A Clear-Eyed Approach To Tackling Blind Faith

The recent murder of the well-known anti-superstition activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, was, to my cynical mind, only to be expected. One makes too many enemies when one goes up against superstition, and the mindset of the other side is something I myself carry painful memories of.

The good doctor certainly had a who's-who of enemies.

Over the years, Dr Narendra Dabholkar had campaigned not only for a law against superstition and black magic but also against the practices he wanted it to eradicate, besides challenging astrologers to a rationality test and taking on the BJP and the Shiv Sena over women's right to enter temples.

As Socrates said,

I certainly have many enemies, and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed; of that I am certain; - not Meletus, nor yet Anytus [Socrates's accusers in court], but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.

But Socrates also said,

If you kill such a one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.

How true! Society has lost immeasurably by silencing yet another voice of reason.

One of the aspects of Dr Dabholkar's work that gained publicity with his killing was the "anti-superstition bill" that was his brainchild (officially, "The Maharashtra Eradication of Blind Faith Bill"). The bill was introduced into the Maharashtra state assembly in 1995, but lapsed in 2009. It was debated many times and ran into hair-splitting arguments that stymied it. Some of those arguments are quite amusing, such as concern over the "thin line between faith and blind faith". [Hint to the purely rational: one is good; the other is bad.]

Legislators have debated if this would mean stopping Muharram rituals involving self-inflicted injuries, or a special ritual in Nashik temples where childless couples pray for children.

Although my initial reaction on hearing about the failure of Dr Dabholkar's anti-superstition bill was dismay, I realise with a clearer head that this was probably not a well thought out piece of legislation anyway.

With all due respect to Dr Dabholkar, I think the law is the wrong instrument with which to attack superstition and blind faith. The education system is the right one for that (although, as I wrote earlier, teachers with backward views can subvert the most progressive textbooks). The law is to be reserved to prevent harm and ensure fairness, and that should be that.

Let me explain my thinking with a somewhat lengthy aside on morality.

My favourite guide to morality is not some religious or "spiritual" book but the work of psychologist Steven Pinker, who captures the core of the idea in this unputdownable article.

According to Dr Pinker's analysis, there is no such thing as a universal morality, as might be expected, but the reasons for this are more subtle than most people would think. It's because "morality" consists of 5 different strands, and different cultures place varying degrees of emphasis on some of these strands versus others. The five strands are harm, fairness, community, authority and purity. At the risk of reducing your incentive to read the article itself (which is excellent), here are examples that illustrate what each means in practical terms.

[H]ow much money [would] someone [...] have to pay us to do hypothetical acts like the following:

- Stick a pin into your palm.
- Stick a pin into the palm of a child you don’t know. (Harm.)
(I think sticking a pin into the palm of a child is bad enough, and the question of whether the child is known to you or not is entirely irrelevant!)

- Accept a wide-screen TV from a friend who received it at no charge because of a computer error.
- Accept a wide-screen TV from a friend who received it from a thief who had stolen it from a wealthy family. (Fairness.)

- Say something bad about your nation (which you don’t believe) on a talk-radio show in your nation.
- Say something bad about your nation (which you don’t believe) on a talk-radio show in a foreign nation. (Community.)

- Slap a friend in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit.
- Slap your minister in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit. (Authority.)

- Attend a performance-art piece in which the actors act like idiots for 30 minutes, including flubbing simple problems and falling down on stage.
- Attend a performance-art piece in which the actors act like animals for 30 minutes, including crawling around naked and urinating on stage. (Purity.)

We see these concerns in all cultures, manifested in different forms.

Think of the Japanese fear of nonconformity (community), the holy ablutions and dietary restrictions of Hindus and Orthodox Jews (purity), the outrage at insulting the Prophet among Muslims (authority). In the West, we believe that in business and government, fairness should trump community and try to root out nepotism and cronyism. In other parts of the world this is incomprehensible — what heartless creep would favor a perfect stranger over his own brother?

A lot of the polarising debate in the political sphere could be avoided if we only knew where the other person was coming from. To take a US example,

In a large Web survey, [...] liberals put a lopsided moral weight on harm and fairness while playing down group loyalty, authority and purity. Conservatives instead place a moderately high weight on all five. It’s not surprising that each side thinks it is driven by lofty ethical values and that the other side is base and unprincipled.

I think I'm somewhere between the liberals and the conservatives (perhaps more liberal than conservative) because I would emphasise harm and fairness above the other three (joint number 1), would not consider authority a strand of morality at all (number 5, if at all), and place community and purity at a low-to-medium number 3 and number 4 (provided the term "community" itself is not defined too parochially - parochial definitions deserve the same lack of respect as authority).

Apologies for that lengthy diversion from the main topic.

To my mind, the points debated by the legislators when considering Dr Dabholkar's anti-superstition bill could be readily resolved if the focus was turned onto harm and fairness.

Should the bill stop Muharram rituals involving self-inflicted injuries? No, an adult human being is free to engage in such activity, so long as it does not harm or disadvantage others. (I'm libertarian.) Of course, this would also mean that Indian law has to be dragged into the 21st century by having attempted suicide declassified as a crime.

Should the bill stop a special ritual in Nashik temples where childless couples pray for children? No, it's entirely their business. It may be irrational, but no other party is being harmed or disadvantaged by this.

What about frauds perpetrated by godmen? What about human sacrifice? These are already covered under Indian law, under sections pertaining to fraud and murder. There is no need to specifically target such acts that are born out of superstitious beliefs.

To sum up, I don't believe legislation is the right tool to use to tackle superstition and blind faith. The law already recognises harm and unfairness, and has tools for their redressal. The only thing that could perhaps be done in the legislative sphere is de-recognise faith-based authority, so that concepts such as blasphemy or the "hurting of religious sentiments" become legally meaningless and cannot form the basis for litigation.

[Update 21/08/2013: In a knee-jerk reaction to his murder, the Maharashtra state government has bypassed the legislative process and promulgated Dr Dabholkar's anti-superstition bill as an ordinance. It is said that hard cases make bad law. We will now see bad law making hard cases. I will not be surprised if the Supreme Court overturns some of the cases brought under this ordinance, and the state government's hasty reaction will do more harm than good to the cause of rationalism.]

Ultimately, the only real weapon to tackle superstition and blind faith is education, education, education.

Which Khan Are You? (A Guide For Fans Of Bollywood)

After watching "Chennai Express" and "Dabangg" in quick succession, I had an epiphany. And let me hasten to add, I only watched Dabangg on the advice of a friend, who shall be treated with due suspicion henceforth. (I may still watch "Dabangg 2", but that's only because I hate incomplete sets.)

OK, the epiphany concerns the kind of person the different Khans appeal to.

I've always considered Aamir Khan and Saif Ali Khan to be the better actors by far. Salman Khan is a poseur, and the less said about SRK's acting, the better.

However, SRK is usually the good guy (if you forget his beginnings in Darr, Baazigar and Anjaam). So is Aamir, although "Dhoom 3" may bring a few surprises.

Saif is known for his wonderful portrayal of villains, some grey and some outright black (Ek Hasina Thi, Omkara). You can forgive him his character because it's so brilliantly executed. As for Salman Khan, he jostles for space on the amoral podium with the likes of Govinda. I wouldn't be using his films as the basis for a moral science course for kids.

So here's my simple orientation guide (click to expand).
Confession: I like/can tolerate all of them except Salman Khan

[Update: Friends have pointed out the existence of the excellent Irrfan Khan (The Namesake, Sunday), who places even above Aamir and Saif. And newcomer Imran Khan isn't bad either. However, this grid is restricted to the four "Classic Khans".]

Threat Or Tweet? How To Sober The Bullying Kids Behind Their Scary Masks

There's a new campaign petition up on Change.org. (Indeed, there's a new one every few days and I have begun to suffer campaign fatigue. However, this one got me to sit up again.) I'd encourage people to pop over to the site by clicking on the link, and see the kinds of scary messages that are being sent to women. I would be absolutely unnerved if someone sent me such messages.

This campaign is about getting Twitter to adopt a less laissez-faire approach to online bullies threatening female users of the service with rape. Now, I'm a strong supporter of free speech, so I would be uncomfortable asking Twitter to shut down the accounts of those making these offensive tweets or even censoring the offending messages.

Thinking about the problem and my own ideological constraints made me realise that what gives these bullies their courage is their relative anonymity. They can threaten other people from the anonymity of their dens, secure in the knowledge that their right to free speech is protected. Ironically enough, it's free speech that can get them to mind what they say.

I think Twitter should have a simple policy that says anyone making threats of violence against others will have their personal details revealed on a public website along with the details of what they said and when. If law enforcement in their jurisdiction viewed such messages as a crime, then they would have to deal with the consequences of that.

I'd go even further and say that the police should include such a website as a source of rape suspects whenever a rape takes place. All the Twitter offenders in the vicinity should be taken in for questioning as a matter of course. Once someone has threatened rape, they should legitimately be considered a suspect in any future rape case in their vicinity. Hoist them with their own petard.

The sheer inconvenience and social ignominy of being escorted to the local station every time there is a rape should gradually discourage anyone else who thinks this is something they can engage in with impunity.

The police could even offer to stop rounding these people up every time if they would consent to leaving behind a DNA sample. Purely voluntary, of course. The checking would still take place every time a rape occurred, but they wouldn't have to personally visit the station.

In short, society needs to take the same approach to these, er, twits that it takes towards the raising of children. The mature approach is not to forbid behaviour but to acquaint misbehaving children with the consequences of their actions.

The consequences of sending threatening messages can be demonstrated quite effectively while ensuring that all counter-measures are legally justifiable.

Teaching Morality To The Gods

One of the episodes of the Ramayana that has always disturbed me deeply was the infamous banishment of Sita by Rama.

For what crime, one might ask.

Well, she was abducted by the demon Ravana (no fault of hers except misplaced generosity) and spent a few months in captivity in his kingdom. When Rama finally rescued her, he asked her to prove her 'chastity' to all assembled by walking through fire, which was awful in itself. Even the great Rama didn't have the courage of his convictions and was afraid of what other people might think!

Then later, even after they were back in Ayodhya, crowned king and queen and everything seemed hunky-dory, some troglodyte of a subject cast his (presumably unfaithful) wife out of his house, adding for good measure that he wasn't like Rama, who would take back a 'fallen' wife. That incident, when reported to Rama, had the expected effect on the moral coward, who proceeded to evict his by-then-pregnant queen and bundled her off to the forest. The story goes downhill from there for Sita, and this shameful part of the Ramayana is appropriately rarely told, with genteel folk agreeing to end the tale with the couple's triumphant return to Ayodhya.

The earliest memory I have of this is from Amar Chitra Katha's depiction

A scene from the episode "Banishment!" of animator Nina Paley's work "Sita sings the blues"

I was reminded of Rama's conduct when I read this news item about a man who married his girlfriend who had earlier been gang-raped. What's so heroic about this, one might ask. And indeed, it is a shameful commentary on our society that this man's decision should even be considered extraordinary. We live in a society of moral cowards where victims are blamed and shamed, and 'decent' people prove their decency by joining in the stone-throwing. So yes, in such a society, this man is nothing less than a hero.

In a country and a religion where Rama is considered the perfect man and an example to follow, I think the tables have been turned. Lord Rama could take some lessons in morality from this mortal.

As the song goes,

kabhI kabhI bhagwAn ko bhI bhaktO:n sE kAm paDE
jAnA thA gangA pAr prabhU kEvaT kI nAv chaDe

(Sometimes even God needs the help of his devotees
When He wanted to cross the Ganga, Lord (Rama) climbed into the boatman's boat)

Yup, sometimes a human boatman has to help a god navigate those treacherous moral shoals!

Lovely song by Anup Jalota , another mortal who stuck by his wife in sickness and in health
(As philosopher Alain de Botton says in his speech on "Atheism 2.0", atheists should feel free to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of even the religious works they do not believe in!)

Progress Should Depend On Systems, Not Individuals

This post does not refer to India alone, although that's how I first thought about it. It's actually much more general and applies to any country at any time.

During a discussion on Facebook recently, one of my friends mentioned Narendra Modi, the Indian politician who looks likely to lead his party, the BJP, into the 2014 elections, and who quite probably will be India's next prime minister if the BJP wins.
[Update 13/09/2013: Narendra Modi has been officially named the BJP's prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 election.]

The comment was very interesting, because it offered a different viewpoint from what one normally hears.

I am not a BJP supporter per se. I am a Narendra Modi supporter, and that too because he is a capitalist. I am of the firm opinion [...] that India needs a strong dose of free-market capitalism, and if Modi does not come to power I don't know if anyone will administer the dose. I don't think anyone else has the vision, and I think it is DESPERATELY needed in India. I'd place that above all other priorities for India. To me, the BJP is a vehicle for NaMo to assume power. [...] he can do it. And he will. [...] in my opinion, Modi's economic policies are what India desperately needs.

Now, I share many of my friend's thoughts and ideas. I too believe India needs to unshackle itself from its innumerable rules and restrictions of socialistic vintage and embrace free-market capitalism. [By "free market", I mean neither crony capitalism (the unholy nexus between politicians and business interests) nor laissez-faire capitalism (the complete absence of regulation). My idea of a "free market" is a liquid, or highly competitive market. It is a market from which stifling bureacracy is eliminated but where antitrust legislation is aggressively enforced. See my blog entries on the economic philosophy I call "Liquidism".]

So I actually agreed wholeheartedly with my friend's comment on India's need for a strong dose of free-market capitalism.

However, I didn't agree with the corollary that Modi therefore deserved my support. Where I diverge from my friend's views are in two respects - the particular and the general.

In particular, I am convinced of the complicity of Mr Narendra Modi in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat. His protestations of innocence and inability to act fast enough are unconvincing. After all, this is the man with an image of hands-on governance, who is said to have shown his dynamism and administrative superpowers when he rescued Gujarati pilgrims who were stranded after floods in the state of Uttarakhand. If he had wanted to stop the riots, he would have done it. The fact that the riots went on for 4 days and resulted in the deaths of over 2000 people strongly suggests that the rioters had his full support. I do not believe that this man should be trusted with the reins of an entire country, when a life term would be more appropriate.

In general, I do not believe in placing the destiny of a country in the hands of a single individual, however capable and promising they may be. The process is fraught with danger. But if every other politician and political party is incapable of ushering in the slew of changes that India badly needs, to whom can we turn?

I'm actually sanguine about the answer. India's move to free-market capitalism is inevitable, although it may not start as early as 2014. It will come about because power has been steadily slipping away from the central government to the states over the last two to three decades, and the process shows no signs of abating. Coalition governments have been the norm since 1989. The names used in political discourse have moved away from those of parties in the 1980s (Congress, Janata Dal) to those of coalitions today (UPA, NDA). Regional parties have become kingmakers and begun to wield disproportionate power. The states have never been stronger vis-à-vis the centre. India today is much more federal than it was at its birth. Indeed, with the creation of smaller states from larger ones (3 in 2000, 1 more due in 2014) and the increasing demand for statehood from minority groups, it looks like India will before very long be a federation of many small and semi-autonomous states.

[From a professional standpoint too, I wholeheartedly approve of India changing from a monolithic polity with a strong centre to a loose federation of small and internally cohesive states. In the IT industry where I work, high cohesion with low coupling is an architectural principle that leads to highly robust and flexible systems. Centralised systems, in contrast, are brittle and costly to maintain.]

I see India becoming stronger and more dynamic with increasing federalism. Smaller states with more cohesive and engaged electorates tend to have governments that are more responsive and focused on delivery. This is not peculiar to India. People everywhere have begun to demand governance and punish governments that don't deliver. Islamist governments that came to power in the wake of the Arab Spring are discovering to their cost that ideology may win elections but does not guarantee lasting power. The people of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt have signalled strongly to their rulers that what they want is good governance, and Islamic ideology is not an acceptable substitute. In India too, the worm has turned. Electorates are no longer docile and can no longer be taken for granted by the elected.

This is why I believe India will inexorably turn to free-market capitalism. It cannot but. States are going to be competing ferociously with each other to attract foreign investment and talent. Their people will demand higher living standards and punish governments that don't deliver. How else can state governments meet such rising expectations? Heavy inflows of investment will be required, and governments will have to work very hard to attract such investment. Providing an environment that is friendly to business will be imperative, because corporations looking to invest in India can shop around looking for the state offering the most favourable terms. [An early foretaste of this inter-state competition was provided when homegrown corporation Tata Motors shifted from an unfriendly West Bengal to a welcoming Gujarat to establish a factory for the world's cheapest car, the Tata Nano.]

I also foresee radical changes to Indian labour law. I have long believed that a "hire and fire" environment, rather paradoxically, offers the best protection to workers by enabling a dynamic job market with plenty of opportunities, because employers don't hesitate to hire when they know they can shed staff at short notice. Labour "protection" laws have in fact stifled economies and reduced employment opportunities where they have been strongest (e.g., the long communist-dominated Kerala and West Bengal).

In sum, while I share my friend's dream for India to become a free-market economy, I do not believe this can only be achieved by one person, much less that that person is Mr Narendra Modi. I am confident that the vehicle for India's progress is India itself.

An Immigrant's Take On Australia's Immigration Policies

"What if I had arrived to this country by boat?" asks Bharat Ramakrishna, a fellow Indian immigrant to Australia. (He's way more Australian than I am, by the way - I still say "arrive in" and "chat with", not "arrive to" and "chat to").

Bharat's plea for greater compassion and understanding is impassioned and the piece is well-written, but I can't agree with him. My own journey to Australia was rocky and littered with initial disappointment, but although I was determined to make it in the end, I never once considered the option of taking a boat and just landing up. This doesn't mean I don't empathise with refugees fleeing brutal regimes to save their lives. I do empathise, and quite strongly at that (I'm a regular donor to Amnesty International and add my signature to many humanitarian campaigns). It only means that I think people like Bharat are unable or unwilling to acknowledge the phenomenon of economic migrants posing as refugees to take unfair advantage of an advanced society's humaneness. As an economic migrant myself, I believe I have some locus standi to speak about that.

My story

I was taken by the idea of migrating to Australia in the early nineties when I saw a few friends and colleagues leaving India. One of them explained Australian migration to me in very simple and evocative US-centric terms (since most people with my background were more familiar with the journey of the Indian migrant to the US): "It's like a green card that you get before you travel."

The information on the brochure available at the Australian consulate in Mumbai was quite clear about the criteria for skilled migrants. As an IT professional, I would need to demonstrate either a recognised IT-related degree plus 3 years of post-qualification work experience in IT, or 8 years of IT experience if I didn't have an IT degree (the latter was a lot more dicey in its chances of success). I also needed to demonstrate adequate English-language skills and be of a certain age (the younger I was, the more points I would score.)

While I was young (under 30) with fluent English, I fell between two stools on the qualification and experience criteria. I had graduated from IIT Madras (which is an institute recognised in Australia), but my degree was in Civil Engineering, not Computer Science. So that clearly did not qualify. I had completed (and stood 3rd in) a one-year Post-Graduate Diploma in Software Technology from the well-known (well known in Mumbai at least) NCST (now called C-DAC), but this was not a university degree. If that did not suffice, I also had an MBA from the reputed IIM Ahmedabad, where I had taken a few Information Systems electives related to management, such as Management Information Systems (MIS) and Decision Support Systems (DSS). Again, while the institute is a recognised one in Australia, a "Systems MBA" was not likely to cut it as an IT degree. Finally, I had 4 years of experience in IT, which was more than the 3 years required for IT degree holders but well short of the 8 years required of those without an IT degree.

I decided to take the chance and apply for permanent residency as a skilled migrant anyway, because I hoped the persons reviewing my application would see that while I fell short in some areas, I had made up for them in others.

Alas, when the response came less than a month later, I had been rejected. My first attempt at migrating to Australia thus came to a bitter end. This was in 1991.

And here is another interesting side story. When some of my friends learnt of my rejection, they offered a kind of "sour grapes" consolation: "Australia is a racist country. They want only white people." [This image of Australia persists in India to this day, and the student attacks of 2009-2010 have not helped.]

But that convenient explanation did not wash with me. I knew that I didn't quite qualify, and the assessor had pointed that out. I thought the assessor's comments were actually quite respectful and fair. The door had been shut (in my face, as my friends would have it), but I was also told how it could be opened again if I was really keen. I needed to somehow acquire an IT degree and put in the required 3 years of post-qualification work experience.

I was really keen. And so I applied for study leave, without pay, from my employer (CMC Ltd, whose alumni unanimously have fond memories of its warm and people-friendly culture) and went back to school. CMC's management was kind enough to give me a letter of sponsorship to enable me to enter IIT again (in its Kanpur campus this time) and do a masters degree in computer science. Three semesters later (and with my bank balance at zero), I had met Australia's first criterion. I had an IT-related degree from a recognised university. This was at the end of 1993, a little over two years since my rejection.

I rejoined CMC and stayed there another year. Then I got a job with a bank in Dubai and left India in early 1995. I was married by then. By 1997, after two years in Dubai, I had met Australia's second criterion. I had 3 years of post-qualification work experience in IT.

I applied a second time for permanent residency as a skilled migrant, with my wife as the secondary applicant (as a non-Australian chartered accountant, she may not have qualified on her own).

This time, our application was accepted.

It proved to me that Australia was a fair country where "what you see is what you get". The rules are clear and reasonable, and are applied impartially. [After 15 years in the country, my views have only been reinforced.]

So we finally got our much-coveted "green card" before we travelled to Australia. This was in early 1998. Our arrival here was with a valid resident visa and therefore completely kosher. No people smugglers were involved and no boat journey was required. The plane ride was comfortable and our adjustment very smooth (with initial help from old friends from India now settled in Sydney).

Best of all, I had the satisfaction that I had gone about the process the "right" way. As a bonus, I had a masters degree in computer science from an IIT, something to be proud of in its own right.

The Immigration Debate in Australia

Let's return to the issue of "boat people" raised by Bharat's article, which is extremely emotive in Australia today. Those who oppose the entry of boat people make several arguments. Some say boat people are "queue jumpers" who unfairly take places away from other refugees who follow the process and apply from refugee camps abroad. Some believe Australia's resources are stretched and the arrival of immigrants will put an increased burden on public systems. Yet others are suspicious of foreigners who may not be able to integrate into Australian society, going by the experience with some migrants who are already here. All of these points are valid to some degree, but these arguments are also decried by their opponents as racism and xenophobia.

On the other side of this debate are those like Bharat Ramakrishna who argue for a more humane Australia that welcomes asylum seekers and treats them well, instead of cruelly turning them away. Their opponents call them naive, bleeding-heart liberals.

Where do I stand in this debate? Being an economic migrant myself, I viscerally understand the motivations of one, and I can readily see how different I am from a refugee who is fleeing persecution. All talk about "boat people" and "asylum seekers" fails to distinguish between these two groups of people (refugees and economic migrants), and this failure makes any subsequent debate pointless. We really need to start from an understanding of the dichotomy between these two groups of asylum seekers.

The humanitarian argument should only apply to refugees. With economic migrants, the conversation ought to be more businesslike. These people are not in danger of their lives. Neither are they being persecuted. Yes, they probably aren't enjoying as high a quality of life in their countries as they would enjoy if they were living in Australia. It's understandable why they would like to migrate. But Australia is quite justified in asking these people what they can do for the country in return for a berth here. If they can't offer something Australia wants, there's no deal. Let's not get sentimental about it. There's nothing "cruel" about turning away economic migrants who don't have something useful to offer to Australia. Australia is, by any objective measure, the best country in the world to live in, not just one of the best. Out of the world's 7 billion people, I'm sure more than 6 billion would jump at the chance to live here, including many from the so-called First World. Obviously, it isn't possible to indulge them all.

And so the discussion has to turn to how we distinguish between genuine refugees and "mere" economic migrants. Remember that we wouldn't even be having this debate if economic migrants were honest enough not to hide their motives.

The root cause of the immigration problem is when economic migrants pretend to be refugees in order to tap into humanitarian sentiment, instead of taking their honest chances with a businesslike assessment of their suitability.

We cannot complain that our systems are not perfect, because individuals are not perfect. The other debate going on at this time in Australia is that of a "boot camp" for unemployed youth who want to receive unemployment assistance. Again, we wouldn't even be having this debate if people were honest enough to apply for assistance only when they were genuinely unemployed, and to notify the government as soon as they had secured alternative employment. Dole packages could be quite generous and easy to obtain if everyone was honest. But people are not, in general, honest. That's why social security is often seen as a heartless system. To keep out the dishonest, whether we're talking about immigration or unemployment assistance, systems must develop bureaucratic features that then inconvenience honest and deserving people.

Then there is the real issue of limited resources. There are 45 million genuine refugees in the world today, and even with the best of intentions, Australia and other advanced societies cannot accommodate them all. A massive influx of people (even deserving ones) can lead to the collapse of systems. This is worsened by undeserving people (economic migrants) abusing the system. This is why it is not possible to keep the gates open to all and remain blind to who is coming in. An open gate is a temptation to everyone to enter.

As a child growing up in India, I used to be greatly saddened by the sight of beggars at temples and other public places we visited. It can be quite heart-wrenching to see a baby carried by a child not much older, and the guilt can be quite intense when you're eating and these children appear before you, gesturing towards their mouths and stomachs. 

Be steel, my heart

It is not that these people are not poor, but they have also mastered the art of milking sentiment. Give a coin to a single beggar, and you will regret it instantly. You will be besieged by a throng of others, all with arms outstretched and pleading piteously. A few such incidents, and you will inure yourself to saying a stern no to every beggar you come across. It is not that one is cruel, but one learns to protect oneself. If beggars did not aggressively besiege kind-hearted tourists to the point of making them regret their kindness, I guarantee they would see a lot more charity overall.

Individuals are not only not perfect, they are also too smart for their own good.

Whether it's aggressive beggars in India, dole-bludgers in Australia or economic migrants posing as refugees, the issue is the same - cynical people who abuse a humane system, overwhelm limited resources and end up hardening the hearts of even the well-meaning and generous, thereby causing needless suffering and pain to the genuinely needy.

Sugar kept on a table attracts ants. It's a law of nature. So what do we normally do? We take the sugar off the table altogether. But then even those who need it often have to go without. We need a system that is less of a blunt instrument.

This is why I like the Rudd government's "PNG Solution", as I wrote before. It provides a means of distinguishing between genuine refugees and economic migrants. PNG (Papua New Guinea) is no paradise, but to genuine refugees, it's better than the alternative, so they will still come. But PNG is a turn-off to economic migrants, so if the scheme is executed without loopholes, they will almost certainly stop coming. Is it a perfect system? No it's not, because genuine refugees are going to be greatly inconvenienced, perhaps even endangered in a different way, by being resettled in PNG.

But as long as individuals are imperfect, no system can be perfect. Bharat Ramakrishna and others of his kind are obviously humane and warm individuals (and I can only wish for more of them in our society), but their prescription of undiscriminating welcome to all comers is unworkable.

Rudd Takes Wind Out Of Abbott's Sails, May Even Stop Boats

If posed as a logic puzzle, Kevin Rudd's solution to Australia's problem of boat people is brilliant. Under this scheme, no asylum seeker who comes to Australia by boat without a visa will ever be able to settle in Australia. They will instead be sent to Papua New Guinea (PNG) for processing, and resettled there. That's that.

Why is this solution at least theoretically brilliant?

There are two groups of people scrambling onto rickety boats to come to Australia, putting their own lives at risk and creating feelings of guilt among humanitarian Australians.

There are the people persecuted in their home countries and whose lives are in danger, who desperately need to flee their countries just to stay alive. They're generally acknowledged to be genuine refugees. There are international laws to safeguard their rights, and as a signatory to those international laws, Australia is duty-bound to accept a certain proportion of them. It would be unconscionable to turn them away.

Then there are the people who are in no danger of persecution or death in their home countries, but who perceive a chance of a better life abroad. These people are commonly called "economic migrants". There is no international law that recognises their aspirations as a fundamental human right, and no obligation on any country's part to indulge their dreams. Any migration arrangement has to be transactional and mutually beneficial, such as Australia's Skilled Migration program.

The whole problem is trying to weed out economic migrants from the hordes of people turning up in boats at Australian shores, so that genuine refugees may be considered. The problem is popularly termed "queue-jumping", but it's more basic than that. It's not that some deserving people are being served out of turn, ahead of other deserving people. It's that undeserving people are being served in the first place.

What Kevin Rudd's solution has done is change the rules of the game so genuine asylum seekers select themselves, and mere economic migrants select themselves out. As a shibboleth, it's brilliant.

What do refugees want? Safety, wherever they can find it.

What do economic migrants want? The opportunity to live in a developed country (not in a less developed one).

Let's face it, out of the world's 7 billion people, at least 6 billion would jump at the chance to live in Australia, including many from the so-called First World. Australia is far and away the best place in the world to live, bar none. And so Australia's international commitment to accept refugees has become "sugar on the table" that attracts hordes of others who face no danger or persecution in their home countries, but who simply think it would be a great idea to resettle in this paradise and don't mind the risks of a boat journey. The number of Sinhalese (not Tamil) asylum seekers is an example of this, because Sinhalese are the dominant group in Sri Lanka and face no persecution there.

As long as an Australian visa was seen as the only way to grant safety to refugees, there was no way to distinguish between the two groups of asylum seekers. But by offering safety in a third country and simultaneously ruling out the possibility of living in Australia, a wedge has been neatly driven between these two groups. The genuine refugees will still arrive, and will receive the safety from persecution that they crave and deserve. The economic migrants will have to turn away from the boats and explore other options, because their objectives will no longer be met.

While the scheme is brilliant as an abstract logical problem, I have some concerns about it in practice.

1. From Australia's point of view, the deal with PNG should have been locked in for at least 5 years. Making it renewable every year not only gives PNG too much negotiating advantage, the uncertainty it generates will keep the people-smugglers in business by letting them play on the hopes of economic migrants.

2. From PNG's point of view, this scheme sows the seeds of future ethnic strife. Australia is doing to PNG what the British did to Fiji by importing Indian labour into the island. The tensions between ethnic Fijians and Indians continues to this day, and it doesn't take too much imagination to see what would happen when PNG natives interact more frequently with, and compete with, people from Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere. I don't know if PNG has really thought this through.

3. Getting other countries in the region to "share Australia's burden" is a great idea, but while Indonesia is a good candidate as a destination country, New Zealand is not. NZ is like Australia in its attractiveness to economic migrants. Adding New Zealand to the list of countries that agree to resettle boat people "puts the sugar back on the table".

Whether Rudd's scheme will succeed in stopping the boats remains to be seen. But I'm fairly certain it has torpedoed Abbott's election campaign. And that is unbridled goodness.