Crazyfinger

Blogging: What Should It Mean for Us?

In the short time, less than 2 months, that I’ve been perusing the Indian blogosphere (also going over the archives), it seems to me that among all the blogs, it is particularly those blogs that have overcome eschewed the initial awe and fascination of the bloggers of the West (mainly of the US) that offer a discussion of great interest and value to its readers. I think the group blog, theotherindia.org is one such blog, and I know there are other blogs that fit this description. I mention this particular blog only because I’ve been commenting on it rather profusely these days.

Regardless of how popular or “top-rated” they are, socio-political blogs in US are by and large centered on a phenomenon of an internecine battle between media, media-wannabes and ex-media, and (a big AND) technology. This phenomenon is unique to the culture, the history, the makings of this community and this (i.e., the US) society. No doubt a lot of good is coming out of it - there’s a lot more writing about freedom, injustice etc. - which people can read, reconfirm their own ideas, reassert, recalibrate themselves and feel empowered by the enhanced sense of communal feeling.

Nevertheless, when one looks at the webpage of one of these blogs, one should not make the mistake of thinking that everything that’s written there applies to, or can be transliterated to the context of a reader in India.

Contrary to the popular perception, India is now going through only a slightly-more exciting period compared to its past. But it is a vastly more interesting and important phase compared to happenings in the US. At the same time, the Indian media itself is incongruous with its times (perhaps with exceptions that occur as often as a monkey hitting a bulls-eye on a dart board): it is decades behind where it should be. Even refrigerators and manhole covers seemed to have changed/improved more often. And so such internecine battles are irrelevant for the Indian scene, no matter how many Indian bloggers conjure it up for the sake of a me-too argument. And oh by the way, there is another institution in India that is even more infested with the decay of stagnation: the legal institution (another story for another day).

Perhaps this is an idiosyncratic viewpoint, but to me, by and large the online presence of Indian blogosphere is filled with a strange feeling of acute self-consciousness. We come across as if we don’t know what other people think of us, or as if confronting what we think is our image in the eyes of the other, this “other” being anything that is Western/US, perhaps strongly American or even an Indian-American. This has to change.

To continue to stay under the shadow (or in the penumbra) of US blogging phenomenon is a rather uninteresting place to be for an India-based blog. Not only it is uninteresting, but for readers (ahem, for “English-speaking people with internet connection”) whether they are more or less experienced in life abroad, it comes across as shallow.

In US blogs, the blogging is more about playing out the “politics without power” - there’s a rally without a revolution feel to it - and life moves on. But, for a blog like “theotherindia.org,” there’s a hope that it could be different, in the sense that, perhaps here for the first time (hopefully not the only time), readers can go beyond the “…the boredom of argument without action.” I am not recasting “theotherindia.org” is into some kind of an NGO. But the very fact that the blog has set out to talk about real people is itself a refreshing change. To draw an analogy, in IT field, a similar sense is starting to come about, rightly so. A sense that the real growth, the real interesting stuff will happen when IT products and services are built, marketed and sold in and for the Indian market (small-to-medium business segment, for example.) That would be one hell of a maturation for the industry.

In a similar vein, here is an opportunity for a blog to explore what it means to, and to figure out if it can, go beyond the argument into the action. That is not a bad transition. That would be a real coming of age for the Indian blogosphere. That would be a terrific example of Indian ingenuity, of taking an instrument called blog - a hollow tin box of sloshing opinions that is - and putting it to a good use. Then you’d all be free-market capitalists!

Speaking beyond “theotherindia.org,” in the realm of the arguments, in general, I believe we are starting to see that blogging (and other internet ways of open access to one another’s thoughts) is having two diametrically opposing effects: between people of “same culture” (or between people of “same cause”) it can lead to a unifying, self-examining, in the end positive effect. On the contrary, between people of “different cultures,” I suspect, I am afraid, it is only having a divisive effect (although I wish it otherwise.) I know this runs counter to the established and well-hyped promise of “one world” that internet will bring to bear.

People from same culture are used to the consistency of beliefs and thoughts built from a sense of history, literature, and the oscillations of right and wrong, the very basic stuff behind our impulse to reach out to like-minded others. I think blogging (and reading a blog written thousands of miles away in a different context) puts a strain on this consistency, and the oscillations of right and wrong vibrate without any resonance. That’s what we are seeing today, an increasing sense of division and discord.

We all have to watch out for this divisive phenomenon, not just between people of “differing cultures,” but between people of differing opinions and views. In the current India, it doesn’t amount to anything if one wades through blogs without directly taking on such issues, even if it takes force-feeding new ideas, new ways of looking at issues and new ways of shedding old thinking.

(C) “Another India”

“I think one great way in which people who care can help animals, is to buy them from the people who are treating them badly. An organisation which would then rehabilitate them in a open and comfortable space…”

This reminds me of what I saw during this past Christmas holidays in downtown San Francisco. Right in the middle of the Union Square, sandwiched between Macy’s and another high end store, was a “store,” that had around 15~20 cats housed in pretty cathouses behind the glass panels, nicely decorated to keep with the tenor and the high spirit of the street. All these cats are displayed there to encourage people to adopt them. Next to each cat is a small note describing its name, age etc. This store was attracting crowd like you wouldn’t believe it.

These are not, I don’t believe, mistreated animals in any way, more like abandoned. A few young men and women, with cheerful Santa caps on, were taking in the donations/enquiries on where to pick up the cats. That to me, is a terrific idea, quite creative and bold. I asked him how the response/reactions have been and he said, “Great! We had about 6 or 7 adopted in the last week and before the holiday is over we are hoping the rest of them’ll find a home too.” Ingenuity. This is really what they mean whey they say, “Where there is a will, there is a way.”

(C) “Two from TIME” - II

"I am also not under any delusion that all this hysteria that we sometimes see in some posts is spurred only by the plight of “the other half” (don’t even get me started on how I feel about this phrase). Sometimes, when you are writing it is not unusual for us to feel that all the good and evil in the world is flowing through our pen (or through our “crazyfingers”:-)), and there’s an unavoidable urge to herd all the good men and women and force them to announce their allegiance right here and right now. OK, I can live with that hysteria. As readers I think we ought to let the writer go where he/she wants to go, and we nevertheless do serve “the cause” by picking up the pieces in the aftermath.

(C) “Two from TIME”

"Nice, feel-good words but I hope the day won’t come when we have to fall back on a glossy sentiment from a popular magazine - words crafted exclusively to pitch the magazine cover - as a guiding spirit for the travails of “the other half” among us.

One of the more disappointing trends in present day conversations is the increasing dominance of a well-crafted sentiment (like the one quoted in this post) - neatly arranged and edited for maximum emotional effect on the reader - in the shaping of our convictions."

(C) “May you never…”

1. Introduce a new policy package called Small-Business-in-a-Box. Every person who falls in a certain band of income-level is qualified for this “SBEEBEE” package.  This package contains the following (first cut):

    

2. We can approach this in two ways, and perhaps need both ways. One is to pretend that one is starting the business and simply start asking the questions, sort of follow the imaginary file as it moves along the govt. chain.

(C) “Short break for meta-post”

"Nevertheless one must remember that blogs are different from groups. Building a community around a group is like nuking a hotpocket into a microwave, wait a few minutes and you are done! But building a community around a blog is like a stewpot on a slowburn, a delicate, attentive, and careful process, better done on a looooong drawn schedule:-)"

(C) “Reporting live from the land of dead”

"Where risk exists, a banker would shirk (or habitually increase interest rate). On the other hand, an entrepreneur would perk up and look for opportunities lurking behind that risk. If farmers’ liability is a huge risk which the banks are not willing to fund, then a shift in the thinking (in how one looks at the problem) would open more avenues. I do not mean to suggest that solutions are easy, but they seem a lot harder if thinking and the mindset doesn’t change."

(C) “The line, calculated”

"Though I didn’t know the exact mechanism, I had always assumed that “they” have defined the poverty line using some sort of a sensible mechanism. At first your post was incredulous, I thought you were wrong and the post is “biased and slanted.” But then again an hour’s worth of available reading on this topic certainly yanked me off my ignorance butt. Thanks a bunch for the post. My vague understanding was a bliss and now I am depressed: “What the hell? How come something so basic a measurement can be so screwed up!”

Poverty-line as a weighted vector

Let’s itemize key factors, including those that Sen refers to, that influence poverty status of an individual/community:

1. income,
2. nourishment,
3. health care,
4. living long,
5. education
6. economic activity
7. access to justice/law
8. and few others that are not on this list.

It seems to me that a comprehensive measure of poverty would work out to be some sort of a weighted average of each of the above factors.

By instinct, I look at the term “economic activity,” as that activity which people can partake in after their basic needs have been fulfilled. This economic activity is beyond what is required to survive and live above the poverty line, if the individual wants to move up the ladder. No doubt basic needs do also require active participation in the economy. Now that you’ve applied your Phaedrus Knife to it, I think I really mean “competitive economic activity,” or simply “competition,” when I mean “economic activity.”

(C) “Those unclosed parantheses”

“...one of the diseases that we all have, is to think that such a pain belongs to someone far away, someone we don’t know and don’t relate to, so this pain is not ours to feel and hence these deaths are not ours to witness. If your thoughts make us stop and feel even for a few moments, then you’d have made a difference. I am glad you wrote it this way and thank you for sharing."

(C) “One hundred and ten rupees a day”

"We can go on and on about the validity of minimum wages acts, agitations, student unions etc. and let it derail us into another lengthy who-is-right? debate. Or we can cut the crap, stop behaving like mandarins and start thinking through the issue by getting out of our comfort zone (and yes heated/passionate ideological debate is a comfort zone too.)"

(C) “Helping children prepare for the world”

"Speaking from experience of working with incarcerated adolescents (not children), I’ll say that being with a child, working with children, is probably one of the most valuable things that we would be doing with our lives. Although it is an acquired skill - to be with children that are not one’s own, for the sake of mentoring - you’d be surprised how even a little bit of effort on our part makes a disproportionately large difference in their lives (I wonder why this fact is not all that well known.)

 

This goes to comments from Kya yaar tu bhi, P.Monteiro and charu. If you don’t know this already, please look into Agastya International Foundation. I have not worked at this organization but I have exchanged a few emails with one if its founders in the past and know a little about their committment and about their show-and-tell efforts."

(C) “The `beggars’ dilemma’”

"The question, “should one give to beggars?” is an artificial one that we pose to ourselves entirely to deflect that “visceral helplessness” we feel."

 

(C) “Economic reforms and economic democracy”

"A few thoughts of mine to the rest of the commentary here. This blog is new so perhaps early corrective actions can steer it in a more useful direction, because right now it has, I am afraid, already sauntered into that familiar wallowing of generalizations. Let me itemize, in no specific order."