Back when International calls first became cheap, I occasionally gave into the temptation to ring up Indian Embassies and Ministries pretending to be Rahul Baba. 'Tell Mummy to legalize sodomy or I won't come back' was the gist of my otherwise unintelligible remarks.
I don't know whether my drunken antics played a part in the decriminalization of butt sex back in 2009, but I'm sure that I am somehow responsible for the recent Supreme Court Judgement reversing the Delhi High Court.
How so, you may ask?
Well, the fact is, I've recently taken to editing Wikipedia entries (which Indian Supreme Court Judges, since Katju, quote as an unimpeachable source in their Judgments) in a manner which links Section 377 to the ancient Common Law practice of inserting a red hot poker up Supreme Court assholes found guilty of sexual harassment.
So now you know.
Will Rahul Baba still be the Congress Prime Ministerial candidate?
Sure. Why not? There is no office in the land he is not fit to hold because his rectum is already adequately insulated with the likes of that slimy Manish Tiwari or dildo shaped Digvijay Singh...
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
Monday, 9 December 2013
Is Mike Munger stupider than Roberto Unger?
No.
Not yet.
Give him time.
He's a few years younger, than Unger, hasn't yet held high office and teaches at Duke, not Harvard.
Uttara-
You are wrong. The correct answer is a resounding 'Yes'!
Why?
Coz he's a Math guy- but a totally crap Math guy- and he is illiterate, ignorant and totally and irrevocably shite.Proof-
Munger mongered this mischievous nonsense in a blog post from December 2013-
PlayPump: Somebody Ought to Do Something!
But when Costello followed up, five years later, things hadn’t turned out very well. In her words,
I uncovered an array of problems with the way the technology had been implemented on the ground and I was dismayed to discover that the promise of the PlayPump had fallen woefully short.
During my reporting trip for the follow-up story, I traveled to Mozambique, where I met women who had been without their own supply of clean drinking water for months, because their PlayPump had broken down and had never been repaired or replaced. As I sat in the sand with those women, hearing their stories of anger and frustration, I felt partly responsible for their plight. After all, it was my initial glowing report that had helped to catapult the technology on to an international stage where it received millions of dollars in additional financing.
As a result of this experience, I have come to realize that we need to ask hard questions about seemingly good ideas. We should look closely and more critically at celebrated social entrepreneurs and the programs they spawn across the globe. I want to follow up on promising technologies and see what happened to them five, ten years down the road. I imagine we’ll discover that many ideas that appear simple and “good” on the surface, are actually not simple at all and are likely fraught with moral and ethical complexities.
It turns out that returning aid workers asked why no one had fixed the pump. The people of the town said that they were waiting for the government to do it. They were angry because they were sick and weak, because no one would help them. Far from lifting them up, the “aid” had only left them more dependent on others, less able to care for themselves.
If a society, any society, comes to believe that citizens have no power to fix things, and that we have to wait on the government, we all become sick, weak, and angry. Those people in Mozambique could have worked together and fixed that pump. But they have been taught since birth, since their grandparents’ birth, to think of themselves as children in a “family” headed by the State.
Get ‘er Done
In 1831 French historian and politician Alexis de Tocqueville published Democracy in America, a memoir of his travels in the United States. It could have been called How Americans Get Things Done. Tocqueville marveled at how Americans worked together privately to solve civic problems.
He was no fan of majority rule. The problem with political democracy, he said, is that citizens are isolated and “enfeebled.” They can do hardly anything by themselves, and they can’t force others to help them. He admired the American solution to this problem: Organize into private groups, and leave government out of it. As Tocqueville put it:
They all, therefore, become powerless if they do not learn voluntarily to help one another. If men living in democratic countries had no right and no inclination to associate for political purposes, their independence would be in great jeopardy, but they might long preserve their wealth and their cultivation: whereas if they never acquired the habit of forming associations in ordinary life, civilization itself would be endangered.
When libertarians seem to be “against” everything, this is what we are worried about. If citizens ignored politics, things wouldn’t be so bad. But we are worried that our excessive focus on politics will cause us to ignore society and each other. If we fail to connect as social beings in complex reciprocal exchange relations, modern “democratic” life becomes anomic and mean, just as Tocqueville foresaw.
That—that—is what we are for: voluntary associations, in all their richness and bewildering complexity.
If you want to go out and persuade some people to work with you, and all voluntarily work for the benefit of each, then that is libertarian social change. If someone wants to opt out and form a different association, they are free to do so. And that’s a good thing because you get diverse experimentation in problem solving.
(Read more: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/what-are-we-for#ixzz2n0oCkTju)Is Munger right? Did the people of Mozambique fuck up coz they trusted and loved their Govt. so much and had no fucking initiative or community spirit?
No. Munger is telling stupid lies.
The scheme he is talking about- the brainchild of a retired advertising guy who didn't know shit from engineering- FAILED. Laura Bush may have supported it- BUT IT WAS SHIT. The idea was to kill four birds with one stone
1) provide a merry-go-round for kids
2) Use the torque generated by the kids playing merry go round to pump water into a water tank
3) Give the water to women who would otherwise have had to use a handpump saving them time and energy
4) Use the space on the sides of the water tower to gain revenue by advertising
I invented a teddy bear which can brush your teeth while also connecting to Netflix and doubling as a hot water bottle and also an electronic shark repelant just in case baby gets thrown off the yacht during a tsunami. Clearly every baby in the Pacific littoral should have one. It costs just 74000 dollars and does not work at all. Why? Stuff which can do three or four totally different type of things at the same time is stuff which, speaking generally, is both very expensive and totally crap. Especially if the inventor is a retired Advertising Exec. who knows shit about engineering.
I know this. You know this. Munger, it seems, doesn't know this.
Why?
He is as stupid as shit.
Also he is totally illiterate.
A 30 second Google search would have put him right.
But he's too fucking illiterate to actually do a Google search.
Let's now look at established facts about Playpump-
1) Everybody agreed it was shit. So it stopped trading THREE YEARS AGO.
2) It cost 14000 dollars and crowded out handpumps from boreholes even though it cost up to 20 times a much and was, at its best, 20 per cent as efficient.
3) It was bad for kids. Malawi's Education Minister banned its use in Schools. It amounted to no more nor less than forced labor.
4) No Community in its right mind would spend even a penny on this piece of shit.
5) It was not the State but Non Government Organizations and stupid International Agencies and Western shithead Charities which financed this OBVIOUSLY FUCKED idea. But Laura Bush was a big supporter. This worthless shithead Munger, WRITING IN DECEMBER 2013- i.e. three years after EVERYBODY INVOLVED HAS ADMITTED IT WAS A SHIT PROJECT FROM START TO FINISH- is still a big supporter.
He thinks local communities should stick with this piece of shite. They shouldn't. They should tear it out of the ground and put back the handpumps which are UPTO 20 TIMES LESS EXPENSIVE AND MORE THAN 5 TIMES MORE EFFICIENT- EVEN UNDER THE MOST FAVORABLE CONDITIONS FOR PLAYPUMP.
You don't believe me? Then, don't believe this or this, but use your commonsense. Kids like merry-go-rounds, but they also like fun. Why would they spend hours on a merry-go-round when there are other games they can play?
Munger, shithead that he is, can't see it. He expects his readers on the Bleeding Heart Libertarian site to be as stupid and ignorant as himself. Playpump was a totally shit scheme forced down the throats of very poor African countries by stupid Western donors. The African countries commissioned proper research and proved that the Westerners were totally fucked in the head. Malawi's education Ministry banned Playpump because it hurt kids and was totally shit. Mozambique commissioned a study which showed that Playpump had imposed a massive cost on those whom it was supposed to help. The fuckers who imposed this shite have a moral obligation to take that shite out and restore the handpumps or whatever which their stupidity had crowded out. Everybody understands this. Everybody except Munger the brain-dunger. The guy is a Prof of Econ or some other such shite at Duke. He ran for Governor of some State of the other. What a FUCKING MASSIVE FUCKWIT!
How did this fuckwit get to be a Professor? The answer is he's a Math guy but a shite Math guy. He does not know any Econ or Pol Sci, he's just an enormous dickhead.
The shithead thinks that something called 'euvoluntary transactions'- in which there is no buyer or seller remorse- but this means they are are hysteresis free, or fully ergodic- and this militates against 'repugnancy markets'.
Why is this fucked?
Perhaps it is sufficient to quote this. (my comments are in bold)
'Destinationist libertarians identify ideal policies, using ideal theory. (Stupid Destinationists do- non stupid ones have ontologically dysphoric preferences like normal people) For the destinationist, of course, anything other than the ideal outcome is an unacceptable compromise, because sanctioning a new but non-ideal status quo implies complicity. This is the “don’t vote, it only encourages them!” view of politics.
Directionalist libertarians identify a path that leads from the status quo toward ideal policies, using pragmatic and consequentialist considerations. (Stupid ones do. Sensible ones confess that there is no way to specify one's current trajectory, let alone specify how to alter it for the better.) This is the libertarian answer to the common “Tell you how you get from A to B to C” objection we hear so often. Actual, concrete policy proposals, things we could do now, and some of these policy proposals are motivated at least in part by concerns for social justice.
To close, let me admit (as is no doubt predictable) that I am a directionalist. I learn a lot from my destinationist friends, and I value your insights. You keep us all honest, and your objections are useful, because you remind us what our goals should be. But if you think that all policies that differ from your imagined libertopia are equally bad, then you are just wrong. Some non-ideal policies are much less bad than others. In the next four parts of this essay, I will try to argue for some analytical criteria for making those sorts of “less bad” incremental improvements, and make an argument for two policies that will make my destinationist friends shriek and rend their garments'
• Mike Munger
Still, the fact that Libertarian philosophy is just as worthless as any other type does tell us something about the nature of Liberty which, deep down, we already know. In nuce, it is that shite is liefer talked than heard.
Thursday, 5 December 2013
Faisal Devji's foolish 'Muslim Zion'
Prof. Devji is at it again. In his latest book, about Pakistan, he says
Why is this silly?
Well, European Jews had been persecuted for hundreds of years. But even Jews living in other parts of the world, who had never been persecuted, nourished the hope of returning to their holy land. Why? It was part of their religion.
By contrast, though some Muslim immigrants to the sub-continent retained a scruple regarding accepting land-grants as opposed to money payment because it was sinful to settle in a country that might be considered dar-ul-harb in that it was not fully Islamicized;, this scruple fell into abeyance in the second or third generation. Indeed, the Indian Muslim came to identify strongly with the region in which he had settled. Pious people might wish to retire to Mecca or Najaf and be buried in that holy soil but there was never any notion, prior to the ill fated 1920 Hijrat to Afghanistan, of a mass exodus. How could there be? Muslims were never ejected from their Holy Land. They had an obligation to return there but only as pilgrims- not as settlers.
What about Devji's assertion that 'the emergence of national minorities' in Nineteenth Century India turned Muslims there into a minority? How can the emergence of a thing result in bringing that very same thing about?
Fuck if I know. But then I don't teach History at Oxford.
Well, European Jews had been persecuted for hundreds of years. But even Jews living in other parts of the world, who had never been persecuted, nourished the hope of returning to their holy land. Why? It was part of their religion.
By contrast, though some Muslim immigrants to the sub-continent retained a scruple regarding accepting land-grants as opposed to money payment because it was sinful to settle in a country that might be considered dar-ul-harb in that it was not fully Islamicized;, this scruple fell into abeyance in the second or third generation. Indeed, the Indian Muslim came to identify strongly with the region in which he had settled. Pious people might wish to retire to Mecca or Najaf and be buried in that holy soil but there was never any notion, prior to the ill fated 1920 Hijrat to Afghanistan, of a mass exodus. How could there be? Muslims were never ejected from their Holy Land. They had an obligation to return there but only as pilgrims- not as settlers.
What about Devji's assertion that 'the emergence of national minorities' in Nineteenth Century India turned Muslims there into a minority? How can the emergence of a thing result in bringing that very same thing about?
Fuck if I know. But then I don't teach History at Oxford.
Friday, 29 November 2013
Razborov-Rudich proves Tejpal was raped
Tarun Tejpal- a fat, fifty year old, fucking horrible Indglish novelist, same as wot I am- was raped in an elevator by Hindutva hooligans working hand in glove with the Feminist Taliban. Yet, irony of ironies!, it is Tejpal who is being pilloried!
What makes it all the more unfair is the universal derision which greeted his assertion that ' CCTV will prove I did nothing wrong in the lift' (i.e. the elevator- you say tomato, we say tamattar) because, as he well knew, there was no camera there.
Surely, as responsible Secularists, we have a duty to find a more charitable interpretation of Tejpal's enigmatic statement?
But how are we to proceed?
The answer, of course, as so often happens on this blog, is by taking recourse to the theory of computational complexity.
Briefly, the character string 'CT,' in Tejpal's reference to CCTV, refers to the Church Turing Thesis- i.e. Tejpal was giving an informal proof of a purely mathematical, not empirical type. Thus, the absence of a camera in the lift is NOT AT ALL germane.
The fact is, as Wikipedia says (hat tip to ex Chief Justice Katju) 'Proofs in computability theory often invoke[43] the Church–Turing thesis in an informal way to establish the computability of functions while avoiding the (often very long) details which would be involved in a rigorous, formal proof. To establish that a function is computable by Turing machine, it is usually considered sufficient to give an informal English description of how the function can be effectively computed, and then conclude "By the Church–Turing thesis" that the function is Turing computable (equivalently partial recursive).
Now, it is a well known axiom of Modern Indglish Secular Socialistic Mathematics, that Narendra Modi is constantly prowling around raping everybody and then slitting open their bellies to tear a fetus out of their womb so as to rape that fetus and slit its belly open etc, OBVIOUSLY that's what happened to Tejpal by Church Turing, at least once you take into account the underlying Lyapunov candidate function- conventionally represented as 'V' (Lyapunov functions are useful because they make a Schelling focal point (like Modi's endlessly increasing degree of guilt) a stable solution to the underlying Co-ordination problem in a manner that is robust to empirical refutation). Thus, Tejpal is saying 'See, by Church Turing, the existence conditions for a Lyapunov candidate function proves I was raped by a Feminist Taliban/Hindutva Hooligan of a Madhu Kishwar type ACTING ON ORDERS OF NARENDRA MODI.
"BTW & FYKI all this is explained on page 2 of my 'Alchemy of Desire'- which isn't a totally crap book by a worthless needle-dick rug-muncher at all- but you didn't bother to read it, did you? Just skipped through to the dirty bits except you didn't even persevere with those sections coz the only purple and engorged thing that therein arises is my own insufferable ego plowing my spinchterless colon of prose.
' But enough literary chit-chat. Look, just fucking face facts why don't you? Either Narendra Modi is a Machiavellian monster orchestrating every verifiable Evil or else everything us Indglish 'intellectuals' have been banging on about post Godhra has been just meretricious, mendacious shite.
'Now, by Razborov-Rudich, we know that, since we can't prove Modi's guilt (because the psuedorandom generators used by Modi to cloak his Satanic conspiracy are indistinguishable from the real thing) it follows that our 'natural proofs' of Modi's guilt can't decide PvNP. This is important because, though bilaterality (as for example between me and my rapist in the lift) is in complexity class P, the 'alchemy of Desire' is not. Why? Alchemy is not algorithmically verifiable. This is shown by the fact that whereas what actually happened was Modi's minions totally ass raped me, still I go down in history as a creepy Uncleji type going down on all and sundry whereas, since my English and Punjabi and Inglish novels are way better than Vivek Iyer's, I am not the least cunning linguist ever. Also I've made a lot of money peddling my trash. Iyer is just sad.'
Q.E.D
What makes it all the more unfair is the universal derision which greeted his assertion that ' CCTV will prove I did nothing wrong in the lift' (i.e. the elevator- you say tomato, we say tamattar) because, as he well knew, there was no camera there.
Surely, as responsible Secularists, we have a duty to find a more charitable interpretation of Tejpal's enigmatic statement?
But how are we to proceed?
The answer, of course, as so often happens on this blog, is by taking recourse to the theory of computational complexity.
Briefly, the character string 'CT,' in Tejpal's reference to CCTV, refers to the Church Turing Thesis- i.e. Tejpal was giving an informal proof of a purely mathematical, not empirical type. Thus, the absence of a camera in the lift is NOT AT ALL germane.
The fact is, as Wikipedia says (hat tip to ex Chief Justice Katju) 'Proofs in computability theory often invoke[43] the Church–Turing thesis in an informal way to establish the computability of functions while avoiding the (often very long) details which would be involved in a rigorous, formal proof. To establish that a function is computable by Turing machine, it is usually considered sufficient to give an informal English description of how the function can be effectively computed, and then conclude "By the Church–Turing thesis" that the function is Turing computable (equivalently partial recursive).
Now, it is a well known axiom of Modern Indglish Secular Socialistic Mathematics, that Narendra Modi is constantly prowling around raping everybody and then slitting open their bellies to tear a fetus out of their womb so as to rape that fetus and slit its belly open etc, OBVIOUSLY that's what happened to Tejpal by Church Turing, at least once you take into account the underlying Lyapunov candidate function- conventionally represented as 'V' (Lyapunov functions are useful because they make a Schelling focal point (like Modi's endlessly increasing degree of guilt) a stable solution to the underlying Co-ordination problem in a manner that is robust to empirical refutation). Thus, Tejpal is saying 'See, by Church Turing, the existence conditions for a Lyapunov candidate function proves I was raped by a Feminist Taliban/Hindutva Hooligan of a Madhu Kishwar type ACTING ON ORDERS OF NARENDRA MODI.
"BTW & FYKI all this is explained on page 2 of my 'Alchemy of Desire'- which isn't a totally crap book by a worthless needle-dick rug-muncher at all- but you didn't bother to read it, did you? Just skipped through to the dirty bits except you didn't even persevere with those sections coz the only purple and engorged thing that therein arises is my own insufferable ego plowing my spinchterless colon of prose.
' But enough literary chit-chat. Look, just fucking face facts why don't you? Either Narendra Modi is a Machiavellian monster orchestrating every verifiable Evil or else everything us Indglish 'intellectuals' have been banging on about post Godhra has been just meretricious, mendacious shite.
'Now, by Razborov-Rudich, we know that, since we can't prove Modi's guilt (because the psuedorandom generators used by Modi to cloak his Satanic conspiracy are indistinguishable from the real thing) it follows that our 'natural proofs' of Modi's guilt can't decide PvNP. This is important because, though bilaterality (as for example between me and my rapist in the lift) is in complexity class P, the 'alchemy of Desire' is not. Why? Alchemy is not algorithmically verifiable. This is shown by the fact that whereas what actually happened was Modi's minions totally ass raped me, still I go down in history as a creepy Uncleji type going down on all and sundry whereas, since my English and Punjabi and Inglish novels are way better than Vivek Iyer's, I am not the least cunning linguist ever. Also I've made a lot of money peddling my trash. Iyer is just sad.'
Q.E.D
Thursday, 28 November 2013
Gandhi on khaddar
My former neighbor, from when I lived in West Ken, Barrister Gandhi has written as follows-
WILL THEY DO IT?
(Harijan 25/5/1934)
Since I have taken up the walking pilgrimage, hundreds of villagers have been following the pilgrims. Some even talk about their woes. Thus, whilst I was reaching Sakhigopal, a representative weaver himself told me that the weavers were in great distress as there was no demand for their cloth.
I told him I had prophesied fifteen years ago that it would not be possible for them to co-exist with mills, so long as they used mill yarn, and that the natural supplier and sustainer of the handloom was the spinning-wheel. In his reply I heard, to the best of my recollection, for the first time, ‘Give us hand-spun and we shall weave it.’
‘I will, if you will do as I tell you’, said I.
‘We will’, the old man replied. The weaver was an old man with a bent back.
I was overjoyed at his replies and said, ‘That is very good. Then I would teach you, your wife and your children how to gin, card and spin. You will then have enough yarn for your loom. You will spin good, strong, even yarn, you will avoid waste. I shall expect you from your first out-turn to take your khaddar for your own use and then I shall buy all the surplus khaddar you weave. I shall try to become a member of your family and give you the benefit of my experience.
Thus, I shall ask you to give up drink and intoxicating drugs if you are addicted to them. I shall go through your family budget and wean you from incurring debts.’
The old man’s face lightened up and he said, ‘We shall surely follow your advice. At present, starvation stares us in the face.’ I asked him to bring some of his friends to see me at 3 o’clock at the
Gopabandhu Ashram in Saikhigopal.
He came with his friends, I repeated much of the morning conversation and said, ‘I know you can’t spin at once enough yarn to start your looms. I shall, therefore, supply you with enough yarn to start with for the most promising families. By the time you have woven it, you will have spun enough to feed your looms. The first khaddar you weave from this supplied yarn will be taken over from
you. For the second lot, if you have not yet enough yarn of your own, I will again supply you with some. After that you should become self-supporting and you should make all your own family
requirements of cloth and then only sell the surplus.
I regard this as an experiment of the highest importance and potency. There are probably ten million weavers in India. No one has the correct number, to the thousand even. But ten million is a safe guess. If these added all the previous processes to the art of weaving, they would not only ensure their own existence, but cheapen khaddar to the lowest possible limit and turn out much more durable and beautiful khaddar than has yet been produced.
The readers of Harijan know that there are in the Central Provinces several Harijan weaver families which do their own carding and spinning. I would add to this ginning. The future of khaddar can be assured if the weavers realize the necessity, for their own sakes, of themselves doing all the processes antecedent to weaving.'
Was Gandhi right in the advise he gave the elderly weaver? Could hand spinning yarn yield the weavers enough income to stave off starvation?
Gandhi's acolyte, Vinobha Bhave made the experiment-
On September 1, 1935 I started a new practice, though in fact it was not really new, it merely became more noticeable. The whole spinning exercise was designed to demonstrate that a man could earn his living by spinning, provided he received the wages I had calculated, and the market prices remained steady. On this basis I reckoned that one should be able to live on six rupees a month; the diet included fifty tolas of milk, thirty tolas of vegetables, fifteen to twenty of wheat, four of oil, and some honey, raw sugar or fruit.
This principle, that a spinner should be able to earn his living by his work, had always been accepted from the first years at Wardha, 1922-23. The new practice we began at Nalwadi in 1935 was that at four o’clock each afternoon we reckoned up how much work had been done. If it was found that by six o’clock (after eight hours of work) the spinners would have earned full wages, then the evening meal was cooked. Otherwise, the workers had to decide whether to forego the evening meal, or to work extra time and earn the full wages. Sometimes the ration was reduced when the earnings fell short. My students were quite young lads, but they worked along with me enthusiastically to the best of their power.
The Charkha Sangh (All India Spinners Association) had fixed wages which amounted to only five rupees a month for four hanks daily, that is, for nine hours’ work a day. In my opinion a spinner should receive not less than four annas (a quarter-rupee) for his daily quota; Bapu would have liked it to be eight annas. But that would have put up the price of khadi, and the gentry would not be prepared to pay a higher rate. What could be done? The only way was for someone like me to experiment in living on the spinner’s wage.
Bapu soon heard of my experiment. He was living at Sevagram, but he was alert to everything that was going on. When we next met he asked me for details. ‘How much do you earn in a day,’ he enquired, ‘calculated at the Charkha Sangh rate?’ ‘Two annas, or two and a quarter,’ I said. ‘And what do you reckon you need?’ ‘Eight annas,’ I replied. ‘So that means,’ he commented, ‘that even a good worker, doing a full day’s work, can’t earn a living wage !’ His distress was evident in his words. At last, thanks to his efforts, the Charkha Sangh accepted the principle of a living wage, though in practice we are still a long way from achieving it.
This debate about wages went on for two or three years. The Maharashtra Charkha Sangh made the first move, and as no adverse consequences followed, they were emboldened to take a second step, bringing the wage to double what it had been. An ordinary spinner could earn four annas by eight hours’ work, while a good spinner could earn six annas. Some specially skilful and hard-working individuals might occasionally earn as much as eight annas—the amount Gandhiji had proposed as the standard. But though the Maharashtra Charkha Sangh adopted the principle, it still seemed impracticable to people in the other provinces.
After I had succeeded in spinning four hanks of yarn in nine hours on the wheel, I planned a similar experiment with the takli (i.e. using a spindle). But my speed was so slow that I felt it was beyond me to achieve satisfactory results. I wanted some more capable person to take it up, because it was only by such experiments that the idea of khadi could really gain ground. I myself experimented for a full year with takli spinning by the left hand, and found that there was a difference of twelve yards in the production of the right and left hands. The purpose of the exercise was to find out whether a full day’s wage could be earned on the takli, spinning for eight hours with both the hands. My fellow-worker Satyavratan was able in this way to produce three hanks of yarn in eight hours.
In those days, about 1934, we used to come together every day at noon for takli spinning. I looked upon this as a form of meditation, and I told my fellow-workers that while I had no wish to impose my ideas on others, I did hope that there would be a better attendance at this takli meditation even than at meals. If this does not happen, one reason is that we do not pay attention to the principles upon which it is based. Meditation stands as it were midway between practical affairs and knowledge—knowledge of the Self—and acts as a bridge. Its task is to enable us, who are preoccupied with practical activities, to reach the Supreme Truth. Meditation appeals first to practical benefits, and by concentration on these benefits leads us to the further shore, to peace, contentment and knowledge of the Self. Let a person begin with the thought that if every inhabitant of India were to take to the takli or the charkha, many of the country’s ills would be remedied. If he starts spinning for that reason it will bring peace of mind. Whatever we undertake in this spirit of reflection or meditation brings both outward and inward benefit, and experience of the takli is of this kind.
So there we have it. Spinning might have some value akin to meditation but it didn't yield an income sufficient to stave off starvation. No doubt, the Gandhian fad meant that hand-spun cloth could be sold at a premium, but even so spinners couldn't feed themselves adequately on the basis of their earnings. By contrast, good weavers using machine yarn were doing quite well for themselves because they were producing a luxury product with a high market price.
WILL THEY DO IT?
(Harijan 25/5/1934)
Since I have taken up the walking pilgrimage, hundreds of villagers have been following the pilgrims. Some even talk about their woes. Thus, whilst I was reaching Sakhigopal, a representative weaver himself told me that the weavers were in great distress as there was no demand for their cloth.
I told him I had prophesied fifteen years ago that it would not be possible for them to co-exist with mills, so long as they used mill yarn, and that the natural supplier and sustainer of the handloom was the spinning-wheel. In his reply I heard, to the best of my recollection, for the first time, ‘Give us hand-spun and we shall weave it.’
‘I will, if you will do as I tell you’, said I.
‘We will’, the old man replied. The weaver was an old man with a bent back.
I was overjoyed at his replies and said, ‘That is very good. Then I would teach you, your wife and your children how to gin, card and spin. You will then have enough yarn for your loom. You will spin good, strong, even yarn, you will avoid waste. I shall expect you from your first out-turn to take your khaddar for your own use and then I shall buy all the surplus khaddar you weave. I shall try to become a member of your family and give you the benefit of my experience.
Thus, I shall ask you to give up drink and intoxicating drugs if you are addicted to them. I shall go through your family budget and wean you from incurring debts.’
The old man’s face lightened up and he said, ‘We shall surely follow your advice. At present, starvation stares us in the face.’ I asked him to bring some of his friends to see me at 3 o’clock at the
Gopabandhu Ashram in Saikhigopal.
He came with his friends, I repeated much of the morning conversation and said, ‘I know you can’t spin at once enough yarn to start your looms. I shall, therefore, supply you with enough yarn to start with for the most promising families. By the time you have woven it, you will have spun enough to feed your looms. The first khaddar you weave from this supplied yarn will be taken over from
you. For the second lot, if you have not yet enough yarn of your own, I will again supply you with some. After that you should become self-supporting and you should make all your own family
requirements of cloth and then only sell the surplus.
I regard this as an experiment of the highest importance and potency. There are probably ten million weavers in India. No one has the correct number, to the thousand even. But ten million is a safe guess. If these added all the previous processes to the art of weaving, they would not only ensure their own existence, but cheapen khaddar to the lowest possible limit and turn out much more durable and beautiful khaddar than has yet been produced.
The readers of Harijan know that there are in the Central Provinces several Harijan weaver families which do their own carding and spinning. I would add to this ginning. The future of khaddar can be assured if the weavers realize the necessity, for their own sakes, of themselves doing all the processes antecedent to weaving.'
Was Gandhi right in the advise he gave the elderly weaver? Could hand spinning yarn yield the weavers enough income to stave off starvation?
Gandhi's acolyte, Vinobha Bhave made the experiment-
On September 1, 1935 I started a new practice, though in fact it was not really new, it merely became more noticeable. The whole spinning exercise was designed to demonstrate that a man could earn his living by spinning, provided he received the wages I had calculated, and the market prices remained steady. On this basis I reckoned that one should be able to live on six rupees a month; the diet included fifty tolas of milk, thirty tolas of vegetables, fifteen to twenty of wheat, four of oil, and some honey, raw sugar or fruit.
This principle, that a spinner should be able to earn his living by his work, had always been accepted from the first years at Wardha, 1922-23. The new practice we began at Nalwadi in 1935 was that at four o’clock each afternoon we reckoned up how much work had been done. If it was found that by six o’clock (after eight hours of work) the spinners would have earned full wages, then the evening meal was cooked. Otherwise, the workers had to decide whether to forego the evening meal, or to work extra time and earn the full wages. Sometimes the ration was reduced when the earnings fell short. My students were quite young lads, but they worked along with me enthusiastically to the best of their power.
The Charkha Sangh (All India Spinners Association) had fixed wages which amounted to only five rupees a month for four hanks daily, that is, for nine hours’ work a day. In my opinion a spinner should receive not less than four annas (a quarter-rupee) for his daily quota; Bapu would have liked it to be eight annas. But that would have put up the price of khadi, and the gentry would not be prepared to pay a higher rate. What could be done? The only way was for someone like me to experiment in living on the spinner’s wage.
Bapu soon heard of my experiment. He was living at Sevagram, but he was alert to everything that was going on. When we next met he asked me for details. ‘How much do you earn in a day,’ he enquired, ‘calculated at the Charkha Sangh rate?’ ‘Two annas, or two and a quarter,’ I said. ‘And what do you reckon you need?’ ‘Eight annas,’ I replied. ‘So that means,’ he commented, ‘that even a good worker, doing a full day’s work, can’t earn a living wage !’ His distress was evident in his words. At last, thanks to his efforts, the Charkha Sangh accepted the principle of a living wage, though in practice we are still a long way from achieving it.
This debate about wages went on for two or three years. The Maharashtra Charkha Sangh made the first move, and as no adverse consequences followed, they were emboldened to take a second step, bringing the wage to double what it had been. An ordinary spinner could earn four annas by eight hours’ work, while a good spinner could earn six annas. Some specially skilful and hard-working individuals might occasionally earn as much as eight annas—the amount Gandhiji had proposed as the standard. But though the Maharashtra Charkha Sangh adopted the principle, it still seemed impracticable to people in the other provinces.
After I had succeeded in spinning four hanks of yarn in nine hours on the wheel, I planned a similar experiment with the takli (i.e. using a spindle). But my speed was so slow that I felt it was beyond me to achieve satisfactory results. I wanted some more capable person to take it up, because it was only by such experiments that the idea of khadi could really gain ground. I myself experimented for a full year with takli spinning by the left hand, and found that there was a difference of twelve yards in the production of the right and left hands. The purpose of the exercise was to find out whether a full day’s wage could be earned on the takli, spinning for eight hours with both the hands. My fellow-worker Satyavratan was able in this way to produce three hanks of yarn in eight hours.
In those days, about 1934, we used to come together every day at noon for takli spinning. I looked upon this as a form of meditation, and I told my fellow-workers that while I had no wish to impose my ideas on others, I did hope that there would be a better attendance at this takli meditation even than at meals. If this does not happen, one reason is that we do not pay attention to the principles upon which it is based. Meditation stands as it were midway between practical affairs and knowledge—knowledge of the Self—and acts as a bridge. Its task is to enable us, who are preoccupied with practical activities, to reach the Supreme Truth. Meditation appeals first to practical benefits, and by concentration on these benefits leads us to the further shore, to peace, contentment and knowledge of the Self. Let a person begin with the thought that if every inhabitant of India were to take to the takli or the charkha, many of the country’s ills would be remedied. If he starts spinning for that reason it will bring peace of mind. Whatever we undertake in this spirit of reflection or meditation brings both outward and inward benefit, and experience of the takli is of this kind.
So there we have it. Spinning might have some value akin to meditation but it didn't yield an income sufficient to stave off starvation. No doubt, the Gandhian fad meant that hand-spun cloth could be sold at a premium, but even so spinners couldn't feed themselves adequately on the basis of their earnings. By contrast, good weavers using machine yarn were doing quite well for themselves because they were producing a luxury product with a high market price.
Gandhi as negotiator
'Mahatma Gandhi is possibly one of the best negotiators the world has seen. He accomplished many incredible things in his own way and managed to rally people together for a cause.' Prof Peter. Hiddema.
Suppose we are neighbors. I say to you 'if you dig a ditch, my garden won't get flooded.'
You reply- 'if you let me use your parking space, I wouldn't keep getting tickets.'
Clearly, there is a possibility for some sort of deal to be struck here. I might be prepared to sacrifice my parking space so as not to have my garden flooded. You may be prepared to accept occasional use of my parking space in return for digging the ditch. There is a 'contract curve' describing feasible mutually beneficial deals we can make. Negotiations is about getting the best deal for oneself.
Was Gandhi a good negotiator?
Gokhale and Smuts thought he was a good man but a poor negotiator because he wouldn't press his advantage when he had the upper hand.
However, on the occasion when he could have got 'Swaraj'- i.e. self-rule for India along the lines Allenby had granted the Egyptians- he messed up in a manner which suggested that he wasn't a good man at all.
To see why, let us go back to story about my flooded garden and your coveting my parking space.
Suppose we have agreed that my parking space is worth much more in money than the cost of your digging the ditch and that whatever agreement we make is going to include an additional douceur.
Yet, next time we meet, you say to me 'I'm glad you've realized your moral obligation to give me your parking space. It is sad that you only came to the realization of the terrible injustice you were doing me by reason of your selfish interest in saving your garden from being flooded. Still, because I'm a truly charitable and morally exceptional person, I'm going to forget all about our negotiations and simply use your...I mean my parking space, without giving a thought to the sordid motives which led to your handing it over to me.'
Your response is to get my car towed and to bring a suit against me for damages caused to my garden by flooding due to your negligence in not attending to the proper drainage of your property. You promptly run around the neighborhood telling everybody I'm a thief and a rapist and Satanist and so on. I bring an action for libel. You refuse to pay and so your assets are sold. You are now homeless but squat in your old property. I get you arrested for trespass and property damages. You begin a campaign of Civil Disobedience in the Court room. You get done for Contempt and languish in prison because you refuse to purge yourself of contempt. Your baby starves, your wife goes mad, your daughter becomes a prostitute but gets knifed by a sicko, your sons become terrorists and are either shot or shipped off to Gitmo. You, however, are supremely happy. You have acted righteously. The parking space was yours because I said I was prepared to give it to you for a consideration. But it is immoral to do something for a consideration. The fact that I was prepared to give it to you meant I was morally obliged to give it to you. For you to offer a douceur to me to fulfill this moral obligation would be a corrupt practice on your part. The path of virtue, of non violence, of Christian Charity and Moral Righteousness, forbade you any course of action other than the one you have taken. You are truly a 'Mahatma'- a great soul.
Suppose we are neighbors. I say to you 'if you dig a ditch, my garden won't get flooded.'
You reply- 'if you let me use your parking space, I wouldn't keep getting tickets.'
Clearly, there is a possibility for some sort of deal to be struck here. I might be prepared to sacrifice my parking space so as not to have my garden flooded. You may be prepared to accept occasional use of my parking space in return for digging the ditch. There is a 'contract curve' describing feasible mutually beneficial deals we can make. Negotiations is about getting the best deal for oneself.
Was Gandhi a good negotiator?
Gokhale and Smuts thought he was a good man but a poor negotiator because he wouldn't press his advantage when he had the upper hand.
However, on the occasion when he could have got 'Swaraj'- i.e. self-rule for India along the lines Allenby had granted the Egyptians- he messed up in a manner which suggested that he wasn't a good man at all.
To see why, let us go back to story about my flooded garden and your coveting my parking space.
Suppose we have agreed that my parking space is worth much more in money than the cost of your digging the ditch and that whatever agreement we make is going to include an additional douceur.
Yet, next time we meet, you say to me 'I'm glad you've realized your moral obligation to give me your parking space. It is sad that you only came to the realization of the terrible injustice you were doing me by reason of your selfish interest in saving your garden from being flooded. Still, because I'm a truly charitable and morally exceptional person, I'm going to forget all about our negotiations and simply use your...I mean my parking space, without giving a thought to the sordid motives which led to your handing it over to me.'
Your response is to get my car towed and to bring a suit against me for damages caused to my garden by flooding due to your negligence in not attending to the proper drainage of your property. You promptly run around the neighborhood telling everybody I'm a thief and a rapist and Satanist and so on. I bring an action for libel. You refuse to pay and so your assets are sold. You are now homeless but squat in your old property. I get you arrested for trespass and property damages. You begin a campaign of Civil Disobedience in the Court room. You get done for Contempt and languish in prison because you refuse to purge yourself of contempt. Your baby starves, your wife goes mad, your daughter becomes a prostitute but gets knifed by a sicko, your sons become terrorists and are either shot or shipped off to Gitmo. You, however, are supremely happy. You have acted righteously. The parking space was yours because I said I was prepared to give it to you for a consideration. But it is immoral to do something for a consideration. The fact that I was prepared to give it to you meant I was morally obliged to give it to you. For you to offer a douceur to me to fulfill this moral obligation would be a corrupt practice on your part. The path of virtue, of non violence, of Christian Charity and Moral Righteousness, forbade you any course of action other than the one you have taken. You are truly a 'Mahatma'- a great soul.
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