Bardhan notes that “dignity politics” is one of the debilitating factors. He writes:

. . . even when the [lower classes and castes] come to power, the issue of basic social services gets low priority in comparison with larger symbolic issues of dignity politics (particularly in North India). A perceived slight in the speech of a higher-caste political leader resented by a lower-caste one will usually cause much more of an uproar than if the same leader’s policy neglect keeps hundreds of thousands of children severely malnourished in the same lower caste. The issue of job reservation for backward castes catches the public imagination more fervently than that of child mortality or school dropouts that afflict the majority in those communities. Thus the demand from below for those basic social services is as inarticulate as their supply from above is deficient.

About the demand and supply of basic social services — a missing market of sorts — I too have concluded that the demand arises from an awareness of what is excepted expected, which awareness depends on the basic education system. Public education — by which I mean the education of the public about matters of civic, economic and social importance — is missing. I think that the focus of the government-controlled education system is on raising the peak education level of an elite (the IITs, IIMs, IISc, etc) rather than raising the education level of the citizenry broadly. My cynical conjecture is that the political leaders do understand that they their feet will be held to the fire if the people become aware of the misgovernance.

A lot of books with rousing titles such as “Imagining India” and “India Unbounded” have become hits. Most of them studiously avoid mentioning the dysfunctional — perhaps out of concern for sales figures or perhaps from a fear of displeasing the political powers that be. What we need to do is to look at issues that most would rather sweep under the rug and pretend that they don’t exist. Corruption, for instance, is widely regarded as a problem but I would argue that it is a symptom of deeper causes which are intertwined with other deep causes which form the basis for a whole host of symptoms such as corruption, poor educational system, lack of accountability, the persistence of social conflict, etc.

Bardhan notes that India’s heterogeneity poses problems that don’t arise in more homogeneous societies:

In very recent years, there are some faint signs that good governance is being rewarded by the electorate in some areas. Collective action in demanding and ensuring good governance is, however, particularly tricky in India on account of the extreme heterogeneity of social and economic interests involved, which always makes unified movement on goal formulation, agenda setting and policy pressure difficult to achieve for diverse groups, who in anticipation of this difficulty often opt for populist handouts and clientelistic arrangements instead. As a society we are much more diverse than, say, Japan or China, and coordination on most issues is more difficult here than in those countries. Sociologists have pointed out that extreme social heterogeneity in India is also a major cause of hierarchical industrial relations with attendant mutual distrust and labour supervision problems, and relatively low labour productivity in Indian factories.

I think that the way out of this problem is for the state to be totally blind to the markers of heterogeneity. For instance, the state must not ever inquire about the personal attributes of a person that have no bearing on social services. Thus, the state must not discriminate on the basis of religion. Whether or not a citizen is eligible for economic assistance, for example, should depend on the merits of the case and not on what that person’s religious affiliation is. The moment the state privileges one group over another, it invites the social evil of group-based divisive politics and, as Bardhan puts it, “populist handouts and clientelistic arrangements.”

India’s governance is arguably bad. The party that has been almost exclusively in control of that misgovernance is the Congress party which has been the fiefdom of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The incompetence of the party and that family has been demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt. But as I have argued before, they are not there through some divine edict; they are there because the people of India find misgovernance by the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family acceptable. The fault, dear reader, lies in Indians and not in the leaders that they freely elect.

When a narrow, shrunken vision is preferred over a national outlook and national perspective, the Raj Thackerays emerge winners. What’s the difference between a Raj making Indians fight with other Indians and a UPA government sowing the seeds of distrust and hate among Indians on the basis of religious reservations for one community and assaulting the faith icons of the other? Or for that matter, ULFA in Assam killing Hindi-speaking Indians and outfits like Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammad murdering Hindu Indians in Jammu and Kashmir? Someone shoots from guns, another uses a microphone and the third does it by abusing constitutional authority. The result is identical – India is bruised and shrunk.

Here’s a bit more:

No politician has been ever held accountable for the national loss incurred because of his misdeeds, divisive politics and ill-governance. The more divisive and exploitative of pubic money and trust he becomes, the more votes he gets and he is hailed as a “seasoned” politician.

So why blame Raj Thackeray?

Those who get votes on the basis of dividing people and feel no remorse seeing youngsters burning themselves against their policies reap worse than the Raj Thackerays. It’s the failure of national parties and organisations that parochialism and narrow polity with a shrunken vision is allowed to play with national integration and peoples’ money. The game of de-listing, unlisting and enlisting on the basis of the colour of your thoughts divides more sharply than the buffoonery of the parochial players.

We have leaders of Yadavs, Gujjars, Jats, Brahmins, Dalits and tribals. We have champions of UP, Bihar, Bengal, Tamil Nadu and other states. If something happens to Tamils anywhere in the world, it’s the “sacred duty” of the Tamil Nadu leaders alone to feel their pain and speak up for them. When Malaysia’s Hindus of Tamil origin were persecuted, the only chief minister that spoke against it was Karunanidhi, not Lalu Yadav or Nitish Kumar. They were Tamil ‘nationals’, hence Tamils should support their cause, and similarly Hindi-speaking Indians get support from the ‘Hindi nation’ when persecuted in Assam or Maharashtra.

Raj Thackeray is not an aberration, he is the norm. The past masters of divisive politics have their names immortalized in the names of universities, railway stations, airports, national parks, industrial parks, roads, and towns. Raj merely wants his name to live on as well. In India, dividing people based on caste and religion appears to be the fast track to becoming a hero.

I recommend Tarun Vijay’s opinion piece.

I observe with a great deal of trepidation the policies that Dr Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India, is promoting. I think that with friends like Dr Singh, the minorities (as the pseudo-seculars like to call them) don’t need any enemies. Their “friends” are selling them down the road for votes now. Later — and the later it is, the worse the reaction — they will suffer not for crimes of their commission but for what the likes of Dr Manmohan Singh did to get their votes. Dr Manmohan Singh will be long gone, a footnote in history, but what he is participating in today will have set back Indian civilization decades if not entirely doom it to third world irrelevance. The leadership of the minorities (and we all know what that actually refers to) is too stupid and ignorant not to see the long term consequences of the Faustian bargain they are making with the oh-so-secular government today.

I really feel for the minorities. They don’t deserve such punishment that Dr Singh and his bosses are planting the seeds of today. The harvest will be bitter indeed for them.

The Acorn lays it out by asking Manmohan Singh the right questions. Over a year ago I had written an open letter to Dr Singh. What a reply.

An active and energetic mind, if denied liberty, will seek for power: refused the command of itself it will assert its personality by attempting to control others… Where liberty cannot be hoped for, and power can, power becomes the grand object of human desire; those to whom others will not leave the undisturbed management of their own affairs, will compensate themselves, if they can, by meddling for their own purposes with the affairs of others…Where there is least liberty, the passion for power is the most ardent and unscrupulous…

…among all the lessons which men require for carrying on the struggle against the inevitable imperfections of their lot on earth, there is no lesson which they more need, than not to add to the evils which nature inflicts, by their jealous and prejudiced restrictions on one another. Their vain fears only substitute other and worse evils for those which they are idly apprehensive of: while every restraint on the freedom of conduct of any of their human fellow-creatures (otherwise than by making them responsible for any evil actually caused by it) dries up pro tanto the principal fountain of human happiness, and leaves the species less rich, to an inappreciable degree, in all that makes life valuable to the individual human being.

That quote is from Mill’s The Subjection of Women (1869). Those lines are a distillation of what I consider lies at the core of much distress in the world. I think that if sufficient people realize that coercion is wrong, and that individual freedom is an unqualified good, the world would be a better place.

For years I have tried to find an example of a situation which would justify coercion and the denial of individual freedom. I have not found a single one. So I use that principle – coercion is wrong and individual freedom is good – as the touchstone when faced with deciding whether some policy is good or not, or when trying to figure out what my position should be on a specific matter.

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Tanweer Alam pointed me to a news item which reports a study that finds that caste discrimination exists in the Indian private sector.

Two Princeton University researchers, who are studying discrimination in the new market economy, and Indian scholars like University Grants Chairperson Sukhdeo Thorat have found that even in the private sector merit is not always the guiding factor.

Studies that confirm what is common knowledge are useful, I suppose, if for nothing else but to provoke debate about what is right and what isn’t. At the very least, we should think about discrimination a little more systematically. Is it right for the private sector to discriminate? How about the public sector? Is it right for the public sector to discriminate based on a person’s caste or any other attribute not related to the job at hand? What exactly does one mean by ‘discrimination’? And is there a distinction between the discrimination practiced by the state as opposed to that by an individual? Does the state have a compelling interest in discrimination which the individual does not have, and vice versa? Answers will surely differ depending on who is questioned. My answers to them are of the unpopular variety.

The state should not discriminate against a person because each citizen matters as an individual, and the individual’s membership (often involuntary) in any specific group must not either privilege or disadvantage him or her in any way in dealings with the state. Discriminating for or against a person because the person happens to belong to a group is wrong in principle and leads to significant harm in practice. This principle implies that while an individual’s (voluntary or involuntary) membership in any group may be of concern to that individual, that fact should be immaterial to the state.

Thus while I may belong to the minority group of Pastafarians and enjoy the rights, responsibilities, duties and privileges that accompany being a Pastafarian, the state should not take cognizance of that fact. It should treat me just as if there is no such thing as a Pastafarian. To the state, Pastafarianism is something that does not exist and the group called Pastafrians doesn’t concern the state at all.

Policies must not be made that seek to elevate (or reduce) the status of Pastafarians in society. When considering whether a particular person was unfairly treated in the marketplace or wherever, the state should consider that person’s membership (or non-membership) in the Pastafarian group a matter of supreme indifference.

Individuals exist as a fact; groups are an abstraction and do not exist in fact. This is analogous to the existence of the heights specific individuals, whereas the existence of an average height of a group of individuals is an abstraction and there is no such thing as the average height.

To underline my position: The state must stop viewing its citizens as members of various groups; it must only consider individuals and value them equally irrespective of race, sex, or other group memberships. The state must not label anyone as a member of a minority group and then proceed to discriminate for or against them.

There is much more I have to say to the matter of state sponsored discrimination based on group membership. I will not go into it for the sake of keeping this somewhat manageable.

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What about an individual’s right to discriminate against another? I consider it a fundamental right that arises from the foundational principle of individual freedom. Individual freedom arises from the axiomatic position that each individual owns himself and his property. You cannot take away his property through coercion, threat or any physical or mental harm. The individual is sovereign and even the state must not have the power to coerce the individual and take away his or her freedom to own himself or herself and to dispose of his property any which way he or she likes.

(This “his or her,” “he or she” constructs are really annoying. So I will eschew it and stick to the masculine gender with the maintained assumption that I mean both sexes.)

Let me spell out my position here. You, as an individual, are free to not hire me based on whatever attribute you consider relevant. You could say that you don’t like my looks (because you only hire with movie star looks), or that you don’t like Pastafarians (as the only group of people you like are those who have not been touched by His Noodly Appendage), or that you detest me because of my libertarian leanings, or whatever. Whom you hire, whom you marry, whom you sit down to share a meal with, whom you raise a toast with, whom you allow into your house or your business premises, . . ., ad nauseum, is entirely up to you. You, the individual, are the boss; not the state or any other group or individual.

The individual can discriminate against anyone or any group to his heart’s content. That’s his right and I will defend that right because I want that right for myself. I don’t want others to tell me who I should marry or hire or work for, or what work I should do or at what rate I should sell my labor or my property, and so on. This position is what I call “universalizable”: no individual would be unhappy if he were the one enjoying this position, irrespective of how others are situated. So by induction, all individuals would be happy to have the position.

In the world that I would like to live in, the individual must possess the absolute right to discriminate.

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Do I discriminate? You bet I do. Have I been discriminated against? You bet. Is that good? Yes, I think it is good because arranging society where individuals have the right to discriminate is consistent with a free society. It is a better society than one where some have the power to force some others to do things against their will.

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But what about the Pastafarians! I hear the cry go out. Won’t someone think of the Pastafarians? What if everyone discriminates against Pastafarians and don’t hire them?

I suppose we do have to think about the Pastafarians. After all, prejudice against groups is nothing new and lamentable as it may be, it cannot be legislated away. I can force you to hire Pastafarians but then it would be coercion. Assuming that Pastafarians are equally good – if not better than others for having been touched by His Noodly Appendage – and make excellent workers, it is still a violation of your right as an individual to force you to hire them.

So what should the state do, seeing the lamentable widespread discrimination against Pastafarians by individuals? The state should do nothing that forces people to drop their prejudice against Pastafarians. If you refuse to hire them even though they are the best in getting the job you want done, it is your decision and if you suffer commercially, it is your choice. You can decide to hire blind non-Pastafarians to fly your planes, for instance, over perfect-visioned Pastafarians, for all that anyone (other than your passengers) could care about. If your planes crash, its your funeral — you are out of business.

Seriously, though, attempting to legislate against discrimination is a silly idea. If there are more job seekers relative to jobs available, firms will have the luxury of turning down those whom they find undesirable. Workplace discrimination is a symptom of the excess supply of labor relative to demand. Because if demand were sufficiently high, firms that discriminate in hiring would lose out.

The study I quoted above about private sector firms hiring higher caste applicants should make us pause to consider why they do that. First, I think it is because demand for jobs outstrips supply, thus affording firms the luxury of discriminating on non-job related attributes. Second, firms are not facing sufficient competition in the marketplace. This means that even by hiring a less competent workforce, they are able to survive.

This brings us to what I think the role of the state is in general. It should create conditions which are conducive to and consistent with vigorous market competition and high productivity. Those conditions at a minimal include economic freedom for people to engage in voluntary trade. With high productivity and market competition, the balance between supply and demand of labor will be better and those employers who discriminate arbitrarily will go the way of the dodo in the Darwinian game of survival. You don’t need legislation to end discrimination; you need economic freedom.

Now what if Pastafarians are being discriminated against because they don’t have the right qualifications? Well then as a group they have not been putting enough effort at gaining the qualifications, perhaps. So should the state figure out ways to help the group gain the qualifications? The answer is no because the state should not privilege any group. What the state should do is to help individuals if needed, irrespective of the individual’s group affiliations. Absent other reasons, economic barriers are the most significant that prevent individuals from realizing their full potential. The answer to that is to assist those who need financial assistance.

To reiterate my position: The state should forget groups and just focus on the individual. Individuals must be free to engage in voluntary trade and discriminate to their heart’s content.

I have said my piece and now I leave it up to you.