Problem with the June 18 TR survey that concluded “India is the most dangerous country for women.”

A bit of break from mindfulness and philosophy today. I have been wanting to write this article for almost a month, but something kept coming and it got pushed back. Finally here it is. The subject furor has died down, so this might be a good time to take a calmed down look.

Almost a month back, a survey conducted by Thomson Reuters foundation ranked India the most dangerous country in the world behind some of the worst war torn countries like Syria and some of the most oppressive countries like Saudi Arabia.

Predictably this report caused quite a stir. When the government reacted to this survey by casting doubts, there was outrage from certain sections claiming this was equivalent to “shooting the messenger”.

The survey findings simply do not make sense and the tendency to cast doubts on intentions and integrity of anyone who dares to question the conclusion is even more troubling.

First, arguing against this survey and its conclusion is not same as shooting the messenger. Nobody has tried to stop the message from being reported. Some people and government have tried to send out a counter message and they are justified in doing so. Raising a different opinion is definitely not the same as killing the first message or messenger. Thus getting outraged at any attempt to question this survey conclusion is display of “you are either with us or against us” mentality. To put it bluntly, that is an act of extreme arrogance.

Second, just because someone disagrees with the particular statement “India is the most dangerous country for women” does not mean that that person denies any existence of danger to women whatsoever in India. Neither it means that the doubter advocates ceasing to take any action to make women safer in India.

No one disagrees that we have a problem. No one disagrees that need to do things to make women safer. But we must know the exact severity of the problem. We live in a world with limited resources and we have to prioritize actions. If we blindly accept that “woman’s safety” is the most important problem and divert all the resources there, only to find that the child mortality numbers shoot up because that problem needed much serious attention, that would be a disaster.

Coming back to the survey. The more you read about it, the stranger it sounds. The survey was conducted by Thomson Reuters foundation. It selected 759 so called “experts” for interview, out of which 548 responded, out of which 41 were Indian. There is not enough clarity about how they were selected, how they were interviewed, and what what questions were asked and how the responses were interpreted. All it says that these people were surveyd for their “perceptions”. From all that is available to know, it looks like dangerously flawed methodology, especially polling the “perception” part.

Herein lies the main problem. Perceptions are often more rooted in individual judgments and individual expectations. They can be far removed from ground reality. In India, there exists a large number of elite intelligentsia that is morbidly obsessed with negative image of the country. This obsession comes less from the in depth research or field work. It comes more from the internalized fears that create strong mental bias.

Another thing to keep in mind is often the conclusion such as this suffers from a paradox. The case in point is “Project Innocence” in USA. It was a group trying to prove innocence of rape convicts who were convicted wrongly decades ago. Using on modern techniques such as DNA testing, a lot of these rape verdicts were overturned and innocent people who were jailed for decades were set free.
A large number of overturned rape convictions were from the state of Texas and everyone was pointing fingers at Texas for being the state with shoddy prosecution. Then someone dug deeper and realized that the reason for high numbers from Texas was entirely different. Evidence records are preserved for different periods of times in different states and only in Texas most of the evidence records were stored indefinitely. That means a lot more older DNA evidence was available to challenge and overturn the verdict in Texas which was not available in other states. High number of overturned verdicts were from Texas simply because Texas preserved DNA evidence in old cases and other states did not.

Similarly in a democratic country that allows lot of freedoms (Yes India still allows a lot more freedom than many other places in the world and most concerns are again a matter of perception. But that is different topic altogether), the probability of negative voice being raised is far more than a country which has a lot poorer track record than India but actively suppresses dissent. Press freedom is a good deed that never goes unpunished. (Just to be clear, this is not an argument against press freedom as pros of press freedom far outweigh its cons. It’s just matter of fact statement that short term consequences of press freedom are not always positive for someone who intends to guard it.)

One thing is abundantly clear. This survey did not use any data whatsoever. As many people have pointed out at many places, India ranks somewhere in the middle when it comes to statistics on condition of women. This includes number of reported crimes against women, or other directly available numbers. It’s true that numbers like sexual crimes are often under reported. But there is absolutely no reason to think that this under reporting is specific to India and not applicable to other countries equally.

A quick look at the articles dealing with actual data on this issue is enough to prove the point. A Livemint article analyzed data from demographics and health serveys (DHS) conducted throughout the developing world and found that the incidence of crimes against women in India is actually lower for in India than that in many other countries for which the data is available. Out of 43 countries for which data is available, India ranks 32nd. Not just that but the survey data showed that the incidence of such crimes is declining over period. The number of women who face sexual violence at any point in their life has gone down from 8.5% to 6% from 2005-06 to 2015-16. India does rank high when it comes to the perpetrator being known to the woman, towards the top. That may increase the chances of the crime going unreported. But the difference between top and bottom ranks is this category is rather narrow thus reducing the chance of this rank causing major statistical difference.

I am not at all against publishing negative or critical news if it is rooted in facts. But merely good intentions and fear, even legitimate one, should not be used to justify a wrong conclusion. And merely questioning an alarm sounding news should not be result that questioner having to defend their intentions and character.

Give the Gift Of Water

(An Example Check Dam)

Hello Friends,

Vasundhara Sanjivni Mandal is Urgently seeking funds to finish the construction of three check dams before Monsoon in Murbad Shahapur region. Each check dam benefits 4 to 6 families and provides job to about 35 people. Considering current water shortage, this is going to be life line for some villages and families.

If we can collect Rs 3 lakhs, they can finish one dam.
If we can collect about 10 Lakh, they can finish all three dams.
Please consider donation. If you cannot donate, please consider making interest free loan.

I am attaching a form where you can mark your donations.

http://tinyurl.com/zrnd7qh

Once we have enough donations, I will send out the details for money transfer (Bank account and IFSC code).

Please pass this on to your friends,

Thanks,

Kedar

Attached:
1. Description of the Project
2. Pamphlet of Vasundhara Sanjivani Mandal with all contact info.
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Description of the project:

Following works in the Murbad Taluka have been already started with financial aid from Rotary Club and Deutsch Bank. These works are costing Rs. 60 lakhs and are expected to be completed by the end of this month.
1. Repairs and desilting of existing bandhara (small dam) opposite Ashramshala(Hostel School) at Talavali (19 km from Murbad )- cost 35 lakhs

2. Construction of a check dam on upstream side of the existing bandhara at Talavali – cost –16 lakhs

3. Construction of Gaibian bandhara on another stream on upstream side of the existing bandhara at Talavali – cost – 9 lakhs

In addition to the above, following three works of check dams are proposed to be started on priority, so as to complete them before the onset of monsoon:
4. Check dam in survey no.138 of Talavali village ,Taluka Murbad

Length – 16 m,Height – 3 m with Estimated cost Rs. 7 lakhs

About 50000 cft water is expected to be stored in this check dam

5. Check dam at Umbarpada of Talavali village ,Taluka Murbad

Length – 10 m,Height – 1.5 m with Estimated cost Rs. 3.5 lakhs

About 15000 cft water is expected to be stored in this check dam

6. Check dam on Kanikhira river by side of Karsoda Road of Talavali village ,Taluka Murbad-

Length – 10 m, Height – 1.5 m with Estimated cost Rs. 3.5 lakhs

About 15000 cft water is expected to be stored in this check dam

After construction of these proposed three check dams,about 70 acres of land is expected to be irrigated. Moreover, ground water table is also expected to be improved making their water sources more sustainable. Local Farmers are expected to cultivate more crops like vegetables, certain pulses etc. due to increased availability of water. They are also expected to start activities such as Poultry, Sheep breading and Dairy, to support their livelihood. This will also generate opportunity for local employment.

Each check dam is expected to benefit 4 to 6 families and generate employment for about 35 persons.

The ultimate aim of all these activities is to enhance the socio-economic development of the area.

Before deciding these three works, meetings with local teachers, farmers (holding 3 to 5 acres of land) and Panchyat Samiti office bearers were held seeking their cooperation and wholehearted support. They have committed to undertake the desilting of these check dams every year.

Preliminary survey at 20 other sites has been carried out and these works are proposed to be taken in hand next year.

We have also planned a programme of plantation of trees, along the streams, on upstream and downstream sides of these check dam sites.

Vanarai Bandharas, each costing Rs. 8-10 thousand will be constructed in the month of November and December 2016, on the upstream side of these three check dams.

If you have any further queries on the subject matter,please feel free to write to me.

Thanks and regards,

Milind Kelkar

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A Link to Vasundhara Sanjivani Mandal Setup

Vasundhara Setup

Arm Them With Knowledge, Not Guns!!

Something about the headline “USA government decides to provide arms to XXXX” disturbs me. There has been a series of civilian uprising in the Middle East and several parts of the world. And the most frequent mode of response seems to be arms and ammunition or military action. While there might be a strong case of short term surgical military intervention for a precise objective, military intervention for a prolonged and directionless civil war is almost always counterproductive.

Syria is in the news lately. Let’s say you found a Syrian rebel and just before you hand him a gun, you asked “What does the future Syria look like? Will it be secular? Will there be equal rights for women? ”, what do you think his answer will be?

There is a common theme in most recent uprisings worldwide. The protesters succeed in threatening the existing regime, yet they don’t get enough traction to derail it. They begin with a bang, but lose in mid-game or end-game. They know what they don’t want. But once they are done away with that, they don’t really know what they want and how to get there.

So what seems like a promising change in course of affairs of a nation fizzles along the way. The direction is lost and despondence sets in. It goes either to stalemate and years of dragged civil war, or defeat of rebels. At some point society returns back to where it was, or rather a few years behind where it was, before the war. Occasionally the rebels succeed, but then they turn out to be worse than the people they replaced.

That’s the key difference between most of “springs” and rebellions worldwide and American Revolutionary war. The revolutionary war did not really begin on the battlefield. It began in the town hall. It did not begin with firing of guns. It began with signing the declaration of independence. The leaders of the war had a very clear constructive vision of how the country was going to look like after they won the war. That helped them garner widespread support of masses . Masses were genuinely convinced that winning the war was in their interest.

The distinguishing feature in these failed civil unrests is the lack of vision going forward. The core of any civil unrest needs to be a constructive vision of better future and a strong leader of a group of leaders committed to that vision. As long as the vision is there, common people will go to war again and again, with whatever arms they have. As long as it is not there, no amount of external infusion of arms will convince common people to fight.

The importance of such a positive vision is critical to any civil unrest. Frustration and anger are not enough, because a constructive, sustainable, long term change cannot ride on the back of negative emotions alone.

I have no doubt in my mind that many people behind the decision to arm Syrian rebels have genuine intention to do something good. And that Assad has committed many crimes against his own people. And that rebels are committed to their cause and their grievances are genuine. Yet I have many doubts about how this whole thing of providing arms assistance is going to pan out.

So what do we do? Do nothing and let innocent civilians die?

If I were the president of USA, I would use all the might to orchestrate a truce between Asad and the rebels. Temporarily remove imminent threat to Assad so he would stop using extreme measures. Perhaps arrange some UN headed oversight of the Syrian administration to make sure that there is no retaliation. Let life get back to normal to some extent. Let students return to schools, workers return to factories.

And then I would spend all the money I had set aside for Syria in political education of Syrian people. In empowering the grassroot leaders that can drive the change organically. In bringing out Jeffersons, Lincolns, Martin Luther Kings of the Syrian society.

And one day they will have a Syrian dream. It may take a decade or two, but for sure they will have a dream. And once they do, there will be no turning back. Remember, what won the civil rights battle for Martin Luther King was not his anger, but his dream.

Tool Big To Fail Companies and Guilt Slicing

I have read several books on the financial crisis and recently saw one interesting television show as well. It seems that there is a pattern to a lot of things that went wrong. Perhaps the term to use would be “Guilt slicing”.

Imagine a financial transaction of getting mortgage. In the past only two parties were involved. Local bank and the home owner. Since the bank knew that it is their neck on the line if the person does not pay back, they had every reason to do due diligence. They would demand 20% down payment, they would check credit history, they would do background check, employment check etc.

But when the same transaction becomes multi-party, every party has opportunities to take short cuts that serve their own interest. Since they are playing a small role in transaction, they also feel a very small responsibility to make sure the whole transaction is done right. The guilt they would feel if everything went badly is small slice of overall guilt and tolerable. At that moment, the greed takes over.

This is how most of the things happened. Many people in every layer of the multi-layer home mortgage transaction were aware that this whole thing is going in wrong direction. Just that they did not feel enough responsibility to make things right at the cost of their own self interest.

It seems a natural tendency of human mind to color our own perspective to reduce the cognitive dissonance. The fact that something strongly in my interest but it is against the interests of society is a big such dissonance. A common way to resolve that dissonance is to blind myself to the consequences of my own action. We all do this. We all tend to find justifications for the things that serve our purpose. The pain seems less painful if it is in distant future.

And sometimes the institutional structures help in masking this dissonance. The financial big players are classic example of this one. Too many layers, too many players, too many steps. Not enough guilt at every step to stop recklessness, but enough rewards at every step to encourage recklessness. The meltdown was bound to happen.

The saddest part of the story was the financial bailout using taxpayers money. There is no more irony than the fact that the country that was shining example of the capitalism chose to rescue the purely for profit industries at the expense of taxpayers.

The biggest cry of the financial companies was the imminent “collapse of the world financial system”. But one factor was overlooked. In that moment there was a choice to make. The choice to choose between a risk of collapse of the world financial system or an risk of collapse of trust in capitalism and free market. There was no third choice. They chose to let the trust in capitalism, fair market, collapse.

The seeds of distrust are sown. Something fundamental is shaken. There is a good chance that in 100 years from now, USA will see a revolution against capitalism and the historians will trace the root cause to all those who were too big to fail a century back.

Still Living World War II

I was watching a political show on TV. A bunch of pundits were arguing about the differing approaches taken by China and USA in terms of foreign policy. The overall theme of the discussion was how the emerging countries like China, India, Brazil are not doing enough as far as fixing the world.

Some things one of the pundits said and one thing suddenly dawned to me. USA foreign policy is still so much affected by the world war II events.

In second world war, USA and Britain emerged victorious. The main reason allies went to war was not ideological, but political and self-interest based. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. That’s how the whole world behaves.

But then as Nazis were defeated, the atrocities they committed came in front of the world. Those atrocities were so gruesome that Nazis became the gold standard of evil. This, in turn, handed over blank check of validation to Allied powers. Almost everything they did was right and virtuous.

I am not trying to criticize, just to analyze how perceptions develop. This world war victories enforced “intervention” model. It something is going wrong in the world, then it must be fixed by allied power intervention.

This is where the traditional mindset in China and India differs. Having been around for many centuries, these countries will and always be more passive than western powers when it comes to responding to world crises.

From Western viewpoint, the individual has free will and he/she tries to exercise the free will. If this free will is taking a wrong turn, then it must be stopped. From Eastern viewpoint, the relationship between individual and rest of the world is far more complex than free will. If you consider Hindu beliefs like reincarnation and Karma, or Buddhism/Confucianism concepts like Tao and eternal flow of events, what is happening to you today is at least in part consequence of what you did yesterday. Since by every action you are taking, you are dealing with this vastly complex system, you better be careful in taking action.

An American is inclined to believe that USA and its Allies saved the world from being overrun by Nazis and that they took most of the brunt of war deserves commendation. An Eastern thinker is likely to argue that the very reason second world war happened was because Allied forces overreached in first world war. They crushed Germany badly, which gave rise to a sense of victimization, which gave the Nazis a fertile ground to launch their agenda. So had they been cautious to begin with, there would be no second world war.

Who is right? We will never know. Because the world is such a vast and complex place, a simple cause effect logic almost never works in terms of big events like world wars.

Extending the same thinking in today’s world, Western allied powers are more often prone to intervene, expecting the same kind of validation they got after defeating Nazis. Whereas China and India are more prone to just “take backseat and let the things sort themselves out” approach.