The vicious circle of female foeticide

John Kenneth Galbraith, a “hyperliterate economic sage” in the words of Steven Levitt, coined the term “conventional wisdom.” Galbraith did not consider it to be a compliment.

We associate truth with convenience with what most closely accords with self-interest and personal well-being or promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life. We also find highly acceptable what contributes most to self-esteem.

Economic and social behaviour are complex, and to comprehend their character is mentally tiring. Therefore, we adhere, as though to a raft, to those ideas which represent our understanding.

Female foeticide in India is a rational phenomenon. In any society, we have a large number of individuals with potential interests making decisions all the time that will affect their lives and lives of others. Jeremy Bentham was one of the first moral philosophers to point out that people respond to incentives.

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand, the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne.

This philosophy of pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain is compatible with biological nature of humans. In a country like India, the birth of a female child attaches a social stigma to the mother who bore her and elicits anger and resentment from her in-laws because females are considered to be a financial burden. A large number of young couples opt for pre-natal sex determination through ultrasound technology which is widely available across the country. Among the poor, the practice of infanticide is prevalent. Conventional wisdom says this is Indian culture, but economists believe that the roots of culture lie in the relative prosperity of any society.

Conventional wisdom screams stop killing babies, for god’s sake! The media is talking about it and the blogosphere is ringing. Every day we come across news stories wherein the law and order authorities discover female foetuses and bodies of female infants dumped near private clinics. We even label these people hideous perverts, but unsurprisingly, they are the people from within our society. They are everywhere. And they are acting rationally too. They are simply responding to incentives. Females are socially constrained* from producing as much utility as a male member in a family. Due to this, the desire to have another female in the family is daunted by the desire of having a male member. And as a consequence, females are actively disregarded by the family members and are unable to match the males in production of capital. It is the individual choices of family members that are paving the way for a vicious circle and a deep-rooted collective culture of prejudice against females.

The government in its own grandeur comes up with schemes and presents its own means for the so-called empowerment of women. The society is often worse off than it was before these reforms were put in place. Statistics indicate that the number of females per 1000 males has steadily decreased during the post-independence era. According to Nobel laureate and celebrated economist Amartya Sen, there are 50 million women missing in India. The evil prevails and it is fast consuming the ethos of our society.

Perhaps it is time to shelve our veneers of conceit and discard the hollow pride that consumes us in the name of religion and culture. Perhaps it is time to unlearn conventional wisdom and come to terms with reality.

The truth is that we have all the wrong incentives in place which have in turn yielded undesirable results.

*Females are socially and biologically constrained due to their role in production of human capital. Females spend a considerable amount of time and resources in the production of babies and are evolutionarily more adept at rearing children than human males.

Times of India faces sedition charges

The newly appointed Chief Commissioner of Police has pressed criminal charges of sedition and treason against the Times of India, its Resident Editor and a correspondent. Over the past few days, the Times of India published a series of articles questioning the appointment of Mr. O.P. Mathur as the police commissioner of Ahmedabad.

The slugfest started when the Times published a series of articles linked below:

• Was A’bad CP a Latif man? – By Prashant Dayal, 27 May 2008
• How can A’bad be safe in his hands? Part I – By Prashant Dayal, 28 May 2008
• How can A’bad be safe in his hands? Part II – By Prashant Dayal, 28 May 2008
• OPM High A’bad can do without – By Prashant Dayal, 29 May 2008
• Crooked path to the crown – By Prashant Dayal, 30 May 2008
• Latif an ISI man and Mathur a Latif man? – By Prashant Dayal, 31 May 2008
• Threatened man refuses to meet Mathur for gun – By Prashant Dayal, 31 May 2008

Prima facie, there remains no doubt that the Times of India engaged in yellow journalism to charge up public angst against the decision by the state government. A number of assertions made within these articles are largely based on old CBI reports, much of which includes statements by Abdul Khurdush, an accomplice of Latif who was the leader of the organized crime syndicate in Ahmedabad in the early 90s.

Khurdush told CBI that because of political pressure exerted by Rauf, Latif’s plans to have four to five members of his gang surrendered before the police, were not working out. These plans, according to Khurdush, were being hatched by Latif in consultation with senior police officers and higher-ups in the government headed by then chief minister, late Chimanbhai Patel.

Khurdush stated before the CBI that Latif knew Mathur “very well” and it was Mathur who communicated to Latif that Rauf was throwing a spanner in the surrender plan. At this, Khurdush stated, Latif got very angry with Rauf. Days later, the Latif gang eliminated Rauf in a sensational killing [...] [link]

The fact remains that none of this has been proven in a court of law. The journalist in question probably understood this very well and has meticulously quoted CBI reports as the source. This does not, however, justify the complacence of the editorial team while publishing these articles without any regard to the reputation and the privacy of Mr. Mathur. All of these articles were published on the front page of the national daily and in matter of five days, they have blown the credibility of the man to smithereens.

The Executive Committee of the Indian Police Service Association made a public resolution on June 2, 2008 which read:

The reports, including some twisted facts suiting convenience of the author of nearly 15 years vintage, have been timed to be published in such a manner so as to attack the newly appointed Commissioner of Police on personal grounds, and to question the wisdom of the administrative function of the government.

Such reports which target an individual and smell of personal vindictiveness need to be strongly condemned and all available legal action should be taken against the authors of the reports.

The Governor of Gujarat, Mr. Naval Kishore Sharma was approached by a number of journalists from Gujarat. The Hindu reports:

The Governor even while making it clear the limitations of his office in dealing with such issues, promised to look into the matter and at the same time advised the media persons not to transgress the democratic rights and misuse the freedom of the press.

The complaint and the charges of sedition and treason, however, do not have any merit. I see this heading towards a possible settlement once the finer points of the case are made out clearly.

Obama wins Democrat nomination

If this is any indication of change to come, it couldn’t have been bigger. A few hours ago, Obama declared that he would be the Democratic nominee for the upcoming Presidential elections in the United States of America.

The Cable News Network reports:

In less than a year, Barack Obama went from being an obscure, first-term U.S. senator to the projected Democratic presidential nominee.

On Tuesday, Obama became the first African-American to head the ticket of a major political party, beating out Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was hoping to become the first female nominee.

The two Democratic candidates fought a protracted and, at times, bitter battle that carried them through every state and brought nearly 35 million of their supporters to the polls.

But India needs John McCain as the president of the United States. Times columnist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar explains why:

In matters of trade, Democrats have always been instinctively protectionist. Both Clinton and Obama have sworn to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and have opposed free-trade agreements with Colombia and Korea. The US is slipping into recession, and so protectionist pressures are going to rise sharply. A Democratic president will favour protectionist measures to stop the migration of jobs from the US to emerging markets like India and China. Curbs on Indian software and outsourcing deals can be expected, and the issue of visas to Indian specialists to work in the US will be curbed.

By contrast, McCain is generally in favour of free trade. He will oppose most protectionist measures proposed by the US Congress (which has a Democratic majority) with some determination. He is more likely than any Democrat to offer concessions on agricultural subsidies in the Doha Round negotiations.

In defense of “Sweatshops”

Benjamin Powell is Assistant Professor of Economics at Suffolk University and Senior Economist with the Beacon Hill Institute. In his recently published article on the Library of Economics and Liberty website, he talks about Sweatshops in third-world countries and the evil repercussions of closing them down.

Economists across the political spectrum have pointed out that for many sweatshop workers the alternatives are much, much worse. In one famous 1993 case U.S. senator Tom Harkin proposed banning imports from countries that employed children in sweatshops. In response a factory in Bangladesh laid off 50,000 children. What was their next best alternative? According to the British charity Oxfam a large number of them became prostitutes.

The human rights claptrap is propaganda directed by politicians to promote sourcing of jobs within America rather than genuine concern for the economically backward.

[Permanent link to article]

The plight of America

The United States of America is the world’s most vibrant democracy and a cornucopia of culture. For decades, it has maintained a tradition of republicanism and revulsion against all forms of concentration of power. United States, home of the brave, land of the free.

On January 5, 2008, a young marine in Cleveland, OH, on leave from the military was attacked by two teenage robbers and shot point-blank in the neck. He died yesterday. The American community has given its verdict. They want the murderers brought to justice. They want them hanged. They want them dead. All anger and all misplaced.

The misplaced war in the middle-east has brought misery not only for the people of Iraq, but for the Americans, who have been since long bearing the brunt of the government’s military expenditure. The war was a mistake and an expensive one. Thousands of coalition troops are dead. The people of America hapless and out of jobs. The economy has come to a standstill. The people are angry.

The CNN reports that the young man was carrying only US $ 8 on his person, wary of rising crime in his neighbourhood. He was accompanied by his date.

They took it, turned his pockets inside out, took what he had and told him since he was a Marine and didn’t have any money he didn’t deserve to live. They put the gun to his neck and shot him.

The power of propaganda. Hate your own military.

Propaganda is a curious phenomenon. It is a concerted effort to influence opinion of the society at large and mobilize behaviour on a mass scale. All communist regimes ensured blind obedience and subservience through propaganda. Remember the racist Nazis? Or picture the newly nuclear-equipped North Korea with legion of troops marching in tandem, chanting praises to the despot Kim Jong Il?

The fact is that propaganda affects people. The power to affect mass opinion is one of the most powerful tools available with the politicians. Even the affluent cannot remain impervious to it and the poor are simply mesmerised. The poor are necessarily the most impressionable. The amusing fact is that communism could only thrive when the majority remained in squalor and poverty.

Cleveland is a ghetto. One of the most worst places to live in America. Crime is on the rise and people regularly gett hit by foreclosures. In fact, Cleveland is the foreclosure capital of America. By the summer of 2007, it had four of the top twenty one ZIP codes for foreclosure filings in the United States. The city has suffered a number of economic setbacks. In 2001 through 2003, the city lost jobs at more than three times the national rate. The hawks on the Wall Street were selling mortgage backed securities because there was a huge supply of money from the international market. It was the easiest thing to do.

“. . . as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.” –Charles Prince, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Citigroup

The position of Cleveland was compromised from the beginning. According to another CNN Money report:

Cleveland got hammered because lax governmental oversight from the state allowed Wild-West lending. They tried to enact local anti-predatory lending ordinances in 2002, but national lenders then abandoned the market, according to Mark Wiseman, who heads the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program, which is part of the county treasurer’s office.

Succintly put, when the whole nation was busy borrowing money, the populace of Cleveland did not even have the protection of the anti-predatory lending laws and you know everyone appreciates an extra bit of cash, no one more than the already deprived.

Ostensibly, unemployment is the prime driver behind unscrupulous activities in any society and wealth is the driver of prosperity. Both are self-reinforcing loops. The unemployed will take to crime. The criminals remain largely uneducated. The uneducated will be unemployed.

Coming back to the dead marine – he was only 21 years old. His assailants were 19 and 20. It is my contention that all of them behaved rationally at that conjuncture. Lance Corporal Crutchfield was not carrying a significant amount of money since he was wary of getting mugged in a neighbourhood which had a tryst with crime. He did not try to overpower his armed adversaries since any scuffle might endanger the life of his female friend.

The robbers on the other hand, presumably unemployed addicts, wanted money in a neighbourhood where it was hard to come by. A decommissioned officer in a military uniform was an attractive target, since he would have been reasonably expected to carry a consequential amount of cash. The anti-war propaganda much prevalent in the United States would have tenably motivated anger against war-mongering politicians and the “evil” US Marine Corps. This, coupled with the fact that Iraq War was being being largely held responsible for the economic mess. Anger can induce irrational behaviour, but those who wield it might not be irrational. This is not a post to demean the death of an able-bodied young man who volunteered to serve his nation, but to solicit reflections upon the actuality that we are the victims of the consequences of our own actions.

God bless America.

Pakistan human rights activist “denied entry”

Ansar Burney is a Pakistani human rights activist who played a pivotal role in securing the release of Kashmir Singh, an Indian prisoner languishing in Pakistani jails for the past 30 years.

On May 30, 2008, he was denied entry into India on the grounds of “insufficient documentation”, as a red-faced Indian Ministry for Home Affairs sent a hurried apology to the chastened activist who was in India to participate in a counter-terrorism conference organized by a local human rights group.

On the other hand, Ansar Burney has expressed regrets over the “half-apology” tendered to him by the Government of India and has said that the apology has pained him more than the incident itself.

Why apologise to me at all if I was not carrying some required documents? In that case, I should apologise to India. Either they were wrong, or I was wrong. It cannot be both ways. This is a half-apology, and it has caused me more pain.

Burney was a minister in the care-taker government which oversaw the general elections earlier this year. The Burney family runs the Ansar Burney Trust that is engaged in prison welfare work. Their aim is to look after the needs and interests of the Indian prisoners in Pakistan and the Pakistani prisoners in India. The trust has weathered severe criticism in Pakistan for its campaign to secure release of Kashmir Singh and the suspension of the death sentence of another prisoner, Sarabjit Singh.

Sarabjit Singh’s sister was dismayed by this action of the Immigration authorities. Our politicians are playing “dirty politics”, she said.

Perhaps the dirty-politics playing politicians should be sensitive and empathetic to the fact that Ansar stands as a liberal face of Pakistan. India and Pakistan, the two estranged neighbours have been locked in a power struggle over the subcontinent for the past decades, running up to the independence of the countries. The dire need is for a few young liberal Pakistanis and Indians to take up the cause for peace and stability in the region and eradicating any scope for misunderstandings in the future.

The Afghan War in the north has, without any doubt, brought peace and stability to India, but has churned the Pakistani Republic into turmoil.

The newly elected democratic government in Pakistan is a beacon of hope for the millions of Pakistanis who wish for a brighter future for their children; and much of the ire and resentment is directed towards the West. The Indian government should not remain averse to the fact. The need of the hour is to strengthen ties by entering into bilateral trade agreements. Trade has a greater nuclear and war deterrent than our politicians would like to believe.

People like Ansar Burney should be honoured for their efforts.

Democrazie!

Welcome to Democrazie!

I am a student of law and economics. Using this blog as a medium of personal gratification, more than anything else, I would like to post random bits of my thoughts, opinions and musings on the state of affairs in India and the world.

Hang on tight.