded?  And is the fact that women today are unable to get that kind of justice a reflection of a weakening of women’s status in Indian society, as some believe?  Were women better off in the hoary past?

To understand the answers to these questions better, let us look at some particulars of what happened to Draupadi in the Mahabharata.

The Game of Dice

The Game of Dice is an important incident in the epic Mahabharata, in which the Kauravas, jealous of the prosperity of their cousins the Pandavas, invite them to play a game of dice with them in their court at Hastinapura, in the specially-constructed assembly hall.  Shakuni, the uncle of Duryodhana, the eldest Kaurava, who will play the eldest Pandava, Yudhishthira, in the game that follows, is a master at the game.

Yudhishthira is fond of gambling but is not skilled at it.  He recognizes the dangers of playing dice, but out of politeness, cannot decline the invitation.  Yudhishthira’s mortal weakness is that once he starts playing, he cannot stop.  He is a degenerate gambler.

 

The Kauravas exploit this weakness of Yudhishthira.  He first loses valuables, land, jewels, and all his possessions, but still doesn’t stop playing.  Goaded on by Shakuni, Yudhishthira then gambles away his brothers, one by one, and finally himself.  When he thinks he has lost everything, then Shakuni asks him if he wants to play one last time by gambling something he has not yet gambled – his wife, Draupadi.  The desperate Yudhishthira agrees and loses Draupadi.

Draupadi’s Horror

Drunk with their success, the Kauravas decide to use this opportunity to humiliate the Pandavas.  Duryodhana asks his charioteer to summon Draupadi to the court as a slave of the Kauravas.  She is amazed at the news, and asks a legal question of the assembly: whether, Yudhishthira having lost himself, could stake his wife when he was no longer free.  Duryodhana, in response, asks the charioteer to tell Draupadi to come to the assembly and ask the question herself.  Draupadi refuses, at which point Duryodhana asks his brother Dussasana to bring Draupadi to the assembly, using force if necessary.

Draupadi, on seeing Dussasana approach her, tries to run to the female chambers of Dhritarashtra’s queen Gandhari, but Dussasana drags her by her hair and brings her to the assembly.  In the assembly Draupadi, weeping, asks her question of the elders: whether, having lost himself to Shakuni, Yudhishthira could stake Draupadi.

The Debate in the Assembly

To this, the patriarch Bhishma responds (Ganguli, Sabha Parva, p. 129): “O blessed one, morality is subtle.  I therefore am unable to decide this point that thou has put, beholding that on the one hand one that hath no wealth cannot stake the wealth belonging to others, while on the other hand wives are always under the orders and at the disposal of their lords.  Yudhishthira can abandon the whole world full of wealth, but he will never sacrifice morality.  The son of Pandu hath said, 'I am won.' Therefore, I am unable to decide this matter.  Shakuni hath not his equal among men at dice-play.  The son of Kunti still voluntarily staked with him.  The illustrious Yudhishthira doth not himself regard that Shakuni hath played with him deceitfully.  Therefore, I cannot decide this point.”

This is followed by a protest from Vikarna, one of Duryodhana’s younger brothers, who states his viewpoint that because of Draupadi’s objection that Yudhishthira was no longer a free man when he staked Draupadi, as well as a second point that Draupadi did not belong to Yudhishthira alone, being the common wife of all the brothers, and so could not be staked by Yudhishthira alone.

The matter is finally settled by Karna, who states that since Yudhishthira had lost all his possessions to Shakuni, he had already lost Draupadi, whether or not he staked her explicitly.  He further states that even the clothes on the Pandavas and on Draupadi belong to the Kauravas, and if the Kauravas order it, the Pandavas should remove them.  He asks Dussasana to remove Draupadi’s robes as well.  The Pandavas do not object to any of this, but remove their own upper garments in response.  Dussasana proceeds to remove Draupadi’s single robe in which she is dressed.

What is supposed to have happened, according to the epic, is that as Dussasana tried to remove Draupadi’s robe, new robes kept magically appearing and he was unable to disrobe her because she was praying to Lord Krishna to help and he gave her divine help.  (What actually happened might have been much worse for Draupadi; but we will never know, since history is written by the victors, and the Pandavas, understandably, would not have wanted history to record events that portrayed an indignity to their wife any worse than this.)

Nevertheless, let us take the events as they are recorded, and see what they tell us about the society of those days.

The Status of Women in the Society of the Mahabharata

Note that in all these debates in the assembly, no one (including Draupadi) asks whether a husband has any right to gamble away his wife!  Even the wise Bhishma, who knows the Law (Dharma) better than anyone else, says that “wives are always under the orders and at the disposal of their lords.”  

Draupadi’s own argument is not whether Yudhishthira has any right to stake her, but rather the technical point of whether, having lost himself, he could stake her.  Karna’s argument also appears to have force according to the rules of the day (for no one disputes it) – that if Yudhishthira had lost everything he owned, including himself and his brothers, his wife is automatically lost, being counted as one of his possessions.

Look at poor Draupadi’s plight.  Having been lost by her husband in a game of dice, she had absolutely no legal recourse.  Dussasana, who disrobed her in the assembly, and perhaps worse too, would have been guilty of no crime under the laws of those days, because he was only doing all this with a slave of his, and slaves had no rights.  They belonged to their master, who could do what they pleased with their slaves.  (Remember the abuses meted out to black women during the period of slavery in American history – their owners regularly used them for sex when they wanted it.)

Yudhishthira the Just

The real criminal in this entire episode, and the real reason for all the heartburn and the eventual war in the Mahabharata, is not Duryodhana, Dussasana, or Karna; for they only behaved as a master was allowed to behave with his slaves in those days; but the degenerate gambler husband, Yudhishthira, who doomed his wife to a life of slavery (even if, fortunately, only for a short period) because of his addiction to gambling.  But here is the rub: this act of abandoning his wife to such cruel people is not even considered an offense by the gods of those days. 

In the final chapter of the Mahabharata, the five Pandavas and Draupadi attempt to ascend directly to heaven in human form.  Yudhishthira is the only one who succeeds, the others having fallen and died in the journey as a consequence of their various imperfections; but even he has to spend a sixteenth portion of a day in hell as a penalty for his sins – but the sins do not include abandoning his wife in the game of dice.  The only sin that is counted against Yudhishthira is his having lied on the battlefield about Aswatthama, his preceptor Drona’s son, having died.  

The abandonment of one’s wife is considered to be insignificant, an offense so minor that it pales in comparison with uttering a lie.  In his assembly reply to Draupadi, even Bhishma doesn’t fault Yudhishthira’s morality for staking his wife – instead he praises Yudhishthira for his “morality.”  Abandoning your wife did not affect your moral standing in those days.

Married to Five Men - Willingly?

One should also remember the way Draupadi was married off to the five brothers.  At the swayamvara of Draupadi, it was Arjuna who executed the difficult feat set for the winner who would take Draupadi as a wife.  When they came home, Yudhishthira said to his mother, “Look, mother, what alms we have gotten today!”  And their mother, Kunti, who had not seen Draupadi with the brothers, simply said, “Whatever it is, share it equally among yourselves.”  A casual comment like that, said in ignorance, was treated as an order, and the five brothers decided to wed Draupadi together.  

In the entire discussion that follows with Draupadi’s father, Drupada, not once does anyone ask Draupadi if she has an opinion about the matter – that she was to be shared by five men.  There is an extensive discussion on whether five brothers marrying one woman would be committing a sin, and when Drupada is relieved of that concern, he gives his assent to the wedding.  Whether Draupadi cares about her body being shared is no one’s concern.  

(I should add here that Satya Chaitanya has argued, reasonably convincingly, that Draupadi’s silence during this entire episode is completely at odds with her generally vocal and assertive nature elsewhere in the epic, and suggests that Vyasa whitewashed some portions of the epic to remove content that would have been unacceptable to the society of his times, such as Draupadi’s objections to this arrangement.)

In addition to having to physically compromise herself in this way, poor Draupadi also has to be the butt of offensive taunts, such as the one Karna throws at her in the assembly after she has been gambled away: “The gods have ordained only one husband for one woman.  This Draupadi, however, hath many husbands.  Therefore, certain it is that she is an unchaste woman.  To bring her, therefore, into this assembly attired though she be in one piece of cloth – even to uncover her is not at all an act that may cause surprise.”  Draupadi pays for the foolishness of her husbands who trap her in this unconventional marriage that is not fully accepted even in their society – by men who were therefore duty-bound to protect her – but whose failure to do so is not counted as a sin or a failure in the epic.

Conclusion

So, while it is easy to talk about the gang rape victims in India and compare them to Draupadi, remember that in the age of Draupadi, women had no rights.  They were treated as chattel to be used at their fathers’ and husbands’ whims.  At least, in today’s India, women have some rights, and they don’t belong to their husbands.

Violence occurs today as well against women, but at least it is regarded as a crime.  Even if Dussasana had raped Draupadi in the assembly hall, the nobles assembled in the court wouldn’t have even filed their society’s equivalent of an FIR. 

After all, she was their slave.

But, in the end, though, Draupadi did have the last laugh.  Bhima tore out Dussasana’s heart in the great battle, tore out his arms that had dragged Draupadi by the hair, drank the blood from Dussasana’s still-beating heart, broke Duryodhana’s thighs and killed him. 

Those who insulted Draupadi paid for the insults with their lives.  Draupadi may not have had legal recourse for the insults done to her, but most rape victims today would be delighted if they could get that kind of revenge on the men who raped them.  One could argue that the FIRs they file against their rapists aren’t worth the paper they are written on, and they would any day trade them for a good old eye-for-an-eye, the way Draupadi handed it to Dussasana and Duryodhana.

But then, you need a husband like Bhima.  Any qualified volunteers?

References

Ganguli, K.M., The Mahabharata – Translated into English Prose from the Original Sanskrit Text, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2002 (Original Publication 1883-1896).  Online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m01/index.htm

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my wife, Sandhya, for reading a draft of this article and giving valuable comments that, in my estimation, have helped improve this article.

Why I Will Not Sue Rahul Gandhi for Stealing my Speech

Why I Will Not Sue Rahul Gandhi for Stealing my Speech

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Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 09 April, 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 was watching the TV last week on some goings-on at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) summit, notably the presence of our young Yuvraaj (heir-apparent) at the CII.  That reminded me of an interaction I had in a previous company I used to work in, not too long back ago.  Watching Rahul Gandhi on TV, I thought that was me speaking on screen, and that my presentation at my old company had been recorded secretly and was being telecast!! 

So, without further ado, let me tell you about my exciting interaction with my colleagues, years ago.  Judge for yourself if this is a straight lift or not.

My CEO had asked me to give a presentation to everyone in the company on my division’s performance and help everyone understand how we could all do things better.  Following are some excerpts from the interaction...I saved a transcript of the speech at the time because I was so proud of it.  Now it looks like I had good reason to be proud of it.

Introduction

Dr. Kumar will talk to us about how we can succeed in this company, based on his experience in our company and his understanding of the challenges facing our company in this challenging environment.  In particular, our competitors are aggressively innovating, adopting new and more efficient sytems; the world’s economies are in a downward spiral and so there is less money to go around; being lean and still being profitable is a huge challenge.  Europe’s spending is rapidly going down, so we need to tap the Indian and Chinese markets to sell our products effectively.  All of these challenges need to be addressed, and we are hoping Dr. Kumar can help us see some light in this regard.  Please welcome Dr. Kumar!

My Speech of a Lifetime

What an Honor!

Thank you very much!  It’s an honor for me to be here today.  And I’ll tell you why it’s an honor.  These days, we think of our organization as a chemical company.  But if you go back 50 years, 100 years, you think of our company as rivers – rivers of sulphuric and nitric acid, streams of naphtha, petroleum, natural gas, chorine, bromine, fluorine.  Everything we make is based on those rivers.

And now, we have gone way beyond that.  We have built products, chemical structures, with energy and force, and you are the people who are telling the world about it.  And that’s why it’s an honor to be here talking to you.  We had rivers of chemicals, now we have rivers of products, and by that I mean rivers of energy, rivers of force – and you are giving those rivers of force to the people – I mean forces of rivers – I mean energies of forces – or was it energies of chemicals? ... sorry, I lost it.

When I joined this company 10 years ago, nobody knew about it.  It was absolutely unknown, even though it was founded by my great-grandfather and then managed successively by my grandmother and my father for 50 years.  People said to me, “what company is that?”  But now people know us!  So thank you!  Thank you for raising our company from the mess and wilderness that our founders, my great-grandfather and his colleagues, and those who followed him, like my grandmother and my father, and his colleagues, including many of you, left it in.  Like I said, that’s why it is an honor to address you.

Suresh the Plumber, or...??

I want to start off by telling you a real-life story.  I was coming to Mumbai from Dehradun via the Dehradun Express, and I met Suresh the plumber.  I asked Suresh why he was coming to Mumbai, and he said he didn’t know.  I asked him, did he know where he was going to work when he came to Mumbai?  He said yes, he was going to come to our company here and get a job.  I said, do you have a job offer from our company? He said, no.  We continued talking on the train and by the time we arrived in Mumbai – for the next 40 hours – and they call it an express – ha ha – isn’t that funny? -  I had really gotten to know Suresh the stenographer very well by now.  We went to his home in Mumbai, which was a 6x10 hut in Bandra, and he offered me tea.  Yes, tea!!!  In a 6x10 home!  That’s the kind of people we have in this country!!  I asked him how he was confident that he could get a job in our company when he didn’t even have an offer.  He said, hey, you work there, right?  How hard can it be then?  So, boss, that is the power of our company that I see!  The idea that we are seen as an employer for one and all – this diversity is our strength!

I want to talk about diversity rather than company performance for three reasons here.  One, it is easier than talking about company performance, which I know sucks right now.  Two, man doesn’t live by money alone!  Three, as Warren Buffet said, “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”

Boss, what is important is that a Dalit like Suresh the accountant, who I met in the Dehradun express, has the same opportunities as people from other communities in our company.  Because if we don’t have that plurality, that diversity, our company will never be strong, and if it is not strong, we cannot get great results in the future.  I know we can.  We may not have them today, but I have faith in you.  I have faith in this company.  I have faith in the Dalits and Muslims in this company, like Suresh the office boy.  What an example Suresh the office boy can be for the rest of his community!  He can take the entire Muslim community forward – sorry, I lost it again – that was supposed to be Iqbal the office boy – and they all have hopes and we have to pave the dreams that our hopes are walking on – or pave the hopes that our dreams are walking on. (sotto voce: I think that’s right.  Yeah, sounds about okay.  Which consultant wrote this damned speech?  To think I paid Rs. 500 for it.)

I know a lot of people are saying that we should focus on hiring people based on their knowledge of chemicals, chemistry, the chemical industry, and other such irrelevant things rather than look at Dalits, minorities, women, tribals and other such groups.  The argument used for such ideas is that we are a chemical company.  But let me tell you, we are a company made of humans first, and then a chemical company.  The biggest danger for us – well, for me – is if we stop hiring minorities who have no knowledge of chemistry but are beholden to me and instead actually start hiring competent people regardless of their background!  How will this company – or at least my group – survive?  Well, you did ask me for MY perspective, right? – so there, you got it!

I Have Faith in You!

There are many things lacking in this company.  I know things have been bad.  I know it is my group’s responsibility to build the infrastructure on which the rest of the company depends.  But I cannot do it alone.  I need you.  I need you to solve my problems.  I know you can solve them.  That’s why I want to encourage partnerships between my group and other groups in this company – together we can solve my group’s problems – the problems I couldn’t solve.  I have faith in you.

And why is that?  Well, when was the last time anyone in our group talked to the rest of you about what you want in the last 10 years when I was the group manager?  What kind of infrastructure were we building without talking to you?  When did you have any input into what we were building?  Have you ever been asked for your input, in the last 10 years that I was heading this group?  That’s a question!  I’ll tell you - the answer is no!  The manuals we are using in our group talk about how to make tea and coffee, when the need of our company is to make acetic acid!  When was the last time you needed a lesson to make tea?  I don’t remember the last time I needed one.  Hahaha – aren’t I funny? 

So we need to change the way we train our people.  There has been no vision in the way our employees are being trained.   We don’t have vision because we cannot see!  We don’t know how to make acetic acid.  All that has to change.  And you have to help us make acetic acid.  But only if you understand and accept diversity.

No Knight on a White Horse

Sometime back the company went ahead and got an outside management consultant who gave lots of suggestions on how to restructure the company to make it more efficient.  I tell you the problem with that.  See, companies like that – Accenture, McKinsey – these companies are very simplistic in their thinking.  We are complex.  You are all managers of complexity, so you will win in the end.  You are dealing with people trained in complexity.  Our problems will not be solved by some knight coming in on a white horse telling us to focus on simple things like efficiency, innovation, vision, aspiration, and the like.  

If you cannot carry all the diversity of the company – Suresh the security guard, Iqbal the cook, and the others, with you, then all solutions are useless.  Diversity is the only thing that will take our company forward.  The decision-making structure in this company consists of a few senior managers who take all the decisions.  How can the company move forward with this model?  Unless we have every Iqbal, Girish, and Suresh involved in the decision, we can never be profitable.  I consider Wack Jelch a hero but he was only a representative of all the other heroes in GE.  I want the voice of all the minorities in our company to be heard.

And that is the central question: how to give voice to Girish, Suresh, Iqbal and others like them.  We do things like this, we do it softly, and we will win.  You know, visitors come to our company and I take them to the cafeteria for lunch, the noise there drives them crazy.  Boss, why is everyone here complaining about the company, they ask.  They ask me, give us a simple answer.  I tell them no, I cannot give you a simple answer because our environment is complex.  It isn’t because we are sinking as a company; it isn’t because we haven’t paid a raise or bonus to our employees in years; and it isn’t because promotions have stopped for the last ten years.  No, that’s not why they are complaining.  Those are the simple answers you are looking for...but we are not simple.  We are complex, like a complex beehive full of activity.  They are complaining because they don’t have voice.  I tell them I know that’s too complex for you to understand, but we in our company, we are trained in complexity.  So we will win.  All we need to do is give everyone a voice.

***End of Speech***

Concluding Thoughts

Now you see why I was stunned when I saw Rahul Gandhi’s speech.  I thought it was just lifted straight from mine!!!  My immediate reaction was anger.  He stole it, dammit!  He should be punished for that!  My talk was recorded, but was for only intra-company viewing - some rascal must have sold it!

Then I thought of how rich Rahul’s family must be, and I started getting greedy visions – visions of me suing the hell out of him for damages for copyright infringment, getting awarded millions by the courts – and then I would retire, spend my time shuttling between the beaches of Goa, Kerala, Majorca, and Miami; the hill resorts of Kullu, Copper Mountain, and Turin; live the life in London, Paris, and New York; and sip martinis in Rio.  Maybe even get myself a dacha in the Crimea and discuss defense deals with Putin and Depardieu.  Time to call Ram Jethmalani, I said to myself.

Then suddenly reality hit me and I thought of a possible discussion in the courtroom.  The judge might, I thought, ask me a simple question: “What damages?  What benefit do you think he might derive from your speech?  And why do you believe it will benefit him?  How much did it benefit YOU?”

That stumped me.  I didn’t know how to answer that one.  Googly! 

Because, you see, the day after I made that speech in my past company, they fired me.

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Concluding Disclaimer:  For those to whom it isn't yet glaringly obvious, the entire preceding article is meant to be a joke.  I do not mean to imply that Rahul Gandhi actually stole from this speech - it really isn't worth stealing from! :-)  Just making it obvious in case someone is tempted to use legal flak!  Also, some of my friends were worried about the ending of the article - the company firing me.  Rest easy.  This story is fictional.  If I really had given this speech, I wouldn't be telling you about it publicly - I'd be too ashamed of myself.  Not ashamed had I been actually fired, but ashamed if I had given such a miserable speech :-)

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.