Our Energy Management

Armenian philosopher George Gurdjieff says that to awaken is to connect with higher energies that are present always. This can be done through energy management. Understanding this energy, its nature, movement and relationships enables us to manage the energy required to connect with the Higher. At an individual level, the main effort is to accumulate energy and prevent its leakage to create the critical mass needed to build the bridge that would connect us with the Higher. A large component of sadhana, or spiritual practice, is aimed at preventing leakage. For example, the Yamas of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra are all observances and attitudes that aim to prevent energies from seeping out. Gurdjieff says, one of the biggest sources of energy leaks is negative emotion. Overcoming negative emotion is a large part of spiritual practice. Speaking mechanically is another large area of energy leak. Most people don’t realise how much they talk and how much of it they are not in control of. Most talk can be avoided. Daydreaming is another significant area of leakage. Even the act of imagination can become a mechanical activity that takes you away from connecting with yourself. While saving energy ensures energy accumulation that allows us to be more conscious and aware, it is also the key to use that awareness to access more energies. Impressions that we receive around us, taken in consciously, allow us to use them for our practice. Be aware of your breathing; it allows you to access finer impressions.

India Offers Scholarships to 400 Syrian University Students to Study in India

 : India has offered fullypaid scholarships to 400 Syrian university students to study at various universities across the country. The West Asian nation is slowly getting back to normalcy after seven years of counter-ISIS operations. ET has learnt that most Syrian students for under-graduate and postgraduate courses have arrived in India as part of the initiative. This decision, first of its kind, was designed and conceived to develop closer bonds between the two countries as the Assad government has successfully thwarted terror group ISIS. As part of its goodwill gesture, the government has provided flight tickets to all these students. For over five decades now, India has been offering capacity-building courses to students and professionals of developing countries. “This was a special gesture which was extended due to Indo-Syrian political ties. India has stepped up its engagement with Damascus as the situation is returning to normal in most parts of Syria,” a person familiar with the West Asian developments told ET. New Delhi, which supported the Assad government in its fight against ISIS, is seeking to relaunch its economic and soft power engagements with Syria. High-level political engagements are also in the offing over the next few months. India has extended its strong support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, which, on its part, has provided support on the Kashmir issue on all international forums, including the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and believes India has the full right to take action it deems fit following any cross-border strike. As part of economic engagement, nearly 100 Indian companies participated in an industrial fair that was hosted in Damascus last year. Under an Indian government’s line of credit facility of $25 million, Apollo International has modernised a steel plant and BHEL is executing a project there. Damascus is also willing to offer phosphate blocks for exploration in the Syrian desert zone.

Source: Economic Times, 11/01/2019

Assam in flux: why the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is so contentious

More than 33 years after an anti-foreigners’ agitation from 1979 to 1985, Assam is in turmoil again — this time because of the Modi government’s bid to get the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 passed in Parliament. Assam and the rest of the Northeast shut down on Tuesday after the Lok Sabha passed the Bill.

What is the Bill about?

Seeking to amend the Citizenship Act of 1955, the Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2016 for granting citizenship to minority Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who came to India on or before December 31, 2014 due to religious persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The Bill requires such immigrants to spend at least six years to be eligible for citizenship, instead of 12 years as is currently applicable.

Why is there opposition in Assam?

The Assamese and other indigenous communities in Assam say that the Bill is against the spirit of the Assam Accord as well as the National Register of Citizens being updated. The Assam Accord, signed in August 1985, prescribed March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for detecting and deporting illegal migrants irrespective of religion. The same date applies for NRC inclusion. Some locals argue that the Bill, if passed, will make those who entered India after March 1971 eligible for citizenship overnight. They say that Assam has been bearing the burden of migration even before 1971, and cannot accept any more people.

What is the BJP’s stand?

The BJP says India was divided on the basis of religion and the country has to create space for the non-Muslim victims of Partition facing religious persecution in the neighbourhood. Muslims comprise 34% of Assam’s population. The BJP is believed to have gone ahead with the Bill despite opposition after “testing the waters” with the December panchayat polls, when it won an unprecedented 41% of the seats. This implied that the issue had little or no impact on the voters.

Who will benefit?

The BJP has given the issue a communal edge by arguing that 17 Muslim-majority Assembly seats do not go “Jinnah’s way”. But it is not clear if this can be done by granting citizenship to a large number of Bengali Hindus among the 40.07 lakh people left out of the NRC. The BJP is clearly eyeing the votes of Bengali Hindus, who were once a Congress vote bank, comprising less than 10% of Assam’s population of 3.29-crore. Many Bengalis, however, feel the Bill will do them more harm than good, specifically if 1951 is taken as the base year by the Assam government for a move to define who are ‘Assamese’ and ensuring political, land and other rights for only “sons of the soil”.

What may be the political fallout?

The Asom Gana Parishad has pulled out of the alliance with the BJP. Other regional allies of the BJP are unhappy with the Bill and could take a call with the Lok Sabha elections drawing near. But regional parties in the Northeast are usually dependent on the party or coalition in power at the Centre, and their decision may depend on the trend post-elections

Source: The Hindu, 10/01/2019

The Great Game is not a zero-sum deal: on handling Afghanistan

India and China can work together, bilaterally and in multilateral groupings, to build a secure Afghanistan

There is an air of uncertainty about the U.S.’s intentions in Afghanistan.The likelihood of an American pullout raises the spectre of instability in Afghanistan, South and Central Asia. If this happens, security could hinge on efforts made by regional powers to stabilise Afghanistan. Could China emerge as the power broker in Afghanistan? And could India help enhance Afghanistan’s security?

Like India, China never had any intention of contributing troops to NATO’s anti-Taliban campaign. But as Asia’s strongest power and challenger to the U.S., China will shed no tears if the U.S. reduces its military strength or calls it a day after 18 years of a protracted and indecisive war in Afghanistan.

Vital to development

Sharing part of a border with Afghanistan, China has a great interest in its stability. China would be adversely affected by war and chaos, which could spill over into north-western China, Pakistan, and Central Asia. As all these areas are vital in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), peace in Afghanistan is critical.

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Over the last decade, China has gained considerable economic and diplomatic influence in Afghanistan. Unsurprisingly, Afghanistan’s President, Ashraf Ghani, made China the destination of his first official trip abroad in October 2014. China then announced its intention to build regional consensus on Afghanistan’s security.

It has joined the U.S. and Russia in several peace talks with the Taliban and is part of the four-nation Quadrilateral Coordination Group (with Afghanistan, Pakistan and the U.S.). It is giving military aid to Afghanistan, with the express intent of fighting terrorism and increasing security cooperation.

Despite the prevailing instability in Afghanistan, China has used diplomacyand finance to appear influential and generous. It has invested in projects such as mining, roads and railways, and health. A rail link, completed in 2016, and running from far eastern China via Uzbekistan to the river port of Hairatan in northern Afghanistan, could reduce the time taken to make shipments, from six months by road, to just two weeks. Infrastructure problems have halted work on the railway for a while, and the three countries are in talks to resume operations.

China’s diplomacy has highlighted its contacts with all parties to the conflict and enhanced its status as a power broker. In 2012, it brought Afghanistan into the regional diplomatic processes by giving it observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). At the 18th SCO summit at Qingdao, China, in 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared China’s readiness to train 2,000 law enforcement officers ‘for all parties’ in the next three years. The initiative was welcomed by Central Asian countries. For example, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which share a border with northern Afghanistan, are concerned about the Taliban and other terrorist groups becoming powerful in Afghanistan, and posing a threat. The SCO’s programme for 2019-21 also calls for combating terrorism, and generally enhancing security cooperation.

Dealing with Pakistan

If the U.S. withdrawal exacerbates conflict, southern Russia will also face the threat of an extremist spillover. Therefore, Russia and its Central Asian ‘near abroad’ would be willing to expand their cooperation with China to curb insecurity. How will China deal with Pakistan, its all-weather friend which trains and exports extremists across the Durand Line? Pakistan has become a crucial link in the BRI. And China has reportedly invested billions in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which cuts across disputed territory in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

Since 2011, China has continually blamed Pakistan for exporting extremists to Uighur in Xinjiang, and for extremist attacks on Chinese workers in the CPEC area. But these incidents have not affected their friendship. Could China have some leverage over Pakistan? Pakistan remained the largest recipient of Chinese arms imports (2013-17). Would China’s strategic and economic interests prompt it to press Pakistan to stop exporting terrorists across the Durand Line? These are the big questions.

India supports China’s role in international negotiations on Afghanistan, the activation of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group and other mechanisms of dialogue and cooperation for restoration of peace and development in Afghanistan.

For its part, India has certainly contributed much ‘soft power’ ranging from telecommunications to education, Bollywood movies and pop music. The building for the National Assembly was built with Indian assistance to support Afghanistan’s democracy. Indian reconstruction largesse, amounting to some $3 billion, has earned it goodwill and popularity.

Sitting across the table

India, which has been against holding talks with the Taliban for a long time, finally sent two retired diplomats, at the ‘non-official level’, to join them at the Moscow peace parleys in November last year. But India’s lengthy absence from regional diplomacy has resulted in its limited contribution to the negotiations that are necessary to stabilise Afghanistan.

The Afghan government would like to see India-China economic cooperation in Afghanistan that could boost progress and enhance human security. Last October, in a first, India and China started a joint training project for Afghan diplomats. They could expand cooperation by facilitating Afghanistan’s full membership of the SCO.

China’s leadership role of the SCO and contacts with all parties (the U.S., the Taliban, the Afghan government, Pakistan, Russia and the five Central Asian states) could give it a vantage in crafting a regional solution on Afghanistan. That should not prevent India and China from working together, bilaterally and in the SCO, to build a secure Afghanistan.

Anita Inder Singh is a Founding Professor of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi

Source: The Hindu, 10/01/2019

Why Adam Smith favoured public education

Contrary to popular opinion, he was not a free market apologist

The authority of Adam Smith is frequently invoked by supporters of the free market, who argue for extending the market forces to all conceivable goods and services and eliminating any kind of government intervention in markets. However, Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations make it clear that he was not a laissez faire or free market capitalism apologist.

Favouring liberal capitalism

Smith favoured liberal capitalism over the extant socio-economic arrangement (elements of feudalism and mercantilism). While feudalism was characterised by the rule of the nobility/landowners, mercantilism was characterised by state monopoly over trade. The East India Company was an example of the latter. It is in this historical context that Smith called for the state to withdraw its monopolistic interventions in both external and internal commerce.

Contrary to public opinion, Smith presupposed the government provision of legal infrastructure, defence, transport infrastructure and education for the proper functioning of liberal capitalism. For him, the responsibility of providing institutions “for promoting the instruction of the people” is one of the chief duties of the state. The state, he said, must undertake this responsibility just as it accepts responsibility “for protecting society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies”.

The appropriators of Smith also forget his telling commentary on the role of power in society. One aspect of this relates to the power employers have over workers. The second aspect relates to the inequality of power, expressed in the form of status and ranks.

Modern appropriators of Smith also make abundant use of the “invisible hand” metaphor. But Smith used this metaphor only once in Wealth of Nations , and twice in his other writings in different contexts.

The self-interested individual in the Wealth of Nations is embedded, as it were, in the society Smith described in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which is characterised by good moral sentiments: “All the members of human society stand in need of each other’s assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy.” Indeed, the Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments are complementary texts.

Education is not a commodity

Smith conceived of education in a broad manner. Education for him not only includes the “study of wisdom” but also the learning of good moral sentiments such as virtue, sympathy, gratitude and benevolence. Since Smith considered education as central to a flourishing society, he did not treat it as a commodity. He argued that the costs of education should be such that “even a common labourer may afford it”. In the Wealth of Nations , he said: “For a very small expence the publick can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.” This dispels the myth of him being a champion of private education.

Almost all popular commentaries on Smith’s economics highlight the role of division of labour or technological progress in the growth of an economy. The growth enhancing effects of division of labour via increasing labour productivity are an important part of Smith’s growth account. But Smith understood the central consequence of division of labour on the workers: repetitive work numbs their minds and negatively influences their capacity to make prudent decisions. Therefore, the “education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the publick.”

Smith advocated accessible education for the entire class of workers, which constitutes the majority of the population. In fact, he advocated compulsory education for them so that it offsets part of the debilitating effects from the division of labour. Smith also believed that education would empower the citizens to make wise decisions which contribute to the “safety of the government”. Yet another reason is that education positively affects customary wages, which over time, would increase workers’ real wages.

It would therefore be wise to take heed of Smith’s views on education, which comprise both the learning of “wisdom” and “moral sentiments”, and not only strengthen but also expand India’s public education system.

Alex M. Thomas teaches economics at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru

Source: The Hindu, 10/01/2019

Why MCQ isn’t an option

Multiple Choice Question format forces rigid standardisation, creates illusion that knowledge can be objective.

The growing legitimisation of the MCQ (Multiple Choice Question) pattern of exams for all sorts of entrance tests, particularly in the field of liberal arts and social sciences, indicates the poverty of pedagogic imagination that seems to have inflicted a team of techno-managers and academic bureaucrats. Even though all sorts of justifications — ranging from technological convenience, and instant process of selection and elimination, to “value-neutral” evaluation free from human subjectivities — are put forward in its defence; and, even though universities like JNU and DU fail to resist the temptations of these arguments, the fact is that it causes great damage to what really matters in humanities and social sciences: Reflexivity, creativity and an interpretative art of understanding.

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To begin with, it is important to reflect on the common mistake that academic bureaucrats — often guided by some sort of “engineering” mindset — make. First, they think that all disciplines, be it English literature or mathematics, can be seen on the same scale. This love for mindless standardisation makes them think that even sociology or philosophy can be reduced into a set of “objective” postulates, or “puzzles” with only one “correct” answer. Second, they tend to see knowledge as the acquisition of mere “facts” (or, to put it more bluntly, “quiz contest” material — who said what, who invented what, and who wrote what), free from “ideological” aberrations or “subjective” prejudices. And third, with the hallucination of “mathematical precision”, they feel that creative articulation is dangerous or equivalent to madness because everything has to be fitted into the standardised/dominant formula or theorem. Hence, to take an illustration, Marx cannot be seen beyond “historical materialism” and “economic determinism”; or, for that matter, even Munshi Premchand’s Godan has to be reduced to a set of “objective” bullet points.

It is in this context that I wish to argue that we must abandon the idea of “objectivity” in humanities and social sciences (possibly, except mathematical economics, demography or areas filled with quantitative techniques). Well, there are solid facts — say, Max Weber wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Michel Foucault reflected on Bentham’s Panopticon in his Discipline and Punish, Rabindranath Tagore portrayed the character of Anandamayee in his novel Gora, and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi moved around Noakhali in 1946 to combat communal violence. But then, understanding sociology, literature or history doesn’t mean merely memorising and repeating these facts like a parrot. What really matters is to go deeper, and interpret the arguments and philosophic propositions these authors developed in their works. This means the willingness to accept that there is no singular truth, and there are many readings of the same text. For instance, two young students can come forward with two different interpretations of Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj: Gandhi, a revolutionary who could see the discontents of a civilisation based on the manufactured “needs” and resultant greed; and Gandhi, a conservative priest refusing to come to terms with the inevitability of historical progress. No, it is not like 2+2+=4; there is no “correct answer”; there are only multiple possibilities subject to a culture of debate. What is, therefore, important, is the rigour/sincerity/creativity in the art of interpretation. To deny it is to kill the soul of liberal arts and social sciences.

We have already done severe damage to the culture of learning. The fetish of 99 per cent marks in the board exams is killing the creative faculty of schoolchildren. With rote learning, they have mastered the technique of reducing everything into a set of bullet points depending on the marks allotted to a question. And then, coaching centres, guide books and all sorts of success mantras have killed even the slightest trace of joy and experimentation in the experience of learning. No wonder, we produce technologists — politically illiterate and culturally impoverished. The exams, like the National Eligibility Test and the UPSC Prelims, have further trivialised higher education. Sociology or history, it seems, has been imprisoned. It is sad to see a young aspirant — tired and disenchanted, only trying to recall “facts” like the date of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, or the year of publication of Professor Andre Beteille’s Caste, Class and Power. And now, as teachers, we too have lost our agency. Even for selecting M.Phil/Ph.D candidates we have been asked to rely on the MCQ pattern of entrance test.

Hence, as teachers we are not supposed to think or evolve our unique modes of selection and evaluation. We will only formulate “objective” questions, and specialise ourselves in generating an MCQ bank. And we would be asked to believe that it is a good thing because we are now free from the task of evaluating entrance test copies with all sorts of “subjective” answers. The computer is the best judge as it has no “politics”.

Eventually, we would further deteriorate the status of the liberal arts and social sciences. We would destroy thinking and creative imagination. We would manufacture one-dimensional consciousness — a mind incapable of living with plurality, ambiguities and unresolved paradoxes. Is it what the system needs? Is it a conspiracy against emancipatory education? After all, our obsessive craze for objectivity, “certainty” and “homogeneity” would orient us to consume the products of the culture industry and feel “happy”, to accept the monologue of the authoritarian regime as the ultimate truth, and see ourselves as just loyal employees of gigantic corporations.

Source: Indian Express, 10/01/2019

How to counter radicalisation in Jammu & Kashmir

Building mental resilience of the youth will help them to resist the temptations of radical ideology.

In the last few years, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has witnessed a discernible rise in the levels of radicalisation and violent extremism. There has been a marked increase in local recruitment of terrorist groups. The youth today appear far more emboldened to disrupt military operations and challenge the State authority, especially in the Kashmir Valley. The frenzied stone-pelting mobs at the encounter sites, of late, have demonstrated increasing levels of motivation and boldness in facilitating the escape of terrorists.

The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sponsored propaganda and psychological operations based on toxic, warped and intolerant religious and ideological narratives have been instrumental in proselytising the people, eroding the ideals of ‘Kashmiriyat’ and gradually sowing the seeds of jihadist culture. Pakistan has effectively employed the cyberspace, subverted sections of the media and its proxies in the state for this purpose. The Friday prayers at the mosques are being used to fuel extremism and the young impressionable minds at the madrassas are also being surreptitiously subjected to jihadist ideology on a daily basis. Pakistan has also leveraged the existing communal fault lines in other parts of our country to create insecurities that bolster secessionist tendencies and an inclination for a new political order.

The rising level of radicalisation has manifested in increasing number of young people taking to arms. Even some of the well educated and employed youth have fallen prey to the ISI’s psychological machinations. As compared to 131 young people , who joined various terrorist outfits in 2017, the number in 2018 rose to over 200. Some new terrorist outfits, such as ISIS-Kashmir and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind aligned to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al Qaeda ideologies, have also mushroomed in the past few years.

Radicalisation is a product of protracted psychological conditioning of the minds; it has no quick fixes. It requires an enduring strategy that focuses not just on targeting the external and internal actors and conditions that fuel radicalisation but also attends to the process of de-radicalisation. Logically, it should form an additional dedicated prong of our overarching national strategy that aims at bringing normalcy in J&K. In addition to the ongoing military operations, it will require a coordinated deployment of our political, diplomatic, economic, social, and perception management prowess.

An effective sealing of the conflict zone, both in the physical and virtual domains, is a prerequisite for dealing with the deteriorating situation. Therefore, in addition to plugging the porosity of the Line of Control, we need to establish ‘information superiority’ in the virtual space, which will deny the ISI and their proxies the ability to use various communication platforms to their advantage. It will also help us in the acquisition of uninterrupted real time intelligence, which is critical for proactive management and shaping of the environment. State of the art technologies available with our strategic partners like the United States and Israel should be leveraged to hone this capability.

Improvements in governance are necessary, whereby political leaders at all levels and the administration remain committed to the aspirations of the people. The state’s Vigilance Commission should be revitalised to deal with widespread corruption, which has precluded the desired economic development in the state. Sincere efforts should also be made in addressing the feelings of any perceived injustice. Rogue political and community leaders, who are playing to the tune of negative elements and spoilers, should be sternly dealt with as per the law. Contemporary educational infrastructure with dedicated security cover should be created and the religious preachers at the mosques should not be allowed to spew venom and spread jihadist ideology. Since poverty creates exploitable conditions for radicalisation and idle minds are the root of all evil, job opportunities should be created expeditiously by giving a boost to tourism, developing infrastructure and raising additional Home Guards and security forces units.

On the military front, the security forces should continue with their people-friendly counter proxy war operations, employing smart power, which is an imaginative mix of both hard and soft power. In concert with these operations, a determined drive under the police should be undertaken to ensure effective management of prisons and for neutralising various inimical players of the environment as per the law. De-radicalisation cells manned by experts and police personnel should be established alongside all prisons and also at the affected district headquarters. Well conceived and implemented de-radicalisation programmes can help the inmates and other radicalised individuals to reject the radical jihadist beliefs and re-embrace the prescribed value-based tenets of Islam.

Enduring political, diplomatic and perception management initiatives to coerce Pakistan to stop meddling in our internal affairs and putting an end to external funding should continue with added zeal. Perception management initiatives should also help counter toxic narratives and help cement mental and emotional bonding of the people of the Valley with the nation. The electronic and print media, in the larger interest of national security, should exercise prudence and ensure their reportage strengthens our secular fabric and does not widen or deepen any existing fault lines.

Radicalisation is the first step in the psychological process that transforms innocent young men into terrorists. As a nation, we need to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and put a pragmatic strategy in place at the earliest. Building strong shields of mental resilience among the youth is imperative to enable them to resist the temptations of any radical ideology.

Bikram Singh is the former Chief of the Army Staff