Introduction:
Europeans, beginning with Vasco da Gama, first landed on
India’s West Coast – but for centuries before that, trade was carried on
between many ports on this coast and the Arab world, hence the word “monsoon,”
originally the Arabic mausam, or “weather,” referring to what could be
called “trade winds”: these seasonal regularities that could be observed,
measured and predicted.
Today, complete and total AUTARKY is practiced – only
because the “educated” have been blinded to both Theory as well as History.
This is State Education.
So we can call it PLANNED BLINDNESS.
THE EVIDENCE
Exhibit #1:
Below is the original text of my “travelogue” on Mangalore
published as Leader Article in the Times of India on Feb 6, 2004:
THE WALL
Why We No Longer Need EconomistsOur adversaries rail at us liberals for being ideological; they say we are full of empty theories. So here is a simple travelogue. For some months now, I have been living in Mangalore, an ancient city on the west coast. A 13th century Kannada poet has marvelled at the fact that as many as 38 different kinds of coinage circulated in the city’s markets then. It becomes obvious that the city owes its existence to overseas trade: At the centre of the old city is the Bunder, the port.
It is another ancient trading city that came up by the sea, like Alexandria or Venice . They were all glorious centres of civilisation although there were no economists then. In modern Asia , Hong Kong and Singapore are thriving port cities and neither has produced a single economist of note. But here, when I was taken to a beach just beyond the New Mangalore Port Trust the other day, what struck was The Wall. The entire port is surrounded by a 20 ft high wall.
So, because of some theory, Mangalore has moved away from having a port open for the citizens to trade, and now possesses a walled port to which citizens are denied entry. The gates to the walled port are manned by armed guards paid for by the taxpayer. Also at the taxpayer’s expense are a whole lot of customs officials who do not permit trade without prohibitive exactions. All this must be justified by reams of economic theory, for there is an economics department is St Agnes' College here, the oldest women’s college in south India. There is a Mangalore Economics Association.
Driving along The Wall, I passed some towering examples of industrialisation: Nehru’s theory. A sizable amount of prime beach-side land is occupied by a phenomenally ugly public sector iron ore exporting plant.
There is a fertiliser factory which surely survives on production subsidies. So the deal between New Delhi and Mangalore is clear: We stop you trading and then we give you industrialisation. There is, at the taxpayer’s employ, an entire Indian Economic Service wedded to this theory.
The Wall is bad for sailors as well. I was with a ship’s engineer when he suddenly announced his departure, saying that if he did not return by 10 p.m. , he would get into trouble with the personnel manning the wall. He said that even an ordinary sailor spends at least $20 a day while ashore but here The Wall keeps them on board.
Mangalore is a dream city for eating and drinking out, famous for its cuisine. The seafood is superb, and much, much cheaper than Goa. Mangalore also possesses many establishments where what is offered might be called cabaret. Surely anyone will realise that we do not need economists to know what is good for Mangalore. What sense does The Wall make? The path to commercial success and the regaining of the city’s old glory should be obvious. The citizens of Mangalore should do to The Wall precisely what Berliners have done to theirs. Then, as with the old Bunder, they should set up a big market there. After all, didn’t God promise Jerusalem greatness by making it "a mart for all nations"? The Mayor of New Jerusalem should issue externment orders to all the customs officials and the armed guards.
The prime land occupied by the ugly iron ore plant and the fertiliser factory ought to be seized and auctioned so that hotels, shopping malls and beach resorts take over the landscape. Within a decade, this will be India ’s leading city, especially considering the fact that all the others, including Bangalore, are perishing.
To unravel the sophisms in the theories justifying The Wall, I recommend Frederic Bastiat, who did not have a formal education in economics, who never taught at university, and who was just a journalist and pamphleteer. In one essay he put the point across thus: There is this steel magnate in France . He sees cheap steel imports coming in from Belgium and this threatens his profits. He now has two choices. One, he can hire a posse of men and arm them with guns, with instructions to shoot anyone who brings steel into France from Belgium. But such a course is highly inadvisable.
So there is the other option: Go to Paris and pay some politician there to do it for you. He will deploy armed men at the borders at the taxpayer’s expense. And the two of them will share the profits, while the taxpayers who paid for the guards will now pay out even more for steel. After reading Bastiat I arrived at a conclusion: We don’t need the WTO; we need unilateral free trade. Get every government out of trade. And every trade economist too.
The late professor B R Shenoy, a classical liberal, was the only economist to dissent officially with Nehru, and in writing. His daughter, Sudha Shenoy, an eminent liberal economist, in a recent interview, said, "every economics department in the world could be shut down without having an ill-effect on the world of ideas."
Strong words indeed. She bemoaned the sad fact that economists do not study the real world of human action any more; they are all lost in theories and models and mathematics and statistics. I entirely agree. The Wall proves it.
Exhibit #2:
Reputed institutions of HIGHER EDUCATION in this “quiet
university town”:
St. Aloysius College
St. Agnes’ College
Roshni Nilaya School of Social Work
Law College (owned by the Dharmasthala Temple Trust)
and many others…
Most “famous product” of Mangalore’s education in Indian
politics: George Fernandes, great socialist, and greatest opponent of foreign
trade and investment, who made his name by throwing IBM and Coca Cola OUT of
India in the 1970s.
Fernandes is an alumnus of St. Aloysius College (pictured above), run by Jesuits – so this must be what “Christian Socialism” is all
about. I did lecture in this college – twice – but was told by one of the
students later that the Jesuit priests who attended could not stomach my
“liberalism.”
St. Agnes’ College for Women is the oldest women’s college
in South India – but I did not lecture there too often.
It was with Roshni Nilaya School of Social Work (run by
Christian nuns) that I had the closest and warmest relationship. Since their
highly motivated faculty were all deeply devoted to the very Christian ethic of
“service to the poor,” they quite naturally found my many lectures on different
aspects of the creation of wealth, on what constitutes “real justice” as
against “social justice,” and also on “social work” itself ASTOUNDING.
The “urban division of labour” within their own, ancient city was an eye-opener for them, and this led to all of us – faculty, students and me – addressing the town’s street hawkers and examining their problems as well as prospects. They were scheduled to arrange a series of my lectures last year – but I was told they were facing problems with the Central State’s University Grants Commission (of which prime minister Manmohan Singh was once chairman). I have often told them, when they complained about the "lack of academic freedom," that the first thing they needed was "economic freedom": the freedom from "UGC grants", and the freedom to set their own fees as well.
The “urban division of labour” within their own, ancient city was an eye-opener for them, and this led to all of us – faculty, students and me – addressing the town’s street hawkers and examining their problems as well as prospects. They were scheduled to arrange a series of my lectures last year – but I was told they were facing problems with the Central State’s University Grants Commission (of which prime minister Manmohan Singh was once chairman). I have often told them, when they complained about the "lack of academic freedom," that the first thing they needed was "economic freedom": the freedom from "UGC grants", and the freedom to set their own fees as well.
Incidentally, while I was in Mangalore – about the time
the above article was published – the newspapers reported a major scandal
involving the State-appointed Vice Chancellor of Mangalore University.
However, it is with the Law College that everything I did
in Mangalore began – and what I claim credit for is the fact that NONE of the
LL.B students whom I was close joined the legal profession.
Exhibit #3:
All through my very long and very adventurous stay in
Mangalore I remained unsuccessful in all my efforts to obtain a History of the
City. None of the libraries of all the colleges possessed one. One bookshop
owner, however, told me of one that had been published by the Asiatic Society –
and he even gave me their postal address, but my letters to them received no
response, so that one book I could not get.
Some years later, in a bookshop in Goa, I accidentally
found this book, immediately bought it, and then carefully studied it. Penned
by a Jesuit priest as a PhD dissertation submitted to Bombay University, this
history revealed that Mangalore has passed through many hands in its recent
past – including the Portuguese, the English, and Tipu Sultan as well.
FACT: The “education” in this City does NOT include a
History of the City itself. Contrast this with the Amsterdam Historische
Museum. With “history” as well as “theory” confounded by the supposedly
benevolent and omniscient State, all those exposed to the “approved” teachings
are effective BLINDED.
Exhibit #4:
The State-owned New Mangalore Port is surely the greatest
example of this deliberate blinding of the educated Mangalorean –
for it is nothing if not a picture of cronyism and error.
Poor people live in horrible shanties in the neighborhood
of this port – without property titles. This, in Munro’s very own South Canara!
The highway around the port has been completely destroyed
by iron ore trucks – the only EXPORT.
The ore comes from the Kudremukh National Park not too far
away – dug out LEGALLY and exported by a State-owned firm.
The mining town inside this national park is far, far
poorer than any of the (smaller) towns outside the park.
The park itself has been partially destroyed by all this
digging – quite a few entire mountains have been defaced.
Let us now turn to IMPORTS:
The gate outside the Port bears the name of Vittal Mallya,
father of the “IMFL liquor baron” Vijay Mallya, currently a Rajya Sabha MP.
Just opposite the gate is a huge fertilizer factory –
owned by Mallya.
Naptha for this factory is the only IMPORT.
Incidentally, fertilizer subsidies go to PRODUCERS.
Exhibit #5 “Then & Now”:
History lives outside the history books in ancient
civilisations such as ours – and the “peaceful commercial culture” of Ancient
Mangalore is evidenced by the fact that very close by, nestled in the hills of
the Western Ghats, lies the very old temple town of Moodbidri, known as the
“Kashi of the Jains.” There are many very old and very beautiful Jain temples
here.
It is worth pointing out that this Kashi of the Jains is far, far cleaner than the Kashi of the Hindus, cleaner than Amritsar, the Holy City of the Sikhs, and cleaner than any other "Holy City" in India, whether Buddhist, Muslim, or Hindu.
It is worth pointing out that this Kashi of the Jains is far, far cleaner than the Kashi of the Hindus, cleaner than Amritsar, the Holy City of the Sikhs, and cleaner than any other "Holy City" in India, whether Buddhist, Muslim, or Hindu.
There are other towns nearby with magnificent ancient
statues of Jain tirthankars – like Karkala, where I lived for some weeks; and,
of course, Sravanabelagola, the most famous of them all, on which I have
written this post.
Whereas this is “then” – the really ugly “vote motive politics” of today presents us with the Sri Ram Sene (a BJP-Bajrang Dal gang of
thugs), with “moral vigilantism” that ought to be declared CRIMINAL.
Since I left the area, I have also read of many BJP-inspired
attacks on Christian churches here.
The BJP has been ruling this state for long – and is
deeply involved in illegal iron ore mining and export.
Morality?
Culture?
Exhibit #6:
There are many of these ancient port cities on the West
Coast of India – where the Europeans first landed, and which, even then, had
been ancient trading ports, with millennia-old trade with the Arab world, and
with China as well. I have not seen all of them, but here’s something about the
few that I have been fortunate enough to visit:
COCHIN: There are Syrian Christians in Cochin – a very old
community, who claim they arrived here in the time of Christ. There is a very old Jewish Synagogue, too, in this city. Ibn Battuta
set sail for China from this port. Today, in this “Karl Marx’s Own Country”
they EXPORT their “educated people” – while preventing the birth of more; they
import nothing; and they are all very keen on increasing the “population” of
elephants and tigers!
GOA, KARWAR, HONAVAR: All the same BLINDNESS to History.
So what can be said about Theory.
Fly into Goa and you see all the BULK CARRIERS lined up to
collect the low grade iron ore – dug out of the BEAUTIFUL MOUNTAINS that could
have been fantastic real estate. But Goa has a long-term URBAN
PLAN that prohibits construction outside all the horribly OVERCROWDED urban
areas.
Newspapers report, almost every single day, of villagers
dying – or protesting – because of the iron ore trucks.
Karwar, in Karnataka, just south of Goa, is much the same.
Export low grade iron ore, dug out by
politicians – and import nothing.
Destroy the so-called highway, of course.
As for Honavar, I read a newspaper article by a historian
recounting the old days when this was a great trading center, with a Sultan of
its own. And so I was tempted to visit – but it is the dumps today.
CONCLUSION:
Here is Frederic Bastiat on State Education:
If you want to have theories, systems, methods, principles, textbooks and teachers forced on you by the government, that is up to you; but do not expect me to sign, in your name, such a shameful abdication of your rights.
