“retired scientist” and others

“retired scientist” and others

This post is a mishmash of a few things that I came across. It does not matter to me that these could be outmoded ideas. Some readers may like some mishes and others, some other mishes, and still others, some mashes. Let them be.

Does the Preamble Enjoy Primacy over Particular Articles of the Constitution of India?

Lest I be misunderstood to be a revanchist, let me assert that I am extremely apolitical. How so? At the age of 70 years, I have had perhaps nine or ten opportunities to vote in my life. Check that. I have voted in elections for hostel and institutional secretaries, and beyond that in none of the public/political elections.

Why do I actively abstain from voting? I do not believe my vote matters, even given the NOTA option (no one remembers what that acronym stands for anymore; let me remind you: None Of The Above). This acronym is weird; normally, articles, prepositions etc. do not get their place in acronyms. Example, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as highlighted letters indicate. Likewise, Mithi River Development and Protection Authority, in Mumbai, MRDPA. USA is United States of America. The “and”, “of” are missing from the acronyms in the three examples above. Readers are free to point out other acronyms that useuppercase letters for articles, prepositions etc. Not so in NOTA, a double jeopardy, “of”, and “the”! Perhaps this explains my antipathy to voting.

There is a big political brouhaha in Indian media over the suggestion by the ruling party that the words “secular”, and “socialist” be expunged from the Preamble to the Constitution of India. I think this made-up suggestion and the commotion come to nothing.

It would matter, of course, if the Preamble overrides what is given inside the main part of the Constitution. This is definitely not so. In fact, people should go into the minds of Ms. Indira Gandhi to figure out why she introduced these words into the Preamble, when there are adequate references to “secularism” and “socialism” in the Constitution. Perhaps we should look into what was in the mind of Sanjay Gandhi, if he did have one at all.

That is, neither the ruling party nor a couple of the almost fully emaciated opposition parties and its cohorts have any valid reason to take out these words or retain them in the Preamble. You might say the ruling party is getting its foot in the door, for future leveraging. Nonsense. The opposition has no leverage now and any effort to mobilize against the ruling party is bound to result in failure, this far out from the General Elections.

But, I am apolitical, and what do I know. 

Do People Belong to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) Due to Factors of History?

As per a column in the Editorial/Opinion pages of a newspaper, the societal classifications that can avail reservations in jobs give the details for each of these. And, EWS “enjoys” (my quotation marks) 10%, which is higher than what the Scheduled Tribes do, at 7.5%. Lower percentage of a lower base? Perhaps. Equitable? I would not think so. Efficiency sacrificed not too much? I am not sure, unless you equate Scheduled Tribes to intrinsic inefficiency.

The newspaper column here, there and everywhere (and in such peregrinations, there indeed are some valuable stretches to which only those in the know would be aware (mainly senior level academics) to ponder over: how the changed system for faculty recruitment−from calculating the number of faculty to be recruited for a university as a whole as the parameter to that of an atomized department as the basic unit) undermines precisely those categories deemed eligible for reservations, to stress what is obvious: I may call it social cohesion.

A senior level administrator says to the candidate (in a sophisticated sign language!), “You and I belong to the same (upper) caste and I am choosing you.” This happened to me though my father’s name (taken as my surname) is not exactly Brahminic, and my English accent was not TamBrahm’s, but my place of residence, Srirangam, could have been one, and my sort of positive response to whether I am aware of the Kanchipuram Mutt (not a mongrel dog!), I answered, “My parents were ardent devotees,” and that could have been another.

I did need the job but was not going to sell my upper caste roots, and I got the job, based on my qualifications and performance in my previous job. Even to this day (and I quit the job after 10 years), I do not know whether I got the job on my merit alone. That, I think, is injustice done to me.

Over the next decade or so, I might become one of the EWS candidates eligible for some doles from the government, if that be the case then. Yet, there is no factor of history in it. Therefore, I would not stretch my hand out. I have prepared myself for it, resisting pressure from my family folks to get a ration card for me and my family, if for no reason other than establishing my identity. I also do not have a Voter’s ID, for the simple reason I would refuse to vote. I have my AADHAAR number. That should be enough.  

The writer wishes for a “political vision of the ruling [read, with hereditary power] class to make public institutions more inclusive...”

To end this segment why not private institutions too? 

Anthropology and Archaeology Coming Together under the Fingers of a ‘retired scientist’

This is about a study published by researchers at Peking University in Beijing (why is it not the Beijing University?). I believe the ‘retired scientist’ would have typed out his material before sending it out as email to the newspaper for possible publication in the Science page of the daily. What scientists do to get their research published in prestigious journals like Natureis mind boggling. They could have dug up cemeteries, retrieved some teeth and also bones for their analyses. Such dedicated efforts, though much of the article was overhead transmission for me, not a biologist, even by a long distance, cannot be left unappreciated. 

Therefore, I do not have much more to say about the article, except the following: The bylineis usually given at the start of the article, just below the heading. In this article, it was not any different. Yet, something caught my eye, at the end of the article. It said that the writer “is a retired scientist.” I took a sharper look at that.

Does a scientist have the luxury of leading a retired life? By the time a scientist reaches the age of retirement the attitude that made him/her a scientist is baked in, more than the dirty clothes made deliberately dirty by someone’s three or four year old, as in TV commercials for laundry detergents. I retired from researching in 1991. Yet, I research anything and everything inexorably, with no tools at hand. My neurons fire in different directions, at odd moments (particularly when I am in the toilet when I experience the Eureka! moment quite often).

The writer could have been a retired scientist from an organization, say, ISRO or some molecular biology research institution (CCMB or IMTECH) and others. But, without naming the organization from which the scientist retired, he/she cannot exist as retired! 

It is not impossible that the organization could not be named due to lack of space. So, the blame should be squarely transferred to the print setter for that page from the writer. Yet, I would treat that “retired” no better than appendicitis! Even an “out-of-work researcher”, or “an idle scientist” would have sounded better. 

This has been rambling, even by my standards. My readers should allow me this slack. Thanks for coming down the post this far.

Raghuram Ekambaram