The Treachery of Historical Analysis

(An excerpt from Monty Python’s Holy Grail)

Arthur: The Lady of the Lake-- her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite,
held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by
divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why
I am your king!

Man: (laughingly) Listen: Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power
derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some... farcical
aquatic ceremony!

This small piece nicely illustrates the absurdities and contradictions that arise when one tries to interpret history in a modern context. More specifically, I have always suspected that analysing history in a “mathematical”, strictly logical manner is most often useless, perhaps even dangerous.

I had written a bit about this in one of my older blogs. This blog is meant to elaborate that idea. (For those who have read it already my apologies. Skip the part that is given in quotes and continue reading from thereon.)

“It is very interesting to speculate on the evolution of the University system since many of the rituals (if you can call it that) in a typical ceremony like the Convocation where degrees are awarded, do not fit into an Indian context at all. The use of Latin, the robes themselves and the whole atmosphere all seem to be vestiges of practises dating to perhaps, the monasteries of the Renaissance period.

Wait, did I say monasteries? Clearly, such a modern custom intended to venerate the sciences could not have its origins in a religious institution! The maximum extent of Science that would one would have expected in a monastery may have been the pursuit of alchemy. Why does this seem strange in the first place? It seems so because we have been trained to think that religion and science are polar opposites. But during the Renaissance, some of the biggest advances in intellectual thought were made by monks. Gregor Mendel of the Theory of Heredity is perhaps the most famous monk-scientist. Another one I recently came across was a Francisan Friar named Luca Pacioli, referred to as the Father of Accounting, for inventing the double entry book keeping system. Bayes’ Theorem is named after a Reverend Thomas Bayes.

I remember reading numerous other names which keep cropping up, especially in achievements related to mathematics. A possible reason could be that before the invention of printing, it was the job of monasteries to make copies of the ancient tomes of Egypt, Greece and Rome. Therefore, monks had an almost exclusive access to these works of great intellectual achievement. Therefore, monasteries may have played more important roles as centres of education.

Then why this divorce between Science and Religion and when did it occur? One can speculate that the separation of Science from Religion had to do something with the notion of separating Church from State which in turn traces its origins to the French Revolution. An interesting question arises: Were the persecution stories of Galileo and Copernicus played up by ideological forces interested in the separation of state and church?”

This is one intellectual tangle. Consider another case of historical analysis – the Aryan Migration Theory.

The logic of the Aryan Theory proceeds thus. It was postulated that one of the earliest settlements in human history was based near the Caspian Sea. Due to some reasons, the people there had to migrate. This settlement broke into three groups. One migrated to what is today India, one to Europe, occupying areas corresponding to modern day Germany and the third migrated to modern day Iran. The theory primarily arose from an observation that there were many similarities in languages between Sanskrit and Latin. Therefore, the people speaking these languages must have had some sort of common lineage. This is the genesis of the Indo-Aryan Language group. One of the leading names associated with this theory was Max Mueller though I do not know the precise nature of his contributions.

After this theory was propounded numerous re-interpretations of the Indian classics were attempted. Ramayana was portrayed as an epic struggle between the Aryan Rama and the Dravidian Ravana. Further supporting evidence was cited from the Epics and the Puranas. There is a story in the Ramayana where Rama and Lakshmana leave with Vishwamithra to get their education under him. As they go into the forest, Rakshasas attack them and those rakshasas are slain by the brave brothers. One interpretation of this goes as follows: It is possible that the migrating Aryans had first settled down in the fertile Ganges Valley in their migration to India. It is now known that King Dasharatha’s capital, Ayodhya is situated in modern day Uttar Pradesh. In their journey with Vishwamithra they may have forayed into areas previously occupied by tribal peoples. The dark skinned tribal people would have looked devilish to the fair Caspian Sea Aryans. This led to their classification as Rakshasas or as evil forces. Therefore, when Rama was vanquishing Raskshasas, for protection, we can also conclude equally well that he was conquering non-Aryans!

The concept of gothram is cited another evidence to this theory. The term gothras implies a set of people who are bound together as a tribe. The “go” in the gothras perhaps refers to the importance the set of people ascribed to cows. Therefore, the Aryans migrated from the Caspian in groups, in search of better sites for pasture. Migrating southward one group found India. In this migration, at times due to the lack of food, these people had to resort to eating cattle meat, which is why the Vedas records instances of sages eating beef. Once they came to a fertile place, like the Gangetic Plain, they settled down and the communities started venerating cows again as they were instrumental for the ploughing of land. This explains why some sects of Hinduism are vegetarians or at any rate, they oppose cow slaughter.

The Aryan Migration Theory propounded this way has had a deep effect on Indian history and world history. The Theory provided much ammunition to the anti-brahminical stance of the Periyar Movement as well as ideological inspiration for many a Hindu bigot. Hitler also conveniently embraced the Aryan theory to portray the German people as having a deeper heritage and culture than they had previously imagined. He then extended the theory to imply the racial purity of the now “Aryan” Germans.

The reason the theory caught on was because of its explanatory appeal. A lot of myths were supposedly “rationally” explained, rationality defined in the context of modern human thought. When I first heard the "Rakshasa angle" presented this way, I found it extremely convincing. Even today, there are many elites who subscribe to this theory, consciously or unconsciously.

However there is only one hitch. Linguistic evidence is not strong enough grounds for formulating such a theory. Linguistic similarities may have arisen due to commerce, trade or cultural interaction. We can find the word bazaar in Indian usage and English usage. Does that imply racial similarities? By no means. Consider this example.

Imagine the following scenario. Some catastrophe happens that destroys pretty much most of modern civilisation. One small, isolated settlement somewhere in Thailand or India, survived, spawned a new civilisation which gets sufficiently advanced that they get interested in archeology. An enthusiastic archaeologist discovers two DVDs while excavating. The new civilisation somehow cracks the technology of DVD and expectantly pops in these two DVDs. One DVD shows a black rapper talking while the other shows a white Eminem rapping away. If this civilisation does not know English, the two will appear to be extremely different but for the linguistic similarities! Therefore, they postulate that once upon a time, there was one set of people who came in two varieties black and white, but they were essentially the same. Then someone will point out that in the modern civilisation there was a disproportionately larger number of brown people seeming to imply that the present civilisation was purely derived from the intermingling of the two races. Such a theory will sell like hotcakes because it is almost impossible to prove or to disprove that black people and white people need not give birth to disproportionately large number of brown people. Why do I say that? Even if this modern civilisation knew genetics it may not be able to find sufficient evidence to do the test.

At this stage most people fall victim to what is called a “confirmation bias”. The test of a theory is how it stands up in the face of attempts to disprove it. The logic is that just because you have some cases for which the theory works, that still does not "prove" it. The theory is still vulnerable in the sense that someone may come up with one counterexample and the theory is declared invalid. However on the top of the head, most of us regardless of our levels of education will try to prove our theory by giving supporting evidence. It is important to note that predictive power of a theory is an important test no doubt, but the falsification test is a stronger condition. That is why despite the predictability power of the Aryan theory; it still fails because it fails on the falsification test.

Therefore, in all possibilities, the theory of “one people in two colours” or the bi-colour people theory will be embraced by the new civilisation to explain its origins!

Consider another common analytical mistake. How many times have you heard someone say “If only I had done this!” The cliche that the saddest words to say are “If only...” is not only tiring, it is also logically wrong as my friend Srivats once pointed out. Imagine if one says, “If I had studied for three more hours I would have cracked the exam!” This is wrong for two reasons. One, you did not know what would have come in the exam. Someone could have studied just as much as you had, but scored better because (s)he covered different topics. But that is secondary. More importantly, people know an outcome, trace the cause and change one variable and expect that everything else would have worked out just as it did. When you go back in time and change an instance, you are in essence stepping into a different universe, the outcomes of which you, or for that matter, any human being cannot comprehend because the evolution of the infinite variable cannot be understood.

Let me extend this idea. Routinely people say, “If India had embraced Gandhism we would be better off” or “if Sardar Patel had been Prime Minister instead of Nehru, the Kashmir problem would have been avoided”. You cannot, I repeat, cannot, know what would have happened. Things would have been different in both the cases, yes, but you cannot use qualifiers like better or worse!If Gandhism had been embraced maybe some problems would have been avoided, but some other problems would have arisen. Police action if initiated on Kashmir just after independence may have worked. But some other related territorial problems may have come up. The point is that such arguments are mischievous and misleading. However, even the most elite succumb to it.

But the ones I have pointed out till now are mistakes made by human beings. There is a deeper fundamental problem with historical analysis. Mathematics is “easier” in this respect. The source of mathematical study is the axioms that are defined. We define what is a point, what is a line, what is 1,2,3... Then we build the structure and work within the framework. That gives us a great degree of control. Why do most buildings have geometrical shapes, predominantly right angles and some circular arcs? The mathematical understanding of these shapes is easier. Why? The way we have defined our framework allows us to understand these things better. In a world where people are taught non-Euclidean geometries, we may expect to see other shapes instead of circles or lines.

In history, the source of knowledge or the starting point is itself biased by the author of that information. Therefore, in a lot of situations given evidence for one point of view from an authentic source, I can almost always find evidence to contradict that from an equally authentic source.

Then what is the way out? Should we just abandon studying history then? No, not at all. We can understand the mistakes of the past or the successes of the past, but we must be extremely careful when deriving conclusions from it and more importantly, the conclusions have to be rigorously tested for falsifiability.

How is all this important? Is all this theoretical stuff? Not at all. In the future, most of you will be required to buy into various ideas and philosophies. If you find these ideas and philosophies rooted in a historical basis, check it and double check it. That is my message.

A perverted desire?

I have always wanted to do something like this. But a real opportunity presented itself recently.

In one of my Mid Term exams, I started writing the last question, came to the end of the first Answer Booklet and then realized I would need to borrow a four-page-foolscap-paper supplement sheet just for writing 2-3 lines and a small diagram. However, the diagram was quite necessary. I usually try to plan my last answer such that this kind of a thing does not happen. This time I forgot that I was writing the last question.

I was then seized by a very very strong urge to scribble in the margin: "I have a truly complete solution to this but the margin is too small to hold it" and walk out of the room! Man, the sheer pseud value!

But of course I didn't do it. Now it is one more thing in my "To-Do" list. (sigh!)

A small piece

(A small piece of 600 words I wrote for a competition here. Slightly average piece of writing, but this was meant for the preliminary round of a speaking competition, so I tried something like this. I still felt it was good for a quick read, so I have put it up.

The topic was "Premier B schools: Places of Learning or Placement Agencies?")

We don’t Need No Education, Show Us the Money?

I was exposed to the species called MBA (PGDBA to be precise, but then again technicalities... tut tut) quite early on in life. My father is an MBA and we used to go along for the family “get-togethers” for the alumni. Stereotypically, the conversations consisted mostly of tracking the career paths of classmates. Interestingly also, frequent references were made to concepts taught in class by such and such faculty, which the alumni of not-so-premier B schools did not have access to. Stories were recounted of how the Premier B school alumni were heads and shoulders above the rest because of this.

This raises the chicken-and-egg question: Did the alumni do well because of the knowledge or because of the competitive pressures they felt? Does the brand value arise because of the student or the learning?

While preparing for the CAT, I read interviews of successful alumni who said that while most of the academic stuff they had studied became obsolete after a point, the greatest takeaway was the alumnus network and the confidence of having made it into an IIM.

Also, don’t students come to the IIMs for the huge packages that graduates get? How much of the classroom learning is relevant for the jobs that pay these high packages?

Finally and most importantly, the actual placement situation works something like a feedback mechanism. Individuals who demonstrate above average levels of drive or talent are selected into these institutions. Since a filter has been applied, companies find it easier to recruit from here.

Therefore, premier B schools derive their importance from functioning as effective placement agencies. Right? Wrong!

Let us take a step backward. When caught with basic questions it is always best to resort to first principles. How did it all begin? Much of management education has its philosophical roots in Frank Taylor’s Scientific Management where he demonstrated that the use of logical, mathematical methods in daily life could bring about great changes in productivity. It got a further boost when Dantzig demonstrated the immeasurable benefits that Operations Research could bring to war efforts and later to corporate profits as well.

In both cases, fundamental principles from essentially “pure” subjects like mathematics, psychology, and economics were integrated to obtain insights that could be converted into mindblowing commercial benefit. Management degree programs arose to satisfy corporations’ demands for people who could think like this. Therein lies the solution! Further consider two more arguments.

IIM Bangalore’s brand value is well established now. To those who say that B schools are placement agencies, I pose a question. Let us replace existing faculty, keeping the admission process intact. By their argument, placements should not be affected appreciably in the long run as the filter has not been affected. Even the most misinformed person will point out the absurdity of the argument.

Also, despite the ups and downs in the Indian Economy or the Global Economy, the demand for MBAs from students has not diminished appreciably. If the students come solely for the placement, then the IIMs would have seen times when they were not in demand. However, there is abundant anecdotal evidence that indicates that the IIMs were always in heavy demand, even during the “Hindu Rate of Growth” years.

To sum up, the placement is a manifestation of the relevance of the learning and quality of the students. There can be no doubt whatsoever that alumni and students of premier B schools obtain their value primarily from the learning experience and it would require exceptional naivete to think otherwise!

Convocated!

I hate goodbyes. In my ideal world, people would meet with a hoop and a hurrah but when it comes to farewells, they would just mumble it, or better, just nod! “I grunt my farewell” is my motto. But if there is a meeting there has to be a departure (duality you see) and my reaction to this necessary evil is to put on a blasé expression and spout pithy words like “Life is too short for goodbyes” or a re-assuring “It is a small world...” or a Mafiosi-like “We will meet again”. But the truth is I hate goodbyes. The reason is mostly selfish. “Goodbyes” indicate a transition, moving to new environs, change and most worryingly, new people. What if you never really meet people whose wavelength doesn’t match with yours?

And so, I reasoned, why dwell on things that remind you of the change? Therefore, once my viva got over I hurriedly packed my luggage and headed home. (Okay, I admit, I stayed for one more day after the viva. May I rot in CCW hell!)

When I saw the mail asking us to confirm our participation in the convocation, I was torn. My fear of goodbyes still persisted but then again, it is a Convocation! As a wag once remarked, “Sometimes marriages may occur twice, but a Convocation occurs only once!” Suitably convinced by such bad logic, I booked a ticket on the Airavatha service of KSRTC and waited in anticipation for the day.

Like all best laid plans, this one had its potential of going gang-aft agley. You see I was doing the first term of my post graduation and like most first terms there was quite some work to be done and the Damocles sword of “surprise quizzes” hanging over my head. An obscure psychological study once found that a statistically significant proportion of those who hated surprises generally had once been subjected to surprises quizzes. There is of course the case of the lady-from-a-reputed- business- school who broke off her engagement and ran to the library when her fiancé shouted “surprise” on Valentine’s Day!

Anyway, the plunge was taken with a brave heart and it was sure worth it! The convocation is a ceremony basically, but like all ceremonies the rituals and the solemnity of the occasion ordain a certain halo to it. I eagerly went to collect my gown and I was a tad bit disappointed to discover that undergraduates do not get tassels.

The Convocation started off with the dignitaries walking in to the tune of what was called a Police Band. As the Chief Guest Dr.R. Chidamabaram, the Director, Deans and HoDs walked on to the stage, in their wizard like flowing gowns, for a brief moment, one got a sense of history and the import of the ceremony itself.

A digression now. It is very interesting to speculate on the evolution of the University system since many of the rituals (if you can call it that) in the Convocation do not fit into an Indian context at all. The use of Latin, the robes themselves and the whole atmosphere all seem to be vestiges of practises dating to perhaps, the Renaissance.
And therein lays an interesting paradox. Modern thought and education often portray religious education and scientific education as opposites. The argument is often reduced to one of Rational Vs. Irrational. But during the Renaissance, some of the biggest advances in intellectual thought were made by monks. Gregor Mendel of the Theory of Heredity is perhaps the most famous monk-scientist. Another one I recently came across was a Francisan Friar named Luca Pacioli, referred to as the Father of Accounting, for inventing the double entry book keeping system. Bayes’ Theorem is named after a Reverend Thomas Bayes.

I remember reading numerous other names which keep cropping up, especially in achievements related to mathematics. A possible reason could be that before the invention of printing, it was the job of monasteries to make copies of the ancient tomes of Egypt, Greece and Rome. Therefore, monks had an almost exclusive access to these works of great intellectual achievement. Therefore, monasteries may have played more important roles as centres of education.

Then why this divorce between Science and Religion and when did it occur? One can speculate that the separation of Science from Religion had to do something with the notion of separating Church from State which in turn traces its origins to the French Revolution. An interesting question arises: Were the persecution stories of Galileo and Copernicus played up by ideological forces interested in the separation of state and church?

Aah... history is never simple. I think we are too conditioned by the concept of a mathematical proof and therefore, when we look for “proof” in other subjects we tend to define it in mathematical terms. However, such a proof requires an absolute, independent framework to start with. With history, we just do not have that! Biases are built into the very structure of historical study. As a consequence, a logically rigorous approach to history, while intellectually stimulating, is prone to be futile!

Anyway, as I was saying before, any sense of history was only momentary. In the bare and functional architecture of SAC, it is really difficult to feel anything more than the urge to play badminton! The function began and most of us were reeling from the heat and suffocation and looking frequently at the program to see when we could get our degrees, the coveted IIT chaapa!

One of the expected highlights from a Convocation is the speech from the Chief Guest and I felt that as speeches go, the one by Dr.R.Chidamabaram was a tad bit disappointing. Please do not get me wrong. I am in no way competent to comment nonchalantly of a person with quite an impressive list of achievements and that too, a physicist. (I have always held the view that Physics is the only subject worth studying at school level) But I have always felt that once these big scientists reach a certain level, the intellectual sharpness and ruthlessness seem to reduce and is replaced by an ambiguity in approach that would give a complex to MBAs! But then again my dissatisfaction with the speech could be a reflection of my own biases.

I think there are three formulaic approaches which would definitely work for Convocation Speeches. One approach is to convey a gung-ho “Go get ‘em tiger, but watch out for a couple of things” kind of speech. I am reminded of one by Azim Premji at a Convocation at IIMA. The other one is take a reflective, nostalgia tinged approach. A good example would be Steve Jobs’ “Connecting the Dots” speech. Baz Luhrman’s “Everybody is free to wear sunscreen” is the absolute gem in this department and few can better this! The approach I prefer is to be provocative. Raise an issue, ruffle a couple of feathers, never hurts as long as you are perfectly rational in the process. There was an internet hoax which alleged that Larry Ellison of Oracle got on to podium at Harvard and said that the top 10 richest people in the Forbes’ list were dropouts! While the speech was definitely not true and I am not too sure about the factoid, just imagine the effect it would have had!

Finally, after the Madam Registrar proposed that “...One Thousand three hundred and ten degrees be given out in person or in absentia”, the Director started awarding the degrees. The IITM degree certificate is extremely well done and one spends the initial moment literally basking in the reflected glory. After marvelling at one’s photo, a curious feeling of having “done something” sets in. I say curious because one hasn’t really done anything solid, if you think about it. This is just the first step to making things or doing things or blazing trails. But a sweet, pleasant feeling permeates the body and a genuine feeling of triumph is felt.

However, I must admit one thing now. I felt pangs of jealousy during the part where they gave out the medals for various achievements. While I have the highest regards for all the winners and as usual the awards reflected the best of the student community, the negative feelings were a reminder of how screwed up my priorities had been. So why don’t we do things in reverse and make the incoming batch sit for the convocation? This way they can get a feel of what they are going to get at the end of the process! But jokes apart, the convocation was an awesome experience and it was really satisfying just being there.