Economics of Destiny
G: We are destined to discuss the independence of economic choices made by people!
S: It seems so. Please prove that economic choices of human beings are independent choices. Giving examples may help me better appreciate your point of view, if I am so destined.
G: Fine. Let us take the case of a car driver working for a small businessman in Kolkata. He is 32 and comes from an agricultural family in Bihar. His wife and two children live along with his mother and younger brother in the village in Bihar where they have adequate farm land to grow rice, wheat, vegetables and fruits that cover their needs and also to sell in the market to raise cash for buying other necessities including clothes, utensils, soaps, medicines, cooking oil, spices, cooking medium, etc as also pay for children’s education and doctors. Some of the money from sale of farm produce helps meet working capital needs for farming. He himself earns about Rs. 45,000 a year, lives in a small shelter shared by a few friends on payment of rent and run a joint dinner kitchen for them. He visits his village three/ four times a year and contributes about half his income to the family back in the village.
S: OK. What economic decision does he take?
G: None. The chained may have nothing to loose. But all are chained to choices that one has to make. The Driver had made choices that he had to make forced by the circumstances and his genetic codes. Nothing was decided by him. He was born in the family he did not choose. His tendencies were shaped by his genetics and the environment in which he grew: both the genetics and the environment were not of his choice. His and his family's economic rationality is the result of genetics and environment that neither he or anyone else had chosen. He could have earned more had his family reallocated the wealth by selling the farm land and going into cash/ bank deposit investments. But this choice was not within the feasible zone for him and his family, given their attachment to land and the uncertainties of the future, their education background and so on. He is one of the Yadavs who could not become a politician and minister in India. Certain other Yadav had only one choice: to become a politician and a minister.
S: But all this happens due to an unjust social structure.
G: Yes, but none of the Yadavs chose the social structure. Since ages social reformers thought of designing and implementing a just social order. No such just social order has yet come to materialize. Society seems incapable of choosing a just social order, wars, fights, agitations, political campaigns and ideologies, and revolutions notwithstanding.
S: Then what is the utility of studying history, philosophy and economics? It is to make proper individual and social choices.
G: But all such choices are the result of so-called choices made earlier. All coices are chronologically bound by consistency. That we do not have a just social order is the result of the past choices by the society and the new ideas and pressures that happen to be generated. Today's driver Yadav or Minister Yadav are not what they are because of their choosing: they could not have chosen otherwise than becoming driver and minister respectively. Study of history, philosophy and economics explains how and why Yadav Driver and Yadav Minister are what they are today. Such studies are themselves knowledges that has been acquired by chance and not through independent free choice. Today's driver Yadav's grandson may become a politician and nminister decades later. It all depends on the stochastic destiny process. Today's driver Yadav has as much economic rationality as was possible for him at each moment of his time. His choice is bound by his initial conditions and the time path so far. He has no choice to be different. The socirty today has no choice to be different than what it is today.
S: But he can make choices that will make the future different.
G: Even there, his choices are determined by his past and the circumstances to which he has to react to. So, there is virtually no real choice or option for him make independently.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Destiny of Choice 006
God-dependent Choice
G: It seems that you believe that God makes all choices. Human beings chooses what they are destined to choose as individuals or as groups or societies.
S: Yes, but even God’s choices are part of a process that I call the Destiny Principle.
G: A Nobel Laureate says that societies and people should have the opportunity and ability to consider alternative choices available. You seem to say that he is incorrect!
S: No, I do not say that. What he says is what he is destined to say. He is correct in what he says. That is how human civilization progresses. The impact of what he says on others now and in future will be as per the Stochastic Destiny Process. The exercise of choice is the process through which Mankind advances. But the choices taken actually taken are not independent decision of any man or a group. The discovery of choices, the willingness to make choices and the actual choice making are all outcomes of forces beyond the independent control of an individual or a group. We choose that we are destined to choose given the past, the forces of prevailing circumstances and the properties/ inclinations in built in each of us.
G: Isn’t that contradictory?
S: No. It is part of the destiny process that most people continue to think about making choices, generate alternative choices and feel that they make choices. Destined choices by any person do not come from out of the blue: they come out of the destined process. People may think about alternatives but choose the one that is best according to some criteria. Some one decides to do something to maximize his self-interest. Some others decide to do something in the interest of someone else or the society. These criteria have also evolved over time. If some people do not think about making choices, and someone advises them to empower themselves by making choices as result of which those people become choice-making people, this is what is in the destiny. I believe in Destiny Principle and simultaneously make choices and advise other to make rational choices. I do not find any conflict. I do whatever I do in making choices and advising others on making choices only because I am destined and compelled to do so by the forces that have been operating on my body and mind since my birth.
G: I thought that those who would believe in your Destiny Principle are irrational, unscientific minds attached to old scriptures that are no more relevant to modern civilizations.
S: You are destined to think like that. You are as correct as I am about Destiny Principle.
G: But over the centuries, Human Society has expanded its stock of knowledge that gives the power to control destiny. So, nowadays we should be saying that we make our destinies.
S: Man has acquired great knowledge no doubt. That was destined to happen. Man did not acquire knowledge by choice but by the forces of destiny. Even that knowledge acquired so far is far, far inadequate for Man to be able to alter his destiny even a little. Assume that a man-made computer clock knows how it keeps time. Would that make it change the time? No. Even if one had the entire knowledge, one cannot control one’s destiny.
G: Isn’t Man’s life different now than what was centuries back because of the expansion of Man’s knowledge? Can we not say that Man has changed his destiny?
S: No. You cannot logically claim that. In the history of natural evolutionary process, man is of recent origin. This process has imparted many properties in human beings. One such property is to discover what goes on in the environment, acquire knowledge and apply knowledge to change the way Man lives. This is the working out of the Destiny Principle. Man was destined by the process to discover numerous properties of the physical world and destined to use this growing knowledge to light fire, grow food, hunt animals, kill fish, cook food, construct better shelter, weave clothes, build machines, defend against natural calamities, fly airplanes, communicate long-distance through radio frequency, invent computer and internet, formulate drugs to cure diseases and help extend life expectancy, send manned and unmanned spacecraft to probe the planets and the stars in the skies. All this was destined. Man had no control over the process.
G: Such an explanation would rob Man of his great achievements.
S: Do we have to give credit to children as they grow up slowly in to full grown adult bodies and acquire mental capabilities to deal with complex concepts and various languages. This happens naturally because it is a natural process. Most babies are destined to grow up into adult bodies: babies do not choose to become adults.
G: You seem to make Man as an integral part of Nature as all other things in the Universe.
S: Is there any specific reason that one must consider human beings as autonomous entities outside the Natural System?
G: The Universe has been expanding. It shows that completely new things can emerge independent of the Natural System.
S: No. It does not show that. The discovery that Universe is expanding means that the distances among galaxies are increasing. But this expansion is taking place in what? When you walk east and I walk west the physical distance between us increases. But the distance exists on the surface of the land. When fire expands in size, the expansion takes place over a three-dimensional space that always exists. Similarly, the previously known Universe can expand only within the hitherto unknown Universe. The distances among galaxies can increase if the galaxies drift apart in space that already existed even if unknown to us so far. It is a completely endogenous system in which nothing can emerge independent or nothing exogenous can arrive from outside.
G: So you do not believe that the Universe is expanding?
S: The Universe is Infinite. The things within the universe can expand or contract within the universe. If the Universe has to expand it has to expand within the Universe. Ask yourself where is it that the Universe is expanding? If you admit of anything separate where the expansion takes place, then it must be already in existence whether previously known to exist or not. The entire universe is filled with something or the other, whether we can observe them or not, whether they have mass or not. The size of the Universe is Infinity. Where are the limits of the Universe? There are none. If something within the universe expands it must be within the previously known parts of the Universe or newly dioscovered, hitherto unknown parts of the Universe.
G: OK. For a moment let us assume that you are correct that your Stochastic Destiny Principle operates as a process over the domain of this infinite Universe System that is completely endogenous and does not admit of any external, outside shock. Now, please explain how would you design such a process and system that is ever lasting.
S: I am sure you do not require me to write a treatise on this subject and detail the design of an infinite system and its inherent process or processes. You probably want to visualize the feasibility of such design. I suggest that you do some small experiments. For instance, you may take a big graph paper. Take a red pencil, a blue pencil and an eraser that can remove marks on graph paper without affecting the strength of the paper. Toss a coin. When a head comes, put a red dot on any one of the small blank squares on the graph paper. When a tail occurs, put a blue dot on any one of the small blank square within the distance of three small squares from any previously coloured small squares or if that is not possible choose any other blank square to put the blue dot mark. After you have done this for four dots, in every fifth draw erase any two squares already coloured. Go on doing this to see how long you last. Now, record the destiny of different squares and colours in terms of their longevity in terms of number of tosses a square remains coloured and number of blue dotted and red dotted small squares.
G: Such games may be never ending. But how does this help me.
S: It will help you design endogenous systems that last forever without external shocks and without giving any part of the system any real discretion to choose.
G: When did God design the system and how? Or, does he continually design and redesign the system.
S: I really do not know. But I do not believe that God, like a design engineer, works on his system. The entire universe or the creation is filled with something or other, whether we can see, feel or discover them or not. Each infinitesimal point in the Universe is filled with some mass-less thing that let us call OM rather than atom or sub-atomic particles like neutrinos. Conceptually, no vacuum exists. All that we see and feel or cannot see or feel are floating in the media called OM. The natural process takes place in this OM. The OM is constant, indivisible, limitless infinity. God Himself is the System that evolves and adapts in this OM. The natural system design is a process that evolves and adapts. That is why the ancient sages believed that God splits Himself in to many forms and then integrates back into one form or become formless. The division and multiplication process continues continuously in sub-atomic particles, in atoms, in living beings, in oceans, mountains, in air, in the Sun ad stars, in the cosmos within the known universe and within that part of the universe that is yet unknown, undiscovered by Man. As with anything else, the emergence and evolution of Mankind and human civilization is nothing but the result of that never-ending natural process. What Man comes to know about the Universe at what point of time is also part of the same stochastic Destiny Process. No one can be independent of that process.
G: Even God is not independent of that process?
S: Right.
G: So, even God does not exercise independent choice.
S: Correct. See, most people will agree that there should not be any War or military conflict in the World. Wars have always had a devastating effect on the minds of people only after Man came to know how to protect them form storms, fire, earthquakes, floods, rains, volcanoes, epidemics and etc. These physical/ natural calamities had a beneficial effect on Man. The benefits were immense in terms of progress of science and technology as well as religion and philosophy. The Wars have tremendous benefits that people do not want to count. These benefits again take the form of progress in science and technology, greater understanding of the sources of conflict leading to war, development of better methods of negotiations for peace, enabling people to learn their mistakes and foolishness, the embarrassment to the false pride of people/ nations or their leaders of both the fighting parties.
G: It is amusing to think of benefits of War! Are Wars fought because the benefits are substantially higher than the costs?
S: Alexander the Great forced wars on other countries if they had not agreed to become part of his Empire without a fight. People have learnt lessons from such wars including the World War I and II. Today, people do not fight wars to expand their territories. But they fight because both parties are unable to give up the attachment to their past and accept the reality as in Palestine. Or, they take uncompromising stance to belittle each other as in the case of the US and Saddam (and now some of the divided Iraqi groups). Maybe, people would take lessons in future and learn not to act so foolishly as Saddam, France, Germany and Russia did. Maybe, future US administration and military would learn to develop effective strategies to deter the rise of oppressive tyrants like Saddam who threaten World peace without going to war or win wars against such tyrants without causing human casualty or avoiding human sufferings.
G: You imply that Wars cannot ever be banished from Earth?
S: So far wars seem to have been inevitable. Even Lord Rama had to fight and inflict a great cost to his followers and Ravana's Kingdom. Lord Krishna could not stop the Kurukshetra War and its devastating consequences. But successive generations have learnt highly beneficial lessons from these Wars.
G: If the costs are so huge, why should your God System make Wars inevitable?
S: We estimate only the costs of War. We must also learn to estimate the benefits of War. So long as there exists a fair chance (in probabilistic sense) that the benefits of a war may far exceed the costs of War, Man is likely to remain potentially violent to slip into Wars from time to time.
I personally think the cost of Iraq war is much lower as compared to some other wars US engaged herself in the past. The War benefits to society may have been much bigger. Man has made considerable progress and continue to do so in reducing the costs of war and enhance the benefits from war.
G: The war in Iraq still continues in 2006 with US Military actively present. The US has failed to win the war.
S: The Iraq war, according to me, is over. US military can withdraw from Iraq, if the war was to unseat and banish Saddam and destroy weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The remaining people fighting in Iraq will continue to fight civil wars because they are still intoxicated by the warring spirit and selfishness.
G: Even not counting the damages after the fall of Saddam regime, the cost of the War is substantial. The money could have been better spent for human welfare.
S: But war benefits are also to be counted. Just by allowing the War in Iraq to happen the way it has many Arab World countries have become further wealthier through rise in crude oil prices and poorer countries like China and India continued to get more of their citizens employed and become richer by providing the American cheap supply of cheap food, clothing, furniture, software services etc and all these on loan. It is not so easy to calculate costs and benefits of War to Humanity as easily as some think because they believe that there are no benefits from Wars.
G: Are you a warmonger?
S: No, I am not. Lest others misunderstand, I must state that I do not want wars to happen even if the benefits far exceed costs of wars. I am among those who are frightened by wars. But ex-post evaluation of the desirability of a war by estimating only the costs and ignoring benefits, to my mind, is dishonesty or trick or simple ignorance.
G: Can you prove that the cost of Iraq War is much less than the benefit of the war?
S: I probably can, but only after a few years when the benefits become clearly evident. However, when man or a nation makes a choice to go in for war, it can only make a forecast of likely costs and benefits. The forecasts may not always come true as all forecasts of the future are probabilistic and can never be made with certainty. All wars may not necessarily result in positive net benefits, even if ex ante forecasts anticipated net benefits.
G: So, you hedge your position by introducing probabilities. That’s clever but not convincing.
S: I welcome your comment. It is exactly the same comment that applies to any other ex-ante or ex-post attempt to evaluate the desirability of war based on estimates of cost. They are all clever attempts that fail to convince.
G: But the US had launched war in Iraq to get a strong hold over Iraq’s large oil reserves.
S: I do not have any idea about what goes on in the minds of the US administration or the Americans. Maybe, you know better. But I would not consider that such an objective for Iraq war is really in the feasible zone in the modern day world. Rather such an objective may be feasible through less costlier non-war methods. A perpetual UN sanction regime with UN-operated sale of Iraqi oil auction to multinational oil companies could have been designed to suit US interest in Iraqi Oil. In any case, the war was destined to happen as per the Destiny Principle. The choice of the War by the US and Saddam was destined.
G: So you may agree that both political and economic interests may lead to wars.
S: Anyone will agree to such a Statement. But these causes have in turn some fundamental causes that are related to the tendencies human beings have been imparted by the Destiny Principle. Wars are the result of the same Grand Process that yields natural phenomenon like sunami, hurricanes, earthquakes, burning of the Sun, the planetary motion, the emergence of life on earth, the reproduction of life forms, the growth of children and the death of human beings.
G: While I do not agree with you that wars are nothing but another form of natural calamities, can I shift to another area where Man has proved his independence? Man has designed new systems and policies to improve his economic conditions. These economic decisions are not forced by any destiny principle: they are of Man’s own.
S: Should we shift this new area of your choice to the next session of our dialogue?
G: That is what it seems destined.
G: It seems that you believe that God makes all choices. Human beings chooses what they are destined to choose as individuals or as groups or societies.
S: Yes, but even God’s choices are part of a process that I call the Destiny Principle.
G: A Nobel Laureate says that societies and people should have the opportunity and ability to consider alternative choices available. You seem to say that he is incorrect!
S: No, I do not say that. What he says is what he is destined to say. He is correct in what he says. That is how human civilization progresses. The impact of what he says on others now and in future will be as per the Stochastic Destiny Process. The exercise of choice is the process through which Mankind advances. But the choices taken actually taken are not independent decision of any man or a group. The discovery of choices, the willingness to make choices and the actual choice making are all outcomes of forces beyond the independent control of an individual or a group. We choose that we are destined to choose given the past, the forces of prevailing circumstances and the properties/ inclinations in built in each of us.
G: Isn’t that contradictory?
S: No. It is part of the destiny process that most people continue to think about making choices, generate alternative choices and feel that they make choices. Destined choices by any person do not come from out of the blue: they come out of the destined process. People may think about alternatives but choose the one that is best according to some criteria. Some one decides to do something to maximize his self-interest. Some others decide to do something in the interest of someone else or the society. These criteria have also evolved over time. If some people do not think about making choices, and someone advises them to empower themselves by making choices as result of which those people become choice-making people, this is what is in the destiny. I believe in Destiny Principle and simultaneously make choices and advise other to make rational choices. I do not find any conflict. I do whatever I do in making choices and advising others on making choices only because I am destined and compelled to do so by the forces that have been operating on my body and mind since my birth.
G: I thought that those who would believe in your Destiny Principle are irrational, unscientific minds attached to old scriptures that are no more relevant to modern civilizations.
S: You are destined to think like that. You are as correct as I am about Destiny Principle.
G: But over the centuries, Human Society has expanded its stock of knowledge that gives the power to control destiny. So, nowadays we should be saying that we make our destinies.
S: Man has acquired great knowledge no doubt. That was destined to happen. Man did not acquire knowledge by choice but by the forces of destiny. Even that knowledge acquired so far is far, far inadequate for Man to be able to alter his destiny even a little. Assume that a man-made computer clock knows how it keeps time. Would that make it change the time? No. Even if one had the entire knowledge, one cannot control one’s destiny.
G: Isn’t Man’s life different now than what was centuries back because of the expansion of Man’s knowledge? Can we not say that Man has changed his destiny?
S: No. You cannot logically claim that. In the history of natural evolutionary process, man is of recent origin. This process has imparted many properties in human beings. One such property is to discover what goes on in the environment, acquire knowledge and apply knowledge to change the way Man lives. This is the working out of the Destiny Principle. Man was destined by the process to discover numerous properties of the physical world and destined to use this growing knowledge to light fire, grow food, hunt animals, kill fish, cook food, construct better shelter, weave clothes, build machines, defend against natural calamities, fly airplanes, communicate long-distance through radio frequency, invent computer and internet, formulate drugs to cure diseases and help extend life expectancy, send manned and unmanned spacecraft to probe the planets and the stars in the skies. All this was destined. Man had no control over the process.
G: Such an explanation would rob Man of his great achievements.
S: Do we have to give credit to children as they grow up slowly in to full grown adult bodies and acquire mental capabilities to deal with complex concepts and various languages. This happens naturally because it is a natural process. Most babies are destined to grow up into adult bodies: babies do not choose to become adults.
G: You seem to make Man as an integral part of Nature as all other things in the Universe.
S: Is there any specific reason that one must consider human beings as autonomous entities outside the Natural System?
G: The Universe has been expanding. It shows that completely new things can emerge independent of the Natural System.
S: No. It does not show that. The discovery that Universe is expanding means that the distances among galaxies are increasing. But this expansion is taking place in what? When you walk east and I walk west the physical distance between us increases. But the distance exists on the surface of the land. When fire expands in size, the expansion takes place over a three-dimensional space that always exists. Similarly, the previously known Universe can expand only within the hitherto unknown Universe. The distances among galaxies can increase if the galaxies drift apart in space that already existed even if unknown to us so far. It is a completely endogenous system in which nothing can emerge independent or nothing exogenous can arrive from outside.
G: So you do not believe that the Universe is expanding?
S: The Universe is Infinite. The things within the universe can expand or contract within the universe. If the Universe has to expand it has to expand within the Universe. Ask yourself where is it that the Universe is expanding? If you admit of anything separate where the expansion takes place, then it must be already in existence whether previously known to exist or not. The entire universe is filled with something or the other, whether we can observe them or not, whether they have mass or not. The size of the Universe is Infinity. Where are the limits of the Universe? There are none. If something within the universe expands it must be within the previously known parts of the Universe or newly dioscovered, hitherto unknown parts of the Universe.
G: OK. For a moment let us assume that you are correct that your Stochastic Destiny Principle operates as a process over the domain of this infinite Universe System that is completely endogenous and does not admit of any external, outside shock. Now, please explain how would you design such a process and system that is ever lasting.
S: I am sure you do not require me to write a treatise on this subject and detail the design of an infinite system and its inherent process or processes. You probably want to visualize the feasibility of such design. I suggest that you do some small experiments. For instance, you may take a big graph paper. Take a red pencil, a blue pencil and an eraser that can remove marks on graph paper without affecting the strength of the paper. Toss a coin. When a head comes, put a red dot on any one of the small blank squares on the graph paper. When a tail occurs, put a blue dot on any one of the small blank square within the distance of three small squares from any previously coloured small squares or if that is not possible choose any other blank square to put the blue dot mark. After you have done this for four dots, in every fifth draw erase any two squares already coloured. Go on doing this to see how long you last. Now, record the destiny of different squares and colours in terms of their longevity in terms of number of tosses a square remains coloured and number of blue dotted and red dotted small squares.
G: Such games may be never ending. But how does this help me.
S: It will help you design endogenous systems that last forever without external shocks and without giving any part of the system any real discretion to choose.
G: When did God design the system and how? Or, does he continually design and redesign the system.
S: I really do not know. But I do not believe that God, like a design engineer, works on his system. The entire universe or the creation is filled with something or other, whether we can see, feel or discover them or not. Each infinitesimal point in the Universe is filled with some mass-less thing that let us call OM rather than atom or sub-atomic particles like neutrinos. Conceptually, no vacuum exists. All that we see and feel or cannot see or feel are floating in the media called OM. The natural process takes place in this OM. The OM is constant, indivisible, limitless infinity. God Himself is the System that evolves and adapts in this OM. The natural system design is a process that evolves and adapts. That is why the ancient sages believed that God splits Himself in to many forms and then integrates back into one form or become formless. The division and multiplication process continues continuously in sub-atomic particles, in atoms, in living beings, in oceans, mountains, in air, in the Sun ad stars, in the cosmos within the known universe and within that part of the universe that is yet unknown, undiscovered by Man. As with anything else, the emergence and evolution of Mankind and human civilization is nothing but the result of that never-ending natural process. What Man comes to know about the Universe at what point of time is also part of the same stochastic Destiny Process. No one can be independent of that process.
G: Even God is not independent of that process?
S: Right.
G: So, even God does not exercise independent choice.
S: Correct. See, most people will agree that there should not be any War or military conflict in the World. Wars have always had a devastating effect on the minds of people only after Man came to know how to protect them form storms, fire, earthquakes, floods, rains, volcanoes, epidemics and etc. These physical/ natural calamities had a beneficial effect on Man. The benefits were immense in terms of progress of science and technology as well as religion and philosophy. The Wars have tremendous benefits that people do not want to count. These benefits again take the form of progress in science and technology, greater understanding of the sources of conflict leading to war, development of better methods of negotiations for peace, enabling people to learn their mistakes and foolishness, the embarrassment to the false pride of people/ nations or their leaders of both the fighting parties.
G: It is amusing to think of benefits of War! Are Wars fought because the benefits are substantially higher than the costs?
S: Alexander the Great forced wars on other countries if they had not agreed to become part of his Empire without a fight. People have learnt lessons from such wars including the World War I and II. Today, people do not fight wars to expand their territories. But they fight because both parties are unable to give up the attachment to their past and accept the reality as in Palestine. Or, they take uncompromising stance to belittle each other as in the case of the US and Saddam (and now some of the divided Iraqi groups). Maybe, people would take lessons in future and learn not to act so foolishly as Saddam, France, Germany and Russia did. Maybe, future US administration and military would learn to develop effective strategies to deter the rise of oppressive tyrants like Saddam who threaten World peace without going to war or win wars against such tyrants without causing human casualty or avoiding human sufferings.
G: You imply that Wars cannot ever be banished from Earth?
S: So far wars seem to have been inevitable. Even Lord Rama had to fight and inflict a great cost to his followers and Ravana's Kingdom. Lord Krishna could not stop the Kurukshetra War and its devastating consequences. But successive generations have learnt highly beneficial lessons from these Wars.
G: If the costs are so huge, why should your God System make Wars inevitable?
S: We estimate only the costs of War. We must also learn to estimate the benefits of War. So long as there exists a fair chance (in probabilistic sense) that the benefits of a war may far exceed the costs of War, Man is likely to remain potentially violent to slip into Wars from time to time.
I personally think the cost of Iraq war is much lower as compared to some other wars US engaged herself in the past. The War benefits to society may have been much bigger. Man has made considerable progress and continue to do so in reducing the costs of war and enhance the benefits from war.
G: The war in Iraq still continues in 2006 with US Military actively present. The US has failed to win the war.
S: The Iraq war, according to me, is over. US military can withdraw from Iraq, if the war was to unseat and banish Saddam and destroy weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The remaining people fighting in Iraq will continue to fight civil wars because they are still intoxicated by the warring spirit and selfishness.
G: Even not counting the damages after the fall of Saddam regime, the cost of the War is substantial. The money could have been better spent for human welfare.
S: But war benefits are also to be counted. Just by allowing the War in Iraq to happen the way it has many Arab World countries have become further wealthier through rise in crude oil prices and poorer countries like China and India continued to get more of their citizens employed and become richer by providing the American cheap supply of cheap food, clothing, furniture, software services etc and all these on loan. It is not so easy to calculate costs and benefits of War to Humanity as easily as some think because they believe that there are no benefits from Wars.
G: Are you a warmonger?
S: No, I am not. Lest others misunderstand, I must state that I do not want wars to happen even if the benefits far exceed costs of wars. I am among those who are frightened by wars. But ex-post evaluation of the desirability of a war by estimating only the costs and ignoring benefits, to my mind, is dishonesty or trick or simple ignorance.
G: Can you prove that the cost of Iraq War is much less than the benefit of the war?
S: I probably can, but only after a few years when the benefits become clearly evident. However, when man or a nation makes a choice to go in for war, it can only make a forecast of likely costs and benefits. The forecasts may not always come true as all forecasts of the future are probabilistic and can never be made with certainty. All wars may not necessarily result in positive net benefits, even if ex ante forecasts anticipated net benefits.
G: So, you hedge your position by introducing probabilities. That’s clever but not convincing.
S: I welcome your comment. It is exactly the same comment that applies to any other ex-ante or ex-post attempt to evaluate the desirability of war based on estimates of cost. They are all clever attempts that fail to convince.
G: But the US had launched war in Iraq to get a strong hold over Iraq’s large oil reserves.
S: I do not have any idea about what goes on in the minds of the US administration or the Americans. Maybe, you know better. But I would not consider that such an objective for Iraq war is really in the feasible zone in the modern day world. Rather such an objective may be feasible through less costlier non-war methods. A perpetual UN sanction regime with UN-operated sale of Iraqi oil auction to multinational oil companies could have been designed to suit US interest in Iraqi Oil. In any case, the war was destined to happen as per the Destiny Principle. The choice of the War by the US and Saddam was destined.
G: So you may agree that both political and economic interests may lead to wars.
S: Anyone will agree to such a Statement. But these causes have in turn some fundamental causes that are related to the tendencies human beings have been imparted by the Destiny Principle. Wars are the result of the same Grand Process that yields natural phenomenon like sunami, hurricanes, earthquakes, burning of the Sun, the planetary motion, the emergence of life on earth, the reproduction of life forms, the growth of children and the death of human beings.
G: While I do not agree with you that wars are nothing but another form of natural calamities, can I shift to another area where Man has proved his independence? Man has designed new systems and policies to improve his economic conditions. These economic decisions are not forced by any destiny principle: they are of Man’s own.
S: Should we shift this new area of your choice to the next session of our dialogue?
G: That is what it seems destined.
Destiny of Choice 005
Democratic Equality and Freedom
G: You seem to be of the view that the Natural process or your Stochastic Destiny Principle entirely explains all social phenomena? What about political systems like democracy?
S: Yes.
G: How can that be so? We know that Democracy is a Political System created by Man to treat all human beings equally in the political process.
S: You have an illusion. Try to answer a few questions and you will realize that Concept of Democracy was not created by Man but evolved out of a process. Societies or the Mankind did not make a deliberate choice in favour of democracy but had no choice but to become democratic in varying degrees depending on circumstances.
G: What are the questions that one should ask?
S: The first question is: Is democracy as a political system everywhere it is claimed to be adopted the same?
G: Certainly not. There are wide differences. They talk about liberal democracies, people’s democracy. In some democratic countries, elected governments and military generals become rulers in musical chairs. In some democracies, women had no right to vote. In others, dead citizens appear in electoral rolls and cast votes, many living citizens do not find their names in electoral rolls, some other citizens find their votes have already been miraculously cast by the time they get to the polling stations and still others are either not allowed to enter polling stations or are not willing to go to cast their votes because of fear of being physically assaulted on the way or they do not find any value in voting process.
S: Yes. There are democracies that boast of two major parties contesting elections and others with large number of parties. There are strong single-party governments and there are governments of five to ten parties in coalition. If there are so many variations, can we call democracy has been a deliberate choice made by different societies? There are countries where elections are held under the supervision of large complement of military and police forces brought from different localities or even different countries.
G: Why should foreign countries get involved in installation of democracy in a country like say Iraq? Each country should decide to choose whether it should adopt democracy or not.
S: You have to answer this. For, oppressive dictators in so-called republics or democracies would always argue that no elections are necessary as the people in their countries have accepted the military dictatorships as the best for them. At best they will conduct their own version of elections to force all people to vote only for the military junta or get killed. There is always a chicken and egg problem: which comes first- democratic choice or choice of democracy. Even within a declared democratic country, the way elections are conducted in a locality cannot ever be disputed. The ruling party will always win the elections through unfair election processes and claim that the election results show that the people have exercised their choice in favour of the way the elections have been conducted. The ruling party will say that no Independent Election Commission is necessary in democracy and such Independent Election Commisions’ interference in laying down new rules of electioneering, election campaign, drawing up voters’ lists and other related processes is unwarranted. If a country is really destined to have real democracy, it would also be destined to have political parties that are willing to accept fully transparent and open election process even to the extent of independent third country supervision and electronic/ live camera monitoring of the entire process. The election processes differ considerably among democratic countries in terms of their credibility and as indicator of the quality of democracy.
G: Despite the differences, they are broadly of the same category. And, some of the differences are not because of a fundamental difference in the concept but because of the characteristics of politicians. For example, in our country politicians seem like inevitable devils of democracy. India was ruled by outsiders for several centuries, and is now ruled by 'insiders'. As a 'nation' we seem to have a history of liking to be 'ruled'. I guess it will take quite a few decades to clean democratic processes. Politics has always been interesting, despite the dirty things, the killings and so on associated with politics.
S: So ask the second question. Is it democracy in which most citizens are really interested? The basic property of most human beings throughout the history of civilization is that they in general like to be ruled. There must be one individual or group who should rule with the help of their cronies. Kings, aristocracies, communists have all been dictatorship rules. Democracy in most countries for most of the time benefited the so-called elected rulers rather than the ruled. The difference between democracy and other political systems is only that in the other systems, a bad ruler may be thrown out by another ruler, good or bad, depending on the luck of the ruled. But, in most democracies, a bad ruler is almost always replaced by the ruled through their ballot boxes, by only another bad rulers. Good rulers have theoretically negligible chance/ probability of emergence in democracy. There is another theorem: Those who sell democracy to the people are almost always aspiring to become kings or their cronies. If I were a teacher in politics, I would have taught my students to prove the above theorems mathematically and helped them to laugh at how the most oppressive political system ever known is sold in the new label of Democracy in India and elsewhere.
G: I agree with you that there are problems with democracy. But what could be an alternative to democracy?
S: I do not think I know if there exists any better alternative
to Democracy. I believe that Democracy is the only alternative to
Democracy. I will try to clarify the confusion arising now. For that we ask the third question. What are searching for in democracy or what is our objective?
If the objective is to maximise (a) the extent of freedom and liberty to
individuals, (b) the level and quality of education among the people in
general, (c) the progress of science and technology in the nation, (d) the
quality of life of all and (e) economic prosperity for all, Democracy alone
can not help us achieve this. Nor can Capitalism alone achieve this on its own.
Many countries have declared them as Democratic Socialist Republics or
People's Republic. Last century’s history may help prove the theorem that countries with such names are most likely to be oppressive and guaranteed to fail in achieving the standards of economic progress and individual liberty achieved
by the advanced countries which do not have any prefix or suffix like
republic, democratic, socialist and the like. Again, in ancient India there might have been many small Hindu Kingdoms that were really ruled in the most democratic manner and they were reasonably prosperous, safe for citizens life and liberal in tolerating diversity of ideas, besides being enjoying peace and non-violence at least within the country. But they did not announce to the World that they were democracies. Their democracies succeeded so long as they valued individual liberty and freedom more than the King. So, the answer to the third question is that democracy is not the solution to all our problems. It can deliver only to the extent the overall environment in which it functions.
G: You seem to be arguing for examining democracy not as a pure political concept but in the overall social, economic, cultural, philosophical context.
S: Yes, we are not merely trying to debate for the sake of it. Therefore, we need to see how the choice of a political framework in practice arises. To me, it is not a deliberate choice. It is a destined choice: an evolving outcome of a natural process that I call the Stochastic Destiny Principle. The people who conceptualized the idea of democracy did not do so in a vacuum but were influenced by the forces in operation in the society in relevant times and therefore were in the strictest sense forced by the Destiny Process to think in the ways the actually thought. Secondly, Democracy by itself cannot help us achieve most of the desired objectives. If the cultures in which you place democracy, people do not really understand, believe in and place the highest value on individual liberty and freedom, democracy cannot help achieve the societal objectives nor can it become democracy.
G: How would a most democratic State behave if the overall culture were not so congenial to practice real democracy?
S: I cannot make definitive prescription as I am tied to my Stochastic Destiny Principle. All that I can say is that a state that places the highest value on the freedom and liberty of each individual will try to build the most
efficient, extensive infrastructure for justice, peace, education, health,
science and technology rather than wasting time in building steel mills,
watch factories, bread factories and manage cloth factories, fertiliser
factories and so on. A State that calls itself democracy but whose priority
is on economic development is not going to practice democracy and will fail
to deliver economic prosperity to its people.
G: Since you seem to be placing the value of democracy only in the overall environmental context, we need to ask about the concept of capitalism, socialism, international economic order and militarism in our discussions. I am particularly worried about corruption, fast depletion of non-renewable resources of the earth, brute capitalistic exploitation and international military conflicts.
S: You are worried about corruption. Democracy on a stand-alone basis does not cure corruption. You may find corruption to be low among
countries that have democracies, largely free market capitalism, high standards of living, high literacy, high level of efforts in science and technology, low levels of
religious intolerance. And, the countries that are in the top in terms of
corruption are those ruled by dictators/ groups of ruffians with citizens
afflicted by low levels of literacy and education, low level of science and technology, high levels of religious intolerance.
G: I need to empirically verify this.
S: You also need to verify certain other facts. If you are worried about the depletion of the earth's resources, you must verify whether the most inefficient extraction and utilisation of nature's resources takes place in countries like India, Pakistan, China and whether the most efficient are the advanced Western capitalist democracies. If you talk about wars, you must verify whether most wars are among economically advanced western capitalist democracies including Japan.
G: I guess I am getting what you are trying to say.
S: What I am saying is that looking at democracy or capitalism for all
solution is not the correct way of thinking about the society. This way of
looking at solving society's problem has arisen from the indigestion of
western education by low quality brains of Indian social elite leaders and their
followers mostly those who could not have competed in any other sphere of life except politics and without the help of political clout. The latter included many who were first class cheaters as well: they sought to increase their popularity by singing the songs of Gandhiji or Tagore or Karl Marx, but had no intent to understand or follow their preaching. When such people lead the Nation, people in general become like them: cheaters, power-seekers and power-abusers. The objective of democracy in such environment is to allow access to State power for personal and group enrichment. The same is the story in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Iran, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, etc.
G: So, you are not recommending that we strengthen democracy in all countries, irrespective of capitalism or socialism or communism being there or not.
S: I am destined to hesitate in recommending because I do not believe that my recommendations, if accepted and acted upon, will, definitely or most likely, yield the desired results. I can only say what I have observed. I have observed that the democracy, capitalism and socialism are not stand-alone instruments that have succeeded or failed to deliver. Countries have practiced these ideas in varying ways in different environmental contexts. Some combinations of features in certain environment succeeded in bringing about results that we may consider most desirable, while certain other combinations did not. You may like to consider imagining introducing democracy in the society of elephants, tigers, lions, and other animals. Will such societies practice democracy they way human beings would have wished? Democracy is practiced by educated, civilized people
who really value individual liberty in a ways that are different than the largely uneducated societies ruled by all pervasive State (Governments) power in the hands of elective representatives.
G: On similar grounds, you may say that capitalism is destined to. Capitalism yields 'good life' to great many people who do not have time and energy to care about others in the World. Capitalism seems to thriving on 'creating want' and 'rampant consumption'.
S: What I can say is that capitalism has been seen to succeed in delivering prosperity to great many people for long periods, though not all the time only in civilized societies that values individual liberty and freedom more than the power of the State/ Government. For the past two centuries, capitalistic societies have made the most dramatic advancement in economic prosperity, education, science and technology, sports, culture and entertainment, human rights and human values. It seems to me that rich of the capitalist societies has shown greater concern and care for the poor in non-capitalistic societies. The large population of the poorer nations of the World have only benefited from the progress of science and technology in the capitalist countries. For example, India has only little to boast of her contribution to the progress of science and technology, but much of her economic progress is due to the technology borrowed or bought from the capitalist West.
G: I do not agree with you. I am rather concerned that capitalism’s arrival in India and China can have disastrous consequences for planet earth. Again, capitalism may be lesser evil than the only alternative of socialism that talks great about 'needs' of all and particularly the weaker sections op the society but successfully degraded into a different form of power-abuse and corruption?
S: I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you on the consequences of capitalism coming into India or China. The experience of capitalism or democracy may not be the same in the animal world or human societies where most children are taught to either fear or grab the State power and discouraged to value individual freedom and liberty. Rather, the individuals and groups are encouraged to seek economic prosperity by clandestinely influencing, grabbing and abusing State power in one’s/ group’s favour.
G: You seem to be against any big role of the State beyond law and order and external security.
S: I am neither against nor for any of the political or economic models. I do not find much merit in justifying anything. Whether a country claims to practice democracy or socialism is immaterial. What is actually practiced delivers the results. If the results are consistently good for long periods for most people, the practices must have contributed to that. The practices prevailing in a country evolve over time and the results that such practices produce are part of what were destined to happen, they are not independent choices. Those who claim to practice democracy are not necessarily those who actually practice democracy. Those who actually practice democracy are destined to so. And, the same is true of those who claim so but actually does not believe in individual liberty and freedom except for restricted purpose to elections.
G: You will say the same thing about socialism. In a sense you seem to against socialism.
S: I repeat that I am neither for nor against anything because of my belief in Destiny Principle. I only state what I observe. Socialism and Communism have been found to perform the way capitalism has done in some countries in the West.
Even Socialism and Communism as practiced in the World so far are to my mind nothing but variants of capitalism, variants in which capitalists, though not owners of resources, enjoy all the power to use them and these capitalists are those who do not get selected through market competition but get elected to use State power or their selected servants. These countries are destined to go through the experience of such socialism and communism, as are distorted versions of capitalism.
G: But how do different countries go through the experience of different variants of democracy, socialism and capitalism?
S: The whole time path of events and happenings are different in different countries. I do not know why they are different. What I believe is that this is in the nature of things in the evolutionary process. It is like the difference of skin colour of people in different regions, the variation in food habits in different regions, the differences in languages, in natural endowments or in history of conflicts and wars. Nothing that happens today in a society is independent of what happened in the past.
G: But things change over time. How?
S: The seeds of change are also in the past. High population growth during the past decades has altered the demography in India. Now close to 50% of the Indian population is below the age of 25 years. The younger generations seem to be viewing things in a different way and trying to assert their freedom and liberty in the urban and metro areas. The recent years have been witnessing rapid spread of international television channels, the coverage of international news in domestic channels, the variety of debates on domestic and local social, political and economic issues, the spread of internet usage and the like. All this has considerable impact on the attitudes and preferences of younger generations. The adolescent and the youth now show both a growing pride in the recent economic successes of the nation as well as a stronger preference for adopting a broader international perspective for acquiring knowledge and skill. The narrow perspective, reluctance to face challenges of the unknown and the strange, and the obsolescence of the skills of elder generations are fast waning in their impact on new generations. How far and when the attitudes and preferences of the new generations will begin dominating, I cannot forecast. One may only speculate about two possible destinies. One possibility is that the highly populated societies like India (and China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia) will become the cause of the gravest disaster that you may call man-made because you do not believe in destiny. The other possibility is that some of these societies will be transformed by the attitudes and preferences of the current generation of children who place greater value on individual liberty more than the State and more open to globalization and technological progress.
G: But what do you conclude from our discussion on democracy, capitalism and socialism?
S: My conclusion is that the features of the society and the economy at any point of time and the changes we observe in them over time in any country is the result of the various naturally interacting forces in that country and the countries to which the particular country is connected to in varying degrees. All such forces are part of the Stochastic Destiny Principle. Thus, this Principle explains both the type of democracy or capitalism or socialism prevailing at any point of time and evolving over time in each country as well as the success of any country in achieving goals that you or me or others consider desirable. The destined time path of no country is in the control of deliberate choice of the societies concerned, least of all to political leaders. The actions of individuals, groups and political leaders are not deliberate social choices but the result of interactive forces linked to the Stochastic Destiny Principle.
G: So, you do not believe that societies make choices.
S: I do not believe that Individuals or societies can make real independent choices. What an individual does is to get into the choice that he is conditioned and forced to make given his/ her natural (genetic) propensities and the circumstances. Social choices are not made: they emerge as the result of interactions of destined individual choices. The political mechanism to translate or aggregate individual choices into social choices is also similarly destined outcomes. The Indians of today or of 1947 did not make a choice in favour of democracy: the variant of democracy that we currently operate in just evolved under the impact of various forces operating in the past. Sooner rather than later, India may transcend this distorted, negative variant of democracy to more open, transparent and positive variant of democracy.
G: You are saying many things. You not only believe in destiny and lack of independent choice for individuals and societies. You are also saying that what we term as democracy need not be democracy at all.
S: Yes, even if a society feels that it is making a choice to adopt democracy, it does not necessarily adopt democracy. It may not even know what democracy it wishes to adopt and how it evolves over time. Often democracy means Government “ of the people, by the people and for the people”. This rhetoric makes people believe that they are in democracy when actually they are not.
G: Please illustrate.
S: Most often democratic countries are actually run by governments that are “ off the people, beyond the people and fraud on the people”. You are led to believe that democracy means the right to cast vote in elections. If 50% of the electorate is illiterate or uneducated what you have is 50% illiterate and uneducated democracy. There is difference between 80% educated and 50% educated democracies. If there are 50% uneducated voters, why should they vote for educated people? Why should uneducated politicians make people educated? In democracies with political active population who are uneducated, efforts will be made to education a farce. They will question the rule of law. They will question the fairness of educated judiciary. They will question the authority and independence of educated election commissioners. They will question the quality and independence of the educated educationists/ teachers of the places of learning from primary school to universities. They will question the necessity of high standards of education. Thus you will slowly see the decline in standards of education, politicians as education administrators, relaxation of standards of tests and qualifying marks so that the uneducated can be counted as educated. So, the society will justify poor education as a desirable goal selected in a democratic way.
G: You are dramatizing.
S: Not really. In a country where 70% of the people are uneducated and also smoke bidis (a form of cigarettes), what kind of laws will be passed on smoking, what rates of tax will be imposed on bidis and what kind of research on tobacco and cancer will be funded by the Government? We know how low quality educationists have been inducted into education system by politicians. If the Government and the elected representatives of the people start acting on the premise that they are the only authorized and also the most competent persons/ groups to decide about everything in the society, you do not have democracy. Democracy is not all about winning the elections to get the power to lord over others.
G: So, people may claim that they have or trying to have democracy. But they are far from that. Democratic equality does not follow human choice. Nations have to accept whatever democratic equality or inequality emerges at any point of time in conformity with the Stochastic Destiny Principle.
S: Democracy is a formula to resolve conflicts among individuals and groups. It is an arbitrary rule. It has no sanctity of its own. But it has a special appeal because it is a rule for the domination of majority. Even if the majority is foolish or brute, cruel, you have to accept it sportingly. If the whole world was one country, Indians and Chinese would have ruled the World and taken away all the petroleum oil the Arab countries would have had. The application of democracy was not intended to serve the majority but to protect the oppression of the majority by the few. But that is not what democracy is able to deliver most of the time. It cannot because it is so destined. The process of practical application of the concept of democracy can vary so widely and is so susceptible to fraud, cheating and manipulation that the impact on the society often turns out to be opposite of and completely different from what the concept of democracy promises to deliver.
G: And, according to you, this is only natural and therefore destined.
G: You seem to be of the view that the Natural process or your Stochastic Destiny Principle entirely explains all social phenomena? What about political systems like democracy?
S: Yes.
G: How can that be so? We know that Democracy is a Political System created by Man to treat all human beings equally in the political process.
S: You have an illusion. Try to answer a few questions and you will realize that Concept of Democracy was not created by Man but evolved out of a process. Societies or the Mankind did not make a deliberate choice in favour of democracy but had no choice but to become democratic in varying degrees depending on circumstances.
G: What are the questions that one should ask?
S: The first question is: Is democracy as a political system everywhere it is claimed to be adopted the same?
G: Certainly not. There are wide differences. They talk about liberal democracies, people’s democracy. In some democratic countries, elected governments and military generals become rulers in musical chairs. In some democracies, women had no right to vote. In others, dead citizens appear in electoral rolls and cast votes, many living citizens do not find their names in electoral rolls, some other citizens find their votes have already been miraculously cast by the time they get to the polling stations and still others are either not allowed to enter polling stations or are not willing to go to cast their votes because of fear of being physically assaulted on the way or they do not find any value in voting process.
S: Yes. There are democracies that boast of two major parties contesting elections and others with large number of parties. There are strong single-party governments and there are governments of five to ten parties in coalition. If there are so many variations, can we call democracy has been a deliberate choice made by different societies? There are countries where elections are held under the supervision of large complement of military and police forces brought from different localities or even different countries.
G: Why should foreign countries get involved in installation of democracy in a country like say Iraq? Each country should decide to choose whether it should adopt democracy or not.
S: You have to answer this. For, oppressive dictators in so-called republics or democracies would always argue that no elections are necessary as the people in their countries have accepted the military dictatorships as the best for them. At best they will conduct their own version of elections to force all people to vote only for the military junta or get killed. There is always a chicken and egg problem: which comes first- democratic choice or choice of democracy. Even within a declared democratic country, the way elections are conducted in a locality cannot ever be disputed. The ruling party will always win the elections through unfair election processes and claim that the election results show that the people have exercised their choice in favour of the way the elections have been conducted. The ruling party will say that no Independent Election Commission is necessary in democracy and such Independent Election Commisions’ interference in laying down new rules of electioneering, election campaign, drawing up voters’ lists and other related processes is unwarranted. If a country is really destined to have real democracy, it would also be destined to have political parties that are willing to accept fully transparent and open election process even to the extent of independent third country supervision and electronic/ live camera monitoring of the entire process. The election processes differ considerably among democratic countries in terms of their credibility and as indicator of the quality of democracy.
G: Despite the differences, they are broadly of the same category. And, some of the differences are not because of a fundamental difference in the concept but because of the characteristics of politicians. For example, in our country politicians seem like inevitable devils of democracy. India was ruled by outsiders for several centuries, and is now ruled by 'insiders'. As a 'nation' we seem to have a history of liking to be 'ruled'. I guess it will take quite a few decades to clean democratic processes. Politics has always been interesting, despite the dirty things, the killings and so on associated with politics.
S: So ask the second question. Is it democracy in which most citizens are really interested? The basic property of most human beings throughout the history of civilization is that they in general like to be ruled. There must be one individual or group who should rule with the help of their cronies. Kings, aristocracies, communists have all been dictatorship rules. Democracy in most countries for most of the time benefited the so-called elected rulers rather than the ruled. The difference between democracy and other political systems is only that in the other systems, a bad ruler may be thrown out by another ruler, good or bad, depending on the luck of the ruled. But, in most democracies, a bad ruler is almost always replaced by the ruled through their ballot boxes, by only another bad rulers. Good rulers have theoretically negligible chance/ probability of emergence in democracy. There is another theorem: Those who sell democracy to the people are almost always aspiring to become kings or their cronies. If I were a teacher in politics, I would have taught my students to prove the above theorems mathematically and helped them to laugh at how the most oppressive political system ever known is sold in the new label of Democracy in India and elsewhere.
G: I agree with you that there are problems with democracy. But what could be an alternative to democracy?
S: I do not think I know if there exists any better alternative
to Democracy. I believe that Democracy is the only alternative to
Democracy. I will try to clarify the confusion arising now. For that we ask the third question. What are searching for in democracy or what is our objective?
If the objective is to maximise (a) the extent of freedom and liberty to
individuals, (b) the level and quality of education among the people in
general, (c) the progress of science and technology in the nation, (d) the
quality of life of all and (e) economic prosperity for all, Democracy alone
can not help us achieve this. Nor can Capitalism alone achieve this on its own.
Many countries have declared them as Democratic Socialist Republics or
People's Republic. Last century’s history may help prove the theorem that countries with such names are most likely to be oppressive and guaranteed to fail in achieving the standards of economic progress and individual liberty achieved
by the advanced countries which do not have any prefix or suffix like
republic, democratic, socialist and the like. Again, in ancient India there might have been many small Hindu Kingdoms that were really ruled in the most democratic manner and they were reasonably prosperous, safe for citizens life and liberal in tolerating diversity of ideas, besides being enjoying peace and non-violence at least within the country. But they did not announce to the World that they were democracies. Their democracies succeeded so long as they valued individual liberty and freedom more than the King. So, the answer to the third question is that democracy is not the solution to all our problems. It can deliver only to the extent the overall environment in which it functions.
G: You seem to be arguing for examining democracy not as a pure political concept but in the overall social, economic, cultural, philosophical context.
S: Yes, we are not merely trying to debate for the sake of it. Therefore, we need to see how the choice of a political framework in practice arises. To me, it is not a deliberate choice. It is a destined choice: an evolving outcome of a natural process that I call the Stochastic Destiny Principle. The people who conceptualized the idea of democracy did not do so in a vacuum but were influenced by the forces in operation in the society in relevant times and therefore were in the strictest sense forced by the Destiny Process to think in the ways the actually thought. Secondly, Democracy by itself cannot help us achieve most of the desired objectives. If the cultures in which you place democracy, people do not really understand, believe in and place the highest value on individual liberty and freedom, democracy cannot help achieve the societal objectives nor can it become democracy.
G: How would a most democratic State behave if the overall culture were not so congenial to practice real democracy?
S: I cannot make definitive prescription as I am tied to my Stochastic Destiny Principle. All that I can say is that a state that places the highest value on the freedom and liberty of each individual will try to build the most
efficient, extensive infrastructure for justice, peace, education, health,
science and technology rather than wasting time in building steel mills,
watch factories, bread factories and manage cloth factories, fertiliser
factories and so on. A State that calls itself democracy but whose priority
is on economic development is not going to practice democracy and will fail
to deliver economic prosperity to its people.
G: Since you seem to be placing the value of democracy only in the overall environmental context, we need to ask about the concept of capitalism, socialism, international economic order and militarism in our discussions. I am particularly worried about corruption, fast depletion of non-renewable resources of the earth, brute capitalistic exploitation and international military conflicts.
S: You are worried about corruption. Democracy on a stand-alone basis does not cure corruption. You may find corruption to be low among
countries that have democracies, largely free market capitalism, high standards of living, high literacy, high level of efforts in science and technology, low levels of
religious intolerance. And, the countries that are in the top in terms of
corruption are those ruled by dictators/ groups of ruffians with citizens
afflicted by low levels of literacy and education, low level of science and technology, high levels of religious intolerance.
G: I need to empirically verify this.
S: You also need to verify certain other facts. If you are worried about the depletion of the earth's resources, you must verify whether the most inefficient extraction and utilisation of nature's resources takes place in countries like India, Pakistan, China and whether the most efficient are the advanced Western capitalist democracies. If you talk about wars, you must verify whether most wars are among economically advanced western capitalist democracies including Japan.
G: I guess I am getting what you are trying to say.
S: What I am saying is that looking at democracy or capitalism for all
solution is not the correct way of thinking about the society. This way of
looking at solving society's problem has arisen from the indigestion of
western education by low quality brains of Indian social elite leaders and their
followers mostly those who could not have competed in any other sphere of life except politics and without the help of political clout. The latter included many who were first class cheaters as well: they sought to increase their popularity by singing the songs of Gandhiji or Tagore or Karl Marx, but had no intent to understand or follow their preaching. When such people lead the Nation, people in general become like them: cheaters, power-seekers and power-abusers. The objective of democracy in such environment is to allow access to State power for personal and group enrichment. The same is the story in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Iran, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, etc.
G: So, you are not recommending that we strengthen democracy in all countries, irrespective of capitalism or socialism or communism being there or not.
S: I am destined to hesitate in recommending because I do not believe that my recommendations, if accepted and acted upon, will, definitely or most likely, yield the desired results. I can only say what I have observed. I have observed that the democracy, capitalism and socialism are not stand-alone instruments that have succeeded or failed to deliver. Countries have practiced these ideas in varying ways in different environmental contexts. Some combinations of features in certain environment succeeded in bringing about results that we may consider most desirable, while certain other combinations did not. You may like to consider imagining introducing democracy in the society of elephants, tigers, lions, and other animals. Will such societies practice democracy they way human beings would have wished? Democracy is practiced by educated, civilized people
who really value individual liberty in a ways that are different than the largely uneducated societies ruled by all pervasive State (Governments) power in the hands of elective representatives.
G: On similar grounds, you may say that capitalism is destined to. Capitalism yields 'good life' to great many people who do not have time and energy to care about others in the World. Capitalism seems to thriving on 'creating want' and 'rampant consumption'.
S: What I can say is that capitalism has been seen to succeed in delivering prosperity to great many people for long periods, though not all the time only in civilized societies that values individual liberty and freedom more than the power of the State/ Government. For the past two centuries, capitalistic societies have made the most dramatic advancement in economic prosperity, education, science and technology, sports, culture and entertainment, human rights and human values. It seems to me that rich of the capitalist societies has shown greater concern and care for the poor in non-capitalistic societies. The large population of the poorer nations of the World have only benefited from the progress of science and technology in the capitalist countries. For example, India has only little to boast of her contribution to the progress of science and technology, but much of her economic progress is due to the technology borrowed or bought from the capitalist West.
G: I do not agree with you. I am rather concerned that capitalism’s arrival in India and China can have disastrous consequences for planet earth. Again, capitalism may be lesser evil than the only alternative of socialism that talks great about 'needs' of all and particularly the weaker sections op the society but successfully degraded into a different form of power-abuse and corruption?
S: I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you on the consequences of capitalism coming into India or China. The experience of capitalism or democracy may not be the same in the animal world or human societies where most children are taught to either fear or grab the State power and discouraged to value individual freedom and liberty. Rather, the individuals and groups are encouraged to seek economic prosperity by clandestinely influencing, grabbing and abusing State power in one’s/ group’s favour.
G: You seem to be against any big role of the State beyond law and order and external security.
S: I am neither against nor for any of the political or economic models. I do not find much merit in justifying anything. Whether a country claims to practice democracy or socialism is immaterial. What is actually practiced delivers the results. If the results are consistently good for long periods for most people, the practices must have contributed to that. The practices prevailing in a country evolve over time and the results that such practices produce are part of what were destined to happen, they are not independent choices. Those who claim to practice democracy are not necessarily those who actually practice democracy. Those who actually practice democracy are destined to so. And, the same is true of those who claim so but actually does not believe in individual liberty and freedom except for restricted purpose to elections.
G: You will say the same thing about socialism. In a sense you seem to against socialism.
S: I repeat that I am neither for nor against anything because of my belief in Destiny Principle. I only state what I observe. Socialism and Communism have been found to perform the way capitalism has done in some countries in the West.
Even Socialism and Communism as practiced in the World so far are to my mind nothing but variants of capitalism, variants in which capitalists, though not owners of resources, enjoy all the power to use them and these capitalists are those who do not get selected through market competition but get elected to use State power or their selected servants. These countries are destined to go through the experience of such socialism and communism, as are distorted versions of capitalism.
G: But how do different countries go through the experience of different variants of democracy, socialism and capitalism?
S: The whole time path of events and happenings are different in different countries. I do not know why they are different. What I believe is that this is in the nature of things in the evolutionary process. It is like the difference of skin colour of people in different regions, the variation in food habits in different regions, the differences in languages, in natural endowments or in history of conflicts and wars. Nothing that happens today in a society is independent of what happened in the past.
G: But things change over time. How?
S: The seeds of change are also in the past. High population growth during the past decades has altered the demography in India. Now close to 50% of the Indian population is below the age of 25 years. The younger generations seem to be viewing things in a different way and trying to assert their freedom and liberty in the urban and metro areas. The recent years have been witnessing rapid spread of international television channels, the coverage of international news in domestic channels, the variety of debates on domestic and local social, political and economic issues, the spread of internet usage and the like. All this has considerable impact on the attitudes and preferences of younger generations. The adolescent and the youth now show both a growing pride in the recent economic successes of the nation as well as a stronger preference for adopting a broader international perspective for acquiring knowledge and skill. The narrow perspective, reluctance to face challenges of the unknown and the strange, and the obsolescence of the skills of elder generations are fast waning in their impact on new generations. How far and when the attitudes and preferences of the new generations will begin dominating, I cannot forecast. One may only speculate about two possible destinies. One possibility is that the highly populated societies like India (and China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia) will become the cause of the gravest disaster that you may call man-made because you do not believe in destiny. The other possibility is that some of these societies will be transformed by the attitudes and preferences of the current generation of children who place greater value on individual liberty more than the State and more open to globalization and technological progress.
G: But what do you conclude from our discussion on democracy, capitalism and socialism?
S: My conclusion is that the features of the society and the economy at any point of time and the changes we observe in them over time in any country is the result of the various naturally interacting forces in that country and the countries to which the particular country is connected to in varying degrees. All such forces are part of the Stochastic Destiny Principle. Thus, this Principle explains both the type of democracy or capitalism or socialism prevailing at any point of time and evolving over time in each country as well as the success of any country in achieving goals that you or me or others consider desirable. The destined time path of no country is in the control of deliberate choice of the societies concerned, least of all to political leaders. The actions of individuals, groups and political leaders are not deliberate social choices but the result of interactive forces linked to the Stochastic Destiny Principle.
G: So, you do not believe that societies make choices.
S: I do not believe that Individuals or societies can make real independent choices. What an individual does is to get into the choice that he is conditioned and forced to make given his/ her natural (genetic) propensities and the circumstances. Social choices are not made: they emerge as the result of interactions of destined individual choices. The political mechanism to translate or aggregate individual choices into social choices is also similarly destined outcomes. The Indians of today or of 1947 did not make a choice in favour of democracy: the variant of democracy that we currently operate in just evolved under the impact of various forces operating in the past. Sooner rather than later, India may transcend this distorted, negative variant of democracy to more open, transparent and positive variant of democracy.
G: You are saying many things. You not only believe in destiny and lack of independent choice for individuals and societies. You are also saying that what we term as democracy need not be democracy at all.
S: Yes, even if a society feels that it is making a choice to adopt democracy, it does not necessarily adopt democracy. It may not even know what democracy it wishes to adopt and how it evolves over time. Often democracy means Government “ of the people, by the people and for the people”. This rhetoric makes people believe that they are in democracy when actually they are not.
G: Please illustrate.
S: Most often democratic countries are actually run by governments that are “ off the people, beyond the people and fraud on the people”. You are led to believe that democracy means the right to cast vote in elections. If 50% of the electorate is illiterate or uneducated what you have is 50% illiterate and uneducated democracy. There is difference between 80% educated and 50% educated democracies. If there are 50% uneducated voters, why should they vote for educated people? Why should uneducated politicians make people educated? In democracies with political active population who are uneducated, efforts will be made to education a farce. They will question the rule of law. They will question the fairness of educated judiciary. They will question the authority and independence of educated election commissioners. They will question the quality and independence of the educated educationists/ teachers of the places of learning from primary school to universities. They will question the necessity of high standards of education. Thus you will slowly see the decline in standards of education, politicians as education administrators, relaxation of standards of tests and qualifying marks so that the uneducated can be counted as educated. So, the society will justify poor education as a desirable goal selected in a democratic way.
G: You are dramatizing.
S: Not really. In a country where 70% of the people are uneducated and also smoke bidis (a form of cigarettes), what kind of laws will be passed on smoking, what rates of tax will be imposed on bidis and what kind of research on tobacco and cancer will be funded by the Government? We know how low quality educationists have been inducted into education system by politicians. If the Government and the elected representatives of the people start acting on the premise that they are the only authorized and also the most competent persons/ groups to decide about everything in the society, you do not have democracy. Democracy is not all about winning the elections to get the power to lord over others.
G: So, people may claim that they have or trying to have democracy. But they are far from that. Democratic equality does not follow human choice. Nations have to accept whatever democratic equality or inequality emerges at any point of time in conformity with the Stochastic Destiny Principle.
S: Democracy is a formula to resolve conflicts among individuals and groups. It is an arbitrary rule. It has no sanctity of its own. But it has a special appeal because it is a rule for the domination of majority. Even if the majority is foolish or brute, cruel, you have to accept it sportingly. If the whole world was one country, Indians and Chinese would have ruled the World and taken away all the petroleum oil the Arab countries would have had. The application of democracy was not intended to serve the majority but to protect the oppression of the majority by the few. But that is not what democracy is able to deliver most of the time. It cannot because it is so destined. The process of practical application of the concept of democracy can vary so widely and is so susceptible to fraud, cheating and manipulation that the impact on the society often turns out to be opposite of and completely different from what the concept of democracy promises to deliver.
G: And, according to you, this is only natural and therefore destined.
Destiny of Choice 004
Destiny of Social Divisions
G: This is not clear. Hindus have caste system. It is something bad and adopted by Hindus out of their own choice. How does destiny Principle come here?
S: It is only because of the operation of destiny principle that the caste system evolved. Whether it is bad or good is a separate issue and does not any way stop caste system to evolve. Caste grouping tendency is the natural property of human beings as imparted by the destiny principle.
G: Please explain.
S: Fine. Let us explore caste tendencies in a bit detail. In West Bengal, as in other provinces of India, many Hindus classify themselves into different castes. The four castes / barnas (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra) defined a social system based on occupational structure and might have emerged in ancient Hindu India. It might have been long time back when societies consisted of small population to classify people in different families into the four castes based on the basis of the occupation of the families. Over a few decades or centuries, this caste system could have become rigid and reached a point of breakdown due to natural forces. For some time, a society could have limited the choice of individuals to vocations/ professions to that of the caste of the family to which the individual was linked by birth.
G; But such a system cannot continue for long.
S: You are right. The system did not last long. Surely, such an occupation-based system must have faced problems, as new generations might not have liked to stick to their ancestral occupations, as new occupations emerged and old occupations became irrelevant to the society. The economics of different occupations changed. People migrated from one place to another and got involved into inter-caste marriages. It could have been difficult for any caste, particularly the Sudras, to shift to other occupation classes unless they migrated to newer places. It could have been possible for some persons / families to migrate to less inhabited regions and claim their origin to different occupation-based castes. After all, until very recent period, family tree records were not maintained and available for public scrutiny.
G: So these are independent choices made by people to shift occupations. There is no destined choice here.
S: Exactly the opposite. The decisions to choose new occupations were not independent decisions but were forced by changing environment circumstances and natural human tendency to uplift itself from onerous bondages of the past.
G: But all people did not change. The Brahmins might have resisted the change.
S: Yes. For most Brahmins, the bondage to the past social structure was not onerous. So they would have not let go the advantages of such a system.
In the beginning, the Brahmins might not have helped Sudras or Kshatriyas or Baishyas to acquire from them the knowledge necessary to enter the vocations of the Brahmins. But, some Brahmins might as well have agreed to partly share their knowledge with the Ksatriyas fearing that the Kings might kill them if they declined to share knowledge. Again, wealthy Baishyas could have used their money power to buy knowledge from the poor Brahmins and buy part of kingdoms from weak kings.
G: But how does destiny come here?
S: The changes in external environment did not come about because of independent choice by the society but resulted from the aggregation of individual choices forced by the natural law of human beings to explore, discover and improve their lot. Economics of the professions might have changed over time depending on the laws of demand for and supply of services / products, inducing individuals and families to change professions / occupations. It would be too simplistic to suggest that markets for demand and services are of a recent origin. The ancient (Hindu) civilization in Bharat could not have prospered unless markets existed. Exchange of labour/ service/ commodities is a very ancient phenomenon. Modern competitive markets with paper money as medium of exchange are of recent origin; exchange is an essential ingredient of ancient civilizations. With the growth of population, migration from one land to another and emergence of new occupations, further divisions in the form of sub-castes or gotras arose.
G: But the old castes, subcastes and gotras are no longer socially relevant. Yet many Hindus identify themselves as belonging to particular caste/sub-caste/gotra classification based on their birth.
S: Yes, they do. That is also part of the Destiny process. People like to have a lineage identity. But the caste based on birth would have lost meaning once a person had shifted from a family’s occupation to a different occupation. Shifts in occupation might have caused problems of identification of family trees/ loyalties and purity of castes (problems of the same nature that is caused in the modern world due to inter-religion/ inter-racial marriages and immigration from one nation state to another). Shifts are only natural. Hindu Gods in their incarnations were reportedly born in/ raised by families of different castes: Ram belonged to Kshatriyas, Krishna to Kshatriyas/ Sudras, Gautama Buddha to Kshastriyas, and so on. Many kings in Hindu mythology were Brahmins rather than Kshatriyas (eg.,Ravana). Clearly, natural forces make it difficult to keep a caste system to be consistent with both birth and occupation. Family is a stronger tie and hence an occupation-based caste system had to drift to a pure birth-based caste system and castes had to get de-linked from occupations. Thus, the Hindu caste system died its natural death long, long time ago. It could not have survived with the spread of Buddism by Emperors like Asoka, growth and migration of population, inter-caste marriages, the invasions by the Muslims, the period of Moghul Rule followed by the British Rule in a country with a large, growing population speaking such large diversity of languages.
G: While that may be true, in reality caste system still rules.
S: Yes, it does. But this attachment to caste system is a natural human property. It has nothing to do with the ancient Bharatiya occupation based social structure that became extinct long ago. It is surprising that Indians still talk about Hindu caste system being in existence. They talk of oppression by the higher castes that died with the occupation-based caste system centuries ago, long before the British or the Moghuls appeared on the scene. From the Moghul days and throughout the British rule, a new caste system emerged among the Indian Hindus. This fairy-tale caste system has established since then. The foreign rulers had given the opportunity to their elite Hindu subjects to evolve a new caste system and link it to the ancient Hindu caste system. The names of the original Hindu castes were retained but the caste system was not linked now to current occupations. Individuals and families now could assume certain occupations for their unknown ancestors who lived thousands of years and declare them as belonging to the occupational caste of their ancestors.
G: You may be right. But the Hindus continue to have a caste system.
S: A new Fairy Tale Caste system emerged after the Hindu Kings began losing control over the major parts of India. Interestingly, the new foreign political rulers encouraged the growth of this new system and supported its being christened as Hindu System. The fairy-tale Hindu caste system is based on unrecorded, presumed and so-called superior/ inferior occupations of the forgotten forefathers who died thousands of years ago. As I have understood, the Fairy Tale caste essentially tries to link a person to some occupations or other beginnings of his ancestors thousands of years ago.
G: So you admit that caste system exists even today,
S: Hold on. Caste system exists everywhere throughout the World among all religions and cultures. That is the destined human property. But today’s caste system has nothing to do with the ancient four-barna caste system.
G: What we have today is an extension or modification of that ancient system only.
S: No. That is completely a false notion perpetuated by ignorance and deliberate distortion of reality.
G: What was the ancient system and what is the current system?
S: In the ancient ages, Brahmins seemed to have been traditionally honoured or they had established claim as the most superior caste. The ancient people belonging to this caste originally were in the vocation of learning, teaching, worshipping, praying to the God on behalf of others, engaged in the profession of priesthood, sanyasis (those who have renounced material world), preachers and so on. The claim of Superiority of the Brahmins might have been contested by the Kshatriya caste that originated from the ancient warriors, kings or those who fought wars and battles. Most Hindu royal dynasties of the olden times are supposed to belong to this caste. If the Brahmins claimed superiority, it could not have been without the tacit approval of the Kshatriya kings with Brahmin subjects. In ancient ages, a Brahmin could have become a Rishi, or Brahmarshi (one with the supreme knowledge of the Universe) through hard work, deep thinking, extensive study, penance and sacrifices. The Kings also had found their path to superiority. There could have been a Kshatriya who would become a Raja Rishi (Rajarshi) of status equal to Brahmarshi by efforts, sacrifices and learning similar to the Brahmins. King Janaka, the father of Sita, Rama’s wife, was a Rajarshi. Again, a Brahmin could have become as good a warrior as a Kshatriya king and become a King. Ravana, the king of Lanka who was defeated and killed in war by Rama, might have been a Brahmin, though an Asura (demon), was a very learned person, devotee of God and also a reputed warrior. Did he become a King to prove to the Kshatriyas that Brahmins were a superior class!
G: Caste system has something to do with claiming superiority over some others while being equal to some.
S: Yes, and that tendency in human beings continue even now everywhere and in all communities. Let us go back to ancient times. Apart from the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas, there was the Baishya caste that originated from the people who were engaged in trading and other businesses. They were the real money-spinners and wealthy people. They had to keep the Kings happy if they had to continue with their money-spinning businesses smoothly. They paid the most taxes and ensured that the Kings had adequate wealth to be happy and not become jealous of the business community. The Baishyas were also afraid of God, given the inherent risks and uncertainties of businesses ventures. So they also kept the temple priests happy so that the latter would worship God on their behalf and get for them the blessings of God. Not that some Baishyas would not have thought of becoming kings. It might be that some kingdoms were taken over by the Baishyas who became Kshatriyas thereafter. The Brahmins who were almost always a part of the King’s courts and acted as minister/ advisor might have attempted at installing their stooges as Kings or tried to become Kings themselves. In any case, many Hindu Kings tried to establish their fame by donating lands to their army chiefs, their ministers, their physicians, courtiers and other talented citizens. The landowners in turn would become kings of smaller kingdoms. As land became a tradable asset, some wealthy traders might have bought vast lands and became kings themselves. To protect their wealth, they would not have stopped short of raising army of security guards. They would not have supported weak kings and kings who borrowed money from them. They would have rather tried to remove them and become kings themselves. In any case, many wealthy businessmen of Hindu kingdoms would have behaved like kings given their money-powered influence on the society.
G: What about the Subras who were the most oppressed?
S:The fourth caste, the Sudras might have had very little opportunity to prove their Superiority as a caste. The Sudras consisted of the rest of the society and included all types of workmen, tradesmen, labor, craftsmen, and self-employed people excluding the occupations of other three castes. Since the Sudra caste supposedly covered most occupations, the bulk of the population would have belonged to this caste. Clearly, no society would have needed a large proportion of people to teach, to be busy in the pursuit of knowledge, become Sanyasis and preachers and provide the services of priests. No society needed a large proportion of people to be engaged as warriors or as kings. A society would have needed only a small percentage of people to be deployed as traders and businessmen to serve the needs of the society. So, the Sudras would have represented a wide range of assorted occupations and formed the bulk of the population. An omnibus caste could not have claimed superiority over other caste with smaller population. That did not mean that different sections of the Sudra caste could not have claimed superiority. Sudra castes would have covered various craftsmen who had held special skills handed down through the generations. There would have been goldsmith, yarn spinners and fabric weavers, carpenters, architects, sculptures, painters, musicians, ironsmiths, cattle-raisers. It could have been possible for some families in these occupations to establish a goodwill and reputation and enjoy monopoly power in selling their services. Some of them could have obtained royal patronage, benefited from land gifts from the kings and extracted high price for their wares from the Baishyas. These skilled and talented families over a period of time would have become wealthy and established a social prestige of their own. They could have become traders, businessmen and kings on their own using their wealth and acquired landed property. The power of money could have made them enjoy the life-style of Biashyas and Kshatriyas and buy the services of Brahmins. Many wise Sudras acquired as much (if not more) fame and influence as Brahmin scholars and Sanyasi preachers. Kabir, a weaver, probably a convert Muslim, had large following among the Indians. He preached the essence of Hinduism. Many Hindus, claiming to be originally Sudras, converted to Buddism, Islam and Christianity during the last thousand years. But even among those who converted or were forced to convert into Christianity in the west coast of India, there were some who until recently traced their origin to Brahmin Caste and preferred marriages among Christians with the similar Brahmin background.
G: That is a brief of a long history. What does it say?
S: It shows that the so-called Hindu Caste system is a hoax. Given the history of different castes, how many Indian Hindus today can really claim lineage to any particular caste. There is no way they can prove their link to any specific ancient Hindu caste. Hindus of today are mostly tied to a fairly tale caste system evolved in the recent centuries. This fairly tale Hindu caste system has nothing to do with the Ancient Caste system that could not have survived for long under the impact of natural forces. The fairy tale caste system was propounded by the elite Hindu subjects of the foreign rulers to create a superior (but false) image for themselves and power over other Hindus and in the process pave the way for the religions of the ruling class to convert more Hindus into Islam, Christianity and Buddhism.
G: So what is the new caste system now?
S: Hold on. Even today, the fairy tale Hindu Caste system continues to provide spice to life. There is one caste called Baidya / Vaidya or Baidya-Brahmins (in current Bengali language usage letter ‘B’ is common where the letter ‘V’ is used in Sanskrit language). Baidya literally means a person who practices medicine. My immediate ancestors (say, 7-11 generations up to my father) handed down the belief that we were Baidya-Brahmins, a special class among the Brahmins, supposedly superior caste among the Hindus. I have checked with friends who boasted of their Brahmin caste superiority: according to some of them, the Baidyas are the descendants of a family resulting from an inter-caste marriage between a Brahmin husband and Sudra wife. So, Baidyas are a mixed caste, inferior to the Brahmins. G: Quite interesting!
S: Equally interesting is the version I heard some elderly Baidyas who are no more. They said that the Brahmins also practiced medicine as a profession but they would not visit the residence of patients from other caste, especially Sudras, in order not to lose their purity. Some among the Brahmin medicine professionals, out of their dedication to patients (or, I guess, because of their relatively inadequate experience or knowledge or skill or reputation which would take time to build), had gone out to serve generally poor income Sudra families to earn fee incomes. This group was therefore outcast by the rest of the Brahmins. Since then these people were called as Baidya- Brahmins, a superior liberal class among the Brahmins. Later on, I used to taunt my Brahmin friends that they had right to knowledge from the Four Vedas (the most ancient Hindu scriptures covering various disciplines of knowledge from Philosophy to Spiritualism), but the Baidyas had the right to five Vedas – not only Rig Veda, Sam Veda, Yajur Veda, Atharva Veda but also Ayur Veda, the Veda of the medicines. Some friends who knew more than me however were quick to point out that Ayurveda (Treatise on Medicine/ Medical Treatment) was actually a part of the basic four Vedas.
G: But all this is funny and has nothing to do with our original inquiry.
S: Funny as these might be, they point to the basic human tendency to create around one’s family background a glory. Just consider that I grew up to marry a Brahmin girl. I do not know how Hindus would classify my sons in terms of caste. But recently I happen to meet a young person who is the son of a Baidya father and Brahmin mother. Among his relatives there were many such Baidya and Brahmin inter-caste marriages. And, they continue enjoy the debates over the superiority of castes in family get-togethers. He told me that one of his relatives, Mr. Biswajit Dasgupta, born around 1970 and a keen student of mathematics, radiology and ancient Hindu scriptures including the Vedas had done some research on the origins of Baidyas. I requested him to get me some of his research output. In what follows, I give below a short summary of his research findings.
Mr. Dasgupta quotes from Sanskrit grammar authored by Panini. According to Panini, the word Bid (Vid), meaning To Exist or To Know, is the source of three words: Veda, Vaidya and Vaidya. Vid + Acha = Vada, Vid + Kyap = Vidya (education), Vidya + on (favourable sense) = Vaidya. Vidyasyaptam Vaidya i.e., the descendant of Vid is called a Vaidya. All this would to link existence and knowledge with B(V)aidya.
According to Dasgupta, the reference to the Baidyas is found in Rig Veda Samhita: mondol 10, sukta 97, mantra 6 in which Rishi Vishak prays in anustupchhanda verse to the God of medicinal plants. The same verse also appears in Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita Chapter 12 mantra 80. His translation of the verse from Sanscrit to Bengalee when translated to English reads: “Hail thee, the medicinal plants. Just like the kings go to war to defeat the enemy, you all go to the Bipra (the best among the Brahmins) to win over all illness and disease. The Bipra to whom you go is called the disease-killer, life saver Baidya (Vishak)”. Mr. Dasgupta also refers to Mantra 10 of Chapter 30 of Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita (relating to Purushamedha Yagna). His Bengali version of the verse translated to English reads: “(I) enjoin Vishak (Baidya) for Purity ”. Dasgupta also quotes Mantra 33 of Chapter 5 and Mantra 74 of Chapter 20 of Shukla YajurVeda. These verses refer to AswiniKumardwyas (Aswini Kumar named Twins) as the physicians practicing medicines among the god-patients (Hindus believe in one from-less God, 330 million gods/ devatas of various forms, a select group of lesser gods and humans as incarnation of God on earth). God Surya (Sun) is the father of Aswini Kumar duo, born out of the womb of goddess Sangya in the form of a feminine horse and the duo were created to serve as the Baidyas (physicians) for the medical treatment/ protection of health of gods. Mr. Dasgupta then refers to the BrahmaBaibarta Purana, a centuries-old scripture widely publicized among the Hindus in the province of Bengal in India and quotes Baidya/ Vaidya as “ Aswinikumareno Jatascha Biprajyoshiti” which means that ‘ the Baidyas were created by the Aswini Kumar duos from the wombs of women from the families of the best class of Brahmins’. A direct link of the Baidyas to the gods: Human Baidyas are descendants of the physicians and medicine specialist gods who protected the health of citizens of the kingdom of gods.
I have learnt elsewhere that if one examines the Vedas, one will find names of 33 or so gods paying tributes to whom by chanting the Veda verses was the form of worship. These gods were nothing but parts of Nature observed at that time by man. For example, the sky, the cosmic space, the sun and its different phases during the day, the night and its different phases, the moon, the stars, the wind, the rains were all gods. Because these objects or phenomena were observed to be making movements/changing position/ exerting different magnitudes of strength over time and also making a powerful adverse or beneficial impact on the lives of men, these were thought to be having their own individual consciousness/ minds. Aswis were probably two phenomena of light just before dawn. This twin Aswis were turned into Aswini Kumars in later literature or religious stories called Puranas. While the Vedas and the Puranas talk of multiple gods including the Super God who created all including these gods, it is in the philosophy of the Upanishads that the concept of Single formless infinite God got established firmly in the Sanatana/ Hindu Dharma
Mr. Dasgupta also refers to Chanakya’s writing (Bishnu Gupta or Chanyakya, the son of Maha Rishi Chanak, helped Chandra Gupta Maurya to establish a kingdom with capital at what is currently known as Patna in the present Indian state of Bihar). Chankya says: Ayurveda Kritabhyas Sarbeshang Priya Darshana Aryashhel Gunopeto Esho Baidya Bidhiyote”.
Mr Dasgupta says that according to Sreemad-Bhagbat Purana: The warring davas (gods) and the Ashuras (demons) settled for peace to jointly drill out Amritam (the potion that makes one that drinks it, immortal) from the Oceans. God took the form of a huge Tortoise and held the Mountain Mandar aloft from underneath the ocean water. The mountain served as the drilling/churning rod. Bashuki, the huge long king of the snakes served as the rope tied around the mountain rod. With the davas and the ashuras holding on and pulling the two ends of the rope, the mountain rod churned the water of the oceans. This churning led to the arising of a young person in ornamented dress with the pot containing the potion Amritam. This person’s name was Dhannantari. He was a Baidya, the expert in AyurVeda, the science of medicine. Dasgupta thus refers to the great contribution that the Baidyas have thus been making contribution even in the world of the devas (the ashuras failed to get their share of the potion even as they tried to steal the pot of Amrita potion soon after Dhannantari came out of the ocean waters.
G: You indeed narrate interesting stories. But how does it help understand destiny.
S: Yes, these are indeed interesting stories for get-together parties of families with lot of inter-caste marriages. But they also help illustrate how deep the human tendency is to claim superiority of one group over other groups on the basis of relative glory arising from ancestral/ family background. This continues even today between people who live in metros and others, between those who could shift to metros and urban areas from their rural backgrounds and those who could not, between those from traditionally rich families and the new rich, between those who are members of posh clubs and those who are not, between MBAs and others, between CII/ FICCI (two main all India chambers of commerce) members and the members of small chambers, between mafias supported by ruling political party and other mafias, between those who claim to be secular/ animal lovers/ communists/ social reformers and those who do not make such claims, between those who despise smoking and those who smoke, those who claim to be communists, between leftist social scientists/ economists and those who believe in individual liberty and competitiveness, so on and so forth. The special group image is sought for the same reason, as one would have liked lineage to a superior caste in olden days.
G: You mean to say that this tendency is an underlying property of human beings that is destined to play out in all ages. Today also, we see small traders/ businessmen come to organize them as a different caste. The big industrialists are a different caste. The air pilots are a different class. The investment bankers are a different class. The journalists belong to a separate class. People related to Page 3 forms a different class. And, the society and the political system encourage the formation of such different high value castes/ classes. This is a new caste system that divides the mankind.
S: Exactly. People unite into groups and divide the society into separate groups. Both the tendencies, to unite and to divide, operate as natural forces. All this is destined. This tendency of human beings has nothing to do with Hindu religion or Hindu society. One single Guru or a single Prophet has not propounded Hindu religion. Hindu religious scriptures like Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Smritis, and are not authored by a single person or a group of connected or related persons. The authors of these scriptures and epics are many different individuals who lived in different centuries and millennium. Until a few centuries ago, most Hindus may not have known about the existence of so many scriptures. Many of these scriptures are collections of sayings of different individuals made available in written form much after the original composers had died. There were many compilers/authors/editors of the same collections. There are differences in style of writing and editing in the collections and even there are different versions of the epics. It may be that the original authors of different parts/ sections/ mantras of the Vedas and Upanishads belonged to different castes by birth or by family profession.
For the spiritual life of many of the original authors, worldly life – not mere caste-ism- was meaningless. They had preached the concepts of Single God, of omni-presence of God everywhere and in every living being and non-life matter. They had analysed the material elements of the universe as they had observed then as also analysed human body, mind and behaviour. Their analysis helped them classify all matters and the human beings into different categories with different properties. To relate caste system to Hindu religion or any religion for that matter is both wrong and foolish. But to do so is natural and destined.
G: Maybe, the caste system is not the essential part of Hindu society or Religion. But such social divisions are creation of Man and not destined by divine will.
S: I believe that the caste system or similar social divisions are the results of processes that are part of the Stochastic Destiny Process and therefore are destined to be created in human societies. Human societies have no choice but to create them. Even the communism of Soviet Union and the Republic of China, not to speak of communists of countries where communism could not capture complete State power, has failed to resist the creation of social divisions, even though the goal is to create a class-less society where every one belonged to the same class.
G: I see your point. Social divisions are natural phenomena and not the result of deliberate, independent choice of societies. The forms of social divisions vary over time and across societies. But they evolve in response to certain basic natural tendency of human beings and under the impact of prevailing circumstances.
S: You are right. Even those who try to eradicate social divisions create new divisions. The communists talk about labour and capitalists as also about the proletariat and others. These others ultimately include those who manage the State on behalf of the proletariat. The Indian politicians talk about minorities, about dalits (oppressed), about backward classes, about the common man, about the weaker sections of the society. All this is reflective of divisive tendencies. This happens naturally to human beings. They close one form of social division to create another. They despise caste systems of the past and create new caste system. This is done in pure self-interest, which is the natural dharma / property of human beings. The caste system continues in new forms in perpetuity and the social conflicts continue as a destined process.
G: I understand what you are saying, Attempts to eradicate social divisions are as much a destined force as the emergence of social divisions. We may preach equality through speeches and books and we may even try to bring about equality among human beings by peaceful or violent means. But simultaneously we are destined to practice inequality in actual social life. No human, it seems, is capable to practice equality. Each human or group believes in his/ her/ their unique identity distinctively different from another human being or group. Human beings form into separate groups each of which is supposed to be unequal in relation to other groups. Such groups form naturally and often are with conflicting interests. Therefore, the emergence of caste system or other social divisions is an essential part of the natural social process.
S: You are absolutely right. There is no social choice made independently: all social choices are resultant of forces that are part of the Stochastic Destiny Process or Principle. Men and women consider themselves unequal, so do fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and foes, colleague and colleague, teachers and students, peoples in location X and peoples in location B, workers and managers. Groups grow larger and then split. All this just happens because of the inherent property of human beings to divide themselves into persons or groups in conflict. This does not happen because they make choices to form or join groups, but because it is in their nature to make such choices. No body becomes Hitler or Mother Teresa by choice, it just happens. We know that all Indians born after 14th August 1947 are born equals. Are they equals in reality? No they are not. Those whose ancestors were recognized as backward castes or tribes during the mogul and British rule are a special caste entitled to reservation on a major part of the Nation’s resources while those who have different lineage are the new neglected caste. These are not independent decisions of the State or society but the fall out of the process of destiny of India and the Indians.
G: We create new inequalities: we go back to the long past and create new reserved / categories to perpetuate social conflicts. This happens because it is natural and hence destined, even though there is no logic to justify such divisions. Yesterday’s royal descendants abroad are our friends even if their forefathers oppressed us. Day before yesterday’s royal descendents are minorities. Descendents of oppressors who lived before the Moguls or British came are today’s hated castes, even if they are in minority.
S: These are not divisions created by Indians by applying unbiased logic and independent judgment. Indians create these under the influence of jealousy, pity, and anger and under compulsions electoral politics in socalled democracy where most people are uneducated AND many remain illiterate.
G: This is not clear. Hindus have caste system. It is something bad and adopted by Hindus out of their own choice. How does destiny Principle come here?
S: It is only because of the operation of destiny principle that the caste system evolved. Whether it is bad or good is a separate issue and does not any way stop caste system to evolve. Caste grouping tendency is the natural property of human beings as imparted by the destiny principle.
G: Please explain.
S: Fine. Let us explore caste tendencies in a bit detail. In West Bengal, as in other provinces of India, many Hindus classify themselves into different castes. The four castes / barnas (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra) defined a social system based on occupational structure and might have emerged in ancient Hindu India. It might have been long time back when societies consisted of small population to classify people in different families into the four castes based on the basis of the occupation of the families. Over a few decades or centuries, this caste system could have become rigid and reached a point of breakdown due to natural forces. For some time, a society could have limited the choice of individuals to vocations/ professions to that of the caste of the family to which the individual was linked by birth.
G; But such a system cannot continue for long.
S: You are right. The system did not last long. Surely, such an occupation-based system must have faced problems, as new generations might not have liked to stick to their ancestral occupations, as new occupations emerged and old occupations became irrelevant to the society. The economics of different occupations changed. People migrated from one place to another and got involved into inter-caste marriages. It could have been difficult for any caste, particularly the Sudras, to shift to other occupation classes unless they migrated to newer places. It could have been possible for some persons / families to migrate to less inhabited regions and claim their origin to different occupation-based castes. After all, until very recent period, family tree records were not maintained and available for public scrutiny.
G: So these are independent choices made by people to shift occupations. There is no destined choice here.
S: Exactly the opposite. The decisions to choose new occupations were not independent decisions but were forced by changing environment circumstances and natural human tendency to uplift itself from onerous bondages of the past.
G: But all people did not change. The Brahmins might have resisted the change.
S: Yes. For most Brahmins, the bondage to the past social structure was not onerous. So they would have not let go the advantages of such a system.
In the beginning, the Brahmins might not have helped Sudras or Kshatriyas or Baishyas to acquire from them the knowledge necessary to enter the vocations of the Brahmins. But, some Brahmins might as well have agreed to partly share their knowledge with the Ksatriyas fearing that the Kings might kill them if they declined to share knowledge. Again, wealthy Baishyas could have used their money power to buy knowledge from the poor Brahmins and buy part of kingdoms from weak kings.
G: But how does destiny come here?
S: The changes in external environment did not come about because of independent choice by the society but resulted from the aggregation of individual choices forced by the natural law of human beings to explore, discover and improve their lot. Economics of the professions might have changed over time depending on the laws of demand for and supply of services / products, inducing individuals and families to change professions / occupations. It would be too simplistic to suggest that markets for demand and services are of a recent origin. The ancient (Hindu) civilization in Bharat could not have prospered unless markets existed. Exchange of labour/ service/ commodities is a very ancient phenomenon. Modern competitive markets with paper money as medium of exchange are of recent origin; exchange is an essential ingredient of ancient civilizations. With the growth of population, migration from one land to another and emergence of new occupations, further divisions in the form of sub-castes or gotras arose.
G: But the old castes, subcastes and gotras are no longer socially relevant. Yet many Hindus identify themselves as belonging to particular caste/sub-caste/gotra classification based on their birth.
S: Yes, they do. That is also part of the Destiny process. People like to have a lineage identity. But the caste based on birth would have lost meaning once a person had shifted from a family’s occupation to a different occupation. Shifts in occupation might have caused problems of identification of family trees/ loyalties and purity of castes (problems of the same nature that is caused in the modern world due to inter-religion/ inter-racial marriages and immigration from one nation state to another). Shifts are only natural. Hindu Gods in their incarnations were reportedly born in/ raised by families of different castes: Ram belonged to Kshatriyas, Krishna to Kshatriyas/ Sudras, Gautama Buddha to Kshastriyas, and so on. Many kings in Hindu mythology were Brahmins rather than Kshatriyas (eg.,Ravana). Clearly, natural forces make it difficult to keep a caste system to be consistent with both birth and occupation. Family is a stronger tie and hence an occupation-based caste system had to drift to a pure birth-based caste system and castes had to get de-linked from occupations. Thus, the Hindu caste system died its natural death long, long time ago. It could not have survived with the spread of Buddism by Emperors like Asoka, growth and migration of population, inter-caste marriages, the invasions by the Muslims, the period of Moghul Rule followed by the British Rule in a country with a large, growing population speaking such large diversity of languages.
G: While that may be true, in reality caste system still rules.
S: Yes, it does. But this attachment to caste system is a natural human property. It has nothing to do with the ancient Bharatiya occupation based social structure that became extinct long ago. It is surprising that Indians still talk about Hindu caste system being in existence. They talk of oppression by the higher castes that died with the occupation-based caste system centuries ago, long before the British or the Moghuls appeared on the scene. From the Moghul days and throughout the British rule, a new caste system emerged among the Indian Hindus. This fairy-tale caste system has established since then. The foreign rulers had given the opportunity to their elite Hindu subjects to evolve a new caste system and link it to the ancient Hindu caste system. The names of the original Hindu castes were retained but the caste system was not linked now to current occupations. Individuals and families now could assume certain occupations for their unknown ancestors who lived thousands of years and declare them as belonging to the occupational caste of their ancestors.
G: You may be right. But the Hindus continue to have a caste system.
S: A new Fairy Tale Caste system emerged after the Hindu Kings began losing control over the major parts of India. Interestingly, the new foreign political rulers encouraged the growth of this new system and supported its being christened as Hindu System. The fairy-tale Hindu caste system is based on unrecorded, presumed and so-called superior/ inferior occupations of the forgotten forefathers who died thousands of years ago. As I have understood, the Fairy Tale caste essentially tries to link a person to some occupations or other beginnings of his ancestors thousands of years ago.
G: So you admit that caste system exists even today,
S: Hold on. Caste system exists everywhere throughout the World among all religions and cultures. That is the destined human property. But today’s caste system has nothing to do with the ancient four-barna caste system.
G: What we have today is an extension or modification of that ancient system only.
S: No. That is completely a false notion perpetuated by ignorance and deliberate distortion of reality.
G: What was the ancient system and what is the current system?
S: In the ancient ages, Brahmins seemed to have been traditionally honoured or they had established claim as the most superior caste. The ancient people belonging to this caste originally were in the vocation of learning, teaching, worshipping, praying to the God on behalf of others, engaged in the profession of priesthood, sanyasis (those who have renounced material world), preachers and so on. The claim of Superiority of the Brahmins might have been contested by the Kshatriya caste that originated from the ancient warriors, kings or those who fought wars and battles. Most Hindu royal dynasties of the olden times are supposed to belong to this caste. If the Brahmins claimed superiority, it could not have been without the tacit approval of the Kshatriya kings with Brahmin subjects. In ancient ages, a Brahmin could have become a Rishi, or Brahmarshi (one with the supreme knowledge of the Universe) through hard work, deep thinking, extensive study, penance and sacrifices. The Kings also had found their path to superiority. There could have been a Kshatriya who would become a Raja Rishi (Rajarshi) of status equal to Brahmarshi by efforts, sacrifices and learning similar to the Brahmins. King Janaka, the father of Sita, Rama’s wife, was a Rajarshi. Again, a Brahmin could have become as good a warrior as a Kshatriya king and become a King. Ravana, the king of Lanka who was defeated and killed in war by Rama, might have been a Brahmin, though an Asura (demon), was a very learned person, devotee of God and also a reputed warrior. Did he become a King to prove to the Kshatriyas that Brahmins were a superior class!
G: Caste system has something to do with claiming superiority over some others while being equal to some.
S: Yes, and that tendency in human beings continue even now everywhere and in all communities. Let us go back to ancient times. Apart from the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas, there was the Baishya caste that originated from the people who were engaged in trading and other businesses. They were the real money-spinners and wealthy people. They had to keep the Kings happy if they had to continue with their money-spinning businesses smoothly. They paid the most taxes and ensured that the Kings had adequate wealth to be happy and not become jealous of the business community. The Baishyas were also afraid of God, given the inherent risks and uncertainties of businesses ventures. So they also kept the temple priests happy so that the latter would worship God on their behalf and get for them the blessings of God. Not that some Baishyas would not have thought of becoming kings. It might be that some kingdoms were taken over by the Baishyas who became Kshatriyas thereafter. The Brahmins who were almost always a part of the King’s courts and acted as minister/ advisor might have attempted at installing their stooges as Kings or tried to become Kings themselves. In any case, many Hindu Kings tried to establish their fame by donating lands to their army chiefs, their ministers, their physicians, courtiers and other talented citizens. The landowners in turn would become kings of smaller kingdoms. As land became a tradable asset, some wealthy traders might have bought vast lands and became kings themselves. To protect their wealth, they would not have stopped short of raising army of security guards. They would not have supported weak kings and kings who borrowed money from them. They would have rather tried to remove them and become kings themselves. In any case, many wealthy businessmen of Hindu kingdoms would have behaved like kings given their money-powered influence on the society.
G: What about the Subras who were the most oppressed?
S:The fourth caste, the Sudras might have had very little opportunity to prove their Superiority as a caste. The Sudras consisted of the rest of the society and included all types of workmen, tradesmen, labor, craftsmen, and self-employed people excluding the occupations of other three castes. Since the Sudra caste supposedly covered most occupations, the bulk of the population would have belonged to this caste. Clearly, no society would have needed a large proportion of people to teach, to be busy in the pursuit of knowledge, become Sanyasis and preachers and provide the services of priests. No society needed a large proportion of people to be engaged as warriors or as kings. A society would have needed only a small percentage of people to be deployed as traders and businessmen to serve the needs of the society. So, the Sudras would have represented a wide range of assorted occupations and formed the bulk of the population. An omnibus caste could not have claimed superiority over other caste with smaller population. That did not mean that different sections of the Sudra caste could not have claimed superiority. Sudra castes would have covered various craftsmen who had held special skills handed down through the generations. There would have been goldsmith, yarn spinners and fabric weavers, carpenters, architects, sculptures, painters, musicians, ironsmiths, cattle-raisers. It could have been possible for some families in these occupations to establish a goodwill and reputation and enjoy monopoly power in selling their services. Some of them could have obtained royal patronage, benefited from land gifts from the kings and extracted high price for their wares from the Baishyas. These skilled and talented families over a period of time would have become wealthy and established a social prestige of their own. They could have become traders, businessmen and kings on their own using their wealth and acquired landed property. The power of money could have made them enjoy the life-style of Biashyas and Kshatriyas and buy the services of Brahmins. Many wise Sudras acquired as much (if not more) fame and influence as Brahmin scholars and Sanyasi preachers. Kabir, a weaver, probably a convert Muslim, had large following among the Indians. He preached the essence of Hinduism. Many Hindus, claiming to be originally Sudras, converted to Buddism, Islam and Christianity during the last thousand years. But even among those who converted or were forced to convert into Christianity in the west coast of India, there were some who until recently traced their origin to Brahmin Caste and preferred marriages among Christians with the similar Brahmin background.
G: That is a brief of a long history. What does it say?
S: It shows that the so-called Hindu Caste system is a hoax. Given the history of different castes, how many Indian Hindus today can really claim lineage to any particular caste. There is no way they can prove their link to any specific ancient Hindu caste. Hindus of today are mostly tied to a fairly tale caste system evolved in the recent centuries. This fairly tale Hindu caste system has nothing to do with the Ancient Caste system that could not have survived for long under the impact of natural forces. The fairy tale caste system was propounded by the elite Hindu subjects of the foreign rulers to create a superior (but false) image for themselves and power over other Hindus and in the process pave the way for the religions of the ruling class to convert more Hindus into Islam, Christianity and Buddhism.
G: So what is the new caste system now?
S: Hold on. Even today, the fairy tale Hindu Caste system continues to provide spice to life. There is one caste called Baidya / Vaidya or Baidya-Brahmins (in current Bengali language usage letter ‘B’ is common where the letter ‘V’ is used in Sanskrit language). Baidya literally means a person who practices medicine. My immediate ancestors (say, 7-11 generations up to my father) handed down the belief that we were Baidya-Brahmins, a special class among the Brahmins, supposedly superior caste among the Hindus. I have checked with friends who boasted of their Brahmin caste superiority: according to some of them, the Baidyas are the descendants of a family resulting from an inter-caste marriage between a Brahmin husband and Sudra wife. So, Baidyas are a mixed caste, inferior to the Brahmins. G: Quite interesting!
S: Equally interesting is the version I heard some elderly Baidyas who are no more. They said that the Brahmins also practiced medicine as a profession but they would not visit the residence of patients from other caste, especially Sudras, in order not to lose their purity. Some among the Brahmin medicine professionals, out of their dedication to patients (or, I guess, because of their relatively inadequate experience or knowledge or skill or reputation which would take time to build), had gone out to serve generally poor income Sudra families to earn fee incomes. This group was therefore outcast by the rest of the Brahmins. Since then these people were called as Baidya- Brahmins, a superior liberal class among the Brahmins. Later on, I used to taunt my Brahmin friends that they had right to knowledge from the Four Vedas (the most ancient Hindu scriptures covering various disciplines of knowledge from Philosophy to Spiritualism), but the Baidyas had the right to five Vedas – not only Rig Veda, Sam Veda, Yajur Veda, Atharva Veda but also Ayur Veda, the Veda of the medicines. Some friends who knew more than me however were quick to point out that Ayurveda (Treatise on Medicine/ Medical Treatment) was actually a part of the basic four Vedas.
G: But all this is funny and has nothing to do with our original inquiry.
S: Funny as these might be, they point to the basic human tendency to create around one’s family background a glory. Just consider that I grew up to marry a Brahmin girl. I do not know how Hindus would classify my sons in terms of caste. But recently I happen to meet a young person who is the son of a Baidya father and Brahmin mother. Among his relatives there were many such Baidya and Brahmin inter-caste marriages. And, they continue enjoy the debates over the superiority of castes in family get-togethers. He told me that one of his relatives, Mr. Biswajit Dasgupta, born around 1970 and a keen student of mathematics, radiology and ancient Hindu scriptures including the Vedas had done some research on the origins of Baidyas. I requested him to get me some of his research output. In what follows, I give below a short summary of his research findings.
Mr. Dasgupta quotes from Sanskrit grammar authored by Panini. According to Panini, the word Bid (Vid), meaning To Exist or To Know, is the source of three words: Veda, Vaidya and Vaidya. Vid + Acha = Vada, Vid + Kyap = Vidya (education), Vidya + on (favourable sense) = Vaidya. Vidyasyaptam Vaidya i.e., the descendant of Vid is called a Vaidya. All this would to link existence and knowledge with B(V)aidya.
According to Dasgupta, the reference to the Baidyas is found in Rig Veda Samhita: mondol 10, sukta 97, mantra 6 in which Rishi Vishak prays in anustupchhanda verse to the God of medicinal plants. The same verse also appears in Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita Chapter 12 mantra 80. His translation of the verse from Sanscrit to Bengalee when translated to English reads: “Hail thee, the medicinal plants. Just like the kings go to war to defeat the enemy, you all go to the Bipra (the best among the Brahmins) to win over all illness and disease. The Bipra to whom you go is called the disease-killer, life saver Baidya (Vishak)”. Mr. Dasgupta also refers to Mantra 10 of Chapter 30 of Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita (relating to Purushamedha Yagna). His Bengali version of the verse translated to English reads: “(I) enjoin Vishak (Baidya) for Purity ”. Dasgupta also quotes Mantra 33 of Chapter 5 and Mantra 74 of Chapter 20 of Shukla YajurVeda. These verses refer to AswiniKumardwyas (Aswini Kumar named Twins) as the physicians practicing medicines among the god-patients (Hindus believe in one from-less God, 330 million gods/ devatas of various forms, a select group of lesser gods and humans as incarnation of God on earth). God Surya (Sun) is the father of Aswini Kumar duo, born out of the womb of goddess Sangya in the form of a feminine horse and the duo were created to serve as the Baidyas (physicians) for the medical treatment/ protection of health of gods. Mr. Dasgupta then refers to the BrahmaBaibarta Purana, a centuries-old scripture widely publicized among the Hindus in the province of Bengal in India and quotes Baidya/ Vaidya as “ Aswinikumareno Jatascha Biprajyoshiti” which means that ‘ the Baidyas were created by the Aswini Kumar duos from the wombs of women from the families of the best class of Brahmins’. A direct link of the Baidyas to the gods: Human Baidyas are descendants of the physicians and medicine specialist gods who protected the health of citizens of the kingdom of gods.
I have learnt elsewhere that if one examines the Vedas, one will find names of 33 or so gods paying tributes to whom by chanting the Veda verses was the form of worship. These gods were nothing but parts of Nature observed at that time by man. For example, the sky, the cosmic space, the sun and its different phases during the day, the night and its different phases, the moon, the stars, the wind, the rains were all gods. Because these objects or phenomena were observed to be making movements/changing position/ exerting different magnitudes of strength over time and also making a powerful adverse or beneficial impact on the lives of men, these were thought to be having their own individual consciousness/ minds. Aswis were probably two phenomena of light just before dawn. This twin Aswis were turned into Aswini Kumars in later literature or religious stories called Puranas. While the Vedas and the Puranas talk of multiple gods including the Super God who created all including these gods, it is in the philosophy of the Upanishads that the concept of Single formless infinite God got established firmly in the Sanatana/ Hindu Dharma
Mr. Dasgupta also refers to Chanakya’s writing (Bishnu Gupta or Chanyakya, the son of Maha Rishi Chanak, helped Chandra Gupta Maurya to establish a kingdom with capital at what is currently known as Patna in the present Indian state of Bihar). Chankya says: Ayurveda Kritabhyas Sarbeshang Priya Darshana Aryashhel Gunopeto Esho Baidya Bidhiyote”.
Mr Dasgupta says that according to Sreemad-Bhagbat Purana: The warring davas (gods) and the Ashuras (demons) settled for peace to jointly drill out Amritam (the potion that makes one that drinks it, immortal) from the Oceans. God took the form of a huge Tortoise and held the Mountain Mandar aloft from underneath the ocean water. The mountain served as the drilling/churning rod. Bashuki, the huge long king of the snakes served as the rope tied around the mountain rod. With the davas and the ashuras holding on and pulling the two ends of the rope, the mountain rod churned the water of the oceans. This churning led to the arising of a young person in ornamented dress with the pot containing the potion Amritam. This person’s name was Dhannantari. He was a Baidya, the expert in AyurVeda, the science of medicine. Dasgupta thus refers to the great contribution that the Baidyas have thus been making contribution even in the world of the devas (the ashuras failed to get their share of the potion even as they tried to steal the pot of Amrita potion soon after Dhannantari came out of the ocean waters.
G: You indeed narrate interesting stories. But how does it help understand destiny.
S: Yes, these are indeed interesting stories for get-together parties of families with lot of inter-caste marriages. But they also help illustrate how deep the human tendency is to claim superiority of one group over other groups on the basis of relative glory arising from ancestral/ family background. This continues even today between people who live in metros and others, between those who could shift to metros and urban areas from their rural backgrounds and those who could not, between those from traditionally rich families and the new rich, between those who are members of posh clubs and those who are not, between MBAs and others, between CII/ FICCI (two main all India chambers of commerce) members and the members of small chambers, between mafias supported by ruling political party and other mafias, between those who claim to be secular/ animal lovers/ communists/ social reformers and those who do not make such claims, between those who despise smoking and those who smoke, those who claim to be communists, between leftist social scientists/ economists and those who believe in individual liberty and competitiveness, so on and so forth. The special group image is sought for the same reason, as one would have liked lineage to a superior caste in olden days.
G: You mean to say that this tendency is an underlying property of human beings that is destined to play out in all ages. Today also, we see small traders/ businessmen come to organize them as a different caste. The big industrialists are a different caste. The air pilots are a different class. The investment bankers are a different class. The journalists belong to a separate class. People related to Page 3 forms a different class. And, the society and the political system encourage the formation of such different high value castes/ classes. This is a new caste system that divides the mankind.
S: Exactly. People unite into groups and divide the society into separate groups. Both the tendencies, to unite and to divide, operate as natural forces. All this is destined. This tendency of human beings has nothing to do with Hindu religion or Hindu society. One single Guru or a single Prophet has not propounded Hindu religion. Hindu religious scriptures like Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Smritis, and are not authored by a single person or a group of connected or related persons. The authors of these scriptures and epics are many different individuals who lived in different centuries and millennium. Until a few centuries ago, most Hindus may not have known about the existence of so many scriptures. Many of these scriptures are collections of sayings of different individuals made available in written form much after the original composers had died. There were many compilers/authors/editors of the same collections. There are differences in style of writing and editing in the collections and even there are different versions of the epics. It may be that the original authors of different parts/ sections/ mantras of the Vedas and Upanishads belonged to different castes by birth or by family profession.
For the spiritual life of many of the original authors, worldly life – not mere caste-ism- was meaningless. They had preached the concepts of Single God, of omni-presence of God everywhere and in every living being and non-life matter. They had analysed the material elements of the universe as they had observed then as also analysed human body, mind and behaviour. Their analysis helped them classify all matters and the human beings into different categories with different properties. To relate caste system to Hindu religion or any religion for that matter is both wrong and foolish. But to do so is natural and destined.
G: Maybe, the caste system is not the essential part of Hindu society or Religion. But such social divisions are creation of Man and not destined by divine will.
S: I believe that the caste system or similar social divisions are the results of processes that are part of the Stochastic Destiny Process and therefore are destined to be created in human societies. Human societies have no choice but to create them. Even the communism of Soviet Union and the Republic of China, not to speak of communists of countries where communism could not capture complete State power, has failed to resist the creation of social divisions, even though the goal is to create a class-less society where every one belonged to the same class.
G: I see your point. Social divisions are natural phenomena and not the result of deliberate, independent choice of societies. The forms of social divisions vary over time and across societies. But they evolve in response to certain basic natural tendency of human beings and under the impact of prevailing circumstances.
S: You are right. Even those who try to eradicate social divisions create new divisions. The communists talk about labour and capitalists as also about the proletariat and others. These others ultimately include those who manage the State on behalf of the proletariat. The Indian politicians talk about minorities, about dalits (oppressed), about backward classes, about the common man, about the weaker sections of the society. All this is reflective of divisive tendencies. This happens naturally to human beings. They close one form of social division to create another. They despise caste systems of the past and create new caste system. This is done in pure self-interest, which is the natural dharma / property of human beings. The caste system continues in new forms in perpetuity and the social conflicts continue as a destined process.
G: I understand what you are saying, Attempts to eradicate social divisions are as much a destined force as the emergence of social divisions. We may preach equality through speeches and books and we may even try to bring about equality among human beings by peaceful or violent means. But simultaneously we are destined to practice inequality in actual social life. No human, it seems, is capable to practice equality. Each human or group believes in his/ her/ their unique identity distinctively different from another human being or group. Human beings form into separate groups each of which is supposed to be unequal in relation to other groups. Such groups form naturally and often are with conflicting interests. Therefore, the emergence of caste system or other social divisions is an essential part of the natural social process.
S: You are absolutely right. There is no social choice made independently: all social choices are resultant of forces that are part of the Stochastic Destiny Process or Principle. Men and women consider themselves unequal, so do fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and foes, colleague and colleague, teachers and students, peoples in location X and peoples in location B, workers and managers. Groups grow larger and then split. All this just happens because of the inherent property of human beings to divide themselves into persons or groups in conflict. This does not happen because they make choices to form or join groups, but because it is in their nature to make such choices. No body becomes Hitler or Mother Teresa by choice, it just happens. We know that all Indians born after 14th August 1947 are born equals. Are they equals in reality? No they are not. Those whose ancestors were recognized as backward castes or tribes during the mogul and British rule are a special caste entitled to reservation on a major part of the Nation’s resources while those who have different lineage are the new neglected caste. These are not independent decisions of the State or society but the fall out of the process of destiny of India and the Indians.
G: We create new inequalities: we go back to the long past and create new reserved / categories to perpetuate social conflicts. This happens because it is natural and hence destined, even though there is no logic to justify such divisions. Yesterday’s royal descendants abroad are our friends even if their forefathers oppressed us. Day before yesterday’s royal descendents are minorities. Descendents of oppressors who lived before the Moguls or British came are today’s hated castes, even if they are in minority.
S: These are not divisions created by Indians by applying unbiased logic and independent judgment. Indians create these under the influence of jealousy, pity, and anger and under compulsions electoral politics in socalled democracy where most people are uneducated AND many remain illiterate.
Destiny of Choice 003
Destiny of Actions or Action of Destiny
G: But is this stochastic destiny process in consistent with the concepts of Karma falla (Fruits of Actions) and Rebirth? Do you believe in rebirth?
S: Rebirth of what? Rebirth of body takes place through a process of corpses degenerating into other materials, then some such materials getting into some human bodies as water, food, etc and then living bodies through procreation give birth to new bodies. It is not the rebirth of a particular body that once stopped functioning. To the extent the mind and the ego are intrinsically related to a part of body, that is the brain, we cannot talk of rebirth of a particular mind or a particular ego. Something independent of the body, mind and ego and yet a part of the living being does not die when the body dies, can probably get attached to a new body. But what is that something. Is it an experience of a body when it was alive?
G: Let us assume it is an experience.
S: If it is an experience, I do not know as yet how it could get attached to a new body. Maybe, such past experience can get attached to a new body by some mechanism through the stochastic destiny process. But a new body can always retrieve this past experience from books where the experience is recorded or by accessing an invisible experience store space provided the body has such a capability.
G: But does destiny link from birth to birth? For example, if I have done good deeds this birth I will have good life next birth.
S: The cause and effect or Karmafalla relationships are definitely a part of the stochastic destiny process. If the past experience carries into a new body, the experience itself may have an impact on what the new body or form does or the way it behaves. This is a kind of cause and effect relationship. But I am not sure this has anything to do with what you call good deeds leading to good life in a new body, called rebirth. In any case, the existence of cause and effect relationships between a previous body and a new body emerging after the extinction of the former, does not necessarily give rise to the possibility of rebirth of the particular entity of the past. All these aspects I am yet to explore. But all this possibilities cannot be called as rebirth of a particular thing of the past. In a continuous stochastic process of transformation, it is possible to that history may partially or fully repeat but that does not mean rebirth.
G: But rebirth is an integral part of Hindu philosophy.
S: Maybe, but it may not mean rebirth of the particular entity of the past. In the water cycle from vapors to clouds to rainfall to river water to ocean or melting of ice to formation of ice, we can see forms being recreated again and again. But is there any separate identity of the particular ice or particular water atom from one cycle to another? I don’t think so. The attachment to the continuity of the existence of the particular is the illusion created in the human mind by the destiny principle for its own smooth functioning.
G: Can you elaborate on this aspect of the illusion a little more?
S: Look when you play a game of carom or ludo, you use coins of different colors. How they move on the board depends on the chances emanating from how you arrange the coins on the board and the throw of the dice or your strike at the coins. Whether you succeed or fail and win or lose, you do not identify each coin as an entity of permanence for the game. In fact, you do not even distinguish between any two white coins or one blue coin with another. But if you had marked the coins with separate numbers you could have tracked how lucky or unlucky each coin is over repeated throw of dice or strike-hits or in their movements across the board over successive games. You do not do that. You play the game. Win or lose but do not get attached to or angry fall in love with a particular coin of a particular color. This illusion is not there in these games including the game of cards, except occasionally when the losing party overturns the board in disgust or throws away the complete pack of cards.
G: But this illusion remains when human beings deal with themselves.
S: Yes, they do not see themselves as undistinguishable white or black coins, each of which moves in deferent directions depending on the strength of the force of the striker, the angle of force, the impact of bouncing on the edges and collisions among coins along the path of their travel. The human beings cannot see themselves as being a piece in the pack of cards getting distributed to and played on by hands of varying skills. Carom coins and cards have no mind and therefore no illusion that they make any choice whatsoever in deciding their movements. Human mind is imparted with the illusion of independence. And this is an integral part of the Destiny Principle.
G: This part may appear OK. But what about rebirth in the sense of Atman getting into another body after the first body dies? Hindus seem to believe in this.
S: Yes, Hindus do so. But Atman then Atman can never die. Atman must be of permanent existence. If Atman is of permanent existence, it never changes. The question is whether there are separate Atmans each with separate identities? Let us assume they are not. Then the question of rebirth does not arise. If Atman is the Pure Knowledge, it is not something that can have separate identity just because we assume that Atman resides in or behind each human body or mind or intellect. Let us assume that there are numerous Atmans. But Atmans being of permanent existence has the Knowledge of the Principles of the Creation or the Universe. Atmans cannot therefore have any illusion that they have separate identities.
G: Then, where does the realization take place?
S: That is a separate issue for discussion.
G: Fine. Tell me one thing now. Why is it that no one is willing to accept the Destiny Principle as Truth and yet you seem to have total belief in this?
S: Because each one of us is destined to have different beliefs in accordance with the Destiny Principle. The Destiny principle is either true or false. Either a person believes in the Destiny Principle as Truth or does not believe so. There are four possibilities. The worst case scenarios are that (a) one believes in something as True when it is not True and (b) one does not believe in something which is True. My position may be an instance of (a). I may be destined to change my position if I stumble on to an alternative principle explaining the Universe, which is more convincing than the destiny principle. So far nothing of that sort has come my way,
G: Then, how do you explain the developments taking place in societies, nations and civilization over time?
S: I have always only one answer: All that happens is the manifestation of the Destiny Principle.
G: But is this stochastic destiny process in consistent with the concepts of Karma falla (Fruits of Actions) and Rebirth? Do you believe in rebirth?
S: Rebirth of what? Rebirth of body takes place through a process of corpses degenerating into other materials, then some such materials getting into some human bodies as water, food, etc and then living bodies through procreation give birth to new bodies. It is not the rebirth of a particular body that once stopped functioning. To the extent the mind and the ego are intrinsically related to a part of body, that is the brain, we cannot talk of rebirth of a particular mind or a particular ego. Something independent of the body, mind and ego and yet a part of the living being does not die when the body dies, can probably get attached to a new body. But what is that something. Is it an experience of a body when it was alive?
G: Let us assume it is an experience.
S: If it is an experience, I do not know as yet how it could get attached to a new body. Maybe, such past experience can get attached to a new body by some mechanism through the stochastic destiny process. But a new body can always retrieve this past experience from books where the experience is recorded or by accessing an invisible experience store space provided the body has such a capability.
G: But does destiny link from birth to birth? For example, if I have done good deeds this birth I will have good life next birth.
S: The cause and effect or Karmafalla relationships are definitely a part of the stochastic destiny process. If the past experience carries into a new body, the experience itself may have an impact on what the new body or form does or the way it behaves. This is a kind of cause and effect relationship. But I am not sure this has anything to do with what you call good deeds leading to good life in a new body, called rebirth. In any case, the existence of cause and effect relationships between a previous body and a new body emerging after the extinction of the former, does not necessarily give rise to the possibility of rebirth of the particular entity of the past. All these aspects I am yet to explore. But all this possibilities cannot be called as rebirth of a particular thing of the past. In a continuous stochastic process of transformation, it is possible to that history may partially or fully repeat but that does not mean rebirth.
G: But rebirth is an integral part of Hindu philosophy.
S: Maybe, but it may not mean rebirth of the particular entity of the past. In the water cycle from vapors to clouds to rainfall to river water to ocean or melting of ice to formation of ice, we can see forms being recreated again and again. But is there any separate identity of the particular ice or particular water atom from one cycle to another? I don’t think so. The attachment to the continuity of the existence of the particular is the illusion created in the human mind by the destiny principle for its own smooth functioning.
G: Can you elaborate on this aspect of the illusion a little more?
S: Look when you play a game of carom or ludo, you use coins of different colors. How they move on the board depends on the chances emanating from how you arrange the coins on the board and the throw of the dice or your strike at the coins. Whether you succeed or fail and win or lose, you do not identify each coin as an entity of permanence for the game. In fact, you do not even distinguish between any two white coins or one blue coin with another. But if you had marked the coins with separate numbers you could have tracked how lucky or unlucky each coin is over repeated throw of dice or strike-hits or in their movements across the board over successive games. You do not do that. You play the game. Win or lose but do not get attached to or angry fall in love with a particular coin of a particular color. This illusion is not there in these games including the game of cards, except occasionally when the losing party overturns the board in disgust or throws away the complete pack of cards.
G: But this illusion remains when human beings deal with themselves.
S: Yes, they do not see themselves as undistinguishable white or black coins, each of which moves in deferent directions depending on the strength of the force of the striker, the angle of force, the impact of bouncing on the edges and collisions among coins along the path of their travel. The human beings cannot see themselves as being a piece in the pack of cards getting distributed to and played on by hands of varying skills. Carom coins and cards have no mind and therefore no illusion that they make any choice whatsoever in deciding their movements. Human mind is imparted with the illusion of independence. And this is an integral part of the Destiny Principle.
G: This part may appear OK. But what about rebirth in the sense of Atman getting into another body after the first body dies? Hindus seem to believe in this.
S: Yes, Hindus do so. But Atman then Atman can never die. Atman must be of permanent existence. If Atman is of permanent existence, it never changes. The question is whether there are separate Atmans each with separate identities? Let us assume they are not. Then the question of rebirth does not arise. If Atman is the Pure Knowledge, it is not something that can have separate identity just because we assume that Atman resides in or behind each human body or mind or intellect. Let us assume that there are numerous Atmans. But Atmans being of permanent existence has the Knowledge of the Principles of the Creation or the Universe. Atmans cannot therefore have any illusion that they have separate identities.
G: Then, where does the realization take place?
S: That is a separate issue for discussion.
G: Fine. Tell me one thing now. Why is it that no one is willing to accept the Destiny Principle as Truth and yet you seem to have total belief in this?
S: Because each one of us is destined to have different beliefs in accordance with the Destiny Principle. The Destiny principle is either true or false. Either a person believes in the Destiny Principle as Truth or does not believe so. There are four possibilities. The worst case scenarios are that (a) one believes in something as True when it is not True and (b) one does not believe in something which is True. My position may be an instance of (a). I may be destined to change my position if I stumble on to an alternative principle explaining the Universe, which is more convincing than the destiny principle. So far nothing of that sort has come my way,
G: Then, how do you explain the developments taking place in societies, nations and civilization over time?
S: I have always only one answer: All that happens is the manifestation of the Destiny Principle.
Destiny of Choice 002
Equality of Diverse Forms
G: I do not accept all that you say. But being spiritual-minded, I tend to believe in ‘Adhwaita’. You and the world are the same – the world, as you know it now exists only as long you ‘exist’. There is no sense, for e.g., in ‘planning’ for your near and dear’s lives after you exit! So much for life insurance!!
S: Most Indians are likely to be spiritual and, if they are analytically oriented, they are likely to be believers of ‘adhwaita’. However, it is the operation of the Stochastic Dynamic Destiny Principle that forces one to plan and take insurance, while forcing another not to exercise the choice to plan or take insurance.
G: It seems that you have moved in this direction of thought after years of worldly experience and your thoughts are still evolving: I wish that there was some way of skipping the learning curve and directly become a sanyaasi!!
S: You are right: earlier experiences must have caused me to think in a particular direction. I did not have any choice. And, I believe that for most of us there is no way of skipping the learning curve. Only a few may have been destined to become sanyaasi with out having to go through the experiential learning curve.
G: I also think that ‘realization’ cannot be through only reading or listening to discourses from tomes or religious texts. It can only be through experience – which is what life is.
S: I agree with you that ‘Realisation’ may not in most cases be possible without learning from experience. Maybe, reading, listening to discourses and participation in relevant discussions also helps progress towards realisation. However, I believe one can reach the state of realisation only if one is destined to realize.
G: It seems today, you have been mostly agreeing with me.
S: I have agreed with you only to the extent I am destined to do so.
G: Can I continue to ask assorted questions to find out your understanding on what others quote from Hindu scriptures?
S: Please do.
G: You agreed that desires motivate us into work or action. Then, what do you understand of the preaching that “ one should work without any attachment”? Unless one is attached, how would one work?
S: You are right. But the preaching is not a prescription for others to follow. To my mind, the preaching means that while one is in action, the action gets better done if the actor remains independent of, and not attached, to his action or the goal of the action or the uncertainty of the consequences of actions.
G: What is attachment?
S: Attachment is the absence of Independence. One may feel that his or her very existence and happiness dependent on the actions one is doing and desired outcome of those actions. He becomes tired with worries doing that action. That is normal. But the one who does not have this feeling may not act at all or may neglect in performing the actions. This is also normal.
G: But can there be persons who work without attachment?
S: Many persons work without attachment sometimes or other. Everyone cannot do this all the time. There are persons who concentrate on their actions and never worry about not being in action or being in action. They never worry about the result of action/ inaction while they are in action/ inaction. They live as if they are independent of their status of being in action (includes thinking as an action). It does not matter to them even if they are not busy in actions. Such people are truly independent. Such persons work without attachment. They are a rare tribe. They work like machines, say an automatic air-conditioner, when they are switched on mode and keep quite when in off mode. The hypothetical tree I talked about earlier works without any attachment.
G: Is it possible to develop such detachment in a human being?
S: Yes, if that is the destiny of a particular person. You preached certain good behavior to all people through religion. But very few people are able to follow and practice such advice. Even if you had given training to all people to steal, rob and kill others, only a few would be able to absorb or use that training.
G: If people are so different, how can you treat them equally?
S: You cannot treat them equally in your response behavior. You will not treat the thief who was trying to steal from your house in the same way as your friend. You cannot pay the same salary to your car driver and your aircraft pilot. But in your heart you know all these persons are manifestations of God and therefore they are nothing but you. This knowledge makes a difference.
G: What difference does this make?
S: You do not get upset that there are thieves or rogues in the society. You do not get angry with the thief or with the police for failing to prevent the thief from entering your locality at night. You catch the thief if you can with the help of your neighbors who rushed in when you raised the alarm. You defend yourself from his attack to hurt or kill you. You call the police to report the incident, handover the thief or its dead body if you killed him in self-defense. Yet, you are not angry with the thief. You see him as another manifestation of God.
G: How can you be not angry with someone who tried to hurt your interest? How can you think of your enemy as a manifestation of your God?
S: I am not suggesting that you do that. I also do not believe that people in general will do that. I am merely saying that there is no real cause of being angry with the thief or the enemy. You always knew that there are going to be thieves and enemies. Being in an angry state only hurts oneself rather than the enemy or the thief. I am merely saying that we cannot escape the Truth that the thief and the enemy and also you are the manifestation of the same God. When we accept this Truth, it makes a difference.
G: Only difference this will make is that the thieves and enemies will be further encouraged to hurt me more?
S: I am not sure that this will indeed be the case. A person, who maintained his family by robbing others on the roads through dense forests, suddenly went into meditation and later became a pious sage and wrote a classic Epic of the Hindus. He was as much a manifestation of God when he was a robber as when he transformed into a pious sage named Valmiki. The fact that I am not angry or that I admit the Truth about manifestation of God, cannot be a cause to encourage the thieves and enemies. Even if I pardon the thief, the police will not automatically let the thief go if it is once caught. The enemy will continue to be my enemy if he so wishes out of jealousy or a feeling that I have hurt his or society’s interest whether or not there is any real justification for his feeling against me.
G: Your God seems to be very unfair in suggesting that you forgive your enemy and the thief.
S: My God suggests all types of actions: getting angry and not getting angry or accepting the Truth about manifestation of God or not accepting that. I will be doing as per one of the opposite or alternative suggestions. Which one I actually do is the one I am destined to do. I have no real choice as the thief and the enemy.
G: You always end up using your Destiny Principle to justify what you say. But most people in the World will not accept your Destiny Principle. Even the few who might accept your Principle, will not accept that individuals have absolutely no choice.
S: I agree. What you are saying about the rejection of and reservations about the Destiny Principle is also consistent with that Principle. If all human beings were to accept the Destiny Principle and believe in it, God’s manifestation in human form will at least temporarily end.
G: Better we move over to some other questions about cultivating this thought about everything being manifestation of the same. Why is it that we find impossible to accept this so-called Truth you are talking about? We are unable to consider a thief as a manifestation of God.
S: Because as per the destiny principle, human beings have adopted the practice of giving identification on the basis of differences in forms and relating behavior with forms. Consider a situation that all human beings look exactly alike and wear identical dresses. . Ignore sex differences for the present. However, different humans have different kind of emotions, capabilities and preferences. So differently persons will behave differently. Some may have a tendency to steal while others may not. It would be impossible then to relate the behavior of one human being with his form. You would not know who was the thief and whose house raided. You cannot even enforce relationships between two different human beings. Because all look so identical, you cannot make out who did what to whom. Getting robbed becomes a risk similar to getting into a road accident or getting hit by hurricanes in a hurricane-prone area. You then do not identify the act of stealing with a particular identified person. You accept the incidence of theft in your house as a natural calamity or accident due to human error. No one will have difficulty in accepting others as manifestations of God.
G: But this hypothetical situation of all looking identical is not true of the World. Very few human beings are identical in form.
S: I also happen to know what the real world is. But, for a while consider hypothetical situations for analytical purposes. Let us consider another hypothetical situation where humans have different forms but all behave similarly because they have identical emotions, capabilities and preferences. Let us assume all try to steal from others. Then, the society accepts stealing as normal behavior. No one will have objection to accepting others as manifestation of God.
G: The problem arises because different persons not only look different but also behave differently in the real World.
S: You are right. That is the source of the problem. Now let us make you as the God to design a system, by which you impart the stealing tendency among some of the people, say, one-sixth of the population, so that you have a real World, rather than hypothetical worlds. You are a great mind and also fair. So you decide to throw a dice before each child is conceived as your manifestation and decide that whenever six comes up, the child will be imparted with stealing tendency. Now, the probability of each child born with stealing tendency is same (one-sixth). It is you as God designed this system to manifest yourself to make a real world. So, we cannot say that the thief is not a manifestation of God. The thief is the same as other manifestations of God. It is only the throws of dice that caused the differences in behavior among human beings. There was nothing intrinsically bad or evil with the human who turns out to a thief. Why then should others not accept the thieves as manifestation of God if they knew that it is only throws of dice that made the behavior difference and helped create the real world?
G: I agree if what you say about what God throwing dice is true, logically it would be necessary to accept thieves as manifestations of God in the same way as others are. But how can a throw of dice explain so many types of differences among human beings? We just do not have only six categories of human being.
S: You are right. There are numerous types of attributes among human beings. There are numerous types of tendencies, preferences and capabilities. Also, the strength of attributes also varies from very weak to very strong. If God has to be fair then He must resort to a large series of throw of dice for child being conceived to cover so many attributes with varying strengths. Maybe, He must drawing cards from a pack of 52 cards a number of times for each child conceived Maybe He has to play games of Carom or Ludo and relate each coin cleared into the holes to each attribute to be imparted. Will He have all this time?
G: But how do we know what game of fair chances does God play to impart different behavior, emotions, capabilities and preferences to different persons?
S: God need play these Games at all. Only the process in which children are conceived, born, brought up, grow, age and die, can these probabilities be assigned. The process itself becomes a stochastic process. Once the probabilities are automatically and randomly generated, God does not have to play any game of chances like throwing dice again and again. Human beings are only a small part of the Universe. There are other living beings, the physical materials, the energy flows, the vast space separated by billion light years, the numerous terrestrial bodies and cosmological forces and matters, the billions of Stars and black holes. The destiny process covers the emergence, continuation, transformation and disappearance of each such entity. You can recall that I referred to Stochastic Dynamic Destiny Process or Principle.
S: Yes, I do. If the material used to create, sustain and destroy any form or formless entity is drawn from something already in existence and the probabilities of the emergence, transformation and disappearance of all entities are the result of an unbiased, fair, stochastic process, each form can be regarded as the manifestation of God. We can easily appreciate the unity among diverse forms. Everything is God.
S: Yes, each entity goes through a process not under its control. Whatever it does and meets/ transact/ interact with is nothing but a part of that process. So every entity is essentially the same.
G: It is difficult to practice this in life.
S: Certainly, it is so. And, this is so because the destiny process itself is so designed. Human beings are but a small fraction of the Universe. The destiny principle covers the entire Universe including the destiny principle itself. Even if every one wishes to practice the thought that everything is nothing but the manifestation of the same God or Destiny Principle, the probability of everyone’s wish becoming true at the same time is so very negligible that we can say that this will never happen.
G: I do not accept all that you say. But being spiritual-minded, I tend to believe in ‘Adhwaita’. You and the world are the same – the world, as you know it now exists only as long you ‘exist’. There is no sense, for e.g., in ‘planning’ for your near and dear’s lives after you exit! So much for life insurance!!
S: Most Indians are likely to be spiritual and, if they are analytically oriented, they are likely to be believers of ‘adhwaita’. However, it is the operation of the Stochastic Dynamic Destiny Principle that forces one to plan and take insurance, while forcing another not to exercise the choice to plan or take insurance.
G: It seems that you have moved in this direction of thought after years of worldly experience and your thoughts are still evolving: I wish that there was some way of skipping the learning curve and directly become a sanyaasi!!
S: You are right: earlier experiences must have caused me to think in a particular direction. I did not have any choice. And, I believe that for most of us there is no way of skipping the learning curve. Only a few may have been destined to become sanyaasi with out having to go through the experiential learning curve.
G: I also think that ‘realization’ cannot be through only reading or listening to discourses from tomes or religious texts. It can only be through experience – which is what life is.
S: I agree with you that ‘Realisation’ may not in most cases be possible without learning from experience. Maybe, reading, listening to discourses and participation in relevant discussions also helps progress towards realisation. However, I believe one can reach the state of realisation only if one is destined to realize.
G: It seems today, you have been mostly agreeing with me.
S: I have agreed with you only to the extent I am destined to do so.
G: Can I continue to ask assorted questions to find out your understanding on what others quote from Hindu scriptures?
S: Please do.
G: You agreed that desires motivate us into work or action. Then, what do you understand of the preaching that “ one should work without any attachment”? Unless one is attached, how would one work?
S: You are right. But the preaching is not a prescription for others to follow. To my mind, the preaching means that while one is in action, the action gets better done if the actor remains independent of, and not attached, to his action or the goal of the action or the uncertainty of the consequences of actions.
G: What is attachment?
S: Attachment is the absence of Independence. One may feel that his or her very existence and happiness dependent on the actions one is doing and desired outcome of those actions. He becomes tired with worries doing that action. That is normal. But the one who does not have this feeling may not act at all or may neglect in performing the actions. This is also normal.
G: But can there be persons who work without attachment?
S: Many persons work without attachment sometimes or other. Everyone cannot do this all the time. There are persons who concentrate on their actions and never worry about not being in action or being in action. They never worry about the result of action/ inaction while they are in action/ inaction. They live as if they are independent of their status of being in action (includes thinking as an action). It does not matter to them even if they are not busy in actions. Such people are truly independent. Such persons work without attachment. They are a rare tribe. They work like machines, say an automatic air-conditioner, when they are switched on mode and keep quite when in off mode. The hypothetical tree I talked about earlier works without any attachment.
G: Is it possible to develop such detachment in a human being?
S: Yes, if that is the destiny of a particular person. You preached certain good behavior to all people through religion. But very few people are able to follow and practice such advice. Even if you had given training to all people to steal, rob and kill others, only a few would be able to absorb or use that training.
G: If people are so different, how can you treat them equally?
S: You cannot treat them equally in your response behavior. You will not treat the thief who was trying to steal from your house in the same way as your friend. You cannot pay the same salary to your car driver and your aircraft pilot. But in your heart you know all these persons are manifestations of God and therefore they are nothing but you. This knowledge makes a difference.
G: What difference does this make?
S: You do not get upset that there are thieves or rogues in the society. You do not get angry with the thief or with the police for failing to prevent the thief from entering your locality at night. You catch the thief if you can with the help of your neighbors who rushed in when you raised the alarm. You defend yourself from his attack to hurt or kill you. You call the police to report the incident, handover the thief or its dead body if you killed him in self-defense. Yet, you are not angry with the thief. You see him as another manifestation of God.
G: How can you be not angry with someone who tried to hurt your interest? How can you think of your enemy as a manifestation of your God?
S: I am not suggesting that you do that. I also do not believe that people in general will do that. I am merely saying that there is no real cause of being angry with the thief or the enemy. You always knew that there are going to be thieves and enemies. Being in an angry state only hurts oneself rather than the enemy or the thief. I am merely saying that we cannot escape the Truth that the thief and the enemy and also you are the manifestation of the same God. When we accept this Truth, it makes a difference.
G: Only difference this will make is that the thieves and enemies will be further encouraged to hurt me more?
S: I am not sure that this will indeed be the case. A person, who maintained his family by robbing others on the roads through dense forests, suddenly went into meditation and later became a pious sage and wrote a classic Epic of the Hindus. He was as much a manifestation of God when he was a robber as when he transformed into a pious sage named Valmiki. The fact that I am not angry or that I admit the Truth about manifestation of God, cannot be a cause to encourage the thieves and enemies. Even if I pardon the thief, the police will not automatically let the thief go if it is once caught. The enemy will continue to be my enemy if he so wishes out of jealousy or a feeling that I have hurt his or society’s interest whether or not there is any real justification for his feeling against me.
G: Your God seems to be very unfair in suggesting that you forgive your enemy and the thief.
S: My God suggests all types of actions: getting angry and not getting angry or accepting the Truth about manifestation of God or not accepting that. I will be doing as per one of the opposite or alternative suggestions. Which one I actually do is the one I am destined to do. I have no real choice as the thief and the enemy.
G: You always end up using your Destiny Principle to justify what you say. But most people in the World will not accept your Destiny Principle. Even the few who might accept your Principle, will not accept that individuals have absolutely no choice.
S: I agree. What you are saying about the rejection of and reservations about the Destiny Principle is also consistent with that Principle. If all human beings were to accept the Destiny Principle and believe in it, God’s manifestation in human form will at least temporarily end.
G: Better we move over to some other questions about cultivating this thought about everything being manifestation of the same. Why is it that we find impossible to accept this so-called Truth you are talking about? We are unable to consider a thief as a manifestation of God.
S: Because as per the destiny principle, human beings have adopted the practice of giving identification on the basis of differences in forms and relating behavior with forms. Consider a situation that all human beings look exactly alike and wear identical dresses. . Ignore sex differences for the present. However, different humans have different kind of emotions, capabilities and preferences. So differently persons will behave differently. Some may have a tendency to steal while others may not. It would be impossible then to relate the behavior of one human being with his form. You would not know who was the thief and whose house raided. You cannot even enforce relationships between two different human beings. Because all look so identical, you cannot make out who did what to whom. Getting robbed becomes a risk similar to getting into a road accident or getting hit by hurricanes in a hurricane-prone area. You then do not identify the act of stealing with a particular identified person. You accept the incidence of theft in your house as a natural calamity or accident due to human error. No one will have difficulty in accepting others as manifestations of God.
G: But this hypothetical situation of all looking identical is not true of the World. Very few human beings are identical in form.
S: I also happen to know what the real world is. But, for a while consider hypothetical situations for analytical purposes. Let us consider another hypothetical situation where humans have different forms but all behave similarly because they have identical emotions, capabilities and preferences. Let us assume all try to steal from others. Then, the society accepts stealing as normal behavior. No one will have objection to accepting others as manifestation of God.
G: The problem arises because different persons not only look different but also behave differently in the real World.
S: You are right. That is the source of the problem. Now let us make you as the God to design a system, by which you impart the stealing tendency among some of the people, say, one-sixth of the population, so that you have a real World, rather than hypothetical worlds. You are a great mind and also fair. So you decide to throw a dice before each child is conceived as your manifestation and decide that whenever six comes up, the child will be imparted with stealing tendency. Now, the probability of each child born with stealing tendency is same (one-sixth). It is you as God designed this system to manifest yourself to make a real world. So, we cannot say that the thief is not a manifestation of God. The thief is the same as other manifestations of God. It is only the throws of dice that caused the differences in behavior among human beings. There was nothing intrinsically bad or evil with the human who turns out to a thief. Why then should others not accept the thieves as manifestation of God if they knew that it is only throws of dice that made the behavior difference and helped create the real world?
G: I agree if what you say about what God throwing dice is true, logically it would be necessary to accept thieves as manifestations of God in the same way as others are. But how can a throw of dice explain so many types of differences among human beings? We just do not have only six categories of human being.
S: You are right. There are numerous types of attributes among human beings. There are numerous types of tendencies, preferences and capabilities. Also, the strength of attributes also varies from very weak to very strong. If God has to be fair then He must resort to a large series of throw of dice for child being conceived to cover so many attributes with varying strengths. Maybe, He must drawing cards from a pack of 52 cards a number of times for each child conceived Maybe He has to play games of Carom or Ludo and relate each coin cleared into the holes to each attribute to be imparted. Will He have all this time?
G: But how do we know what game of fair chances does God play to impart different behavior, emotions, capabilities and preferences to different persons?
S: God need play these Games at all. Only the process in which children are conceived, born, brought up, grow, age and die, can these probabilities be assigned. The process itself becomes a stochastic process. Once the probabilities are automatically and randomly generated, God does not have to play any game of chances like throwing dice again and again. Human beings are only a small part of the Universe. There are other living beings, the physical materials, the energy flows, the vast space separated by billion light years, the numerous terrestrial bodies and cosmological forces and matters, the billions of Stars and black holes. The destiny process covers the emergence, continuation, transformation and disappearance of each such entity. You can recall that I referred to Stochastic Dynamic Destiny Process or Principle.
S: Yes, I do. If the material used to create, sustain and destroy any form or formless entity is drawn from something already in existence and the probabilities of the emergence, transformation and disappearance of all entities are the result of an unbiased, fair, stochastic process, each form can be regarded as the manifestation of God. We can easily appreciate the unity among diverse forms. Everything is God.
S: Yes, each entity goes through a process not under its control. Whatever it does and meets/ transact/ interact with is nothing but a part of that process. So every entity is essentially the same.
G: It is difficult to practice this in life.
S: Certainly, it is so. And, this is so because the destiny process itself is so designed. Human beings are but a small fraction of the Universe. The destiny principle covers the entire Universe including the destiny principle itself. Even if every one wishes to practice the thought that everything is nothing but the manifestation of the same God or Destiny Principle, the probability of everyone’s wish becoming true at the same time is so very negligible that we can say that this will never happen.
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