My rethinking of liberalism, and J. Sai Deepak's book

My twenties pulled me away in a direction which, at the time, I had no doubt was the single direction of progress. I surrounded myself with first-principle thinkers, ambitious and talented people with backgrounds in economics and the liberal arts. Over time, I discovered I had was most comfortable practicing and preaching the following values:

1. Equitable economic upliftment is the singular lens through which a government's performance must be evaluated - the economy must grow, and the disparity between the rich and poor must diminish. This alone, along with the development of public good such as health, sanitization and education - must be the focus of a government; other aspects such as religion, language, and culture are talking-points for elections, and are best avoided. 
2. We must understand the history of humanity as a power-struggle, where the people try to seize and retain power at the top while the masses try to throw off the yoke. There are no sides, no better characters or worse; there is only power and those trying to take hold of it. Therefore, if one is in a position of privilege at present, it probably owes to historical wrongs committed by their ancestors against other peoples and one must therefore be conscious of this privilege and atone for it
3. The world is moving towards a classless, global utopia where people can exercise their individual freedoms and extract the most benefit by selling their skills and ideas in an impartial global marketplace. This marketplace, since it is created by humans around the world, will ensure that the best and most interesting ideas, technologies and projects thrive (weaker/imperfect ideas and projects will perish). Additionally, it is beneficial to develop one's own personality to suit this global marketplace.
4. The individual has priority over any other social grouping - the individual's rights and desires are sacrosanct, and the individual can practice or believe as they wish, unless they intrude upon the liberties of another; other persons, social groups or orders may not comment or pass judgement on the individual's choices, practices or beliefs, as this would be tantamount to the reduction of the individual's freedoms.
5. First principle thinking is the basis of true knowledge - every system devised by human-beings must be questioned without the historical baggage using only essential axioms that are known to be true. The contrary is also valid: one must doubt every doubtable thing until one is left is pure truth (the Cartesian position).

In other words, I think of my 20s-self as a well-rounded liberal, which a penchant for solving problems like an engineer (move fast, break things if you must). Over the past few years, I find my momentum in this direction arrested. In some ways, I've even made a U-turn; a few things I valued earlier and some ideas I held true now seem childish, even laughable.

I attribute my 'change of heart' to the literature I read and the ideas I let myself be exposed to. Extracting myself from the modernist, materialist, liberal-capitalist heartland allowed me to question the truths I once thought axiomatic. They were my first-principles, until they were questioned.

The most interesting changes in my thinking have come from engaging with the histories of Western and Indian philosophy, and from familiarizing myself with various historical narratives. One such work that is now fresh in my mind is J. Sai Deepak's "India that is Bharat". As someone who has followed Sai Deepak extensively on social media for his well-articulated views, I recently found myself emotionally moved when he decimated Shashi Tharoor's Nehruvian idea of India in a popular debate. I thereafter proceeded to buy his book - which is the first book of a trilogy.

In his book, I found well-researched material and viewpoints that helped me further refine and develop my own views on various subjects. Going back to the philosophical U-turn I mentioned earlier, I believe my positions now can be articulated as follows:

1. An elected government has civilizational responsibilities also - Equitable economic development and the improvement of public goods are vital performance-metrics of any government, but its responsibilities do not end there. Adequately representation and the protection of the languages, culture, religions, artforms and the perspectives of its people are responsibilities of a government, in the interest of the continuity of a civilization.
2. Historical narratives are always ideologically driven, and one must grapple with particular facts and refrain from simplistic grand narratives (like "history of humanity is a power-struggle"). There are better and worse characters and institutions in our history, and we must learn about them. There are also better and worse form of oppression, which have different effects on our present day societies. One was most likely the oppressor as well as the oppressed simultaneously at various points in the past. Equating various privileges and/or disadvantages create false narratives that carry only political value.
3. The world is moving in a direction embedded with a particular ideology of power. This is no utopia. One must fight against this foreign ideology (that Sai Deepak terms coloniality) in order to create a respectful future with space for one's own worldview. As a corollary, it may be stated that the global marketplace is rigged. Unless the rules of the game are challenged, one's own place in the world is doomed.
4. The individual has certain inalienable rights, but there are places where societal (cultural) groupings must have priority over the individual. To view oneself as a family, tribe or nation is a human trait - and there are traditions and situations where these families, tribes and nations gain priority over the individual. Liberalism strives to make people autonomous and "free" (there is no choice to "not be free"). It aims to atomize individuals as "blank slates", free from all groupings and biases, so that they can be "rational independent actors". Liberalism claims that all bonds and ties (including one's family) must be freely chosen, and this allows corporations to have workers without any bonds, so that they can wage-slave away. It is Capitalism which thus profits from liberalism's end-game.
   Moreover, liberalism is premised on an abstract conception of individual selves as pure choosers, whose commitments, values and concerns are possessions of the self, but never constitute the self. Since our choices are never truly free (but shaped by our societal bonds) and because our choices and bonds shape the identity of our selves, the theory of the self must include room for cultural membership and for non-chosen attachments and commitments.
5. First principle thinking fails when you operate on the wrong level of abstraction, with incorrect base axioms, or without considering the practical side of problem-solving. This is especially important while solving problems at a societal scale, and creates a strong case to actually understand the prevailing worldviews and think about problems within these frameworks (e.g. immersing oneself in sampradayic schools and understanding why things are a certain way and proceeding to use tools within the system, may be a better problem-solving approach than reading a PDF summary of a philosophy and proceeding to challenge it from "first principles").

Apart from helping me develop on some of these ideas, J. Sai Deepak's book is an important work to understand the essence of Indian constitutional secularism as contrasted with Bharatiya civilizational acceptance of a plurality of views. It also explains the coloniality of English-language education in India, and the very reason why this blogpost is written in English and not in Tamil, Hindi or Sanskrit.

Notwithstanding the latter portion of the book which carries several essays, letters, minutes and speeches verbatim (as Sai Deepak goes out of his way to demonstrate primary sources, lest it be said that he is misquoting/misinterpreting evidence) making this book more tedious read than it should have been (this will, I'm afraid, come at the cost of some readership), "India that is Bharat" is an essential read for a 21st Century Indian.

The Idea of India - Sunil Khilnani [Book Review]

I finished reading Sunil Khilnani's book "The Idea of India" yesterday, although I felt there was scope for it to be renamed by prefacing the title with the word "Defending", and adding "Nehruvian" after the definite article.

In fact, I'd suggest a renaming of the chapters to succinctly capture their intent and message:

Chapter 1: Democracy A Portrait of Nehru as the Father of the Nation

Chapter 2: Temples of the Future How India's Economy Went bust

Chapter 3: Cities Erasing all of India's pasts to force Indians into Modernity

Chapter 4: Who is an Indian?  India is not Hindu.

Tibetan Buddhism: Kindness through extraordinary courage

📔(10/n in 2021) I picked up "Fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhism" at a homestay in Harsil Valley (Uttarakhand) on my recent vacation. Found it an insightful read about the history, philosophy and practices of the people of Tibet.

The philosophy was familiar to me, as I am aware of Buddhist Sunyavada doctrines and Nagarjuna's works. The book expanded my understanding of the history of Tibetan Buddhism, and the concept of Vajrayana (which amalgamates Mahayana Suttas with Tantric practices to accelerate one's transformation into a Buddha in one lifetime).

A few takeaways among many:

1️⃣ I'm sure this has been a quiz question before: How was the institution of the Dalai Lama created, and what does "Dalai Lama" mean? A: The youngest and currently dominant Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism gained prominence in the 1570s as the Lama Sonam Gyatso formed an alliance with the Mongol chieftain Atlan Khan. The word "Dalai" comes from the Mongol word for Ocean. And Dalai Lama means a teacher who has the depths of an ocean.

2️⃣ Another piece of trivia: Buddhism became the state religion of Mongolia under Kublai Khan. Ghenghiz Khan subjugated Tibet in the 1200s, and later the Khan's grandson Godan took Sakya Pandita Gyeltsen as his guru and adopted Buddhism. The teacher's nephew Chogyal Phagpa became Kublai Khan's guru. At this time, Buddhism became the state religion of Mongolia (53% of Mongolia's population were Buddhists as of 2010).

3️⃣ It is believed that all the three paths (1) Doctrine of emptiness, (2) Infinite Compassion, and (3) Karmic law of cause and effect (including "Dependent Origination") lead to realization of the same whole - that is Enlightenment. I personally found the interconnectedness of these routes fascinating.

4️⃣ A Buddha is said to operate in three planes of existence simultaneously: the universal (dharmakaya), the ideal (sambhogakaya) - or pure land, and the individual (nirmanakaya). Dharmakaya or Truth Body relates to the realization of emptiness in the phenomenological world. Sambhogakaya or Bliss Body relates to what I think is a (Vijnanavadin/Brahmanic) concept of a pure non-material plane of existence without defilement. Nirmanakaya or Form Body relates to the expression of purity in the phenomenal world.

5️⃣ Bodhicitta (heart of an enlightened mind) is an incredibly brave concept. It means the engagement of one's enlightened mind for the well-being of all other sentient beings. One concept I loved is the idea that everyone else in a previous janma could have been our mother or dearest friends; so when we see these "mother sentient beings" suffering, we spontaneously desire to release them from their torment.

Having read this book, I feel worse about what happened to the people of Tibet in the 1950s when the Chinese Communists invade their land "to liberate them". It takes extraordinary courage to build philosophy that is so kind.

One Year of Kaddu

Exactly 365 days ago, Anubha and I were on a one-off walk through the society on a rainy evening when we spotted a wounded white puppy bravely tippy-tapping down the road. The moment I wrapped my fingers around his supple velvety body and picked him up, our lives forever changed.

When I look back at Kaddu's first year in the world, the words that come to mind include cute, foolish, hungry, crazy, greedy, loving and No (kindly note the capitalized 'n'). One year with a puppy has pushed our thinking and behaviour onto a different plane, but at a practical level, we have mostly learned to effectively communicate the N-word.

A friend asked me if this was a strategic move to growth-hack parenting - "Is Kaddu an experimental child, so that you can learn the ropes?" I laughed his question off at the time, but I can understand where it came from. Loving a puppy has helped me realize the potential I have to fully love a helpless toddler for whom I am everything.

"We didn't save the dog, he saved us" is a cliché I've come to accept. He saved us from continuing our lives as limited hoomans who don't know an animal's love. The dog, in my opinion, is the perfect gateway animal: they open you up to a wild new world out there.

A world beginning with dogs (Haseena, Millie, Cyrus, Olly, Zoe, Danaerys, Kaalu, Candy and Crush, Foxy, Yoda, Yoga, are all furry faces I can recognize), but extending into cats, squirrels, birds, cows, pigs and horses. Some of these animals scare Kaddu, some are his friends, and others (like the horse) leave him flummoxed. By living closely with him, I sometimes get a glimpse of what goes on inside his cute, soft, furry head: I perceive those noisy red cars, giant green buses, sly cats who climb high branches, big black bullies with sharp teeth, and smelly pee and poo of various friends and animals.

Kaddu has also helped me explore the society in a way a way I'd never imagined. In the first few months of taking baby Kaddu for walks, I walked through more lanes, bushes, parks and buildings than I had in the two years prior. In certain ways, he has made us care a little more for the society too. Earlier, you could chop down a few trees overnight and have them cleared before morning, and I'd never have noticed their removal. But now, even if someone moved that green dustbin by the park by a few feet, I'd know something is amiss.

We have also made new friends through him. In fact, almost everyone we meet in the society now are through Kaddu (he is way more friendly than us), and we have realized that doggie-playdates act as excellent social glue. We pet-parents (not owners, how dare you) share stories of our little ones, their nakhre, strange things like to eat or drink, places we last took them to... Pet-parenting is like a crazy invite-only subterranean cult, and if I wasn't in it, I wouldn't have believed such a thing exists.

So we've talked about how Kaddu helped us get to know other animals, our society, and other people. But most importantly, he has helped us get to know ourselves get up on time without an alarm. He's up at six, his snout hovering over my face, ready to lick, and woof "gooby morning!"

Unprovoked Violence and an Idea of Evil

Around seven a.m. each morning, I take our puppy "Kaddu" out for a fun walk around the park. Today was different: less than ten minutes into the walk, Kaddu was brutally attacked by a stray dog. In the few seconds that it took me to shoo away the brown dog with a plastic dog-training stick, he bit Kaddu's hind leg seven or eight times and ran away.

Kaddu squealed. Blood was oozing from the puncture wounds, he limped around in circles tugging at his leash. I looked up to see a group of morning-walkers gathered at the scene. Neighbourhood dogs rushed towards us hearing Kaddu's shrill yelps. I picked him up, and rushed back home - up three flights of stairs - to get him to safety.

We took him to the hospital. The vet cleaned his wounds, gave him two shots and told us there shouldn't be long-lasting damage. The puppy is back home now, lying uneasily in his bed watching an endless video of bleating sheep on YouTube. I hope he gets better soon. More importantly, I hope this stray-dog attack hasn't violated his psychological rules enough to erode the natural trust he places in humans and dogs alike. 

While he heals, I realize that this incident has forever changed the way I view the world. My previous understanding of concepts - evil, randomness, free-will and responsibility - stand thoroughly shaken. They do not explain what I witnessed.

What I witnessed as the closest human-observer of the attack

Kaddu is a cool fellow, at least by canine-standards. He doesn't get overly agitated, he genuinely loves humans and dogs, and he very, very rarely barks. He doesn't mind other dogs eating from his bowl, lying in his bed, or even nibbling on his favourite snacks.

Today, as we strolled in the park - he was on my left, pulling at the leash attached to his body-harness - the environment felt straight out of a Camus-novel: an idyllic Sunday lying in wait for the absurd.

His nose was near the pavement as usual. He likes sniffing out berries, mud and exotic organic things. I spotted a newcomer in the park - a middle-aged brown dog across the hedges, some ten metres from where we were walking. My memory, upon which we must rely to replay the scene, distinctly tells me that the dog and I both paused to look at one-another. Kaddu was at the time unaware of his presence.

Knowing Kaddu's playfulness when it comes to other dogs - and this one didn't look hostile - I tugged on his leash. Kaddu stopped. He turned his head and the two dogs saw each other. Kaddu didn't do anything either to invite or to spurn the other dog; he simply stood. The other dog approached. He crossed the hedge and came onto the footpath.

The dog approached quickly, I sensed something was about to happen. The dog started sniffing Kaddu, who still was standing. The dog then licked Kaddu's belly twice. Then the dog bit. Kaddu was bitten again and again, he squealed. I raised my plastic training stick and struck the stray dog. As hard as I could. But the stick was clearly not a weapon. More bites, more high pitched shrieks. The silent park became a theatre of suffering. I struck the dog again, and for some reason, the dog relented and ran away.

Other neighborhood dogs charged into the scene, and growled and barked at the newcomer. I don't know what happened to the dog at this point, as I was aware only of Kaddu and his suffering. He was limping, his leg was bloody, and he was trying to get away but the leash held him back. I picked him up and went home. I've already told you what happened next.

On fate and free-will in a dog's life

There was once an age when some people thought of animals as mindless automata simply performing a set of predefined functions according to coded rules. We now know that to be untrue; the more closely you have interacted with an animal (especially cats, dogs, cows, goats, and other species high in the evolutionary ladder), the more strongly you will vouch for the animal's capability of independent thought. You may even recognize their characteristic "personality traits", although you may think of these traits in strictly anthropomorphic terms.

For example, our vet described dogs as "toddlers who never really grow up". A few paragraphs ago, I described Kaddu as a "cool fellow". These are perhaps limitations of our own framework of thinking, but we acknowledge that these animals think, reason and "feel".

When I recall the actions of Kaddu's assailant this morning, I inadvertently try to explain it with a cause or a sequence of causes. These causes may be mechanistic (i.e. physical factors and external forces may have caused the animal to attack) or intentional (i.e. the animal attacked due to its own volition). The former approach negates the animal's free-will entirely, and I don't subscribe to this approach. In this matter, however, there seems to be no logical mechanistic explanation for the attack, as there were no discernable external conditions which forced the brown dog to attack Kaddu.

Evaluating the cause of attack through an intent-driven framework, we are driven to think of the assailant's motive. Kaddu is not prey (the dog couldn't have killed and eaten Kaddu), or a predator that threatened the dog's survival. The attack seems to lack fear-motive. The dog was also not in its territory and therefore was not safeguarding its own space. What's even more strange: the dog approached Kaddu quietly, almost casually. It was as if the dog did not approach with an intent to maul Kaddu, but decided to bite after licking Kaddu twice.

Kaddu did not retaliate; he was too shocked and too much in pain. But the dog continued to bite repeatedly. It doesn't appear that the attack happened with the intent of establishing dominance. So why did it happen?

Having lived with a pet, I think of dogs as mostly rational decision-makers. They have basic needs which they fulfil based on a priority order: eat, drink water, rest, play, explore, have sex, etc. The stray dog that approached Kaddu seems to have operated outside this framework. This act seems to have had no practical goal (for the other dog). The two or three rational options that lay in front of the dog as it approached Kaddu shouldn't have included bite.

A karmic explanation of the attack, however, exists - as karma can "explain" the absurd. It can be thought that the attack was perhaps inevitable. The event may have happened due to causes that we can never comprehend, and to fulfil a teleology that exists outside our limited imagination and reasoning.

The whole-world thus operates as a single "thing", and individual actors' actions sometimes make no sense when read alone, and separate from other things. And reason operates on the whole, and therefore on any part of the whole - including the brown biting stray.

The attack as an Act of Evil

Portuguese philosopher Baruch Spinoza believed in the unity of all substances and termed this unity God i.e. everything operates together as a whole. According to his metaphysics, there is actually no evil in the world, as there can never be evil in the whole. He says "knowledge of evil is an incomplete knowledge". We thus perceive evil only because we are unable to see the big picture.

Applying such a framework makes more sense when we apply it to a world where individual actors are in a state of war with one-another. Where the fall of one would bring the rise of another: a zero-sum game. Here, by definition zero-sum, there is no net accrual of good and bad, for what is good for one is bad for the other.

This used to be a framework I more or less believed until this morning. But now, the apparently random attack on Kaddu questions the premise of zero-sum or any kind of summation at all. What kind of additional information could here lead to complete knowledge?

There is an ancient doctrine, at least for humans, that once one knows what is good, they may proceed to do it. Knowing good conduct (what is commonly known as morality) is a precursor to performing good deeds. Some philosophers go to the extreme of saying that evil only occurs due to intellectual error, due to some kind of miscalculation inside our rational minds.

Did the brown dog not know that it was bad to bite another puppy? Did the dog not realize that Kaddu would be caused immense pain due to the bite? The dog knew all of this, and yet proceeded to maul Kaddu. I would venture to say that the act was guided by the principle of inflicting maximum pain on another.

Its intent was purely malevolent. In fact, as Kaddu shieked and howled, the dog's biting became more violent. The desire to inflict pain on another was the main motivator for this action.

I now believe that free will allows one to inflict pain and suffering even when (relatively) unprovoked. And such an exercise of free-will must be construed as an act of evil, whether or not it serves to fulfill some unknowable teleological end (as in the doctrine of karma).

Until this morning, I too, like Spinoza, believed that true acts of evil do not exist (and may be explained away rationally). Now, I wish I still believed in such a soothing doctrine, but it is too fantastic to be true.

Nobility and the State of Nature

Another concept which refined itself further after the events of this morning pertains to the (exaggerated) "state of nature". This refers to the state the world found itself in before they appointed rulers, governments or kings. It refers to a world wherein there existed no higher power to resolve disputes between individual actors, a world where people's actions were guided by some unwritten principles or "laws".

Eighteenth century thinker Rousseau propagated the idea of a "Noble Savage" as one who is uncorrupted by civilization, and thereby symbolizes humanity's intrinsic goodness. Perhaps I am still affected by the recentness of our ordeal, but I draw several parallels between the drives and motivations of a dog and those of man.

These stray dogs still exist in a state of nature, uncorrupted by civilization. At the risk of anthropomorphizing animals once again and drawing analogies, I must state that I have never more strongly rejected the idea of the noble savage than today. There have always been animals and humans who have never known what it is to be "noble", or have recognized the concept of nobility and rejected it nevertheless.

In general, perhaps, most people and animals live by a set of rules and principles. The majority uphold a set of rules, creating an illusion of the intrinsic goodness of all. But history shows multiple prominent examples of immoral and evil characters rising to power by flouting these "rules" (their ability to flout rules often explains their ability to succeed). The concept would become much clearer if we studied the social interactions between dogs on the street.

Our Responsibility towards Animals

So we have given up several individual freedoms and subjected ourselves to government by law in order to experience a higher quality of life. Dogs have, over the past fifteen thousand years, given up certain freedoms as a species and allowed humans to transform them from fearsome wolves into cute four-legged pets.

Their domestication perhaps aided in their safety and survival. They've got food and protection, and they've allowed their humans to govern them and make decisions on their behalf.

They depend on their parents and caregivers to decide for them, for these persons are in a much higher position of power. And human decisions have massive ramifications in the life of the pet: where they live, how they live, what they eat, when they sleep, what tricks they learn, even whether they are allowed to procreate.

In this light, I must remind you again about how the attack transpired today. Kaddu was walking along curiously, on the footpath with his eyes fixed on the ground a few inches ahead of him. I pulled on the leash and stopped him, when I spotted the brown dog. When the brown dog started approaching him, I did not pull Kaddu away or shoo away the dog preemptively.

I lowered my guard, and allowed Kaddu to come into harm's way. I foolishly trusted a newcomer who had evil intentions, and Kaddu got hurt because of my decision. He was unable to truly exercise his own free-will as he was on leash (although it can be argued that if I was not present, Kaddu's wounds would be far more grave or that he would have been attacked nevertheless, or that that no one would have been able to take him to the vet).

We are responsible for the pets and other animals (birds, cows, squirrels and all) who live in close proximity to us. We must think of their well-being as our moral responsibility - our own compass of goodness must direct us towards this - as we have the power to influence their lives.

I hope Kaddu gets better soon. Can't wait to teach him how to roll over!