India and neighbors: some thoughts

The question of Kashmir is at the heart of India- Pakistan relationship. this can not be denied. Would it get solved in the near future? A good question that has no answer. And not many would like to answer that. Hopes have always been trashed. So much so that now people don’t hope. There are hardliners on both sides, precluding a practical solution.

Probably one most practical way in which this could get resolved would be one of the two sides relinquishing its claim (for all practical purposes). Impossible? May not quite be. In long standing standoffs of history, it is finally the stamina that matters. Often one party is weakened over a period, eroded by time. This finally allows the other to take the ground. India has shown much larger stamina. It has grown much larger since its independence. Education and industry have given it the economic power to afford larger defence forces, better technology deployment. And given all this, the general moral in India is much higher. Pakistan has been spending way too much to remain in the ring. The money that should have gone to build better roads and providing education and healthcare, now ends up in defence budgets. Population by and large is dissatisfied and angry, and war-cries against India have often seemed to be the only potent cement to bind the provinces of the nation. It probably realised its limitations at war-field confrontation, and has concentrated energies to produce private militants to fight. By and large, despite the tragedies it has unleashed on India (security personnel casualties, innocent people getting caught in cross-fire), it is more in nature of irritation, than a weakening force. It has seen a part of itself severed once in 1971. Pakistan could lose stamina at some point in time. May be in a few decades?

But this analogy should provide more worries to India than comfort. India has had long-running disputes and a short, yet decisive war with China. China has economically surpassed India, rather overwhelmingly. It is also a larger and better governed country. Foreign policy, military strategies and capabilities, governance, government machinery etc. are well concerted to achieve their objectives. And its much larger stamina would mean, an out-of-breath India could at some point in time be a mere spectator to what China decides in relation to territorial disputes etc.

KULFI AND THE ICE FACTORY

I often noticed the kulfi maker. This was one hard-working man, who showed up punctually at 8.00 am on the road pavement each day, where he would begin his first batch of production for the day. His production unit consisted of a metal drum with a handle on top, filled with liquid ingredients. Then there was a large cylindrical bucket and a bag which lay zipped by the side. The drum was placed inside the cylindrical bucket, with the remaining space in the bucket being filled with ice. The drum would be moved in circular motion using the handle. More ice would be added at intervals, until the liquid in the drum froze into kulfi -- the Indian ice-cream.

The technique is primitive. But it served the kulfi maker. However, it always brought me two contradictory thoughts. One, that the process is ultimately driven by ice, therefore the process could not predate the refrigeration engineering, or to be more precise the time when the first American ships brought ice to Indian shores. Second, medieval India accounts talked about our royalty enjoying kulfi, with the blistering heat of Delhi and Lucknow being sought to be cooled with kulfi. Both could not be true?

The Journal of Fanny Parkes is an 800 page account of day-to-day life and events in India during 1820-1840, by wife of an English officer of little significance, who was tossed around and transferred across India. William Dalrymple has been behind a new abridged version of this fantastic work. And my answer lay here.

India manufactured ice well before refrigeration reached her shores. North Indian royals and elites seemed to have their regular supply. There were several ice factories in major cities. And (presumably) the East India Company owned a factory in each of such locations. In Fanny Parkes’ journal, she gives account of the production process in Allahabad’s English ice factory around 1820 (i.e. nearly 2 centuries back). Parkes’ account tells us that:

The ice was manufactured during winter by exposing water to dry and freezing winds, in managed ice pits. The ice pits are managed by the adbar. On a winter day, “should there be a crisp frosty feeling in the air,” the abdar “prepares for action at about six or seven o’clock, by beating a tom-tom (a native hand-drum), a signal well known to the coolies in the bazaar, who hasten to the pits”. They “fill all the rukabees with the water...”. “If the night be frosty, without wind, the ice will form...”. Once the ice has formed, the coolies, each “armed with a spud, knocked ice out of the little pans into a basket...ran to the ice-house, and threw it down the great pit”. During the summer months (April to July 1st week), this ice was devoured steadily from the pit. “The natives make ice for themselves, and sell it at two annas a seer...”

The account filled my heart with joy. Albeit, the ice was affordable only by rich. But we had the technology nevertheless! Now when I see the kulfi maker (he’s grown old), I do so with a definite knowledge that he is a link to a rich heritage).

India's Education System: Better than West?

The rich countries have been kept worriedly busy for at least a decade, on how to improve their education system to compete with the developing countries. Leaders have repeatedly asked the question ‘what is wrong with our education system’? The US President once identified poor mathematics skills of young citizens as the biggest concern.

The fact is that it is a battle with sheer numbers from the poor countries.

Will Durant (the great American historian and philosopher of the twentieth century) posed the question that if Darwin was correct on the survival (and multiplication) of the fittest, then today the human world is in a state of contradictions. The third world is increasing its population at an alarming rate, while the rich world’s population is shrinking. This had never been true earlier for the human race. Remember, through the second half of the last millennium, Europe’s achievements in science & engineering and military growth leading to colony-building, coincided with a rapidly rising population. This would not have been a coincidence. For, Europe would not have won its colonies without the support of its bulging population. For instance, every British joining the East India Company posting in India was usually one of 5 or 7 or more siblings, packed off by the family to an internship and bread-winning journey, because it could barely afford to feed another mouth, leave aside education. So what sense do you make of the present world, where the rich countries are technologically, militarily and economically far more powerful, but have got fast outnumbered by the poor?

Coming back to education, does the problem come from the fact that with a cozy life, one wants to enjoy the comforts, not struggle on? When people are used to affluent, easy life, superior education system alone cannot guarantee competitive advantage. Is that the problem with the rich world?

How hard to study and what to study is not a matter of choice to kids in poor countries like India, China and elsewhere. It is a matter of making a living. What is drilled into young heads is that they must try hard, for only if they can edge competition out, can they survive. This approach or practice (coupled with average/poor education infrastructure) may not guarantee the best crop. But certainly produces an army of average crop. An army which is ready to fill in any opportunity anywhere in the world. Quality of education is (much) poorer in developing countries and success can be explained only by desperately hard efforts expended by individuals to make the best of available education opportunities, for, the price of non-success is too high – abject poverty combined with social condemnation. Not that it results in high success rates. Success rates are rising, but are still low. In a big population, even a small proportion of desperately hard-working individuals attaining success, translates into formidable numbers. The game is of sheer numbers.

The choices are quite stark in poor countries like India. If you have a good academic background, i.e. you’ve studied hard, absorbed skills, and entered the job market, you get a direct entry to upper middle class income and lifestyle. Should you prefer to miss the education part, the result could be ending up working hard, often physically, barely making two ends meet and there will be no housing or education opportunities for children. In short, you’ve been condemned to hell. In rich countries, average efforts in education can still get you a decent life and therefore, competing like mad from school onwards isn’t necessary. This makes life better, and probably somewhat easy. Between studying hard or not, competing hard or not, the consequences do not seem as stark. So how do you get working class parents to make heavy compromises in life, so that kids can go to college? In most Asian countries, for example (and including the OECD member South Korea), parents live frugally, so that the children can go to good school and attend a university. Children burn away the best years of their lives under the study lamp, so that they can get their passport to middle/upper middle class income. Parents and children alike, are hungry to achieve this.

The fact remains that in the rich world, the education opportunities as well as the quality of education is much superior.

END of RELIGION?

Society, state and religion had always been closely interlinked. The bible and Vedas are largely codes of life. They detail how to live a life, the dos and donts etc. The organization of religion enforces these codes and these codes also became the basis on which justice was delivered. Further, the state machinery was made to link closely with that of the religion, and the king with the god. The Pharaohs of Egypt were propagated (by their administrative machinery) as Gods, or agents of God. So also in ancient India’s Hindu states where the king was thought to be an incarnation of the God. In much of the Christendom, the rulers derived their legitimacy from religion; by representing themselves as rulers approved by the Vatican; undertaking crusades to further the cause of religion (which it didn’t: for the mere recovery of Southern Portugal, Turkey and West Asia was lost to Islam). Caliphs ruled the Islamic world for a long time and even the Mongol marauder Timur (Tamerlane) actively sought religious approval (even as he ordered elephants to crush the quaran-clasping little boys to death in present day Iraq).

People believed in god. People accepted the codes of life as given by the religion. Religious organization and authority worked hard to enforce these. People feared god. That made the task of compliance much easier. A ruler having the approval of religion had an easy job then. As long as he and his government was in sync with laws accepted by religion, along with concessions that majority people wanted, he would not face rebellion, and even the maintenance of law and order would be easy.

Today, people are governed by the codes, regulations and constitutions of their nations. The code of life that people live as a consequence of their national constitutions, often deviates/varies substantially from the code of life as contained in their religions. Constitutions of nations are often a manifestation of current conditions; of the modern world; re-adjusting to how individuals should behave with changed realities and conditions. Nations often issue fresh codes of conduct to its citizens, with changes in the societies itself and with change in technology that impacts the very societies. To recount some recent ones would be gay marriages, abolition of conscription, environmental laws etc.

Individuals (citizens) in the whole of the developed world are required to adhere to laws of their nations. A violation is judged with reference to nation’s laws, not religious codes. In the whole of Western Europe and Nordic countries, state’s laws have seriousness in people’s consciousness, often much greater than their commitment to religion. While Christianity forbade interest on money (usury), banking is the most vibrant and glamorous part of so many of these countries.

Are we seeing death of religion?

In my view, no. It is just a period of time when religions are re-inventing themselves. To align themselves to the impact on society as a consequence of change in technology. Distances have shrunk, thanks to air travel, telephony and the internet. The benefit of scientific knowledge has reached out to earth’s inhabitants even in its most remote parts. And my guess is many of the major religions will successfully make this transition. For example, Hinduism itself has made strong efforts to first, do away with some of its practices that were bad and then to incorporate positive things from other major religions and changing times. It has done away with practices such as sati; it has made strides in abolishing child-marriages, inheritance to daughters, making divorce possible --- though all of it with push help from the governments. It has made the Hindu places of worship accessible to all its believers, irrespective of caste. It makes now an effort to abolish cast beliefs altogether.

James Prinsep

Prinsep Ghat is one of the most beautiful landmarks of Kolkata. Not many colonial monuments survive today with their old names. For example, Ochterlony Monument has become Shaheed Minar. Prinsep Ghat is one of the exceptions. Who was Prinsep? A few google searches and book searches lead to some clues: Prinsep “restored Aurangzeb’s Mosque”, he “built a bridge” that was (presumably) a difficult task, and decoding an “ancient Indian script”. Auragzeb Mosque? Bridge? What, where? The results merely suggest Mr Prinsep was an accomplished British Engineer.

James Prinsep was much more than that. He was responsible for many firsts in India: identifying bad health with mosquitos and still water, building first detailed city map (comparable to Google Earth imagery), the first powered ceiling fan, first human flight on Indian skies, high precision weighing machine, archeological restoration, introducing the West to a romantic relationship with India’s river ghats and more. His achievements and his dedication to India and its people is something that we would be compelled to remember for times to come. This is a story of extraordinary efforts and achievements, coming from a seemingly ordinary person, who lived in difficulty himself. This is a story that inspires.

James Prinsep was the seventh son of John Prinsep, who too had served in India. John Prinsep served East India Company during the times of Warren Hastings (1870s), but had made only a modest fortune for himself. While other Company officers had enriched themselves in India, John Prinsep may have been left out because of his opposition to the Company’s policies in India and his opposition to the Evangelicals’ drive on religious conversions. Upon return to England, James Prinsep’s father made a few commercial endeavors and lost whatever money he had. As a result, younger three of the Prinsep brothers spent childhood and early youth under severe constraints. They lived in Bristol, in an attic, partitioned with curtains and the three brothers shared only one trouser between them.

At the age of 15, he started his working life as an apprentice under an architect. Soon, his younger brother Thomas got a job with the East India Company Army, while James got a job with the Company’s Mint (currency production) at Calcutta. The two brothers sailed together to India in 1819. The ship sailed upriver into the Ganges (Hooghly) from the sea, to arrive at a Ghat that was later to be named after his own. To welcome them, their two older brothers Henry and William, were already in India as civil servant and businessman respectively.

James Prinsep was a keen observer of things around him. It took little time for him to realize that there was a huge gulf between the Indians, and the British ruling them. He found an elite class of Indians that the British interacted with, but kept the public at large at bay. Prinsep expressed sadness in his letters home, over the way the Indian employees/servants were treated: beaten mercilessly for the smallest slip-ups.

His job at the Mint involved examination of metal compositions etc of currency coins, to maintain control over the production of coins for the Bank of Bengal (then the equivalent of central bank). The Company maintained a smaller Mint in Benaras and soon, Prinsep was sent there. Though this was a remote posting for a very young man, far away from Calcutta which was then, a grand European city in the East. But Prinsep almost experienced happiness from the moment he left the city to sail up the Ganges. From the time Warren Hastings left India, it was fashionable for the Englishmen to hold in contempt anything Indian. More so because successive Governor Generals preferred around them Englishmen who they thought were ‘less polluted’ by the Indian culture and habits. It was indeed risky to stake one’s career by exhibiting Indian tastes. But James Prinsep remained elusive to such considerations. He admired the beautiful country along the river and then found Benaras to be a great town. He indulged in and enjoyed Indian Classical music. He would spend hours in the cool breeze of the Ghats. He grew increasingly passionate about the Ghats of Benaras, built little over a century earlier by the Marathas. During his 7-9 years of stay in Benras, he made numerous sketches of the Ghats, including some paintings with his artist & businessman brother William Prinsep who visited him in 1830. The masterpieces traveled outside and across the world and introduced the Western world to the enchantment of Benaras over the next few decades.

Prinsep was endowed with two great qualities. He had a mind of enquiry and had a knack for applying his knowledge. These would ensure that he did not limit his stay to merely enjoying India. He found scope for doing a lot of things in Benaras. He began waking up early and would finish off his office work by breakfast time. Then devote his time and energies to his passions. And his passion was to apply the knowledge of science. He built, what was then the world’s most sensitive weighing balance, capable of weighing a spec of dust. He was pained to see the high rate of mortality in the local population. He inferred that the cause was mosquitoes and germs, promoted by the marshy land pockets of Benaras. At his own cost and efforts, he undertook an engineering project to drain the waters. This gave a huge fillip to his already growing popularity among the people of Benras. People gifted him a ground. This time, he used his engineering skills to level the ground to a flat non-flooding landmass, and returned it as a gift to the people for making of a bazaar! Charles Allen (author) notes that this generosity was extended at a time when Prinsep was literally poor himself, with a job that could go anytime because his boss wanted someone else (a friend – the Company reeled under nepotism, one always needed a connection). Then Prinsep takes up two important assignments. One was to restore the crumbling mosque built by Aurangzeb (popularly known as the mosque of Aurangazeb) near the Ghats. The mosque had tilted towards the river and was destined to fall eventually. Prinsep observed the complex structure of building and its towers, taking note of the composition brick-by-brick. The building was dismantled in a brick by brick fashion and then reassembled into an enforced building! The next was a stone bridge over the river Karamnasa. Nobody had succeeded in making a river on this in a century long efforts before him. But my understanding is that this was more a social challenge than an architectural one. The river’s waters were supposed to be cursed and were believed to be a killer for the mere mortals. Only Brahmins could touch the waters and emerge unharmed. Aparently there was a flourishing business wherein some such ‘empowered’ people made a living by transporting people on their backs, for the touch of the river was corroding. Looks like that Mr. Prinsep’s real success was being able to carry out the work with popular support of people, overcoming the resistance of a small section that had frustrated every previous effort. A stone bridge was made over the river and exists today. (see the Google Earth image below).

In 1821, he prepared the first map of Benaras city. The map was to the scale and every single dwelling of the city found place in it.

Soon, Prinsep was transferred back to the Mint in Calcutta. This also united him with his brothers in Calcutta. The Mint was at the church lane opposite St John’s church (I guess today’s Hare Street). Posting to Calcutta would change the course of his life, given his keen interest in everything and the great city’s ability to provide advanced facilities of all kinds. Prinsep started taking keen interest in the Asiatic Society. In those times, survey and civil engineering work put together were throwing up fresh archeological sites at a great pace. Most importantly, coins were coming up from across India. All of these were being sent to the capital of British India. After the death of Sir William Jones, there had been a sort of vacuum in this field. To be fair, the French and Germans were doing equally good work, if not better, in studying India in the 18^th century. But in the 19^th century, they did not have access to archeological evidences from India, as whole of India, Ceylon and Burma passed into British control. The coins had a lot to tell about our heritage. But there wasn’t anyone to listen to what these coins had to say. James began to apply his scientific abilities to understand what the coins said. I had a look at some of these coins recently at the Indian Museum. Each coin had a few strokes of lines besides a picture. If this was text, there was too little of it to allow anyone to understand the patterns in it.

To James Prinsep, this was the kind of challenge that he thought would give him immeasurable thrill. He began to toil in order to finish his official work fast and pour all his remaining waking hours into the study of coins (known as numismatics). To allow him to work (study) longer and more efficiently in Calcutta’s hot and humid weather, James produced what was probably the very first mechanized ceiling fan in India. He employed steam to power the punkhas, that produced better results than the human powered ceiling fans. With these fans, now he could work better and longer. During these fruitful years, James Prinsep established himself as the “code breaker”. He began to understand the patterns in the coins and inscriptions and deciphered the ancient languages. He began to connect what was said in the Sanskrit script with current places and relics. All these put together, he was able to draw up an invaluable pile of information --- the genealogical charts of ancient Indian dynasties. This information confirmed many of Sir Jones’ works, and also corrected some of Sir Jones’ work. Now what was available was a history of India. Answers began to flow; such as which dynasty ruled which geographical part of the country and at what time, details of particular administrations etc.

Then Prinsep moved to the next level. Problem: a large amount of inscriptions and coins related to an entirely unknown script. The letters of this script were strange and bore no resemblance to other found in coins and inscriptions, in either the pattern or specifics. Nor was this similar to any living language. In 1838, after nearly 10 long years of arduous efforts, Prinsep unfolded this as the Bramhi script. This single discovery opened a window to the lost world – a vista to Ancient India.

Prinsep was a serious man with serious devotion to work. But it seems to me that he was even more a family man, a fun loving man. His younger brother Thomas died after falling from a horse, while working on Calcutta’s salt water lakes. James Prinsep wanted to complete his late brother’s work and restore honour. He set about draining the salt water bodies by building canals and reclaimed lands. Another first shows the scientific, yet fun-loving part of this man. A Frenchman appeared in Calcutta around then with a giant ballon, with the dream of flying over the magnificent city and its famed river. But there was no possibility of achieving this, for no-one in India had the faintest idea of how to make this work. Prinsep took the challenge and risked creating the gas mixture that would fly a giant gas balloon. This translated into the first ever human flight on Indian soil (since Krishna’s flight on Garuda?).

I find his life a story of extraordinary inspiration.