Minor revelations from a wandering ascetic

These past few weeks have provided great fodder for speculation on why the world is the way it is.

However before reading any further, please do take what comes with a grain of salt. This advice is especially important if you're in a hot climate - dehydration is a constant threat! I may be delusional at this point due to 14 hour power cuts in fierce heat (now I understand why they hold power officials hostage here), monsoon-driven encounters with insects whose names I have yet to learn, and many-a-frustrating interview.

A few flashes of insight have come from my unique position this week. I've been a State Guest of Haryana, thanks to the generosity of Sonipat's Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Ajit Joshi, IAS. He has sped up my interviewing schedule to a dizzying pace by allotting me two extremely competent and efficient aides - the Sonipat Tehsildar (land revenue official), Mr. Hariom Attri who has arranged everything from lodging in a government guest house to meetings with all manner of judges, local lambradars, advocates, and (hopefully soon) khaap panchayat pradhans; and a Program Officer of Women and Child Development, Mrs. Sunita Sharma, who speaks wonderful English and translates for me whenever officials give her time to.

What have I learned from this august position, you might ask?

First - I now understand the despicable state of India's toilets. It reduces to an especially tricky problem of public goods.

Toilet sanitation would be your average, run-of-the-mill public goods problem if everyone wanted clean toilets, but once behind a locked bathroom door, or just in a semi-enclosed stall, most people became lazy and prefered speed to maintaining cleanliness. However things are especially tricky here because all public officials (with enough clout) have their own private bathroom!

So whereas I thought that Indians were blind to the absence of soap, running water, and clean floors in most restrooms, officials ' own facilities showed me the error of my ways. I entered the PO's private bathroom to find soap and shining floors, and then the DC's bathroom, with *gasp* toilet paper and hand towel!

Given that the authorities have no need to frequent commoner's stalls this means the community's recognized authority has no interest in ensuring a major public good: clean toilets. Once a single person dirties the bathroom, everyone else bears the cost of the first individual's carelessness, and not a single reward is possible for the common-spirited, or merely disguested person who cleans up another's mess. In fact, it's both easy to make a mess given frequent water shortages and it's hard to clean such mess, given social sanctions against cleaning bathrooms that apply to anyone who isn't of a scheduled caste. Aiyo!

Second - I am learning to distrust people who place great faith in the power of the written word (that includes me!).

Why such pessimism? Mainly because I've been noting the proliferation of road-side wisdom around Delhi, as well as pithy sayings posted where Maoist agitation has a long history, such as the northern reaches of West Bengal. For example, recent Delhi-region (NCR) signs meant to prevent speeding, ranging from straightforward to profound:

"NO HURRY, NO WORRY. U-TURN ANYWHERE."
"BETTER LATE THAN NEVER."
"PERSPECTIVES CAN CHANGE DUE TO CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES."

In Maoist areas signs are mainly of the more profound version. Right now I can only recall one:

"EVERY LIFE IS SPECIAL."

But really, who are these people who think signs are truly tools for waging a revolution in driving etiquette, statehood, or both? Is the written word really that powerful? I tend to think that no one seriously has complete faith in the power of words, unbacked by any regular agitation. Yet it seems that Delhi's cops and Darjeeling's Maoists are content to sit back and let the signs work their magic. In the NCR region a pitiful number of cops scour the highways for speeding drivers, and in Darjeeling and the surrounding hills I have yet to see a Maoist soldier 'on duty.' (As an aside: certainly Maoists have made their presence known with strikes and rallies throughout West Bengal - but is that really "doing" anything???)

I don't mean to cast doubt on Euripides' claim that "The tongue is mightier than the blade," but rather just to clarify. Words -spoken or written- have force when their author has the ability and will to make her verbal assertions reality. Without such backing, words are the lazy man's crutch. So forgive me for speaking ill of Delhi's transportation authority and the Himalayan Maoists, but certainly they could do a little more than making fancy roadsigns to make themselves credible agents of change.

Third - the sad, slow-dawning truth of my first few days in Sonipat. My hopes of studying social institution's ability to arbitrate land disputes are, at best historically-inaccurate, and at worst the delusional visions of just one more political scientist obsessed with "institutions."

You see, I came to Sonipat (in southern Haryana, just north of Delhi) to study Khap panchayats, or councils of sub-castes (actually sub-jatis) held by the elders of 24 or more villages when some crisis demands their arbitration.

The good news, at least for my research, is that these social institutions are still alive and kicking. In fact, a fairly recent (2005) article titled "Caste Injustice" by T.K. Rajalakshmi in India Today describes social boycotts as a "[c]ommon story in Haryana, [and] in the rest of north and northwestern India. It is a story of the newly revived social power of khap panchayats, organisations representing one or more castes, usually the dominant ones. Khap panchayats do not have much use for the law of the land and hand out diktats according to a `traditional' code of morality."

The bad news is that khap panchayats, or the more general form of 'gotra' (sub-jati) panchayats have moved from arbitrating all manner of disputes to narrow arbitration of disputes about maintaining marriage rules. This change has occurred over the past thirty years as Independent India's courts have gained people's trust. I still hold out some stubborn hope that community panchayats resolve land disputes, which will most likely be dispelled upon meeting panchayat pradhans (heads) early in the coming week.

So what to do? I shall diligently seek out variation in fallow agricultural land and amass data from judicial, economic, and social sources to explain why such variation exists. This is Professor David Laitin's advice and I think it prudent to follow, however heavy my institution-loving heart may be.

But first, I've taken advantage of a weekend near Delhi with a fantastic driver (Dev) to revel in one of the world's oldest cities...

Today included a trip to the लाल िकला (red fort) - where I picnicked beside the मोती मिस्जद:

Of course I stopped for tea in the Heritage Tea house and visited a nearby tea merchant, Aap Ki Pasand. I am now the proud owner of spring-picked tea buds from Darjeeling, smoky tea from Sikkim, and Assam's pungent black brew, any of which I will be happy to brew and drink with you once I return...

But my day would not have been complete without a stop to India's anti-Borders, the Nai Sarak book bazar in Chandni Chownk... Below is my new favorite store, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers:













Just a few hours in the bustling streets were enough to give me new energy...














I'm not sure what the week ahead holds, but for now I will content myself with an upcoming picnic in the Lodhi Gardens and will invite a few friends: Percival Spear's History of India (Vol 2: 1600-2000), Srivastava's Mughul Empire, RS Sharma's Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India, SC Ghosh's Dalhousie In India, various sundry books on the judiciary and land revenue systems of the past, and as a dessert treat, Amartya Sen's Argumentative Indian.

For today, I am happy to put of any real responsibility by immersing myself in the past.