Thoughts on Indian Penal Code

US Supreme Court decision on couple of cases has this week given impetus towards making homosexuality accepted on par with heterosexuality in US. The point where things are equal is going to take some time to happen. Things are well under way and that can only be good news.

This brought me to think about homosexuality in India. With the high court decision from 2009 watering down the section 377 of Indian Penal Code, it can be inferred that consensual sexual acts between adults are now permissible.

In reality though, things still need to improve much more. As society, it is disgraceful if part of society are persecuted because their personal choices are different as compared to others. And this acceptability needs to be communicated aggressively. With communication, India can expect that maybe in another 20 years, a homosexual person might feel ok to declare their preference in most of country, and not just in metro cities.  

If i think about it, i have wondered why doesn't Indian government, together with judiciary, just revise the entire penal code. It is great achievement that this code has survived from 1860 and retains significant parts of original. At the same time, things have changed significantly in last 150 years and  the law should evolve together with reality. 

Sometimes when one hears about fines of few thousand rupees for millionaires, it is clear that the amount that was high in past is not enough today. 

To great extent, Judiciary has lot of respect and most of people do believe that the highest judges in India are with good character and make fair decisions. At the same time, there is significant frustration among those who have to deal with lawyers or courts in any format. I know a few people in my life who have had to be involved with court cases and the delays in court making decision is just sad. 

I come from family which has some lawyers and most cases the lawyers handle take multiple years, if not decades, to come to conclusion. For lawyers, this is preferable as they keep on making money through fees. Those involved as litigant sometimes lose everything, hope being the first to go. A just society is one where law follows common sense and can be trusted to treat supplicants fairly, in terms of decision and time. Structurally Indian law is there but if i ask those who have had to closely deal with it, the reality is much sadder.

Stories i tell my daughter: 1. Dancing Doctor

I have a young daughter who loves to listen to stories. I make up a lot of them. Most of them are not worth repeating but sometimes she loves the stories i tell. I shall write them here so if you have young kids, you can try them too and tell me if your kids loved them too.  

Dancing Doctor

Dr Tom worked in a hospital in a small town. He lived in a house just a few minutes from the hospital. One night, Tom was sleeping in his bed while a witch passed over his house on her broomstick. As the witch was applying make up and riding on the broomstick, some of her magic, which she carried in a small bottle escaped and fell down. And magic bottled in water, if it escapes, has to find nearest human or else it will mix with air and lose its power. This magic found Dr Tom who was sleeping soundly in his bed.

Next morning, Dr Tom woke up and when he got down from the bed, he found out that he was not able to keep still. His feet kept on dancing. He had so much trouble to even put his pants and eat breakfast. He was hopping as he ate his breakfast and most of the tea from his tea cup fell down. Dr Tom did not even have cup of tea in the morning. That made him cross.

Dr Tom tried to ride his bicycle to work. He kept on falling down as his feat got tangled with the bike. Dr Tom had to walk, or rather dance to the hospital. On his way, people kept on asking him why he was dancing. Dr Tom could not say anything as he did not know too.

In the hospital, his patients could not understand why their doctor was dancing. One old women refused to be treated by dancing doctor. She said that it was rude that her doctor danced. Small children who came to Dr Tom joined him in dancing. It made Dr Tom's job very difficult.

Soon all the people in town heard of dancing doctor and came to see Dr Tom. As the hospital got crowded, the chief doctor came to see Dr Tom. He could not find out what was happening and said to Dr Tom, "Go home and rest."

On way back, Dr Tom was accompanied by half the town. He had scores of young children trying to dance with him. It made for a merry spectacle. 

The witch was returning home from her party and saw the party below. She slowed down and soon realized that it was her magic that was causing Dr Tom's dancing. She put a counter spell and Dr Tom stopped dancing. He breathed a sigh of relief and ran home. 

Revolutions as tool for social improvement

In last few months, i visited Istanbul a few times. Living in Western Europe for few years, my impression of Turkey was based on the Turkish migrants i had seen around me. When i visited the first time, i was pleasantly surprised. Most of people i met were broadly similar in their attitude and approach to most of Europeans i have met. I found them friendly and charming. And every night i stayed out with my friends, we started bar hopping at Taksim Square. That is why the recent images of protests in Turkey are thought provoking for me. Though what i happening there is no way a revolution, it is not great leap of thinking that it can turn out to be one. I hope it does not.

Revolutions are tricky things that rarely improve situation in short or medium term. Revolutions by definition are against something and not for something. What we find after most of revolutions, even successful ones, is that society has to pick up the pieces of all the things that are necessarily broken in the upheaval. If we look at the recent revolutions in middle east, almost none of them have improved the situation of the normal people living in those countries. At the same time, sometimes those who govern are so far out of line that revolution might be only way out, no matter how painful it is. 

I personally am not in favor of revolutions. Too much inconvenience for my liking. 

Also, the long term success of revolutions is dependent on broad participation of society in the improvement of its lot and significant number of people behaving morally. These factors for me are also possible in restrictive conditions and they can help evolve a society into becoming better society. 

A social structure that rewards moral behavior and participation in social activity can achieve progress without the pain of revolution. Results of such action are slow to materialize and those who dedicate to these goals have to be really selfless in their pursuit. For vast majority of people going out to protest is something hard to do. For same people, being moral and participating bit more in social discourse is possible. Now that would be a worthy goal to follow.  

Narendra Modi: Will BJP support him?

BJP voted Narendra Modi as member of its Parliamentary board & election committee. This appointment is clear indication of positioning Modi as leader of BJP for upcoming elections & candidate for prime minister post if BJP can cobble up a majority. And the effects are already apparent with LK Advani tendering his resignation. If nothing else, the coming months shall introduce some much needed energy into the indian political scene. 

I believe that Modi was elected not from support of top BJP leaders but despite of them. There is ground swell of support for Modi and BJP leadership has had to heed to this support at ground level. In my view, he is the BJP leader with highest recognition & support across country. At the same time, he is the leader who will polarize opinions & most probably make his opponents join together with common aim of defeating him. So by choosing Modi, BJP will bond their supporters more closely and at the same time face with opponents who are willing to go extra mile to see Modi defeated. 

And in between these extremes, there is a large middle group who decide elections. And i believe that this group looks at Modi and his record in Gujrat and is impressed. This middle group is interested in progress and wants good infrastructure. This group wants better life & politicians who are able to do something. And this group, when times choose between BJP & Congress, will go with Modi. The first question is that how many of this neutrals will overlook the problems with Modi & chose to support him for the things he has achieved. 

Secondly, the question will be how Modi's governing style & personality affect BJP. Modi, by all accounts, has a autocratic way of governance & is very result oriented. Indian politicians are good at lots of things, governance is not one of them. Also, the leadership follows the dictum of never be direct with anyone. Also, Indians are not good at taking direct feedback or criticism. One can imagine that political leaders are even more touchy when it comes to taking orders. So Modi's style will be difficult for most of the top BJP leaders to accept. I would not be surprised if even before elections, Modi has to deal with lot of discontent within his own party. LK Advani for me, is just first of many top BJP leaders who will find it tough to live with Modi's persona. 

Coming period will give us answers to these two questions & they will define how Modi's BJP will perform in elections. He will need to get leaders who completely support him (and hopefully get rid of all those who don't) and then come up with a plan and hope enough neutrals will support him. 

One thing being overlooked is that Modi also provides Congress with rallying cry. If Congress uses this correctly, it could make a good showing.

In appreciation of Great Gatsby - the book and movie

What makes the novel The Great Gatsby, great? It is a small enough novel with simple enough story line. Lovers re-united after one of them is married & husband helping crucial mis-understanding that kills the upstart and wife returns to husband. The writing is good, even very good. The characters are fairly drawn & the story moves at rapid pace. The time period is exciting with the parties and the general euphoria that was the pinnacle of jazz era. Thing to note is that Gatsby was not a best seller when it was released. It sold significantly less as compared to other Fitzgerald books. It is a book whose appreciation and place in popular culture has enhanced as time has gone by.

Two main themes that always accompany Gatsby are its foreshadowing of Great Depression & the American dream. American dream for me makes sense. The books infers a story of a man who was willing to do anything to make money. In itself, this is not something which is unique to America. What is unique is that with money, Gatsby was able to throw parties & get social acceptance. So the ability to reach the top of social strata by spending money was American dream & something that was quite different from the aristocratic way of rest of world at that point in time. I have not read of too many books from 20’s but Gatsby is the one which is best known example of realization of this American dream and this thing, for me, is one of the reason why it is so relevant in terms of understanding that period & American dream in general.

As for Great Depression & Gatsby foreshadowing it, I do not believe it to be the case. Gatsby did not stop parties because he grew poor. He stopped because he had achieved his dream of being with Daisy. Also his death was not because of his excess but because someone else manipulated the events and he paid by life for trying to do noble thing.

And this takes me to second part of American dream. I will call it American reality. It is that achieving what you want is not enough as you always want something more, something unattainable. Gatsby did not just want Daisy but he also wanted to her to acknowledge that he was her only true love. He believed in it and her being his only true love. And this belief was the end of him. He was not happy that daisy loved him. He wanted her to say that he was her true love. And his money was not able to help him achieve this. And this is why he is like a bewildered child as he is not able to understand why daisy does not acknowledge him that he is only one. Here is Gatsby, with his big mansion, lots of money, social status of being elite with a girl that is with him and still wanting more.   

And if you see US today, it is still the same. Bush or Obama are Gatsby’s of today. Bush launched attack in Iraq and expected people there to welcome him with flowers instead of guns. He had freed them from a Tyrant after all. Obama became president and expected everyone to get reasonable just because he was president and people had voted for his message of hope. This childlike expectation that they will get everything just because they got what they wanted in material terms and being unable to understand when reality is otherwise is strain that runs even today in Americans. And for me, this makes Gatsby great. It captures the American dream and the American reality.

And the book is gives some insight into why America is dream of so many. There is this underlying innocence to Gatsby as a character. A nobleness that comes through even though he might be involved in sordid activities. He is a dreamer who wants love. And the society/culture allows him to go for his dreams and his money makes him acceptable. In a world stratified by class, caste, religion, ethnicity, this was representation of society where only thing that was required was money. Money that anyone can make anyhow. For those who could never be elite in their existing society because of reasons mentioned above, I can understand the powerful attraction of being  in society that allows you to reach top purely by making money, which is untainted by any of those prejudices.

So for me, the well written story that brought home all the things I wrote above is what made The Great Gatsby a novel that I loved.

Coming to movie, instead of focusing on superficial things like jazz music or hip hop music, Luhrmann got the main things right. The excess of the 20’s with loud parties, the casting of characters and the underlying wistfulness of the book. Nick is plain, Gatsby is magnetic, Tom is brute & Daisy is pitiably human. I think that the movie has got all this right. And Dicaprio has provided a presence that is in tune with character. He is innocent but canny. A dreamer who is unable to accept the reality. I liked the movie a lot because of this.