If Patra-harittu is the Chlorophyll of Kannada, Green-in-leaf is the Ele-hasiru of English.

Hosa Padanerake
(pic: totalkannada.com)

A FEW weeks ago a modern dictionary of English to Kannada words was unraveled to the world. This new dictionary presents words that have been built, not coined; built mostly by common men albeit using highly scientifically studied methods. The dict also reveals these methods to make word building go viral in Kannada.

While words in Kannada today are coined mostly out of nowhere or, as has been found till now, out of Sanskrit sources, words in this book are built using existing parts (roots) and principles of grammar that are both in vogue among common speakers of Kannada. This finds a parallel in medieval English where similar practices have led to foreign coinage of words displacing native ones. Given the original purpose of words to act as pieces that aid in forming a reliable picture of the world around, coined words fare very poorly against their built counterparts.

The word Chlorophyll, for instance, a coined fusion of two Greek words khloros and phyllon is a rather rude puzzle for first time introduction even to native English speakers because it doesn’t use the Englishman’s native words nor does it use his methods of fusing words. However, a simpler English phrase – green-in-leaf – conveying the same meaning is never found in use whereas it ought to be. Likewise for most new words in semi-modern science textbooks.

If that is the fate of English words and English speaking people, the situation in Kannada is even worse. The correlation of object names and concepts to mental pictures in Kannadigas today has to cross not just the hurdle of English, but also cross a higher hurdle of Sanskrit, another language much less understood among Kannadigas. To this effect the patra-harittu found in Kannada textbooks is a tougher candidate to believe to be an equivalent of Chlorophyll. The path shown by this dictionary suggests a plain Kannada alternative, ele-hasiru, that immediately blows the confusion out of Kannada minds and helps people get straight down to business!

This new dictionary re-introduces to Kannadigas their traditional methods of building words from existing roots, prefixes, suffixes & other articles in common use. This dictionary is what Kannadigas need to bridge the gap between chlorophyll and the object it refers to in reality. This dictionary sows seeds of confidence and belief in Kannadiga minds that should make them trust roots from their own language more while building new words. This is the only way Kannadiga community can not only participate well in the new modern world, but also be one of its significant contributors. In fact this is the only way even native Englishmen can participate and contribute more to the modern world!

Driving Without Fiscal Borders May Be Unsafe

In an age where rich and vivid information is ever more easily available to the common man, public opinion about some matters including socio-political issues is dramatically different, and much more mature, than what it used to be about a decade ago.

Taxation is one such socio-political issue that interests every individual member of a nation, even to the extent of leading to heavy scrutiny of the very grounds on which a State claims rights to levy and collect compulsory taxes from its citizens. Libertarians in many democracies are heard questioning the very moral right of an elected government to continue to tax its citizens when it is own role in some aspects of public life (viz market and industry) is not open to scrutiny. Despite these developments, devising newer methods of taxation has attracted academic and political attention and is even getting hailed for its welcome breakthroughs and reforms in financing governments.

The need of the hour, however, is to question the very right of governments to continue to tax in newer ways amid trends of increasingly head-heavy governments - those governments whose higher tiers are heavier because of being less decentralized.

The maturation of conventional methods of taxation into VAT in 2005, and into the newly proposed GST since 2009, is a case in point. Lately it was also reported that the NDA government had offered as incentives to States endorsing the GST regime ways to make-up for losses they would incur due to GST. The regime is so strict in its intent that this incentive has been rolled out to subside opposition in Rajysabha, not really to compensate for the potential losses States would incur.

On similar lines is a hearsay driven revolution being orchestrated by some migrant netizens across the country, especially in those cities that receive lot of middle-class migrants. This particular revolution, apparently originating from Bengaluru, claims to raise its voice for a "One Nation, One Road Tax" regime. The petitioner of this change not only twists the words of a piece of legislation on this website, but also subtly bases his argument on a recent opinion expressed by the NDA government to sweep all RTOs into a centrally controlled authority - a mess actually.

Be it GST or the Road Tax bill, moves in this direction by the central government are bound to jeopardize fiscal stature of State governments. Any legislation made or amended to deprive States of the power to collect taxes under its own legitimate subjects would not only deprive States of funds but also constrain them politically in the long run. The State government loses its rightful hold over State subjects this way. This is not good at all for Federalism that is promised to be upheld in this democracy.

What India needs now are Smart States, not Cities!

The current NDA government in India has been making quite a lot of noise about the hundred smart cities that it wants to build. All this noise is uncalled for in a federal democracy. In fact it appears to be signaling the formation of an ecosystem of governance where the States are conveniently expelled from their place between the Centre and the people!

(Courtesy: districtoffuture.eu)

Smart Cities Council, a portal where global companies and city stakeholders discuss smart city ideas, hosts this infographic that explains the nitty-gritties of smart cities. According to it, a smart city is that which is nearly self-sustenant and whose public policy and data are transparently available to people for scrutiny and other uses.

The idea of smart city strives to make legislation and policing minimal by letting advanced technology assist, if not replace them. More importantly, at the heart of these smart cities, is the idea of governance by least hops and the idea of self-rule. For cities in India, the closest tier of an elected government is either a municipality, corporation or the panchayat. The central government is far-fetched and impractical on this count. Attempts like these being made by the Urban Development ministry in GoI, therefore, are desi to fail.

If self-sustenance and local governance are the mantras for smart and efficient living in the modern world, then Smart States, not cities are what India needs primarily and urgently. These smart States would have to be more self-sustenant, self-reliant and self-driven than they are allowed to be in India today.

Having some cities under the direct regulation of the central government burdens it with additional fiscal responsibility but brings in revenues that the States need and deserve more, thus denying those cities and States the attention and resources they need and deserve. Given the nature of horizontal fiscal devolution prevalent in India, such centrist ideas of building cities could siphon funds away from well performing cities into the non-performing, yet enumerated cities. This corrupts fiscal performance equation of States and also creates an unfair and uncompetitive environment in the nation.

Amidst all the diversity in India a State is the real unit of governance that needs to turn smarter, not the city. It is a smart decision to respect the diversity and embrace the challenges it offers, for a solution agnostic of diversity is not smartness, it is brutal rudeness. That is the real federal way of imbibing smartness, for smartness of a democratic and diverse nation like India really lay in its Federalism.

(This post was originally published on Karnatique, run by my friends at Banavasi Balaga)

The Fun in Bollywood & Hindi Imposition happening Underneath!

I had been to the Village restaurant in Bengaluru recently on a team outing from office. During one of the celebration activities therein, I was requested to witness a celebration of the young(er) people, dancing their minds off to some Hindi movie numbers. I was shocked to see how the dancers teamed up as though ignoring the vulgarities in the songs being played and displayed a fictitious oneness in gender by their rather erotic moves. And when the song ended, no wonder, there were cries of once more.

The youth is being made to "want" more of what it "wants"; in the process it wants less of what it "needs", perhaps.

But beyond this thought, ever thought why Hindi movies tend to carry more dance & frolic driven songs and thereby tend to carry away the young audiences into its reverie?

Its an entirely orchestrated drama. An orchestra arranged by the central government and Hindi movie industry. Why else would Hindi movie artists so easily get the Ratna awards?! Here's an explanation.

It isn't difficult now to say that Bollywood (the Hindi movie industry) and the central government have worked hand-in-hand from a long time - worked to drive the Indian nationality theory into young, unassuming, minds; worked together to successfully impose Hindi on the widely spread, linguistically diverse Indian population.

It is fun & frolic, after all, that the youth likes; after these programmings by the film industry-govt nexus, it is what it craves and demands. Anything that is mundane and more serious, like some of the really thought provoking movies from the non-Hindi industries carrying songs of serious introspection, doesn't carry the cool (or hot!) factor to attract the young audiences. This further catalyzes the Hindi Imposition projects of the central government, but worse still, it seriously erodes the impression young minds have about non-Hindi works of art and non-Hindi forms of entertainment altogether. No wonder, the latter are making only those attempts that make it more resemble the Hindi counterpart, by remaking and dubbing alike.

On the flip side, why there is more frolic in Hindi movies is worth investigating as well. Just like the Hindu Gods are always portrayed to be amid happiness, which in turn makes people flock towards their idols and images seeking their own happiness, the Bollywood industry lets go of 'boring' social messages that it needs to convey and loudly advertises tempting lewdness and conveys messages of fun & frolic to the youth.

It is also the Hindi industry and the Hindi people that are the ultimate beneficiaries in the Indian union, what with all the pro-Hindi policies of the central government and its machinery. With this backdrop, if there's one film industry in India that can really celebrate all through the year, it is the Hindi film industry. And this industry is taking most Indian youth by hypnotizing them towards a virtual state of happiness, night after night.

So: for everything serious, there are non-Hindi movie industries. For everything fun, cool & hot, there is the Hindi movie industry, and that is where people will flock to. Kudos to the creativity of the Hindi imposer!

We should have State Constitutions, shouldn't we?

Having one constitution, such as the current one, for the entire Indian nation and not letting States to have their respective constitutions is like taking a set of jigsaw pieces and pressing them to fit within a shape of player's choice! No, the pieces fit in only one way, and that way is only decided by the pieces themselves.

Presence of a Constitution of India (COI) on top of suspended State constitutions is perhaps the root cause for those umpteen amendments India has made to the COI and for the prevalence of dire problems in India's socio-economic landscape. For instance, the number of appendages made to Article 371 - the special status gimmick - displays the finicky and fluid state of vision over national policy. Such piecewise approach to making modifications in COI not only provide a reason for its bulky nature but also explain why and how it has failed to perform its original intended duty in this democracy. The very size of the constitution and the vast demography that it intends to acquire under its purview makes it increasingly untenable given the increasing awareness in people about the sovereign and republic nature of this democracy.

The year 2014 is turning out to be an year for the States to reckon with. Chief Ministers of multiple States - Delhi, AP and, just this afternoon, Bihar - have expressed anguish at the alleged misdeeds committed by the central government against the wishes of people living in their States. These can be directly attributed to a rather convolved Constitution of India that often lands even constitutional experts in moments of introspection and doubt; a doubt that shatters the confidence of people in their nation, and also its large, bulky constitution.

This bulky constitution resembles a big fat balloon with multiple punctures - you just cannot say where it will fly, meaning where this constitution will lead India to cannot be predicted easily. The mirth is higher when you have smaller, yet a more colourful bunch of balloons in your hand than one large punctured balloon in flight. You get the analogy, right?

In another State, Tamilnadu, the CM expresses her desire to free a set of convicts who've been in prison for nearly two decades, but the constitution by some weird combination, which too is figured out after much deliberation among experts, makes her seek the Centre's approval despite the fact that Police is a State subject as per Schedule 7 of the Constitution of India itself! Instead of having the Schedule 7 dictate what the States must govern and what the Centre must (& can), wouldn't it be rather more convenient and more appropriate for the States to have their own constitutions and the COI address subjects left behind unattended by the State constitutions? Wouldn't that be real decentralization and real federalism? Wouldn't that be in line with the real spirit of a democracy where the degree of delegation of governance droops with distance - both physical and representative.

The repercussion of this constitutional arrangement is also felt on the linguistic diversity of India. With regards to language planning and policy, Constitution of India is mired in controversy - controversies based on assumptions that go squarely against the nation's linguistic diversity.

The official language act, for instance, which is a statute law spun off from Articles 343 & 344 of the COI, forbids usage of any Indian language apart from Hindi at the Centre. This is a clear violation of human rights happening right under the aegis of a constitution that lays the political framework of this nation. This violation could have been precluded had the language policy of the nation been a linear summation and intercourse of the language policies of all States.

As the famous quote goes, people of India live in their States, and the Centre really need not have any business directly with the people. With such a natural arrangement of business, it is implied that there is very little need for such an all-encompassing constitution at the Centre whereas the need for such a constitution certainly exists at the State level. Time to write one?