Speak, Stella Maris

Speak, Stella Maris, thou who conceived the Logos through the ear
For our Paraclete yet is silent in Ocean's durance to thy tear

Recite, Theotokos, this Magnificat to blight Tara's school

'My other son crushed MCAT! Boddhisattvas drool!'

How Development happens and why Sen got so retarded

Development happens through mimicry which itself either gets reinforced by a reward or discouraged by a penalty. Economic development happens through mimicry for an economic purpose. An Academic, however, develops by mimicking the successful Academics around her. Thus the career of a 'Development Economics' can develop very well though the views she expresses represent an extreme of mental retardation. But this only happened to the extent that Development Economics was not itself financed by Economic Development as opposed to Bureaucratic Empire building of a wasteful and stupid type.

Amartya Sen gave a talk entitled 'How does Economic Development happen' some 15 years ago. He asked-

what have we learned from discussion about how development happens? What makes the critical difference: resources, institutions, or attitudes?

The answer is now clear. Resources don't matter- what matters is mimicking what smart people do with them. Institutions don't matter. What matters is that such mimetics occurs. Attitudes don't matter. You can have a shitty attitude but still do well if your mimetic target is doing something smart.

Development happens by imitating those similar to yourself who are doing better than you economically. A change in Resources, Institutions or Attitudes may lead to an innovation which raises output. But that's the sort of stuff that happens in places like Israel- not the shit-hole countries Development Economists get paid to drone on about. Let us admit that South Korea- once as poor as India- was basically an Israel type country- i.e. all dem Chinki types are basically as brainy as kikes and, let's face it, like kikes, what they are good at imitating is the best and brightest. As Chesterton pointed out, at the root of Edwardian anti-semitism was not a stiff-necked Ashkenazi refusal to conform but rather the fact that Moscovich and Rabinovitz were scarcely in the country 5 minutes before they'd changed their names to Montague and Reading and been raised to the peerage while holding high offices of State. What is interesting is the 'imitative' Jew, Jap, but soon enough Koreans and Chinese and so forth, have 'developed' tremendously with very little fundamental change in 'resources, institutions or attitudes'. If anything their ancestral ethos has strengthened and become variegated in an evolutionarily robust manner.

The problem with speaking of 'resources' is nobody knows for sure what resources really are. Britain's coal seemed a great resource. Now, the British would not greatly care if no more of it were ever dug out of the ground. I have frequently pointed out that the true wealth of a country consists in the quality and quantity of its dedicated anti-masturbation activists. By this I don't mean prostitutes. I mean trained Socioproctologists like myself who write learned articles exposing leading Academics as wankers. Sadly, Society at large has chosen to take a different view. I would make more money as a P.Chidambaram look-alike gigolo than as a P.Chidambaram look-alike Professor of Socioproctology at the Institute of Anti-Modi Studies.

There is a similar problem with talking of Institutions. Their effect depends on their mimetic target.
Consider the following-

from 1979 through the late 1980s, the Chinese economic reforms were massively successful in raising incomes, and the engine of that success was, to a great extent, the impact of incentives produced by the so-called responsibility system in Chinese agriculture and the rural economy.

The suggestion is that there was a change in 'Institutions' and 'attitudes'. But what caused that change? The answer is- a different mimetic target. China wanted to be like other countries in the region which enjoyed a superior standard of living. The shift from work teams to 'household responsibility' occurred between 1979 and 1982. What drove it was mimetics. But, similarly, mimetics had driven what went before. But one mimetic target yielded Economic Development while the other had been designed to yield a change in ideological consciousness across the breadth of the land. But, it turned out, 'Institutions' and 'Attitudes' did not matter. People fled either if they could eat better and get to buy nice shiny things. In other words, one type of mimetics was self reinforcing. The other was costly and counter-productive to enforce. One can fake ideological commitment. One can't fake stuff you bring to market to sell.

Later, however, the focus shifted to a great extent away from domestic trade toward international trade, which, of course, has also been radically productive.

Why did the focus shift? China wanted to imitate other countries in the region which had embraced export led growth based on cheap labor. That those countries were authoritarian helped.

Indeed, if China has grown faster than any other country in history, international trade has certainly played a big part in that wonderful achievement.

But only because China was imitating a well tried development path which everybody was familiar with. The West believed that this would inevitably mean that China would move to a Liberal Democracy because of some supposed necessary connection between Capitalism and multi party Democracy.

And yet the shift in emphasis from domestic to international trade has also meant a slowing down of the growth of rural income and a deceleration of the reduction of poverty in China.

Which is why every Chinese peasant is not now wealthier than Bill Gates.  But this isn't because of any 'shift in emphasis'. The fact is you can't grow an exponentially increasing quantity of vegetables on your smallholding. Why is Sen pretending otherwise? The answer is that he is merely virtue signaling. Naughty people go in for International Trade which causes poverty. Nice people allow very poor farmers to grow, first thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then millions, then billlions and trillions of metric tons of vegetables on their half an acre of land.

Income inequalities have also jumped as China has focused beyond its borders rather than within them.

Hilarious! The fact that some Chinese people doing smart things have got richer is actually very naughty because it increases Income inequality. Incidentally, having a baby or retiring from your job is also very naughty because it increases Income inequality.

For example, the Gini coefficient for income inequality in China (as estimated by Ravi Kanbur and Xiaobo Zhang) went up from 0.217 in 1985 to 0.303 in 1999—something of a record-breaking jump.

Which is why China was so much better off. The official Gini coefficient is now 0.474. If it falls, poor people in China will be worse off.

Even as China’s participation in global trade has grown dramatically, the emphasis on incentives for production for the domestic market has considerably slackened. As it happens, there is concern in China today also about falling output of food grains, and that too links with the focus of public policy, in which its relative neglect of production for domestic use and within-border trade has played a substantial part—even as China has climbed altogether new heights in international trade.

Fifteen years later we can all agree that Sen was barking up the wrong tree. 'Producing for domestic consumption' is not more virtuous than 'producing for the international market'. What matters is whether more can be purchased by this means. Food grains don't matter. Being able to substitute meat and fish and fresh vegetables for carbohydrates is a good thing- not a sign of perversion and vice. Incidentally, the share of International Trade in China's GDP has fallen.

Sen ends by speaking of the

 The Chinese cultivator, left somewhat behind in the rush for modern industrial prosperity, and the Bangladeshi rural housewife, seeking a foothold in the market economy,

Fifteen years later, we can see that moving rural females into big factory dormitories is what has helped Bangladesh overtake Pakistan just as it helped China greatly overtake India. Microcredit couldn't achieve much. As for 'the Chinese cultivator', many are supplementing their Income through e-commerce. What drove this? Mimetics. Not changes in Resources, Institutions or Attitudes. People want nice stuff and imitate those who are getting nice stuff. Some ways of doing so are scalable. Not everybody can be a Professor of a shite subject. The only path forward for most people is to imitate those similar to themselves who are producing useful goods and services which they can sell on more or less open markets.  Sen and his ilk weren't selling on an open market. Rather there were high barriers to entry to what is essentially a Credentialist Ponzi scheme. That is why getting more and more mentally retarded has been a great asset to Sen. Rahul Baba, it may be mentioned, did an MPhil in 'Development Studies' at Cambridge. Unlike his Dad or Granny, he actually showed up for lectures and sat the exams. This is what permanently disabled him from holding high political office. How different his fate had he attended a Van Wilder type Party School!

Raghuram Rajan & Post Covid Society

Raghuram Rajan writes in Project Syndicate-

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, speculation has turned to what society will look like afterward.

The pandemic is global. Societies differ greatly from each other. Economic arrangements can change quite drastically in response to an exogenous shock with relatively little impact on 'what society looks like afterward.' We may speak of 'hysteresis' or the inertia of Paretian 'residues and derivations'. If history is any guide, 'speculation' on what society will look like is simply an exercise in self-indulgent fantasy.

Citizens, shocked by how easily their lives can be upended, will want to reduce risk.

They will want to pool risk with those with similar exposure while separating from being pooled with those with a different exposure profile.  This militates for 'Tiebout sorting'. Different regions are likely to make different trade-offs depending on demographic and economic conditions. Obviously, highest risk groups will adopt stricter protocols.

A separate point has to with not risk but Uncertainty. 'Regret minimizing' behavior will displace 'Utility maximization'.

According to the emerging new consensus,

there is no such thing- this is just ultracrepidarian hot air which the lockdown's enforced leisure has produced from the chattering classes

they will favor more government intervention to stimulate demand (by pumping trillions of dollars into the economy), protect workers, expand health care, and, of course, tackle climate change.

But, at the threat of higher taxes, all these concerns will disappear. As for 'climate change', we see Government action to bail out the oil industry. What we won't see is anything concerted on climate change because yellow vests we all have with us in the boot of our cars.

But every country has many layers of government, so which one should expand?

Layers of Government are already maximally expanded on the basis of willingness and ability to pay.
It is clear that some 'layers of government' are wholly worthless and should be quietly euthanized.

Clearly, in the United States, only the federal government has the resources and mandate for nationwide decisions on issues such as health care and climate change.

Clearly, the opposite is the case. The Federal Government has neither the incentive nor the constitutional power to do any such thing. Does Rajan not get that the days of the Warren Court are long gone? Has he never heard of the Federalist capture of the Bench?

Yet it doesn’t necessarily follow that this level of government should grow larger still.

No shit, Sherlock!

After all, it could adopt policies that protect some constituencies while increasing the risks faced by others.

You mean, it could do what it has always done? Thank you for your service, Captain Obvious!

In the case of COVID-19, some countries have centralized decision-making about when to impose and lift lockdown measures, whereas others have left these choices to state governments, or even municipalities. (Others, like India, are in transition between these approaches.) What has become clear is that not all localities face the same trade-offs.

How was it not a priori clear to Rajan?  Does this Tamil Brahmin, my age- albeit much brighter and better looking- really not get that America aint like India?

The Econ Theory of localized, idiographic, trade-offs is known as Tiebout Modelling. Why not explain that to your audience?

In crowded New York City, a strict lockdown may have been the only way to get people off the streets, and its economic impact may have been softened by the fact that many there work in skilled services like finance, which can be done remotely. Moreover, even laid-off waiters and hotel workers know they won’t get their jobs back until the public feels safe going out again. Health concerns seem to be paramount.

So, externalities differ depending on demographic and occupational factors. This militates for Tiebout sorting. Why not explain this concept and admit that American Law already incorporates this in a 'bottom up' fashion?  Is it the case that Rajan doesn't want to trespass on 'Law & Econ' territory? Why? It isn't an ancient Indian burial ground. It's stuff you should have studied as an Undergrad.

In contrast, in Farmington, New Mexico, the New York Times reports that, “few people know anyone who was ill from the coronavirus, but almost everyone knows someone unemployed by it.” The lockdown, imposed by the state’s Democratic governor, seems to be unpopular across a community that was already in serious economic decline before the pandemic. In this case, economic concerns have trumped more modest health worries.

Bravo Rajan! You just came out and said that Gov. Grisham is as stupid as shit! Speaking personally, I don't agree. I love her. The blame belongs to the cretins in her Party.

These differences show the drawbacks of a centralized, one-size-fits-all approach.

But, Rajan, if idiographic factors have salience, then your own nomothetic approach represents a waste of resources.

But decentralization can also be problematic.

No. We are speaking of Aumann type 'correlated equilibria' here. It doesn't matter if the 'Public signal' is emitted by the 'Center' or any other Schelling focal source. Yes, in India, Modi did a great job. True, BoJo & Trump & whichever meatball heads up Sweden, shat the bed. But, this may not be their fault. It may be that charismatic pointy-heads like you screwed the pooch.

If regions have contained the virus to different degrees, is travel between them still possible?

Yes. Of course. Don't be stupid.

It stands to reason that safer regions would want to bar visitors from potential hot zones – or at least subject them to lengthy quarantines.

Playing the Race Card, are we, Rajan? Shame on you. I thought us Iyers were better than that.

A fast, cheap, reliable testing system might solve the problem, but that is currently unavailable.

Sez a dude who literally has no idea what he is talking about!

Some degree of harmonization between regions can therefore be beneficial, not least in the procurement of medical supplies.

If so, it will occur absent Rajan's proforma comment.

In the absence of federal coordination, US states have been in a bidding war with one another over scarce medical supplies from China.

Why not simply say- in the absence of a One Party State in the wholly Unitary State of America (formally known as the United States)- the same sort of stuff is happening as people in the UK and Germany and India and China and everywhere else are complaining about?

In normal times, competitive markets would allocate such goods most efficiently.

Fuck off! Competitive markets CAN'T allocate 'such goods' efficiently at all. Why? Externalities are huge when it comes to communicable diseases. Does Rajan not read over what he writes?

But in a health emergency, markets may perform poorly, allocating goods according to buyers’ ability to pay rather than their need; rich states would buy up all the ventilators and testing kits, leaving poorer states with none. The country’s ability to contain the pandemic would suffer.

Oddly, the reverse is the case because of 'Knightian Uncertainty'. We benefit if there are more and more 'separating equilibria' because different Structural Causal Models get a crack of the whip. Risk pooling should be on the basis of 'costly signals' where the fitness landscape is radically Uncertain.

In this situation, centralized procurement could keep prices lower, potentially enabling more need-based allocation.

This cretin just advocated hydrochloroquinine for everybody! Where Knightian Uncertainty exists, we don't want 'centralized procurement' of anything. We want to maximize 'psuedo-random'  exploration of the fitness landscape.

But “could” and “potentially” are the operative words.

As opposed to 'shut the fuck up'.

If a central government has questionable motives or simply is incompetent, the calculus changes.

In which case, there is no 'calculus'. Does Rajan think that Newton and Leibniz worried about the 'motives' or 'competence' of infinitesimals?

As we have seen in Brazil, Mexico, Tanzania, and the US,

Tanzania? Racist much, Rajan? Why not mention Sweden or the United Kingdom? Is it coz their leaders are White?

when heads of government minimize the dangers of the pandemic, they can do considerable harm to their country’s response.

Though, as Economists, we both know they could do much more harm by pretending that some 80 year old's life is as important as an 8 year old.

Among other failures, Brazil’s federal government seems to have had difficulty distributing ventilators it bought.

No kidding! The thing was built to be a giant 'car-wash' for dirty money.

In the United States, Republican-governed states have allegedly had easier access to central medical supplies than states where Democrats are in control.

Allegedly? You mean it might not actually have happened?

And in India, the central government imposed a stringent lockdown without making the necessary arrangements for millions of migrant workers, who were forced to flee the cities for their home villages.

In other words, the Government did not ensure the purpose of the lockdown was defeated before it could be implemented.

Families with children walked hundreds of miles, helped only by the kindness of strangers and local authorities, and potentially carrying the virus with them.

Since they were potentially carrying the virus with them, the Government should have helped them get home more quickly because....urm... that's what Rajan himself would do.

A decentralized decision-making process might have allowed states that locked down later (because they initially had fewer cases) to learn better management from those that went first.

So, India already had a 'decentralised decision making process' according to which States locked down on their own timetable. The Center was a mere 'Aumann signaller'.

Given that extremes of centralization and decentralization can both be problematic, a coordinated middle ground may work best.

Rajan- you fucking cretin- you are supposed to be an Economist. All that is needed is a Schelling focal Aumann signaller for better correlated equilibria. This is what is happening anyway.

The federal government might establish minimal standards for closing down and opening up, while leaving the actual decision to states and municipalities. That said, if there is to be a bias, it should be toward decentralization, following the principle of subsidiarity, whereby powers are delegated to the lowest-possible administrative level that will be effective.

Government's can affect expectations by announcing lockdowns or wage-price freezes etc. But the thing is short term- in the region of 90 days . Economists know this.

Subsidiarity is a crock of shite unless locally raised funds are spent locally. That means local mechanism design is incentive compatible. Sadly, this seldom happens and even when it does the thing turns into a Tiebout Model with Manorial rents

There are important reasons to favor a carefully managed decentralization.

Just as there are important reasons to favor a carefully managed trajectory for this solar system around a Milky Way which has been revealed to have Black Hole tendencies of a decidedly Fascist type.

Not only do members of smaller political entities tend to face similar problems; they also typically demonstrate greater social and political solidarity, which makes it easier for them to engage with one another and find solutions.

This is only true if there is 'Tiebout sorting'. You have to end 'cheap talk' based risk pooling and institute 'costly signalling' separating equilibria. Otherwise, Rajan will go on writing shite like this.

While local politics might occasionally resemble the Hatfield-McCoy feud of nineteenth-century Kentucky and West Virginia,

Rajan is Indian- not the good sort, in this context- and is perpetuating a myth. "Local Politics' was wholly unaffected by the feud.

it generally suffers less gridlock and antagonism than what one finds in central legislatures today.

Rajan is speaking of a country he only emigrated to relatively recently. Under Trump, very significant changes in US policy have occurred without any 'gridlock'. The truth is the thing can be sidestepped by a smart, or very ruthless, Chief Executive wherever it occurs. Academics however can make a little money pretending otherwise.

And people feel a greater sense of ownership over decisions taken by their locally elected or appointed bodies. This empowerment can help them devise policies to benefit from national and global markets, rather than being at their mercy.

Is Rajan aware that some locally elected bodies want young, well built, black people, who may or may not have committed some minor crime against property,  to be shot and killed? The Global Market that many Americans want to be protected against is the Market for the Labor of smart Asian immigrants- like Rajan.

This is why, as we prepare policies to aid the recovery and strengthen post-pandemic health, education, and regulatory systems, we should also think about who will make the decisions and where.

Rajan says 'we prepare' some shite and then says we should first 'think about who' will prepare that shite. What one earth does he mean?

For example, a fair share of stimulus spending on infrastructure should take the form of block grants to communities, which are in the best position to allocate funds according to need.

Or just run away with the money. 

And while national climate policies cannot be determined separately in every community, they can at least reflect a bottom-up consensus.

No they can't. Look at the Yellow Vest movement. There is no bottom up consensus. There is merely virtue signalling.

Rising authoritarianism around the world reflects widespread yearning for charismatic political leaders with whom ordinary people can identify with.

But, Democracy can provide a wide choice of 'charismatic leaders'. Why does Rajan think Democracies will throw up leaders 'ordinary people can't identify with'? Is it coz Rahul Baba was crap? Yet, if the fellow had just read from a teleprompter, he'd have become P.M prior to 2014 and saved Congress from oblivion. Shame Rajan hitched his wagon to the wrong Party. The fact remains, any leader can talk in a way that 'ordinary people identify with'. All that needs to be done is to hire a good speech-writer. 

Such demagogues have used their popular support to avoid constitutional checks and balances, taking their countries down ruinous paths.

In which case, 'constitutional checks and balances' were worthless.

Expanding government further while limiting the risk of authoritarianism requires independently powerful bodies that also enjoy popular support. Constitutionally decentralizing more powers to regional and local government may be the way forward.

The following was my comment which, no doubt, Project Syndicate will censor sooner or later- 

Ultracrepidarian 'public intellectuals' can come to any 'consensus' they like but they are wholly irrelevant. Consider the fate of the Indian public intellectuals (luckily Rajan wasn't one) who signed on to 'activist' Yogendra Yadav's' 7 point plan to tackle the pandemic. Too late they realized that they had committed themselves to the expropriation of all private property! Now they are practicing 'intellectual distancing' from ultracrepidarian academics who blithely witter on about subjects they know nothing about.

The reason both Economists and many Epidemiologists have looked foolish is because of 'Knightian Uncertainty'- in plain terms, this means the people building the models don't know what they are talking about. They pretend there is an underlying probability distribution which will quickly become apparent. The truth is that superior results come from competing idiographic 'structural causal models'. Mimetic effects yield rapid, relatively efficient, solutions. Going back to the drawing board yields nothing buy stupidity and concurrency deadlock.

What we have seen is not that 'heads of Government' matter but that 'Institutional Memory' at a much lower level of decision making is what determines outcomes. The fact is, 'centralization' and 'decentralization' are hysteresis driven and idiographic. They aren't frictionless, memory-less, menu options- as one might pretend in a classroom teaching eighteen year olds.

Obviously, pandemics- like everything else- do involve 'trade-offs' and this is is an idiographic matter. This militates for 'Tiebout sorting'- nothing more. But, that already obtains purely because 'public goods' are actually 'club goods' and incentive compatibility requires local mechanisms with a degree of 'manorial rents'.

Rajan mentions India- which he knows something about. Health is a State, not a concurrent, subject under the Indian constitution. Furthermore, only the State, not the Central Civil Service, is empowered to deal with problems such as those posed by migrants. It is foolish to pretend that the Center's response could have been very different. In a country where the Center could, at best, spend 200 dollars extra on those whose livelihoods are at risk, it is obvious that sooner or later, only those who can afford to isolate will be able to do so. The gamble is- as a witty Indian epidemiologist put it- that this foreign Virus will find the Indian climate so demoralizing and inhospitable that it will lose the will to live faster than it can kill.

In the short run, any Government can create compliance through a sort of shock and awe effect. Older people will remember President Nixon's 90 day wage and price freeze. The 'Nixon shock' did affect expectations temporarily. But then people realized that a Democracy can't actually jail a whole bunch of Teamsters and CEOs. After all, America couldn't even jail any sizable number of Draft Dodgers.

Governments only have as much power as citizens give them. Academics have no say in this. They may feel this is because 'charismatic leaders' are misusing their sex-appeal to seduce the masses. The solution is not far to seek. Public intellectuals must take off their lab coats and don fishnet stockings and stilleto heels. They should take the hairpins out of their tightly coiled hair bun and let their glistening blonde locks tumble over their heaving bosoms. I'm not saying it worked for me- but Rajan is a few years younger than me and weighs at least 20 kg less.

On the other hand, if you believe 'authoritarian' populists are running amok- then, for God's sake, don't start talking as if changing the Constitution is a quick fix. Why? The guys who will get to change the Constitution are the guys you consider evil. Thus, for the nonce, you must pretend that nothing much can change because hysteresis rules, Theoretical Econ is just an armchair activity of an essentially peurile type.

Dawn is a Thanatotic Automaton

For none can jack off in the Mother of Thy Son

By Christ, Thou art her khora akhoraton!

Till this Logos- Babu, you're no fun.
& Dawn is a Thantotic Automaton. 

Salman Khurshid as bull-fighter

In December of 1973, a student agitation in Gujarat morphed into a People's rebellion against the dictatorial Indira Gandhi, her corrupt dynasty and equally corrupt and incompetent sycophants-  of whom Salman Khurshid's father was one.

What followed was a reign of terror supposedly to combat an 'internal' Emergency. Some of the bravest fighters in the battle against Indira's atrocities were members of the R.S.S- like the young Narendra Modi. Sadly, afternIndira- believing she would win- held elections and lost comprehensively, the People's 'Janata' Government was split on the bogus issue of RSS membership by Indira and her son Sanjay who cynically depicted that organization as 'Right Wing', 'Pro American', 'CIA stooges', etc. However, everybody could see for themselves that it was only people like Atal Behari Vajpayee who had shown competence and patriotism as Ministers of the 'Janata' Morcha. Thus it was the RSS backed Bharatiya Janata Party which eventually become the true successor to the Janata coalition and, as such, the final extinguisher of the Dynasty's hereditary claim to the spoils of office.

Nobody can be fooled that the RSS or the BJP are American stooges or that they are anti-poor. But Congress has become openly anti-National and Khurshid, for one, could not be more delighted. Writing for the Indian Express, he speaks of events in Nixon's America- not Indira's India- and seeks to draw a lesson from it relevant for young people in India today.

Fifty years ago, on May 4, 1970, the students of Kent State University in Ohio gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The oldest democracy of the world faltered as the Ohio State National Guard fired at the crowd and felled four students. Observers concluded that the US was rapidly spinning out of control. The report President Richard Nixon commissioned on campus unrest said that “a nation driven to use the weapons of war upon its youth is a nation on the edge of chaos” — and Americans were feeling the “chaos”.
Days after the Kent shooting, on May 15, there was a shooting at the Jackson State College in Mississippi during a protest against racism that the students on campus were facing. Two students were shot and killed, and 12 others were injured at the hands of the police.
After the shootings, there was a nationwide student strike that saw four million turn out in response to the tragedy. As many as 1,00,000 students marched on Washington. David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young released their protest song “Ohio”, a month later, with the chorus, “Four dead in Ohio,” after seeing the photographs of the shooting.

President Nixon, who initially spoke of the protesting students as “bums”, then made an effort to reach out to them. His intelligence officials could not find evidence that the protest was stirred by outside agitators. Nixon accepted that the anger was coming from the students themselves — and it was only growing. The end of the Vietnam War, it is said, began in Ohio. It changed America forever. A year after the shootings, the voting age was reduced to 18, giving the students the right to vote when they were old enough to be drafted. That generation of voters forced the war to end although it took another five years till April 1975.
I do not believe that the worst critics of the students, even those who called them “bums”, questioned their patriotism for opposing a war that they believed to be immoral and unwise.

Khurshid is wrong. Critics of the Pentagon were persecuted and accused of being agents for the Kremlin. Nixon's genius was to see that Liberal support for the anti-war protesters was solidifying his 'silent majority'. The man who orchestrated the 'hard hat rebellion'- construction workers running riot to show their hatred of the radical students- was appointed Labour Secretary two years later just when 'Hanoi Jane' was pictured with a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun poised to shoot down American plances.
Still, the fact remains America lost the Vietnam War because they were militarily out-classed. Once the shame of a shambolic defeat had registered, Ford and Carter were prepared to offer an amnesty to Draft Dodgers. The pretence was that America only lost because the War was immoral, not because the Americans were shit at fighting.

Meanwhile, the Students' Movement weakened the Left. Liberals, like Rockfeller and Kennedy- but also Nixon who was a Keynesian who believed in detente- were sidelined. Carter and Brzenski were Cold War hawks. But the future lay with Reagan.

Khurshid, deracinated fool that he is, thinks Nixon's America has lessons for young people in Modi's India. The reverse is the case. Modi was a young man in the Seventies. His side prevailed. He, not Rahul Gandhi, is Prime Minister. Meanwhile, in America, you have two Establishment boomers- Biden and Trump- going head to head. The support of Radical Youth movements have proved fatal to the causes and candidates they support. Left Liberal elites have been disintermediated in America just as they were in India.

At home in India too, there have been casualties in January and February and the students who participated in the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, particularly those from Jamia Millia Islamia, have been booked for sedition and unlawful activities, a euphemism for terrorism.

More importantly, Shaheen Bagh led to Congress and the Left being wiped out in the Delhi Assembly elections. The BJP gained a little and would have gained more if the riots had happened before the elections.

They had all quietly folded up their protest when the COVID storm hit the country. There is no evidence to arrest them, and some others who have been arrested since the onset of COVID-19. So, sequentially charges are added to the investigation by inter alia adding Section 302 of IPC (murder) and Section 13 of the UAPA. Suddenly it seems that the glorious jurisprudence of Articles 14, 19, 21 of the Constitution too has been locked down. India has chosen to fight its own children and their mentors and guardians have chosen discretion before valour. How did you sustain the protest financially for 60 days, is the refrain that they must answer. How will they manage to defend their honour in court and afford lawyers, one might ask. Suddenly, a long line of cases culminating in Anuradha Bhasin remains high on the stated principle of rights and sparse on practical impact. Rights in ordinary times are not much to boast about. It is in extraordinary times that rights should matter as the great legal philosopher, Ronald Dworkin, argues in Taking Rights Seriously.

Why did Khurshid become the lackey of the Dynasty which had imposed Emergency, locked up opposition leaders, suspended the Constitution and forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands? Was it because Ronald Dworkin appeared to him in a dream and told him to do so?

To be fair, Khurshid may be unaware of what happened in India in the Seventies because he only reads American books.

Earnest Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms comes to mind. Hemingway sought advice on the ending after Catherine’s death in childbirth, from F Scott Fitzgerald, his friend and fellow author. Fitzgerald suggested Hemingway end the novel with the observation that the world “breaks everyone”, and those “it does not break it kills”. In the end, Hemingway chose not to take Fitzgerald’s advice. Instead, he concluded the novel with these lines: “But after I had got (the nurses) out and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn’t any good. It was like saying good-bye to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.”

Will Khurshid give up writing this sort of shite in order to become a bull-fighter? That would be cool.

However broken and defeated by destiny the protagonist of the novel might have been, in real life for us there is no walking away from a lifeless statue.

No. We must become bull-fighters or big-game hunters in East Africa or something real macho of that sort.

Post COVID-19 we have to make a fresh beginning, hopefully united and trusting each other as we must have been through a life-death experience together. We will have to crush the infection of hate that seems to have found some spreaders.

But Khurshid has been in the business of spreading hate of the RSS for forty years! That's all he knows how to do.

Meaningless and misdirected hate must not last.

But Khurshid, like his Party, has no other stock in trade.

We will have to learn to put India ahead of anything else — in fact, humanity first. This is something we have successfully done in our fight against the coronavirus. Fifty years from now, people will applaud and light candles to say that when India seemed to be spinning out of control our generation joined hands, hearts, and minds to hold it firm and sound. We would be remembered for having saved India.

No. Khurshid and his ilk will be remembered as useless sycophants of a worthless Dynasty. But not for long- unless Khurshid turns into a bull fighter or gets a boat and hooks this like real big fish and struggles to land it like in the Old Man and the Sea.

Beauty, as Love's Talib

Contra Ghalib & as only the truly coarse can appreciate

Beauty, as Love's Talib, must perforce vindicate

This love-note ciphered to her soul
That it beget Hate yet seal her whole.

Envoi- 

Prince! So bright her face, the page's blank seems whiter
Knowing what is writ remains in the belly of the writer

Suraj Yengde & Undercover Brother II

Edit- I am in the sorry position of receiving some negative information regarding the subject of this post. However, I will let this stand. Natural Justice requires confrontation by the complainant of the culprit. My own intuitions are irrelevant. 

G.Sampath,writing for the Hindu, gives a sympathetic account of 'Caste Matters', a new book by Dr. Suraj Yengde- a rising star in the intellectual firmament of Dalit politics. 

Scholar-activist Suraj Yengde wonders when India’s progressive brahmins will take up anti-caste work on a war footing
Is it possible to have a meaningful conversation about any aspect of India without engaging with the idea of caste?

The problem is that utterly meaningless conversations about any aspect of India tend to revolve around the idea of caste. Indeed, any conversation about anything at all can be quickly rendered meaningless by playing the caste card. This is why I have dedicated my life to opposing the hegemony of the Iyengars. But for the Goebbels like propaganda of their so called Mathematical Genius, Srinivas Ramanuja, my own contribution to Number Theory- which is that 6 and 9 go down on each other any chance they get and thus decency requires never putting those numbers next to each other- would have got me, if not a Field's Medal, then at least a passing grade in my Accountancy exam.

All is the fault of those High Caste Iyengars who have brainwashed Society in this matter. The fact that I am widely considered to be an innumerate imbecile is nothing less than an atrocity perpetuated by a deeply Casteist Society.

Be it politics, culture, society, history, media, education, sports, economy, business – are any of these realms untouched by the tentacles of the caste system?

But success in each of these realms depends solely on completely ignoring the Caste system and the shitheads who talk about it.

In 'Caste Matters', Suraj Yengde offers a definitive answer — in the negative.
Suraj Yengde is a scholar-activist affiliated with the Harvard Kennedy School in New York.

This is a smart and enterprising young man. He did a Doctorate from a South African University and thus has first hand knowledge of a part of the world whose significance is growing exponentially. I am reminded of the career of Rajesh Saraiya, the Dalit billionaire. He was studying aeronautical engineering in Soviet Russia. After the collapse of Communism he learnt the metal trade working with Laxmi Mittal before branching out on his own and making mega-bucks. I'm not saying Yengde should have got pally with the Gupta brothers. There are plenty of honest ventures in that part of the world and having anti-apartheid credentials is likely to continue to open doors. On the other hand, doing a PhD in Africa could be a passport to America where opportunities are not lacking. I may mention that, at Harvard, Yengde is associated with Cornel West and has an even taller hair-do. Even a decade ago, that would have been quite a feather in his cap- if he could get a cap to fit on his towering curls. Still, if this young man plays his cards astutely, he may well end up with a sinecure at  a billion dollar Foundation- if not a Corporation.

Sampath, writing for the Hindu, does not stress this side of things.

In Caste Matters, he has authored a powerful polemic that marshals elements of traditional philosophical inquiry, memoir, history, social anthropology, and cultural studies to activate a dialogical narrative primed for a singular agenda: to shift the framework of conversations about caste, from something that happens to Dalit-Bahujans (such as reservations and atrocities) to something that upper castes preserve and benefit from but rarely acknowledge.

This makes sense. Some upper caste pedagogues want to continually drone on about Caste Privilege to their students, since they have nothing of value to impart, and Yengde is catering to this abject class. However, having secured his bread and butter, Yengde is still young enough to take a part in actual Dalit politics. I imagine that his Marathi and Hindi are good. He could easily pick up a little conversational Telugu or Bengali or whatever. Thanks to new technology, this handsome and charismatic young man could have a big impact at a grassroots level. Indeed, he could himself show entrepreneurship in this respect. I imagine there are young techies who would want him to be on board for a venture involving the next big thing in Social Media. This would be good for everybody. As Akerloff pointed out Caste is about information asymmetry. Dalits are best placed to overcome this with respect to Dalits. There is an arbitrage opportunity between a coordination game and a discoordination game.

Indeed, the reason 'High Castes' have liked Dalit politics- including the 'in your face' politics of Kanshi Ram & the early Mayawati- is because it broke monopolistic 'intermediate class' or 'dominant caste' coalitions and improved efficiency- i.e. corruption of a benign sort. Indeed, that's the reason 'neo-liberalism' is against Classical Liberalism's obsession with the equivalent of the Roman 'bonus paterfamilias'. The gentleman with a private income, a country house, and some smattering of Latin and Greek, was still as thick as shit. Women and Jews and Catholics and Nig-Nogs made a good fist of any job they managed to get precisely because they didn't have a private income and hadn't read Aristotle.

‘Dalit being’
The book’s opening chapter, ‘Being a Dalit’, sets the tone with a part-existential, part-sociological inquiry into the nature of ‘Dalit being’. “I am forced to live in the world as though I am secondary, and the Brahmin and his universality are primary,” writes Yengde.

Brahmins, most of whom are poor and few of whom are smart, may feel flattered by this statement. But Brahmins now know that they do worse when Brahmins are in charge. Merit must prevail or else we all go to the wall. As descendants of priests, Brahmins understand that if the economy deteriorates, some of their number will only survive by going back to being very poor priests. One may as well stay a vegetarian and avoid alcohol and so on because it is a 'regret minimizing' strategy which is mindful of catastrophic risk. This thinking comes to the fore when it comes to Marriage. Being a teetotal vegetarian who can chant some mantras lowers search costs or iterations in the 'Stable Marriage Problem' and works well as a relatively cheap 'costly signal'. This means better correlated equilibria.

Drawing inspiration from Heidegger and Sartre, Yengde argues that the caste society enacts the othering of ‘Dalit being’ through the erasure of Dalit space and Dalit time.

This would be cool but for the fact that Heidi & Sartre were as stupid as shit. Phenomenology is nonsense on stilts- unless Evolution is fake news and an Occassionalist God exists.

On the other hand, maybe the film 'Undercover Brother II' is right. A drug for 'wokeness' exists The erasure of the space and time that Sensible People inhabit can be accomplished by 'the Man' putting that drug into our cappuccino.

For instance, mainstream Indian history has little space for Dalit freedom fighters.

Indian historians celebrate their own caste and denigrate those of other castes. Kayastha and Khatri historians denigrate Brahmins. Brahmins, however, get a pay-off from pretending their beggarly ancestors had supernatural powers which, sadly, they used in so foolish a manner that first the Turks and then the Brits ruled over much of the country.

Yengde offers the stunning contrast of Laxmi Bai, a Brahmin born in the household of Peshwa Baji Rao II, and Jhalkari Bai, a Dalit born into the Kosi caste. While Laxmi Bai is justly celebrated for resisting the British, it was Jhalkari Bai, “her adviser and soldier,” who disguised herself as Laxmi Bai and actually fought the British army led by General Hugh Rose, enabling her queen to escape.

Jhalkari Bai looked like Laxmi Bai and courageously gave her life for a common cause. The recent film, Manikarnika, emphasizes her role though the scriptwriter was Brahman. Since women are now admitted to the Army, Jhalkari Bai will find an increasing role in recruitment material and feature in 'josh' sessions. But the fact remains, the War against the East India Company had nothing to do with Caste. After all, the Brits were against the thing and would soon abolish Slavery. Moreover, both women- from the Caste point of view- were defying convention by usurping avery high caste male role.

“Brahminical historians preserved the memory of Laxmi Bai as a martyr and eliminated Jhalkari Bai,” notes Yengde.

While Kori historians did the opposite. So what? The most we ask from our historians is that they don't masturbate in public.

He points out that such erasure is done systematically out of fear that these stories “will inspire Dalits to fight against oppression and cause a Dalit rebellion.”

How will it inspire Dalits? Suppose there is a Dalit who looks like Mani Shankar Aiyyar. Should that Dalit take responsibility for Aiyyar's drunken antics so as to shield the fellow from blame? Is it the duty of poor people to sacrifice themselves for those who have more money?

Some of the most inspired sections of the book pertain to “Dalit love”. For Yengde, Dalit love is the most potent “antidote to the malady of caste.”

But Dr. Ambedkar married a Brahman Doctor. Yet, after his death, she was pretty much ostracized by his family. Speaking generally, high caste women who married 'Dalit Panthers' did not do well out of it. On the other hand, smart people who married other smart people, did well regardless of caste or race provided the couple concentrated on doing smart things.

He writes, “The fact that we have ‘arranged’ marriages in India is primarily because of the fear of Dalit Love, which has the ability to inject the ideals of justice, compassion, forgiveness…into closed orthodox minds; hence, it is banished by a prejudiced society.”

This is nonsense. Dalits are a minority. There simply aren't enough of them to go around. Still 'Love is all you need' is a good message if, like Dr. Yengde, you are young and handsome. The trouble is, sooner or later he's going to get married and his wife will beat up anyone who tries to fight casteism by sitting on his face.

While progressive savarnas have critiqued various aspects of the caste system, it is Dalit-Bahujans who have written incisively about the worst damage inflicted by caste on a society and its individuals — a diminishment of their ability to give and receive love.

My ability to give and receive love is not diminished by the fact that I'm ugly, stupid, poor, mean-spirited, and perpetually flatulent. It is only coz of the Caste system that there's not a long line of beautiful virgins outside my bedroom door. That's why Society is in such a mess.

Is it any wonder, then, that it seems to have become so easy to fill the hearts of so many, so fast, with so much hate, as India has recently discovered?

There's a lot of hate in the hearts of people who write articles like this. But it is directed at Modi and the BJP. No doubt, this is because RSS wallahs are not administering some red hot anal lovin' to these journalists.

The chapter on Dalit capitalism explodes the myth that the market can liberate Dalits from caste oppression.

Having money liberates everyone from having to bother with the prejudices of poor people. There aren't enough Dalit billionaires- which suggests there is an information asymmetry which private equity can exploit. The rational self-interest of the Market can certainly play a part in defeating the long shadow of what was a non-market based economic and moral regime.

Two reasons why it cannot. Firstly, capitalism in India is always already caste-inflected. Indian capital is overwhelmingly bania-brahmin capital, and its modes of accumulation follow caste boundaries.

So, Dalits should be clamoring for the lifting on all barriers to foreign capital coming into the country.

Secondly, upward social mobility derived from material success — the Dalit capitalist dream — is premised on the existence of social relations.

Nonsense! Material success is premised on having lots of money. Screw 'social relations'. Hire people who will suck your cock to keep their jobs.

In a capitalist society, this relation is based on class distinctions.

Which, in a capitalist society, are based solely on how much money you have.

In a caste society, the realm of social relations is restricted to the members of one’s own caste.

So, India is not a caste society. Good to know.

The relations outside caste, if they are not exploitative, are transactional, not social. So it is impossible for a change in class to effect a change in social relations in a caste society. Dalit capitalism, Yengde writes, is just “a clever plot to lure the oppressed class into the promises of capitalist dreams.”

Very true! Dalits can see for themselves that they can't buy stuff with money. This is just a capitalist dream. Still, it must be said that the oppressed class must be as stupid as shit if they fall for 'clever plots' of this sort. Thankfully, Dr. Yegde will open their eyes. They must throw away any money they happen to have. It is completely useless.

Call to action
The last chapter, ‘Brahmins against Brahminism’ is almost a call to action — issued by a Dalit not just to all Brahmins but to anyone who enjoys brahminical privileges linked to their caste identity.

This is similar to my call to beautiful virgins everywhere to form an orderly queue outside my bedroom door. Also please bring snacks and beverages.

Drawing on the example of whites who risked their lives for the abolition of slavery in 19th century America, Yengde wonders when India’s progressive brahmins will take up anti-caste work on a war footing.

I will do so immediately. My anti-caste work will begin with my freely distributing love to beautiful Dalit virgins- only female at this stage, coz I iz not fully 'woke'. Moreover, I am prepared to accept any amount of money from any Dalit, regardless of gender. As Yengde has shown, money is quite useless for Dalits.

He cites the example of the ‘Knapsack Anti-Racism Group’, a workshop organised by white liberals in the U.S. for fellow whites in order to sensitise them to the ‘knapsack’ of white privilege that they carry around.

But, 'Undercover Brother II' has shown that groups like this are under influence of the 'woke' drug which is being peddled by 'the Man'. At first this drug makes you sensitive and affectionate. Then it turns you paranoid and hateful. The result is that 'Progressives' split up on crazy identitarian issues thus letting the Racists win.

But “in contrast, the privileged-caste citizens of the Brahminical world seldom talk about or question the notions of privilege when discussing caste — with a few exceptions.”

Sadly, this is not true. Brahmans are as thick as shit. They will talk about any nonsense which flatters their pride. Thus they are thrilled to take responsibility for all Ind's ills because this proves their ancestors had supernatural powers. Moreover, they gain 'obligatory passage point status'. Since they created the problem, only they can solve it.

Rigorously researched and closely argued, Caste Matters is a significant intervention in discrimination studies.

No. What is interesting about this book is the author. He has the potential to be a 'rock-star' public intellectual precisely because there is an element of shrewd calculation, a pragmatic indifference to ideology, as well as populist streak in Yengde's thinking. This is a young man who has taken risks and found his own path. He may be able to make a place for himself in Indian politics.

Among savarna readers, the conservatives will find it infuriating, and the progressives, illuminating.

Actually, only the commies will hate Yengde. Once one learns he has pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, we feel proud of him regardless of our political orientation. This is a young Indian who is neither a dynast nor the puppet of some sclerotic political party. He should co-author some papers with Econometricians and Epistemologists and so on, simply to burnish his academic credentials and secure grants, but he should not actually invest anything of himself in that crap. Meanwhile, so long as he gets his finger on the pulse of Dalit youth in key states, his utility and success are assured.

There is little doubt, however, that every dispossessed human of caste society will find it an inspiring read.

But, if it is an 'inspiring read', it would be an even more inspiring video in one's own mother tongue.
Meanwhile, I urge Yengde, if not to read Thomas Sowell, then to watch 'Undercover Brother II' and thus understand why 'wokeness' is toxic for such purveyors of Grievance Studies as actually have genuine Grievances. The other side of the coin is the paranoid belief in 'the Man' who incarnates and instigates all injustice. The Undercover Brother is bound to find that anyone who actually answers this description is a smelly, drunken, homeless bum. To continue to 'fight the Man' empowers nothing but reaction.

Let us now look at some excerpts from Caste matters released by the Publisher. My comments are in bold.

Dalit identity is disguised in public, it is hidden and loathed.

Traditional identities are disguised in public. We loathe the customary attire of our ancestors. We are encouraged to keep our bollocks hidden- a task traditional male dress in much of India fails to adequately perform. 

Many affluent Dalits restrict their coterie to the world of Brahmins and other dominant castes.

But all affluent people like hanging out with yet more affluent, influential or cultured people. Most people would prefer to attend a party given by a rich guy rather than a wake held in a starving leper colony. Yengde flatters Brahmins by suggesting that they are always welcome at high toned events. Since most of them are very poor, the fact is even their affluent relatives don't want to see their face- unless they are looking a kidney donor. 

They spitefully denounce every arrangement of Dalitness.

Unless they are orchestrating it themselves to advance themselves.    

Even if they are benefactors of the Dalit movement, emerging Dalit elites try to wilfully damn the credentials of Dalits.

Well, if your PhD from Harvard is in Grievance Studies instead of Gravitational Wave Theory, it is not just Dalits who 'damn your credentials'. 

You would notice them identifying as ‘no more a Dalit’ or as Buddhist, Christian, Sikh or simply atheist in order to fit into the grand schematic of a ‘humanist’ identity.

When is the last time a Brahman or a Bania or Khatri came up to you and said 'Hi! I'm a proud Brahmin, or Bania, or Khatri?' A Jat might say this but there would be an element of humour in the suggestion that the cunning fellow is actually a horny handed tiller of the soil.  

Dalits ascribing to these meta-identities are anxious about their Dalitness.

Since 'jatis' in India have a Religion based orthopraxy, all 'jati' identities involve anxiety about failures to conform in matters of diet or livelihood or observance of festivals etc. 

At times they even refer to the word Dalit as something alien to them, an external or downgraded Other.

This is true enough. The word is of recent origin. When I was young, older people spoke of Harijans. Younger people spoke of SCs. It was only after Mayawati became C.M- indeed, many in New Delhi regarded her as a possible P.M- that this nomenclature became standard.

Oppressed Dalits who have not yet broken out of the caste mould very obediently adhere to the supremacist tendencies of their oppressors.

But this could be said of all oppressed people. Sadly, it is also a claim made by people who are not oppressed at all.

The mimicry of the affluent castes is reproduced at every level.

This is Gabriel Tarde's law of mimetics which Ambedkar mentions. However, the truth is we mimic those who look cool. 

Thus, just as Brahmins find an incentive in discriminating amongst themselves based on sub-caste affiliations, every other caste entangled in the adamant cobweb of the caste system does the same.

Kin-selective altruism dictates this result. All living beings are subject to the Price equation. 

But awakened Dalits are extraordinary in their sense of being.

In other words, Yengde himself is a Boddhisattva. 

This book (Caste Matters) makes a claim for the position of Dalits in the global rights struggle.

But also a claim for Yengde himself as having epistemic superiority with respect to his academic rivals. This is certainly convenient. 

In the midst of uprisings against fascist right-wing ideologies,

Hilarious! Why not mention uprisings against the Spanish Inquisition or the reign of Lord Voldemort? 

many liberals and socialists alike have joined the tirade against populism. Nationalism of a certain order is being summoned by the protectors of the state. The state here is turned into a monologue and a mono-version of a few despots. Therefore, the book presents the perspective of a first-generation educated Dalit, and how he experiences the changing world of diverse ideologies.

So, it represents the perspective of ignorance and naivete.  

It is a confrontational battle of deciding whether to borrow jargon from existing parallel social justice movements or creating a new idiom for transformation.

But that idiom too would be jargon. 

Is the borrowing really a desperate attempt to include the Dalit experience in others who have been traditionally oppressed or to create an affinity of shared marginality?

Or is it just campus politics of a puerile sort? 

The book aims to add value to ongoing social justice movements by adding the Dalit narrative to their constitutional terms. The Constitution of India is regarded as the foremost document for Dalit hope.

It was not so regarded by Ambedkar who dismissed his contribution to it as 'hack work'. India is not America. Our Supreme Court tends to check pro-Dalit, or apparently pro-Dalit, measures which the Legislature then doubles down on. 

However, does it specify the ingredients for emancipation?

Of course not! Don't be silly. 

How has the Indian state confined the possibilities of its progress on the basis of Dalit hope?

It hasn't. The Indian State has confined the possibilities of its progress on the basis of the stupidity of Leftist Economists. Dalit Hope, like other varieties of Indian Hope, turns upon getting the fuck out of India and thriving in places where productivity is higher thanks to well-functioning markets.

Simply put, the hope of the state continues to function adjacent to Dalit hope, both intangible and virtuous.

Nonsense! Dalits are a minority. They don't greatly matter.  But then neither do Brahmins for exactly the same reason. 

The day Dalit hope ends, the state’s hope for Dalits will end.

Only if the Dalits control the State. Otherwise the one can continue to harbor hopes for the other long after it has perished.

This end is to the peril of the Indian state and all who cohabit in it.

This is mere rhetoric. The Turks and the Brits and the Dynasty ruled India without giving a shit about Dalit hopes. 

Excerpt 2
Dalit Moment
The Dalit community is having its Harlem moment at present.

Actually, the Dalits had their Harlem moment at the same time as Harlem. But it was more successful in concrete matters which is why it is not associated with any great Artistic efflorescence. On the other hand there wa a Dalit aesthetics when I was a kid. It was shit. But so was almost everything else that came out of that period.

It is now able to articulate loudly and clearly through words and action—becoming more global and more reachable than ever. Sensorial Dalit expression is an experience of revelation of the person and the personal.

This is wishful thinking. African American popular culture has changed the way we dance and the way we talk and so forth. But this is because their 'talented tenth' was truly gifted. Even Louis Farrakhan started off as a very handsome, superbly talented musician and singer. 

In the revolutionary age of technologies of communication and new expressions of freedom, Dalits are claiming their rightful position in the armours of justice and democracy. Dalits are the recently ‘freed Untouchables’, the second generation of constitutionally freed citizenry who are now coming out of their inbred shackles and segregated ghettos to combat the enforced Brahminical societal codes

Does this guy really believe Ambedkar was a slave? Or is he pulling a fast one on Whitey?

But with this comes tougher challenges as the endogamous nature of caste is becoming stricter.

It can't become stricter if it is endogamous.

Shankar, a twenty-two-year old Dalit from Tamil Nadu, was hacked to death by the parents of a supposedly higher caste girl in full public view after marrying a woman he deeply loved.

But there is a long history of clashes between Thevars and Pallars in the area. The bigger community is classed as 'Backward', the smaller is classed as 'Scheduled'.  

Twenty-three-year-old Dalit Pranay Kumar was beheaded in broad daylight when he walked out of hospital with his twenty-one-year-old pregnant, dominant-caste spouse in Telangana.

The key word here is 'dominant'. In Mulayam Singh's U.P, cases of inter-caste elopement, could cause Yadavs to beat and kill Brahmans if the latter were less numerous. 

Many Dalits, young and old, reckon how many times they nearly lost the battle to survive for the mere fact of being a Dalit and exercising their virtue of being human...

Suppose I'd been in the habit of running off with girls when I lived in India as a youth. Sooner or later I'd have ended up chopped to pieces.  

Excerpt 3
The invisibility of extant caste violence—psychic, bodily and on the group—needs serious consideration.

Sadly, Yengde is too stupid to provide it. But stupidity is no bar to academic or political success. 

As much as caste is cultural, social, political and economic, caste nurturing is also bio-individualistic.

This is illiterate. Yengde should focus on co-authoring papers with rising academics. 

It is a performance of individually managed acts conspired (sic) to execute violence upon the ‘Otherly’ body.

 Penguin India should have employed a better editor. This sort of shoddy writing makes both Yengde and Harvard look bad. 

This is done to produce pain upon beings who are considered lesser. In this definition, I aim to concentrate on the role of the individual and not allow them to escape culpability under the rhetoric of community-oriented action. In horrific events such as the Holocaust, individualized crime brought in a new dimension.

WTF is this cretin getting at? Individual act. Collectives may require certain actions. No new dimension is created when a collective causes a set of individual to act in concert against another set of individuals. Yengde may believe that some Nazis were worse than others. This fits with certain comic-book depictions of insane Nazi scientists or occultists pursuing a separate agenda. But it does not correspond to the truth. The High Command had ordered greater, not lesser brutality. It was not the case that 'individual excesses' added 'a dimension' of horror. Hitler and his chums wanted even worse things to happen to even greater masses of people. 

The Holocaust theories upheld individual action as culpable on its own.

Post Holocaust jurisprudence upheld 'Command Responsibility'. Since then, painstaking research has shown that the chain of command was implicated in everything save some utilitarian departures from the harsh measures prescribed from on high.  

Discordance and dissent as part of national duty are yet to be cherished in caste-infested India.

They are yet to be cherished anywhere. The thing is a nuisance. This is the message of Undercover Brother II.

There is a desperate ethnonationalism being forcefully promoted through Dalit constituents.

Does Yengde believe that Dalits are not patriots? If he is right, then Ambedkar's father was wrong to protest against the exclusion of Mahars from the Army. People who think Yengde is on the right track, should lobby the Government of India to halt recruitment of Dalits into the Army- an occupation in which lives are put at risk for the sake of the Nation.

Dalits are nationalized in the grand scheme of ‘Indianness’

They should be regarded as aliens or stateless. 

—a la ‘Bharat Mata’ populism seen in the performative zeal of Republic Day or Independence Day celebrations or in extreme instances as the Babri Masjid demolition or the Godhra riots.

So, Yengde believes that love of 'Mother India' involves hatred of Muslims. Like Dalits, Muslims can't be Indian Nationalists. They are an alien, stateless, people.

Every bit of populist nationalism is an order of the tradition that harbours supremacist hierarchies, producing devious harm on marginalized bodies.

This is bad English and bad History. Populist Nationalism in all countries and at all times has represented a revolt against Tradition as represented by Universal Churches and Empires.  WTF does 'devious harm on marginalized bodies' mean? Does it have to do with anal probes?

This nationalism is sold by the caste-obsessed society, the market-driven greed of capitalism and neo-liberalism, and the Hindu right.

So, only the Hindu right is Nationalistic. Everybody else, unless they have bought this Nationalism, wants to be treated as a stateless alien.  

This has decayed (sic) the national ethos of rich traditions that contained democratic branches of self-criticism. The darkness of Dalit lives quivers in the anecdotal pages of news media summaries when Dalit deaths are reported.

A news media summary can't be an anecdote. Why couldn't Penguin India hire a proper editor for this illiterate buffoon? 

The scandal-hungry Brahminical media strives to find the next horrific story to be presented to the audience.

Is Yengde going to name and shame N.Ram of the Kasturi family? That would be cool!

The tragedy of a scholar’s death ricochets around the corridors of major universities across the world.

Rohit Vemula topped himself because his Dad wasn't Dalit but rather OBC. He was a very great scholar- thinks nobody at all. 

An author who writes experiences of the self is celebrated in the book reviews sections of major, world-renowned publications.

Does Yengde mean Sujatha Gidla? Unlike Rohith Vemula, she stuck with STEM subjects, did well, emigrated, and wrote in a sensible fashion about things she knew but which she nevertheless took the trouble to research. 

Tales of Dalits are criss-crossing the world over.
Dalits are struggling to fight the social boycott imposed by dominant-caste villagers in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Bihar and Kerala;

If this is true, the matter deserves a better exposition than Yengde can give it. 
Consider the following farrago-

Dalit women are still seeking justice for mass rape; the souls of raped and lynched bodies paraded in the middle of streets yearn to seek justice; the brandishing of Dalit talent before the childish argument of ‘merit’ is haunting the doorsteps of educational institutes; the autonomous political praxis of Dalit students in college campuses is seen as a negative move; the death toll of manual scavengers keeps hitting national newspaper headlines;

So mass-rape and the death of manual scavengers matters as much or as little as how 'autonomous political praxis' is viewed. Why does Yengde stop there? Why not say 'Dalits are subject to rape, torture, genocide and snide remarks about their hair-do or the fact that they have a zit on their face.'  

we keep talking about the greatness of India’s civilization and culture, when the only time a Dalit gets noticed is upon his or her death;

Who the fuck notices the death of any non-celebrity in India? Murder maybe. Not death. Everybody dies. 

when the world is trying to find solutions to problems with little success; when social movements are gearing up to create new bonds with new comrades; when ecological disasters affect the person at the bottom who has no means of employment; when the neo-liberal catastrophe is sacrificing the measures of livelihood (sic) to the global capital monster; when pedagogies are proving inadequate to express the blackout of morality; when teachers are unable to explain to their students where lies the unaccountability for the oppression of human beings; when India is ‘shining’ and the mass is fighting the darkness; when banks are ruling and governments are following; when democracy is being prostituted to the profligacies of the ruling elite; when the LGBTIQ movement refuses to actively endorse Dalit queer and trans bodies;

coz that's just as important as disappearing jobs or climate change!  What's next? Will Yengde complain about the size of his office or not getting a parking space? Is that how this litany of horrors will end?

when academic departments do not detail a course on the Dalit episteme;

which is how come Yengde isn't getting the corner office or the coveted parking space 

when research institutes do not commit to having detailed studies of Dalit lives in past and present;

which once again impacts on the allocation of office space and parking places 

when the mother who cannot stop wiping her eyes at the loss of her three-year-old;

coz bereaved Mum suffer just as much as Academics who feel their office accommodation falls short of their massive 'episteme'.

when the temple priest continues to rape Dalit women for ‘religious needs’;

then office space needs of Yengde and his ilk must be met!

when the dominant castes continue to loot the country;

Being the majority, they are the country. Dalits, according to Yengde, want to be stateless aliens.  

when the international left movement honestly takes hold of their oppressed comrades in India;

and gives them a 'happy ending' 

when the solidarities of other groups become the priority; when prisons continue to get populated with oppressed-caste people; when the father who has lost his eighteen-year-old son has to beg for someone’s pittance to gather money to bury him; when the world’s governments and international bodies do not recognize the lives of the unheard; when an old woman tries to survive by begging on the streets; when animals are allowed to sit on people’s laps while even the shadow of a Dalit is forbidden in the house;

This is a complaint I can get behind. Beyonce's puppy dog gets to sit on her lap but when I try to enter the Hotel suite where she is staying, bouncers chuck me out! Even my shadow is not allowed to fall upon her as she twerks on the stage! 

when atheists say that religion is the primary problem and not caste; when Dalit remains Dalit and Brahmin remains Brahmin; when a son loses his father due to the lack of medical care owing to poverty and the privatization of the health industry . . .

What then? Yengde has run out of steam. He won't tell us because he doesn't know. Still, maybe if he got a bigger office he could work on 'Dalit episteme' and come up with yet more breathless, bathetic, run-on sentences like the above. 

So, until the progressives can take a courageous stand by denouncing and renouncing self-privilege; until radicals make caste their primary project;

coz progressives and rationalists have magical powers

until rationalists do not stop commuting to agraharas to educate;

but if rationalists must already be doing this. Yet it seems to have no effect- though admittedly most Brahmans have moved out of agraharams. One can say 'until x stops, y will continue'. That makes sense. If y is bad, x should stop. One can also say 'until x is done in an unremitting manner, y will continue'. The notion here is that though x is being done, it is being done imperfectly. But to say 'until x does not stop' is to suggest, in a sly manner, that x is a useless nuisance.

until Dalixploitation becomes a concern of the world;

African Americans have contributed greatly to popular culture. That's why we know the term 'Blaxploitation' and enjoy parodies like 'Undercover Brother II'. But Dalits have no similar cultural salience. Nobody cares about the night soil carriers of a shit-hole country. 
     

until Dalit scientists are able to organize; until Dalit cinema is successful in the project of creativity; until Dalit rap becomes the lingua franca of revolt and is accepted in the mainstream; until Dalit achievers are unafraid of revealing their identity for fear of losing their future; until #castemustgo is truly embraced and #DalitLivesMatter is in the list of priorities; until my mother can sleep with reassurance without worrying about her son’s returning home safely in the caste police regime; until then, caste matters.

Sadly, Yengde is only making the point that 'caste matters' if the things he is talking about- Dalit Science and Dalit Rap and so forth- turn out to be as impressive as 'Jewish Science' or African-American Rap- or Afro-Caribbean Calypso (which is the field in which Farrakhan first achieved wealth and fame). But this isn't going to happen. Why? India isn't rich. It is poor. It is not going to emulate China which emulated Japan and the 'Tiger' economies. Manufacturing industry isn't going to destroy hereditary prejudices. There is going to be no 'melting pot'. Rather, people like Yengde will continue to corner a rent on the basis of identitarian politics.

Caste will matter until it is done away with.

No. Caste won't matter save as part and parcel of imbecility and backwardness.  

When my aai talks about love she is interested in the balancing act of love, which does not intend to harm others.

As opposed to what? Yengde's own conception of love as intending to bite off the nose of the beloved? 

She continues to live under the coded pressures of caste violence.

Because Yengde is a useless tosser. 

Her bravado in fighting caste-mongers has fortified her children.

But to what great purpose has Yengde been fortified? 

Her compassion and love have dissolved our fear of others and made us strong.

But Yengde's argumentative powers are very feeble. Why won't he put a little effort into re-reading and editing the shite he thoughtlessly tosses off and sends to the publisher? 

Through her life we see hope and she sees in us a brave attempt to break the shackles of caste. That is why caste matters.

Yengde is making a career out of abjectness and imbecility. Caste matters to him because it secures him tokenist sinecures. His prose is not that of an Academic nor even that of a drunken helot. It is simply lazy and stupid. This should be no bar to his advancement. The branch of Academia in which he flourishes has been re-purposed as a sort of 'Special Needs' education for the terminally woke. Only Undercover Brother can save the day before the credits roll.

                                    Dr. Suraj Yengde reading this post

                       Undercover Brother chilling in his Ivy League office