It is too easy to forget what it really means to be the world’s largest democracy, especially for those of us who remain relatively unaffected by the vagaries of Indian politics because we can buy (or bribe) our way out of most problems the government can’t solve.

For the past few decades, India’s educated elite have taken less interest in politics than the uneducated masses. And this has probably been the greatest reason why India’s infrastructure, health and basic education have maintained 3rd world standards even while the educated elite have rocketed up to international levels of wealth. India’s intellectuals have been too busy making money for themselves to bother with societal issues, and so some of the most challenging problems in India remain unsolved. But it is time that we educated elite realize how valuable our freedom is to our continued prosperity; the world’s largest democracy will crumble if we do not begin to participate actively in its well being. We must understand that the plight of the uneducated masses is our own plight, and that it is our responsibility to raise all of India to greatness. If we – who can read and write, who understand why minority rights must be protected, why women should have equal standing as men, and why religious tolerance is essential – do not vote, then how do we expect our democracy to continue to function in a sensible manner? Uneducated voters are more likely to be swayed by manipulative politicians with corrupt agendas and are less likely to understand which government policies will benefit them in the long-run. If we hope to see any improvement in things like water quality, health, education, and sexual freedom, we must make our voices heard by ballot, not just on blogs. A successful democracy encourages voting by all its people, but it demands the active participation of its most educated.

So GO ROCK THE VOTE in the 2009 General Elections!!!

Oh and before you vote, do a quick search on your favorite politicians and make sure they’re not criminals:

http://www.nocriminals.org/

http://www.google.co.in/intl/en/landing/loksabha2009/

A few of you have requested that I give my thoughts on the qualifications of the various candidates. I started to write a post along those lines but soon realized that most of my judgments are not really based on outward qualifications or claims. All the candidates say they want to improve water quality, increase jobs, use technology, etc., so what’s really different about them? Although we have always been taught that we should vote for candidates “on the issues”, it’s nearly impossible to do so when there are hundreds of people all saying basically the same thing. Of course there are some pretty significant differences (e.g., fundamentalist jackasses saying they will cut the throats of India’s Muslims after they are elected), but most of the publicly-approved talking points all have a similar quality of sounding too good to be true. The truth is, all politicians say manipulative things and promise too much. Such is the nature of politics. So how do we wade through all the shit? Should we really vote “on the issues”, or should we just cave into our temptation to vote for the guy (or gal) we’d most like to have chai with? When I choose a politician, I generally ask myself the following questions:

1. is he / she a good person (or, does he / she seem like a scummy, corrupt bastard)?
2. is he / she at least as intelligent as I am?
3. is he / she at least as educated as I am?
4. is he / she open to new perspectives?
5. is he / she tolerant towards opposing beliefs (or, is he / she a fundamentalist)?
6. does he / she understand economics?
7. does he / she genuinely view poor people as humans who deserve basic rights (or, is he / she just trying to win their votes)?
8. is he / she aware of the world, and the importance of our country’s relationship to other countries?

I do not give my vote to anyone who does not pass with a “yes” answer to all of these questions. So I guess it’s a bit of both — I choose on broad issues and on my own affinity towards the person, with a recognition that no politician is perfect and that it’s okay to disagree on some things, as long as we can agree on the most important. Ultimately, I vote for the people I trust to make laws and spend money in ways that are consistent with my beliefs about what is right and wrong, what is important for my personal freedom and what is best for my fellow citizens now and in the future.

Jai Hind.

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I have eaten a lot of meat in my life. Although my mom is vegetarian, she allowed us to eat meat and even bring it into the home. I’m not sure why she was so flexible on something that she felt so strongly about for herself. Perhaps she didn’t want to create yet another reason for us to feel different from our American friends, or perhaps it’s because the morality of vegetarianism is such a complex issue.

Even as I ate meat almost every day of my teenage life, I thought often about the question of whether eating meat is wrong. There were many aspects of meat that were unappealing to me. Meat preparation was unbearably morbid, and the more hardcore forms like steak and ribs were just plain gross. Yet somehow I was always able to convince myself that there was nothing immoral about eating meat. We are omnivores. We have evolved to eat meat. Killing animals for food is part of the natural cycle of life.

During my third year at Stanford, I was introduced to the ideas of Eric Schlosser, who wrote a book called Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Schlosser’s book sheds light on the disgusting practices of the meat industry in America, with vivid imagery of the torture inflicted on America’s factory farm animals. These ideas presented the most compelling argument I had heard against eating mass-produced meat. Animals raised in factory farms are not only killed, they are tortured. Yet I still ignored my gut feeling about the matter and continued consuming meat daily.

In the spring of my senior year at Stanford I took a trip to India, which was accompanied by a two-week vegetarian fast. Although I had done this many times before in my life (i never eat meat when i am in India), something about this trip changed me. When I returned to Stanford, meat suddenly started smelling and tasting like “flesh”. It became increasingly unappetizing to me. I had already stopped eating beef a few years earlier for health reasons, but now even chicken and fish seemed gross. Somehow, after years of justifying my meat-eating habits to myself, I realized that my body was not meant to consume flesh. And so I became a vegetarian. Not exactly for moral reasons. Perhaps it was for health reasons. But more than anything, it was just a feeling I had about what was right for me. I could no longer eat animals.

I have now been a strict vegetarian for nearly five years and have since developed a pretty strong moral feeling about it — i believe eating meat as it is produced today is wrong. My reasoning is based on my own moral beliefs, combined with some hard facts:

Beliefs

Belief #1:  inflicting pain and suffering on any conscious being is wrong. The greater the level of consciousness, the more wrong it is.

Belief #2: prematurely ending the life of any conscious being is wrong. The greater the level of consciousness, the more wrong it is.

Belief #3: humans who have the basic necessities of life (food, shelter, etc), should minimize their negative impact on the environment.

Belief #4: humans who do not have the basic necessities of life should be free to kill animals for food, but they should try to minimize the suffering of the animals they kill and treat the animals with respect while they are alive.

Facts

Fact #1: in order to eat meat, we must prematurely end the life of the animals we eat.

Fact #2: conventional meat production in modern society inflicts severe pain and suffering on animals throughout their lives.

Fact #3: conventional meat production causes severe strain on the environment by emitting massive amounts of methane.

Fact #4: conventional meat production creates “superbugs”, which are resistant to all existing forms of antibiotics, thereby endangering the lives of other humans.

And so, I do not eat meat, and I am encouraged by the growing interest in vegetarianism around the world. However, I still believe the morality of vegetarianism is a complex issue. First, there are a few nuances that raise questions about the beliefs I have stated above.

Nuances

Nuance #1: Professor and Author Michael Pollan raises an interesting question in his book, The Omnivore’s Dilemna: if you remove all the negative stuff that comes along with mass-production of meat (say, for example, by raising and killing meat yourself on a small family farm), then you are bringing animals into this world (i.e., giving them a life that they would not have had otherwise), giving them a luxurious existence (plenty of food and shelther), and killing them without any suffering. Is it still wrong to eat meat in this scenario?

Nuance #2: According to neuroscientist Joseph Ledoux, human awareness of emotion is a bi-product of our having such a large prefrontal cortex. In other words, we are aware of emotions like pain, suffering and anxiety because we have a large prefrontal cortex. So it is possible that animals without a comprable prefrontal cortex, such as cows, pigs and fish, do not experience such emotions at all.

The first nuance is not really relevant for most of us, who do not have easy access to “humane” meat. The second nuance is interesting, but highly speculative. Since science cannot tell us definitively whether or not animals are aware of emotions, I believe it makes sense for us to act based on our intuition. And my intuition tells me that animals can suffer.

My Own Moral Shortcomings

All this said, I must admit to a couple of my own moral shortcomings.

Shortcoming #1: although I have minimized my leather purchases considerably since I became vegetarian, I do still buy shoes that contain leather.

Shortcoming #2: according to everything I have said above, I also really should not consume conventionally produced dairy. While I try to buy organic dairy, I am definitely not strict about this, and dairy is a majory part of my diet.

Why do I continue to buy leather shoes and eat dairy? Because these are part of a happy life that I am not willing to give up. I like to wear leather shoes to my business meetings, and I like to eat low-fat dairy as part of a balanced diet. Each of us has our own limit for self-sacrifice. For most, that limit allows for eating meat. But I hope that every person is made aware of the facts and makes a conscious choice about the amount of pain and suffering they are willing to inflict on others.

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Congrats to Slumdog Millionaire for winning 8 Oscars! And a special congrats to A.R. Rehman for his 2 Oscars. Wow!!! I wonder how the naysayers will change their tune now…

Btw, here is an interesting article that was published in the New York Times just before the Oscars, which asks three famous Indians their opinion of the controversy:  http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/the-real-roots-of-the-slumdog-protests/?scp=6&sq=slumdog%20millionaire&st=cse

About the photo: The friends and neighbors of “Slumdog Millionaire” child actor Mohammed Azharuddin Ismail cheer while watching the Oscars award ceremony on television outside his shanty, in Mumbai, India.

I was amazed by the passionate responses this post elicited. Reading through your comments was much more interesting than reading my own post =) There was so much brought up through the various comments that I’d like to continue this discussion by highlighting some of the responses and giving you all a chance to react to them.

I’ve been conflicted about whether or not to showcase this particular comment, but I decided that it’s better for us to address it upfront rather than run away from harsh words. So, here it is – straight from the horse’s mouth – a response by a Hindu fundamentalist [not appropriate for children]:

JAI BAJRANGI Wrote:
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 am

You are a bloody bitch which was borned out of a cross between a swine and a dog you must be a secular bastard which is being F****D by MANY Katalas and now you are addicted to being F****D by those BASTARDS and that is why you are saying these things otherwise how can any PURE HINDU because HINDUS were slaves to Muslims & English for many centuries and were being F****D by these BASTARDS they have become IMPOTENT and ready to give their Daughters & Sisters to these MUSLIM BASTARDS like SHAHRUKH KHAN, SAIF ALI KHAN, MANSOOR ALI KHAN PATODI, AMIR KHAN etc.

What stands out most to me about this comment is the sexual insecurity this poor fellow seems to be suffering from. According to him, the only way I – a Hindu – could possibly be saying something like ‘let’s all unite and why the f*** do we need to fight’ is if I myself am having sex with a Muslim. For the record, I’m not having sex with a Muslim and never have (not that I think there’s anything wrong with inter-religious sex). But that’s besides the point. This obsession with sex betrays, in my opinion, the baseness of the fundamentalist psyche. They are being completely driven by prehistoric evolutionary impulses and have lost all ability to control these impulses through rational thought. The fundamentalist says “they steal me women, me kill them dead”.

Where is the religion in all this? Well, I think the “religion” comes into play when these folks meet in groups. There’s something very powerful about a herd of angry men chanting and raving together. An orgy of anger can be perhaps even more intoxicating than one of love.

And, so, to answer some of you who think I am naive….I am not naive. I know what hatred and anger exists in the world. Here you can see it directed towards me. But I refuse to believe that we cannot evolve beyond this baseness. I would choose an orgy of love any day, and I believe there are more people in the world like us, than like them. Gandhi fought with love, and I believe so can we.

A few hours before Barack Obama’s inauguration, I sit and reflect on what this moment means for South Asians across the world. On the one hand, we have before us an undeniable proof that our society has taken a huge step forward, towards not only racial tolerance, but racial indifference. With the support engendered for Obama around the world, the human race has shown that we have evolved to such a level that we can appreciate an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, race / gender / citizenship notwithstanding; indeed, we can love someone who looks and talks and acts differently from us, as our own.

Yet the dust is still only settling from the demoralizing Mumbai attacks. And what does that say about us? How can we still be suffering these attrocities? Why do we still kill in the “holy” name of salvation, enlightenment and universal love? Perhaps we have not yet evolved that much.

I am Indian. I am also American. I was raised Hindu, but I have a deep admiration for and sense of kinship with Muslim culture. The sweet music of Ali Akbar Khan, the awe-inspiring Mughal architecture in Delhi and Rajasthan, the beautiful Urdu language which I can hardly distinguish from that spoken in my own home — how can I not consider these my own? I have often thought how I would love to give my future children Muslim names. And, why shouldn’t I? Shahana, Saif…Shahrukh. Aren’t these names Indian also?

And so this fighting makes me sad. Really really sad. I believe it is up to us — the younger Guptas and Khans of the world — to stop this madness. And I hope that connecting on social networks like Yaari will help us come together.

Perhaps, a few years from now, when the first female president is being inaugurated in Washington DC, we will be able to celebrate as one, human race.

I wanted to give you all a chance to voice your opinions on what matters most to you, and offer a common platform to bloggers discussing social issues affecting India. Leave a link to your blog in the comments below, with a post on a topic of your choice. We look forward to reading your insightful posts!