Peepul ke Neeche—Conversations
British Colonialism and the Indian legal system
What were the contours of legal system in India in the pre-colonial times and how did British colonialism alter it to its detriment has great relevance today. After all the system that is in practice today is part of our colonial legacy. Shivanand Kanavi explored this important subject in this conversation with Dr. Kamala Sankaran, who teaches at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.
SK: Let us explore how colonialism changed the judicial system in India and what impact it had on the people. Even today we see big disconnect between people and the legal system. Empirically we can see it in the discontent that a large number of people have that they do not get justice or it is delivered too late that at times the person dies before he gets it. All kinds of explanations are given regarding this eg. paucity of judges, courts etc. But the system itself seems flawed. It is notable that one of the demands of people in Swat, Pakistan for several decades has been the establishment of Nizam a Adil system of courts rather than the British system mainly because of the inordinate delay in the latter. Why do people in the subcontinent feel alienated by the British system, what needs to be done?
KS: A good starting point is to look at what existed in India before the British came. It is difficult to simplify this since India is a complex region. Even before the Mughal rule there was in many parts of the country a shastra based system and a system based on custom or vyavahara which was based on the life experience of people, how they dealt with norms and the systems and institutions they had created. On top of that you have another system of institutions which were created with the advent of Mughal rule in India covering vast areas of India. Even this allowed plurality of systems. So what marked India before the colonial intervention is plurality of legal systems and institutions. One of the significant effects of colonialism was the imposition of uniformity. Pluralism was considered antithetical to a neat and orderly centralized system. It has its origins in the philosophy of British, based on the notion of an Austinian state where a single monarch or a power had all power and was indivisible. All powers devolved from top down. That was the structure of the modern nation state that the British were familiar with. So there was centralization of legislative authority and executive authority. So just seeing a region with multiple states was itself a shock to them having come from a unitary one. On top of it to have multiple legal systems where different castes and religions had their own institutions was quite alien to them. So one of the things they tried to bring is certainty and uniformity in the law; certainty and uniformity in judicial and legal institutions they created. That homogenization itself was a major shock to Indians. The judicial system is one part of the legal system. So let me confine myself to that.
SK: What is the difference between the two?
KS: I am using the terms in the sense that a legal system would involve all the laws, norms, standards that are laid down to determine what is right or wrong; correct or incorrect. It would also involve all that goes to enforce the legality that is the courts, police, jails etc. whereas judicial system is a part and parcel of the legal system. When the British came to India I think they realized that there was already a fairly well developed dispute resolution system of various types in different geographical regions. We know that when the British came to India around 1600 they chose not to immediately displace the local institutions if they could. Their strategy in India was different from their strategy in North America, or in parts of Africa or in Australia. Those they considered as res nullis (belongs to no one, belongs to those who find it first) countries, where there was an absence of a legal system – even though there were indigenous people in those lands. The Anglo-Saxon law in toto could be inflicted on all those people. In India they already knew was an advanced civilization with many institutions and laws in place. So they tread fairly cautiously. You can see it very clearly from 1600 to 1773 when the Regulating Act came into being. In 1726 they had the first charter which allowed courts to be set up in the three presidencies. The courts setup soon after the first factory was setup in Surat, were dispensing justice to only Englishmen and adjudicating on principles of equity, justice and good conscience which those colonial civil servants could well understand. In 1726 they decided that English law as adapted to Indian conditions could directly applied. In 1773 after the battle of Plassey, the entry of Warren Hastings in 1772 and the Regulation Act of 1773 they very clearly stated that with regard to personal matters pertaining to Hindus and Mohammedans, the English law would not apply but that it would for other aspects like property, commerce etc. They did setup the courts in civil jurisdiction. That is quite significant. The battle of Plassey won the British the diwani and not the nizamat. (Diwani is the civil administration and nizamat dealt with the criminal jurisdiction as well as the army in each subah. This was part of Mughal administration. To the best of my understanding it meant ‘he who had the purse would not have the army and vice versa’, which prevented any threat arising to the central order from the subahs.) The British won the diwani, they had the right to collect revenue but they did not have the right to dispense criminal justice. For a long time the nizamat continued to be at Murshidabad while the diwani was in Calcutta. The merger of the two took place later. There are legal historians who have shown how the nizamat steadily crumbled in power. Diwani adalat mainly dealt with disputes arising out of revenue. Very soon Warren Hastings was followed by Cornwallis with his permanent settlement and collection of revenue was of utmost importance to the colonial administration. In the diwani adalats that the British introduced the provision that if you were not able to pay the land revenue then you could sell a part of your land to pay it. Over a period of time nizamat adalats or fouzdari adalats came under British purview.
You asked what impact the British judicial system had. They set up these specialized courts manned by people trained in law with independent judges. That itself was a cultural shock for people of India because till that time if you look at the existing dispute resolution systems, typically at the village level, one had the panchayat system. Panchas would be notables who would be known locally. They were not ‘elected’ as we understand today. By the modern yardstick they would not be ‘independent’ as they would be members of the community. The idea of an independent judge is comes from Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and it requires that the judge’s mind is a tabula rasa, a clean slate, with respect to the dispute and he only allows his mind to register that which is relevant to the dispute. The medium by which the judge appreciates the facts or the evidence is through the two lawyers representing either side. What they bring into the court largely determines the final outcome. So the relevancy of who should be allowed to address the court and complex rules of evidence concerning who could step into witness box and address the court, on what matters can be addressed became very important. So important unless one’s own eye or ears have seen/heard the transaction one could not testify and one could testify only with regard to that particular transaction. Whereas in the panchayat which was held in the open anybody who had even fringe knowledge could speak. They did not have to go through this filter of ‘is this relevant, are you worthy’. Therefore you had a sense of participation and anybody could speak. With this system one had a judge who was not known to the parties, which was seen as virtue in the English system but was alien to Indians. Language of course it goes without saying was English and one had to hire a lawyer and I am not going into that.
SK: This also creates the scope for the judge to let a case drop on technical grounds that the lawyer did not present the right thing or in the right way, even if the judge can see the right and wrong himself.
KS: That is true. There is very limited power of the judge to take judicial notice of certain things but his knowledge was as good or as bad as that of the lawyer who presents before him or her. There was also no ‘her’, so I might as well confine it to ‘him’! Thus, in all these areas: the choice of the judge; who could testify, regarding what they could testify; the location of the court. I am not romanticizing it but it was more participatory. There had very strict rules of relevancy. (Many of these continue till today). If a person had behaved in a similar manner in a previous transaction it could be ruled as an irrelevant fact unless you could construct an organic connection. Secondly they had these rules against hearsay. That meant that only a person who had directly seen or witnessed a particular event could have the right to speak. If you had heard it from your wife that she saw something and she was unable to come then your testimony would be hit by the rule against hearsay. Thus only a small group of people would have the capacity to address the court and other who may have accompanied the party to the court because they had knowledge about related matters would have been considered irrelevant, and that would create the perception that you were not being heard. People were priced out, they could not understand the language. Therefore these courts with their very specialized rules of evidence manned by very technical judges, and where you would have to place your full faith in the vakeel who alone would be the voice that would speak in the court, made the system inaccessible to Indians.
Look at the court buildings of the British. They built the supreme court of Calcutta, a grand structure many steps from the ground, where the judge (s) would sit high upon a bench, whereas earlier the panchas would sit on the ground etc. The whole geography and architecture of the court system alienated people. The form of decision making was also entirely different: the judgment was in the form of a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Whereas the panchayats always negotiated, with no clear winner or loser, you are willing to find a mid-ground so that all could save face. People were used to that system where you would not lose everything but some form of justice would be done. So that you did not have a win-lose but a win-win.
SK: You were heard.
KS: Yes you were heard and the solution framed gave a lot of discretion to the decision makers to decide what would best serve the ends of justice. So long as their decision was not out of sync with vyavahara that was practiced they had a whole range of flexibility. In today’s parlance of alternative dispute resolution systems, panchayats had many desirable features. In contrast, for the British, the certainty of law that it was fixed before the dispute came into being was seen as a major virtue. So it needed a black and white text, written and published, which gave it stability and majesty.
In India if you take the law applicable to the Hindus one had shastras, the shruti and the smriti, which constituted the shastric sources of law. They were constantly subjected to interpretation by commentators, glossators etc. Then you also had vyavahara which varied from the shastras and varied in time and regionally. The vyavahara could override shastras also. In different parts of the country the usages developed and these were taken to be the law. For example regarding women’s rights to property. Even if some of the shastras did not permit it, in large parts of India women did own property so that was vyavahara, as for example in the south, east. So British found different practices in different parts of India and that went against their homogenous conception of law. So in 1773 Warren Hastings organized for the documentation in black and white of what the law is.
SK: Was this the Gentoo code?
KS: Yes that was Halhed’s ‘A Code of Gentoo Law’ that he translated and complied in 1776. Sir William Jones also translated some important Islamic texts. Earlier, the panchas had the freedom to fashion their remedies, had freedom to look at the exigencies of the situation, etc but once you were confronted with a law in black and white: for every contingency, the consequence was determined; there was far less flexibility. Interpretation was not given importance. All this contributed to the alienation.
When the British came they took the policy of “not interfering” with Hindu and Mohammedan law but it was only a lip service. In order to understand what was Hindu and Muslim law, the British decided to translate and codify it, it became fixed, and further, these were privileged over the vyavahara. They also started codification of other branches of law. While they had a so called ‘hands off’ approach to personal law, as for law regarding property, contracts they did not see readymade codes in place. They decided that those are the areas where they would themselves codify the law.
We should not forget that the period when Warren Hastings and Cornwallis were in India was also the period of the emergence of utilitarianism in England. James Mill, Jeremy Bentham etc were also great codifiers in their own right. It accelerated the codification of Indian law. The utilitarians believed that the body of common law developing in England was inadequate to deal with poverty thrown up by industrialization in England itself. They were great promoters of Poor Laws providing some benefits to working class in whatever way. The big laboratory for codification was India. The first Law Commission was setup in India in 1834 and the second Law Commission in 1853 and the main job of these commissions was prepare the codes. The amorphous body of English Common Law by which I mean the body of case law with various principles which was never codified in England itself was done for the first time in India.
You would be surprised to know that Indian codification went back to England in certain cases to assist in their codification nearly a century later. Thus, India was a major laboratory for codification for the British. They then used it to export it to all other colonies including the home country itself. For example the Trust Act was first codified in India and then went back to England. They codified the law relating to contracts, sale of goods, transfer of property, trusts and of course criminal law. In the Mughal courts they had their own criminal law and all that changed after 1858.
At the same time whenever issues came about taxes owed to the state arising out of Permanent Settlement, huge amount of litigation came up in Bengal, Bihar and Awadh in the Calcutta court. This required that property be put on the market for sale to recover the revenue. This in turn required the tweaking of traditional Hindu and Muslim Laws. Property was personal and private and its alienation was very difficult in pre-British times. The capacity of the karta of the Hindu undivided family to alienate was greatly assisted by the British courts. The body of Hindu law l law, really became a modified one, now referred to as the Anglo-Hindu law and Anglo-Muslim law because these were not the pure Hindu law and Muslim law that existed before the British times. The right to alienate served the British colonial interests. The doctrine of lapse also went against the older theory of kingship that existed in India but it was upheld by the Privy Council. The rights of zamindar, the duties of the zamindar - all these changed.
In areas which were not strictly personal law as understood by the British they felt free to legislate. After 1858 over the next 30 years they carried out a lot of legislation. For example, in 1860 they legislated the Indian Penal Code, the Societies Registration Act and little later in 1867 the Press and Registration of Books Act. British knew from their experience of the trade unions in their country that when the trade union movement shifted from an early Luddite position to a more advanced one, the organization of workers to fight for their rights became very important. Organisation was power, so the law declared that a group of people cannot form an organisation unless they are registered with the state. The British had done that in UK some dacades earlier.
SK: Plus they had seen organization among Indians in 1857.
KS: Yes, plus the power of propaganda, and so they found the need to enact the Press and Registration of Books Act. The three laws they brought in immediately after 1857 were these - to criminalise any kind of action against the state. The Criminal Procedure and Civil Procedure codes (1872) were then brought in. It is said that procedures are handmaids for justice, which is no doubt true. Instead of the ad hocism of court procedure in pre-British times, this was systematized. Once you have a centralized administration you cannot have panchayats in different areas doing things in their own way. The rules were created by a centralized power.
SK: What are procedures?
KS: In the civil side, for example, broadly that you must hear both the parties - that the other side must have a chance to file its written statement following the filing of the plaint; that the parties must exchange documents - so documents become very important, supplying the list of witnesses etc. The procedure becomes long drawn and each time the judge must decide what is relevant/irrelevant. The judge has to frame issues on which alone he will focus his mind and give a decision. In the criminal side there must be a FIR, there must be an offence under which you are charged, then you must be tried, who could be called as witness etc.
Broadly the laws of the 1860s were very much geared towards consolidating the colonial state; in the 1870s and 1880s it was consolidating the empire and hence the laws relating to contracts, sale of goods, trusts, telegraphs etc, which assisted the building of the economic empire. The other law that helped in the consolidation of the empire was the Land Acquisition Act (1894), which gave the power of eminent domain to the state to acquire land.
SK: Did the power of eminent domain not exist in the state in pre-British times?
KS: I do not think it existed in this far reaching form. The power of the state to levy a maximum of one third share of the produce existed but that you could completely dispossess somebody’s property to hand over to a third person does not seems to have been broadly practiced. Of course in times of war, etc requisitioning would have happened. But the British took it to new heights of acquiring land for all the major projects that the empire required like railways, industry etc. The irony is that they would acquire land in the name of the public interest and then hand it over to a private party also. The Telegraph Act was passed, the postal system was setup, a monopoly was created in communications. All this helped the empire.
Then came the legislation relating to the setting up of companies and regulating conditions in factories. I also want to mention the Workman’s Breach of Contract Act (1859). It enabled them to provide labour to serve the purposes of the British Empire the world over through indentured labour. They needed labour in the West Indies, Malaya, Sri Lanka, Africa etc. Agents would go to the villages and recruit. May be they did not capture and kidnap as was done for the slave trade in Africa but short of that everything else was done. Recruited workers were sent away on this major voyage. As Marx said the modern worker was ‘free’ in a double sense. He is ‘free’ from all property and he is ‘free’ to enter or not to enter into a wage contract. But in India the worker was not free to choose his employer. He would be criminally charged with breach of contract if he tried to abandon his employment and employer.
Thus the changes in the law between 1850’s to 1890’s consolidated the British colonial state in India. It disempowered the people. There were also laws that consolidated the economic might of the empire. This set the stage for rapid industrialization of India.
SK: What about the Arms Act (1878)?
KS: The main effect of that was to disarm the people by prohibiting the carrying of arms without a ‘licence’. In the American constitution the right to bear and carry arms has been seen as a residual right that people retain which has still not been taken away. But the British colonial theory never recognized this right. The British constitutional theory was based on the Austinian notion of a centralized authority which has all sovereign power and a subject has only those powers that are given back to him/her. The notion of an inherent liberty by virtue of being a human which were recognised by the French and American constitutions were not accepted in India. You only had the rights given to you by the crown. The colonial state formation had been a disempowering process.
SK: What about militias and Yeomen rising up to assist the state when there is a serious external threat?
KS: That may have existed in feudal times but as the modern nation state emerged, the sole monopoly and prerogative to inflict violence exists with the state. The right of the people to resort to violence would be a lawless act as you would “taking the law into your own hands”. In a very limited way the right of private defence was recognized. When somebody attacked you, you could use equal force to repel that person. But that could be done in a purely reactive way, not independently.
SK: You mentioned that they purportedly stayed away from the Hindu and Muslim Law but what was their attitude towards the huge mass of adivasis who belonged to neither? How did they interact with them their rights, customs, forms of state etc?
KS: As British territory increased (many princely states had far more progressive legislations than British India) as they came in contact with tribal communities. They just dealt with them using their full military might and colonial laws. For example they took over forests as crown property and created reserved forests, protected forests etc. Forest dwellers then became intruders who did not have any legal rights because they did not have systems of private property ownership which other communities may have had. It was a complete takeover of the natural resources.
SK: It was akin to what they did with Native Indians and Aborigines elsewhere.
KS: Yes.
SK: Clearly British intervention changed things fundamentally especially regarding conception of property rights but what happened during the earlier interventions by the Turks, Pathans, Mughals etc. How did they deal with the existing system?
KS: I am unable to answer this question fully but the existence of pluralism in many parts of India, even after the advent of these rulers indicates that much of the earlier legal regimes continued with some changes. It was certainly not the kind of seismic shift seen under the British.
SK: Could you speak about the colonial roots of Indian labour law?
KS: Who has the right to be a worker and employed is determined by the employers and that is something that labour law recognises. That is why it is not worker friendly. For example when capitalism and colonialism wanted expansion of employment they would drag persons away and compel them to work. One had the slavery system as practiced in Africa where literally a net was thrown over captured slaves and they were dragged off. In India they were not so crude (slavery had been abolished in England) but in every state there would be agents, jamadars, sardars who would go village to village recruiting workers. They were completely regulated by the British state because they wanted labour for plantations in India and for the whole empire. At that time you had to work and breaking out of your employment was considered a criminal act. However when the recession struck as in the 1890’s or in 1920’s labour law shifted away from trying to get more workers and recognized the inherent right of the employer to lay off or dismiss. Suddenly the contract of employment becomes a contract freely entered into with a free exit. So the job security that workers wanted has never been recognized. To the extent that workers are organized and have won some rights, there is some amount of redundancy and retrenchment compensation. So the inevitable is only postponed for a period in order that the worker can go out and look for another job. Labour law has this aspect that it accommodates the cycles of capitalism. Today we are told that labour law is inflexible and we need an exit policy and that is the problem with Indian industry. That is not always so. Problems with Indian industry have very little to do with the labour law.
SK: The impact of colonialism on Indian society is a fascinating subject as much of it lingers on to this day as a colonial legacy. We will continue this later too. Thank you.
Notes:
John Austin: John Austin (1790-1859) is considered by many to be the creator of the school of analytical jurisprudence, as well as, more specifically, the approach to law known as “legal positivism.” His work “Province of Jurisprudence Determined” (1832) had a far reaching impact. He greatly influenced his associates, Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, John Stuart Mill and Thomas Carlyle. According to 20th century theorists like H L A Hart, “Austin's influence on the development of England of [Jurisprudence] has been greater than that of any other writer”.
Sadr Dīwānī Adālat:
In Mughal and British India, a high court of civil and revenue jurisdiction. It was instituted by Warren Hastings, the British governor-general, in 1772. It sat in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and was the final court of appeal in civil matters; it consisted of the governor-general and two members of his council.
This high civil court, like its counterpart for criminal jurisdiction—the Sadr Nizāmat Adālat—was abolished after the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58, and its powers and jurisdiction were transferred to new high courts of judicature set up by the Indian High Courts Act of 1861.
(From http://www.ghadar.in/, Excerpts of this interview appeared in the quarterly magazine Ghadar Jari Hai--The Revolt Continues, Vol III, No. 1&2, Jan-June 2009)
Friday, June 26, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Obit: Rajeev Motwani
I have just learned of the tragic death of Rajeev, at his home in Palo Alto on June 5, 2009.
It is shocking to say the least.
In my interactions with him I found him brilliant, child like, with a great sense of humour and genuine regard for people who helped him and inspired him in his life.
He was very good at explaining complex things in a simple manner.
From a theoretical computer scientist he had started calling him self a "start-up junkie", because of his enthusiasm in mentoring new entrepreneurs.
He was a classmate of Sharukh Khan, the Indian film star, in school and had great respect for him.
In his self effacing style he would say, 'that guy (Sharukh) is brilliant and will be the No.1 in anything he takes up'. Pushing into background his own remarkable intellectual achievements.
My heartfelt condolences to his family.
shivanand
See the brief profile I had written about him in 2004 at:
http://reflections-shivanand.blogspot.com/2007/08/rajiv-motwani.html
It is shocking to say the least.
In my interactions with him I found him brilliant, child like, with a great sense of humour and genuine regard for people who helped him and inspired him in his life.
He was very good at explaining complex things in a simple manner.
From a theoretical computer scientist he had started calling him self a "start-up junkie", because of his enthusiasm in mentoring new entrepreneurs.
He was a classmate of Sharukh Khan, the Indian film star, in school and had great respect for him.
In his self effacing style he would say, 'that guy (Sharukh) is brilliant and will be the No.1 in anything he takes up'. Pushing into background his own remarkable intellectual achievements.
My heartfelt condolences to his family.
shivanand
See the brief profile I had written about him in 2004 at:
http://reflections-shivanand.blogspot.com/2007/08/rajiv-motwani.html
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Obama, Indo-US Nuclear deal
A piece by Chidanand Rajghatta, Foreign Editor, Times of India, based in Washington, which has quoted me.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/US/US-casts-shadow-on-nuke-deal-with-hardline-appointments/articleshow/4609970.cms
Obama picks are cool to US-India nuclear deal
3 Jun 2009, 0030 hrs IST,
Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
WASHINGTON: The Obama administration on Monday named hardline non-proliferation warrior Robert Einhorn as the US State Department's special advisor for non-proliferation and arms control amid disquiet in business circles on whether the choice, along with other picks for key posts, will push the US-India civilian nuclear deal into cold storage.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced her choice of Einhorn, a former Assistant Secretary of State for non-proliferation during the Administration of her husband Bill Clinton, as her advisor, saying he and his staff will "provide advice...on non-proliferation and arms controls issues, and will help develop and implement Administration policies and diplomatic strategies in those areas."
Einhorn, known as an unrelenting non-proliferation and arms control hawk, worked in the State Department for 29 years before retirement, and was a trenchant critic of the US-India nuclear deal. Jocularly called the "grand ayatollah" of non-proliferation, he argued that the Bush administration gave away the house to India in order to build a strategic relationship with India at the risk of undermining non-proliferation regimes.
"In seeking to make India an exception to longstanding non-proliferation rules, the Bush administration has given India virtually all that it wanted and has run major risks with the future of the non-proliferation regime," he told the senate foreign relations committee in one of the several hearings on the subject.
The choice of Einhorn as Clinton's advisor, coming after the naming of former Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher as the administration's Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and Timothy Roemer as US envoy to New Delhi, has cast a shadow on burgeoning US-India ties, specifically the US-India nuclear deal.
All three are considered hard-line non-proliferationists in the old Democratic mold, and business groups both in US and India are uneasy that they would put a spanner in the works of nuclear energy collaboration that some estimates put at over $150 billion over the next three decades.
An American commercial nuclear mission with 60 executives from 30 companies visited India earlier this year amid apprehension that US firms are behind the curve in capitalizing on the nuclear deal because of bureaucratic hitches in Washington and New Delhi, even as other countries are racing ahead. France and Kazakhstan are among countries that have sped forward with civilian nuclear collaboration with India.
Those hurdles might get even harder if past record is anything to go by. Former Indian officials hold Einhorn principally responsible for putting India in the nuclear doghouse for decades along with many proliferating nations despite its spotless record of on-proliferation. Ironically, they say, some of the most egregious acts of proliferation, including Chinese supply of nuclear technology and material to Pakistan, and A.Q.Khan network's proliferation to North Korea, Iran, Libya, and al-Qaida, among others, took place on Einhorn's watch.
However, a current official described Einhorn as a "pragmatist" with whom they have developed a working relationship. Speaking on background, the official suggested it was a "different era" in US-India ties and there were foreign policy interests that had to be taken into consideration by non-proliferationists. Another former official, T.P.Sreenivasan, a visiting fellow at Brookings Institutions, also said Einhorn was someone New Delhi "regularly exchanged ideas with" and saw no difficulty in engaging him. "He understands us," Sreenivasan said.
Some analysts suggest that formation of the Tauscher-Einhorn team is directed more against North Korea, Pakistan and other proliferators, and India has been moved out of the rogue's gallery. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton voted for the nuclear deal when they were Senators (despite some reservations) and they are unlikely to undermine it, especially as it involves US commercial interests at a time of grave economic crisis.
"There is nothing to be alarmed about. We have got most of what we wanted in terms of global sanctions on nuclear trade having been lifted. Agreements already signed with Kazakhstan, France and Russia for Uranium and reactors. Now the ball is in US court," says Shivanand Kanavi, a business writer from Mumbai who has followed the nuclear deal closely and is writing a book on the Indian nuclear industry.
The Tauscher-Einhorn team is also expected to advance Washington’s multilateral non-proliferation agenda - including the ban in nuclear testing and the capping of fissile material - which have been revived by the Obama administration after the Bush White House had put it in cold storage for eight years. Kanavi does not expect too much pressure on India on this front either, saying "there is a long way to go before consensus is achieved on pacts such as NPT, CTBT, and FMCT, and they are replaced or re-architected."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/US/US-casts-shadow-on-nuke-deal-with-hardline-appointments/articleshow/4609970.cms
Obama picks are cool to US-India nuclear deal
3 Jun 2009, 0030 hrs IST,
Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
WASHINGTON: The Obama administration on Monday named hardline non-proliferation warrior Robert Einhorn as the US State Department's special advisor for non-proliferation and arms control amid disquiet in business circles on whether the choice, along with other picks for key posts, will push the US-India civilian nuclear deal into cold storage.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced her choice of Einhorn, a former Assistant Secretary of State for non-proliferation during the Administration of her husband Bill Clinton, as her advisor, saying he and his staff will "provide advice...on non-proliferation and arms controls issues, and will help develop and implement Administration policies and diplomatic strategies in those areas."
Einhorn, known as an unrelenting non-proliferation and arms control hawk, worked in the State Department for 29 years before retirement, and was a trenchant critic of the US-India nuclear deal. Jocularly called the "grand ayatollah" of non-proliferation, he argued that the Bush administration gave away the house to India in order to build a strategic relationship with India at the risk of undermining non-proliferation regimes.
"In seeking to make India an exception to longstanding non-proliferation rules, the Bush administration has given India virtually all that it wanted and has run major risks with the future of the non-proliferation regime," he told the senate foreign relations committee in one of the several hearings on the subject.
The choice of Einhorn as Clinton's advisor, coming after the naming of former Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher as the administration's Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and Timothy Roemer as US envoy to New Delhi, has cast a shadow on burgeoning US-India ties, specifically the US-India nuclear deal.
All three are considered hard-line non-proliferationists in the old Democratic mold, and business groups both in US and India are uneasy that they would put a spanner in the works of nuclear energy collaboration that some estimates put at over $150 billion over the next three decades.
An American commercial nuclear mission with 60 executives from 30 companies visited India earlier this year amid apprehension that US firms are behind the curve in capitalizing on the nuclear deal because of bureaucratic hitches in Washington and New Delhi, even as other countries are racing ahead. France and Kazakhstan are among countries that have sped forward with civilian nuclear collaboration with India.
Those hurdles might get even harder if past record is anything to go by. Former Indian officials hold Einhorn principally responsible for putting India in the nuclear doghouse for decades along with many proliferating nations despite its spotless record of on-proliferation. Ironically, they say, some of the most egregious acts of proliferation, including Chinese supply of nuclear technology and material to Pakistan, and A.Q.Khan network's proliferation to North Korea, Iran, Libya, and al-Qaida, among others, took place on Einhorn's watch.
However, a current official described Einhorn as a "pragmatist" with whom they have developed a working relationship. Speaking on background, the official suggested it was a "different era" in US-India ties and there were foreign policy interests that had to be taken into consideration by non-proliferationists. Another former official, T.P.Sreenivasan, a visiting fellow at Brookings Institutions, also said Einhorn was someone New Delhi "regularly exchanged ideas with" and saw no difficulty in engaging him. "He understands us," Sreenivasan said.
Some analysts suggest that formation of the Tauscher-Einhorn team is directed more against North Korea, Pakistan and other proliferators, and India has been moved out of the rogue's gallery. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton voted for the nuclear deal when they were Senators (despite some reservations) and they are unlikely to undermine it, especially as it involves US commercial interests at a time of grave economic crisis.
"There is nothing to be alarmed about. We have got most of what we wanted in terms of global sanctions on nuclear trade having been lifted. Agreements already signed with Kazakhstan, France and Russia for Uranium and reactors. Now the ball is in US court," says Shivanand Kanavi, a business writer from Mumbai who has followed the nuclear deal closely and is writing a book on the Indian nuclear industry.
The Tauscher-Einhorn team is also expected to advance Washington’s multilateral non-proliferation agenda - including the ban in nuclear testing and the capping of fissile material - which have been revived by the Obama administration after the Bush White House had put it in cold storage for eight years. Kanavi does not expect too much pressure on India on this front either, saying "there is a long way to go before consensus is achieved on pacts such as NPT, CTBT, and FMCT, and they are replaced or re-architected."
Monday, April 13, 2009
Poetry: From the bottom of my sole
The recent spate of shoe throwing at various leaders to register protest, reminded me of an old poem written by my father Chennaveera Kanavi, in Kannada, circa Emergency 1975.
“LISTEN TO ME, I AM TELLING YOU”
By CHENNAVEERA KANAVI
For God’s sake, why do you spread false news?
Honestly, nobody threw chappals at me in the recent meeting.
I am speaking absolute truth!
Even if they did, I never saw it.
This is the really real truth.
No. they didn’t hit me at all.
Please don’t believe what they say.
simply because it appears in the papers.
Read the stuff and then consign it to flames.
Are these paper-fellows, are they lily-white?
They announce the happening of what could have happened!
Never mind if it happened or not, it is news all the same.
Yes, it is true that I saw someone wave a black flag,
because black stands out amidst white caps!
But what’s wrong with it?
wasn’t there a huge audience that day?
After all, my speech is not dirt-cheap, is it?
In such a commotion,
don’t you think it is but natural
if someone were to transfer what is on feet to the hand,
and then transfer it from hand to the head?
If I am right, why all this hullabaloo
about the chappals being aimed at me ?
All right, granting that they threw chappals:
why not assume that they were playing a game
of throwing and catching chappals ? Tell me.
You may insist
I was the target.
may I then ask you a question?
Did they get the chappals specially made for them?
They were bought in some shop,
and worn out after so many days’ walking,
now apparently torn, and flung with force. All right.
please, what is the point of taking out anger here
whereas its cause lay elsewhere?
If they opened fire in Gujarat, why should they hiss angrily here?
The price-rise, the decline of self-respect and dignity
and double-talk
they belong everywhere and still occur.
Are they our exclusive property ?
Look at Bihar, how they, sealing their lips with cloth bands,
joining hands behind their back, took processions.
Well, even the papers reported all this.
Following them, we should shut our mouths and keep mum,
and there lies smartness.
Just one more word, please listen: the chappal-throwing is over
wouldn’t it be fair if they were presented with new chappals ?
What do you say?
(From Inviting Life—Chennaveera Kanavi’s Poetry, Translated by Prof. K. Raghavendra Rao, Sahitya Akademi)
“LISTEN TO ME, I AM TELLING YOU”
By CHENNAVEERA KANAVI
For God’s sake, why do you spread false news?
Honestly, nobody threw chappals at me in the recent meeting.
I am speaking absolute truth!
Even if they did, I never saw it.
This is the really real truth.
No. they didn’t hit me at all.
Please don’t believe what they say.
simply because it appears in the papers.
Read the stuff and then consign it to flames.
Are these paper-fellows, are they lily-white?
They announce the happening of what could have happened!
Never mind if it happened or not, it is news all the same.
Yes, it is true that I saw someone wave a black flag,
because black stands out amidst white caps!
But what’s wrong with it?
wasn’t there a huge audience that day?
After all, my speech is not dirt-cheap, is it?
In such a commotion,
don’t you think it is but natural
if someone were to transfer what is on feet to the hand,
and then transfer it from hand to the head?
If I am right, why all this hullabaloo
about the chappals being aimed at me ?
All right, granting that they threw chappals:
why not assume that they were playing a game
of throwing and catching chappals ? Tell me.
You may insist
I was the target.
may I then ask you a question?
Did they get the chappals specially made for them?
They were bought in some shop,
and worn out after so many days’ walking,
now apparently torn, and flung with force. All right.
please, what is the point of taking out anger here
whereas its cause lay elsewhere?
If they opened fire in Gujarat, why should they hiss angrily here?
The price-rise, the decline of self-respect and dignity
and double-talk
they belong everywhere and still occur.
Are they our exclusive property ?
Look at Bihar, how they, sealing their lips with cloth bands,
joining hands behind their back, took processions.
Well, even the papers reported all this.
Following them, we should shut our mouths and keep mum,
and there lies smartness.
Just one more word, please listen: the chappal-throwing is over
wouldn’t it be fair if they were presented with new chappals ?
What do you say?
(From Inviting Life—Chennaveera Kanavi’s Poetry, Translated by Prof. K. Raghavendra Rao, Sahitya Akademi)
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Interview: Dr D P Agrawal; History of Indian Science and Technology
Peepul ke Neeche
History of Indian Science and Technology
Conversation with D P Agrawal
Dharma Pal Agrawal is a distinguished scientist. During his tenure at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research(TIFR), Mumbai, and Physical Research Laboratory(PRL), Ahmedabad he made outstanding contributions to using scientific techniques like radio carbon dating and thermo luminiscence to fixing the age of archeological artifacts. In fact he brought in a flavour of hard science to Indian archeology. He has also been deeply committed to reconstructing the history of Indian science and technology, which has been ignored by eurocentric historians. Shivanand Kanavi met him at Almora, where Agrawal currently leads Lok Vigyan Kendra to carry out research into the past as well as train a future generation of enquirers.
Shivanand: Dr Agrawal welcome to Peepul ke Neeche. To start with I would like to ask you about one of your current preoccupations with the History of Indian Science and Technology. How did this love or almost an obsession start?
D P Agrawal: In fact, my fascination with primitive technologies goes back about thirty years. I was working on ancient metal technologies of the Harappans, the Chalcolithic cultures and even before that I was working on Stone Age flaking of tools. For example, taking out long stone blades starts from the Upper Paleolithic times (older than 100,000 years). This continued up to the Harappan times. He produced up to six inch long blades, sharp as a razor. You can even shave with them! For a lot of tasks these stone tools were used as arrows, knives, spears, even harrows for digging the earth. So it seems to me that the story starts there.
The Harappans were using quite a bit of copper. In fact, if you compare them with other copper-bronze age cultures in India, they had the most abundant copper. Pure copper is soft. So you cannot use it as a knife. You can hammer it and anneal it, but after a few hammerings it becomes brittle. So they must have combined some minerals bearing arsenic and tin with those bearing copper and the result was bronze. Now we know if we mix 1-5% arsenic with copper it imparts hardness, also some ductility. Later on they also found that if you add a little bit of lead then you would improve its fusibility. So I started looking at these things when I was at TIFR. We found that the Harappans were using tin alloys, arsenic alloys, adding lead to improve fusibility for casting.
Later on I got interested in how climate changed over the last few million years and we carried out a big project in Kashmir which was a huge lake. So the sediments are there like pages of the book. You can keep turning and you can go back 4 million years. It took us ten years. We wanted to continue but we started getting threats from terrorists, so we had to quit.
Why did they see you as a threat?
It was peculiar. Since we were working with the Department of Atomic Energy for logistical reasons, they said ‘you are making atom bombs to kill us, so we will kill you’. But the people there were extremely friendly and even today if we go there we must meet those families. If they know that you had come but did not meet them, they will be very angry.
I always wanted to document and publish the history of science and technology in India and we were conscious of monumental series on Chinese Science and Civilisation by Joseph Needham. That earned a place in the sun for China’s science otherwise the west never recognized the oriental sciences. But as far as India was concerned the British always denigrated Indian science, technology, its heritage. They claimed that they came here to civilize us. But we had the Indus civilization in the third millennium BC when they were barbarians! I thought that we should publish a series of books bringing out the material evidence about science and technology in India, because if we use literary sources there can be interpretations of all kinds.
Dating the Indian records is a problem.
Yes. Even the measurement of angula is a problem. There are many versions of it. Luckily we have some actual scales in the Harappan sites and we can measure the divisions. In the first stage we wanted to base ourselves on the material evidence, archeological evidence, actual artifacts etc. That is how we started on copper technology, on Harappan architecture, on zinc or iron and so on. Now we have 16 volumes commissioned. Some more will be commissioned.
How did your association with Rajiv Malhotra and Infinity Foundation start?
It was a chance meeting. I used to go to a round table meeting at Harvard University. In the guest house I was staying Rajiv was also there but I did not know him and I thought he was another professor. The round table was mostly about linguistics, archeology, genetics etc of South Asia and West Asia. When I suggested to Rajiv Malhotra that we should have a series like Joseph Needham’s, he liked the idea. Then only he told me that they have a foundation and that they are funding some projects etc. He asked me to produce a 10 page proposal on which we would work. After that the whole thing started.
What are the problems in researching in this area and where have we made positive achievements in recording it?
I would like to see a balanced global history of science and technology so that we can recognize the contributions of different countries, be it China, France, India or England. Dharampal, the Gandhian, showed that up to the 18th century we had a lot of technologies. We could do plastic surgery; make ice, produce high quality steel, textiles and so on. Of course, we could not only produce Taj Mahal but also complex irrigation systems of Shringverpur (near Allahabad).
Then we also found Zawar mines in Rajasthan with huge retorts and commercial scale pure zinc production. Gradually we also noticed that in the Indus valley, they developed hydraulics, engineering and metrology but nobody talked about these things. So we said it is time somebody looked into these things and produced individual histories of these technologies like zinc, copper, iron, architecture, civil engineering etc. Then we realised that not only copper but right up to the 18th century we were producing steel of very high quality. British used to import it and used it in some very important bridges which Vibha Tripathi has mentioned in her book on iron technology. They were making high quality razors using Indian steel in Sheffield. Local people of Kumaun told me that in Lohaghat they used to make stainless steel kadhais. In Karnatak and Andhra regions they were producing special types of steel. It became so famous that it was traded globally and one of the mandis was Damascus. It was of such high quality that when Alexander came here in 4th century BCE, he was presented with 100 talents of steel (talent= 34.3 Kg). It was considered so precious. Then there are records that Persian kings Darius, Xerxes etc up to 6th century BCE used to import Indian iron for making swords etc. So it had already achieved so much fame.
The other curious thing is that though in the folk legends or in our historical writing we do not find any reference to the Indus civilization, but if you go by the technological traditions then you can trace everything from the Harappan substratum. The angula (unit of measurement) for example or the hexadecimal system (1 rupee is 16 annas), ser and chhatak (measure of grain), 16 mutthis to a nali (measure of land) all this goes back to the Harappan times. Now Dr Balasubramaniam has shown that it continues right up to the historical times. The iron pillar of Delhi he has shown that the same system of measurements was used.
Even our water ablutions for example can be traced back to Harappan times. Sindoor and even the toiletry assemblage of a tooth pick, an ear cleaner and a tweezer, can be found in the Harappan sites. In Kaliabangan, Rajasthan for example they used parallel furrows in the fields. On one side they grew peas and gram on the other side mustard. Mustard is the bigger plant and it should not throw its shadow over the peas. So they grew it in such a manner that peas throw the shadow over mustard and not the other way around. This way you can grow two crops. That continues till today. If you see even present day houses in that area in the mud flooring they had put burnt terracotta balls and charcoal. When we asked the engineers there they said it does not allow termites to enter the house and it does not allow moisture. This again is a technology that goes back to Harappan times. The Harappan houses had a square shape with rooms all around with an open shaft, the air conditioning people told us that this ensures air circulation that keeps the house cool. We knew how to fight the hot weather. The main entrance to the house is in the narrow lane and the wider side of the street is closed. If you go to the lanes of Benares, even in June they are cool. The lanes are too narrow so the sun cannot beat down and there is always some wind blowing. In Rajasthan again they never use a plain wall; they break it with some stone work. If there is a flat surface you absorb a lot of heat so you break it. These are devices which Indians used to deal with the weather. All this comes right from the Harappan times.
Harappan mystery, how this great culture flourished? We have material remains of their culture but what were their thoughts, what was their state? At the same time we have this heritage of Vedic literature. Some have found similarities between the two and some have argued against it. What is your view on that?
I would not claim expertise in ancient Sanskrit, but from whatever translations we have been reading about the Vedic society, it seems to have been a pastoral type. It is mainly rural and not an urban society at all which comes out loud and clear. It is dominated by priests, who had large pieces of land to sustain a large number of cattle etc. They also had a very important place for the horse, which is totally missing in the Harappan culture. If you go into their religion, the Vedic gods are all natural gods, like agni, vayu, marut etc which seems very animistic. Whereas the Harappan religion is iconic; one can see proto-Siva, Pashupati as the preserver of animals, Yogeshwar Siva is shown in a yogic pose. Then one has Mahishasur Mardini, worship of banyan tree, peepul tree etc. The basic substratum of Indian society, be it religious, cultural, technological, architectural etc can be traced back to the Harappan civilization. So it seems the Aryan phase is a bit intrusive in our history. It comes and then becomes the dominant culture, the priests, Brahmanas etc. Later on it becomes fashionable to trace your ancestry to Aryans . I will give an example from Kumaon. Here all the powerful gods are local. You can see Golu Devata, Nanda, even Badrinath, these are not Aryan Brahmanical gods. When Shankaracharya came here they incorporated them into the Brahmanical system. The local goddess Nanda became the consort of Shiva (Parvati). Tribal, primitive gods were incorporated into the Hindu pantheon of Brahma-Vishnu-Mahesh or their consorts. The same thing happens in the case of the Harappan gods. Later on they have been incorporated in some form into Brahmanism. In the tablets and seals you can see them. Even actual replica of Shivaling has been found in Kaliabangan. Most of the beliefs that we have in fertility goddesses etc go back to the Harappans. In between an interlude comes which breaks the tradition of urban civilization. We forgot the making of wells, cities etc. Around 18th-19th century BCE this starts happening. Something happens which breaks the tradition and a new one starts and sooner or later it merges with the old.
You have proposed that just as we had northwestern influences, we had north eastern ones also.
Yes. We have not gone into it deeper. Dr Vasudha Pant is working on history of plant domestication. Recent excavations carried out by Allahabad University and the Dept of Archeology, UP, at various sites yielded iron from 1500 BCE. Either we had independent development of rice or it had something to do with the Chinese.
What do you see as important challenges before Indian archeologists and historians, where further work is required, where gaps are?
If you take the archeological scene there is the peak of Harappan civilization and then something happens around 1900 BC and no more cities. People forget many things; whether there was a major climatic change or new people came is not certain. But you cannot decimate people, they move; the culture transforms. The transformation of Harappan culture into later cultures needs to be investigated. We have to excavate more sites in the western part of the Ganga valley, Haryana etc. Now Prof Osada of Kyoto and Prof Shinde of Deccan College are doing some work in Haryana and are finding sites which show transition of cultures. Eastern Punjab, Haryana, Western UP, would be very interesting.
What about Central, Eastern and Southern India?
Deccan College, Jeewan Kharakwal of Udaipur, Osada of Kyoto these are some of the groups working there.
1900 BC to 600 BCE is one gap which needs to be filled.
That is right. The second urbanization comes around 6th century BCE, the first goes back to third millennium BC and the degeneration starts around 18th-19th C BCE. So what happened in between? The other important area is peninsular India. We have very good sites of Stone Age there. We have very good examples of Neolithic culture there.
What period does Neolithic signify?
When we talk about the Stone Age it could be as far back as I million years ago. We have extensive Stone Age artifacts there. But the Neolithic will be more like third millennium BCE when they were using ground stone axes, beginning of agriculture and domestication of animals. Then we find megalithic cultures which probably starts around 1000 BCE.
What are the characteristics of megalithic cultures?
Mega means big, lithos means stone. Huge stones they have used for burials. They also put a lot of iron artifacts in the burials. Dating is a little controversial. Earlier it was thought that it could be 3rd C BCE. But some of the thermo luminescence dates are going back to 1200 BCE. But iron there is about 700-800 BC. There is a lot of iron in each grave.
Which are the important sites of megaliths in the peninsular India?
Brahmagiri, Tadakanhalli and in fact all over the south with different types of megaliths in different regions. In Kerala they have dolmens. But a society which produced so much iron, must be an urbanized society. Must have produced a lot of agricultural surplus, but where are those sites? Megaliths are so spectacular and give such rich yield in terms of artifacts that you go after them and do not go into the habitation sites. What sort of people generated these megaliths? What sort of society was there has to be investigated. Also what is the history of agriculture itself in the South? At the moment you have three broad divisions; North-wheat and barley, East-rice, South-millets. But what was the relationship of south with Africa with which it had sea borne trade, contacts.
In the south there are lots of challenging problems which we need to investigate especially the changes in the settlement patterns, even history of technology.
And their maritime contacts....
Yes their maritime contacts which go back to pre-historic times. From Roman times we have quite a bit of evidence. My feeling is that this period studies are not getting the amount of attention they deserve so there are still those blanks.
And also northeast and eastern part of the country ...
In Assam some work was done by T C Sharma and A K Sharma. Problem there is the high rainfall and most of the sites are covered by forests and vegetation and difficult to dig. Conditions have always been disturbed there. That makes it dangerous for people from outside to work there.
Your training was in Chemistry. How and when did you turn to archeology?
I went into radiocarbon dating which was nuclear chemistry. When Willard Libby invented radiocarbon dating (he was awarded Nobel Prize for it) in the mid fifties. Nehru was very conscious of it and with his close relationship with Bhabha he said there is so much confusion about Indian chronology why not use this new method. So Bhabha took up the challenge and under the leadership of Prof D Lal a group was established. Lal went abroad and worked with Libby and we at TIFR were one of the earliest labs in the world. We went around different sites, collected samples, learnt about contamination. It was a very educative experience. We also developed the thermo-luminescence dating technique, in which my colleague Ashok Singhvi played a major role.
A couple of questions before we end this conversation today. All of us have been taught in school that there was an Aryan invasion, what is the archeological evidence for that? Second, what were the causes of decline of Harappan civilization?
The first is very controversial. What we know about Aryans is through literature and that also through the oral tradition. Equating that with archeological evidence is very difficult. Evidence after 1800 BC is clear that there is a cultural break. There are no more cities. Only village settlements. There is a degeneration, which could mean some new people came, perhaps Aryans. But there is no clear evidence in the Harappan towns that there was a major invasion . So if they came they came, in waves and somehow subjugated the natives. In the case of culture also there is birth, growth decay and death. This applies to Harappan culture also. We cannot say that Harappans were decimated. So some transformation took place. May be there was climatic change also and they moved to eastwards where there was more rainfall. But they could not adapt to monsoon ecology and hence decayed. It could be a combination.
You were also associated with Prof Yash Pal in writing the first paper on the lost river Saraswati, based on Landsat imagery. Can we say now that the Ghaggar system was the Saraswati mentioned in the Vedas?
We found that the Ghaggar dies somewhere near the coast. It is no longer a perennial river. Moreover in this area there were some tectonic disturbances which changed the direction and flow of the rivers. For example the Satluj which was a major tributary of the Ghaggar system was pirated by the Indus. Similarly paleoYamuna went into Ganga valley. So the Ghaggar died. .
The identification with Saraswati, how satisfactory is that?
That is more literary but the area they describe and the traditions associated with the Ghaggar seem to identify it with the Vedic Saraswati. However some want to identify the Harappans with the Saraswati only. They started calling it the Saraswati civilization. That is not right. Pakistan is a creation of the British so we cannot give away the Indus civilization because of that.
There is also a mirror reflection in Pakistan, which identifies the culture with West Asia rather than India.
Yes. Some people there even call it Moenjodaro because they think Mohenjodaro might identify it with Krishna and some people here say it is Saraswati civilization and not Indus. I do not understand the logic of both. The beginning of Indus civilization is in fact in Baluchistan in Mehargarh. How can you deny that?
We can only hope that if the relations between India and Pakistan improve then we could also have joint teams exploring archeology.
Yes I have also been mooting that idea. What is important for us is that the great Harappans are undeniably our ancestors. They are the first civilized people in this subcontinent. Now why do you worry whether they were Aryans, non-Aryans, Dravidians etc. Let us study them thoroughly and how they merged with later streams of Indian civilization. These are important issues and not any body’s political agenda.
(This interview appeared in Ghadar Jari Hai--The Revolt Continues, Vol II, No. 4, Oct-Dec 2008, see www.ghadar.in )
History of Indian Science and Technology
Conversation with D P Agrawal
Dharma Pal Agrawal is a distinguished scientist. During his tenure at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research(TIFR), Mumbai, and Physical Research Laboratory(PRL), Ahmedabad he made outstanding contributions to using scientific techniques like radio carbon dating and thermo luminiscence to fixing the age of archeological artifacts. In fact he brought in a flavour of hard science to Indian archeology. He has also been deeply committed to reconstructing the history of Indian science and technology, which has been ignored by eurocentric historians. Shivanand Kanavi met him at Almora, where Agrawal currently leads Lok Vigyan Kendra to carry out research into the past as well as train a future generation of enquirers.
Shivanand: Dr Agrawal welcome to Peepul ke Neeche. To start with I would like to ask you about one of your current preoccupations with the History of Indian Science and Technology. How did this love or almost an obsession start?
D P Agrawal: In fact, my fascination with primitive technologies goes back about thirty years. I was working on ancient metal technologies of the Harappans, the Chalcolithic cultures and even before that I was working on Stone Age flaking of tools. For example, taking out long stone blades starts from the Upper Paleolithic times (older than 100,000 years). This continued up to the Harappan times. He produced up to six inch long blades, sharp as a razor. You can even shave with them! For a lot of tasks these stone tools were used as arrows, knives, spears, even harrows for digging the earth. So it seems to me that the story starts there.
The Harappans were using quite a bit of copper. In fact, if you compare them with other copper-bronze age cultures in India, they had the most abundant copper. Pure copper is soft. So you cannot use it as a knife. You can hammer it and anneal it, but after a few hammerings it becomes brittle. So they must have combined some minerals bearing arsenic and tin with those bearing copper and the result was bronze. Now we know if we mix 1-5% arsenic with copper it imparts hardness, also some ductility. Later on they also found that if you add a little bit of lead then you would improve its fusibility. So I started looking at these things when I was at TIFR. We found that the Harappans were using tin alloys, arsenic alloys, adding lead to improve fusibility for casting.
Later on I got interested in how climate changed over the last few million years and we carried out a big project in Kashmir which was a huge lake. So the sediments are there like pages of the book. You can keep turning and you can go back 4 million years. It took us ten years. We wanted to continue but we started getting threats from terrorists, so we had to quit.
Why did they see you as a threat?
It was peculiar. Since we were working with the Department of Atomic Energy for logistical reasons, they said ‘you are making atom bombs to kill us, so we will kill you’. But the people there were extremely friendly and even today if we go there we must meet those families. If they know that you had come but did not meet them, they will be very angry.
I always wanted to document and publish the history of science and technology in India and we were conscious of monumental series on Chinese Science and Civilisation by Joseph Needham. That earned a place in the sun for China’s science otherwise the west never recognized the oriental sciences. But as far as India was concerned the British always denigrated Indian science, technology, its heritage. They claimed that they came here to civilize us. But we had the Indus civilization in the third millennium BC when they were barbarians! I thought that we should publish a series of books bringing out the material evidence about science and technology in India, because if we use literary sources there can be interpretations of all kinds.
Dating the Indian records is a problem.
Yes. Even the measurement of angula is a problem. There are many versions of it. Luckily we have some actual scales in the Harappan sites and we can measure the divisions. In the first stage we wanted to base ourselves on the material evidence, archeological evidence, actual artifacts etc. That is how we started on copper technology, on Harappan architecture, on zinc or iron and so on. Now we have 16 volumes commissioned. Some more will be commissioned.
How did your association with Rajiv Malhotra and Infinity Foundation start?
It was a chance meeting. I used to go to a round table meeting at Harvard University. In the guest house I was staying Rajiv was also there but I did not know him and I thought he was another professor. The round table was mostly about linguistics, archeology, genetics etc of South Asia and West Asia. When I suggested to Rajiv Malhotra that we should have a series like Joseph Needham’s, he liked the idea. Then only he told me that they have a foundation and that they are funding some projects etc. He asked me to produce a 10 page proposal on which we would work. After that the whole thing started.
What are the problems in researching in this area and where have we made positive achievements in recording it?
I would like to see a balanced global history of science and technology so that we can recognize the contributions of different countries, be it China, France, India or England. Dharampal, the Gandhian, showed that up to the 18th century we had a lot of technologies. We could do plastic surgery; make ice, produce high quality steel, textiles and so on. Of course, we could not only produce Taj Mahal but also complex irrigation systems of Shringverpur (near Allahabad).
Then we also found Zawar mines in Rajasthan with huge retorts and commercial scale pure zinc production. Gradually we also noticed that in the Indus valley, they developed hydraulics, engineering and metrology but nobody talked about these things. So we said it is time somebody looked into these things and produced individual histories of these technologies like zinc, copper, iron, architecture, civil engineering etc. Then we realised that not only copper but right up to the 18th century we were producing steel of very high quality. British used to import it and used it in some very important bridges which Vibha Tripathi has mentioned in her book on iron technology. They were making high quality razors using Indian steel in Sheffield. Local people of Kumaun told me that in Lohaghat they used to make stainless steel kadhais. In Karnatak and Andhra regions they were producing special types of steel. It became so famous that it was traded globally and one of the mandis was Damascus. It was of such high quality that when Alexander came here in 4th century BCE, he was presented with 100 talents of steel (talent= 34.3 Kg). It was considered so precious. Then there are records that Persian kings Darius, Xerxes etc up to 6th century BCE used to import Indian iron for making swords etc. So it had already achieved so much fame.
The other curious thing is that though in the folk legends or in our historical writing we do not find any reference to the Indus civilization, but if you go by the technological traditions then you can trace everything from the Harappan substratum. The angula (unit of measurement) for example or the hexadecimal system (1 rupee is 16 annas), ser and chhatak (measure of grain), 16 mutthis to a nali (measure of land) all this goes back to the Harappan times. Now Dr Balasubramaniam has shown that it continues right up to the historical times. The iron pillar of Delhi he has shown that the same system of measurements was used.
Even our water ablutions for example can be traced back to Harappan times. Sindoor and even the toiletry assemblage of a tooth pick, an ear cleaner and a tweezer, can be found in the Harappan sites. In Kaliabangan, Rajasthan for example they used parallel furrows in the fields. On one side they grew peas and gram on the other side mustard. Mustard is the bigger plant and it should not throw its shadow over the peas. So they grew it in such a manner that peas throw the shadow over mustard and not the other way around. This way you can grow two crops. That continues till today. If you see even present day houses in that area in the mud flooring they had put burnt terracotta balls and charcoal. When we asked the engineers there they said it does not allow termites to enter the house and it does not allow moisture. This again is a technology that goes back to Harappan times. The Harappan houses had a square shape with rooms all around with an open shaft, the air conditioning people told us that this ensures air circulation that keeps the house cool. We knew how to fight the hot weather. The main entrance to the house is in the narrow lane and the wider side of the street is closed. If you go to the lanes of Benares, even in June they are cool. The lanes are too narrow so the sun cannot beat down and there is always some wind blowing. In Rajasthan again they never use a plain wall; they break it with some stone work. If there is a flat surface you absorb a lot of heat so you break it. These are devices which Indians used to deal with the weather. All this comes right from the Harappan times.
Harappan mystery, how this great culture flourished? We have material remains of their culture but what were their thoughts, what was their state? At the same time we have this heritage of Vedic literature. Some have found similarities between the two and some have argued against it. What is your view on that?
I would not claim expertise in ancient Sanskrit, but from whatever translations we have been reading about the Vedic society, it seems to have been a pastoral type. It is mainly rural and not an urban society at all which comes out loud and clear. It is dominated by priests, who had large pieces of land to sustain a large number of cattle etc. They also had a very important place for the horse, which is totally missing in the Harappan culture. If you go into their religion, the Vedic gods are all natural gods, like agni, vayu, marut etc which seems very animistic. Whereas the Harappan religion is iconic; one can see proto-Siva, Pashupati as the preserver of animals, Yogeshwar Siva is shown in a yogic pose. Then one has Mahishasur Mardini, worship of banyan tree, peepul tree etc. The basic substratum of Indian society, be it religious, cultural, technological, architectural etc can be traced back to the Harappan civilization. So it seems the Aryan phase is a bit intrusive in our history. It comes and then becomes the dominant culture, the priests, Brahmanas etc. Later on it becomes fashionable to trace your ancestry to Aryans . I will give an example from Kumaon. Here all the powerful gods are local. You can see Golu Devata, Nanda, even Badrinath, these are not Aryan Brahmanical gods. When Shankaracharya came here they incorporated them into the Brahmanical system. The local goddess Nanda became the consort of Shiva (Parvati). Tribal, primitive gods were incorporated into the Hindu pantheon of Brahma-Vishnu-Mahesh or their consorts. The same thing happens in the case of the Harappan gods. Later on they have been incorporated in some form into Brahmanism. In the tablets and seals you can see them. Even actual replica of Shivaling has been found in Kaliabangan. Most of the beliefs that we have in fertility goddesses etc go back to the Harappans. In between an interlude comes which breaks the tradition of urban civilization. We forgot the making of wells, cities etc. Around 18th-19th century BCE this starts happening. Something happens which breaks the tradition and a new one starts and sooner or later it merges with the old.
You have proposed that just as we had northwestern influences, we had north eastern ones also.
Yes. We have not gone into it deeper. Dr Vasudha Pant is working on history of plant domestication. Recent excavations carried out by Allahabad University and the Dept of Archeology, UP, at various sites yielded iron from 1500 BCE. Either we had independent development of rice or it had something to do with the Chinese.
What do you see as important challenges before Indian archeologists and historians, where further work is required, where gaps are?
If you take the archeological scene there is the peak of Harappan civilization and then something happens around 1900 BC and no more cities. People forget many things; whether there was a major climatic change or new people came is not certain. But you cannot decimate people, they move; the culture transforms. The transformation of Harappan culture into later cultures needs to be investigated. We have to excavate more sites in the western part of the Ganga valley, Haryana etc. Now Prof Osada of Kyoto and Prof Shinde of Deccan College are doing some work in Haryana and are finding sites which show transition of cultures. Eastern Punjab, Haryana, Western UP, would be very interesting.
What about Central, Eastern and Southern India?
Deccan College, Jeewan Kharakwal of Udaipur, Osada of Kyoto these are some of the groups working there.
1900 BC to 600 BCE is one gap which needs to be filled.
That is right. The second urbanization comes around 6th century BCE, the first goes back to third millennium BC and the degeneration starts around 18th-19th C BCE. So what happened in between? The other important area is peninsular India. We have very good sites of Stone Age there. We have very good examples of Neolithic culture there.
What period does Neolithic signify?
When we talk about the Stone Age it could be as far back as I million years ago. We have extensive Stone Age artifacts there. But the Neolithic will be more like third millennium BCE when they were using ground stone axes, beginning of agriculture and domestication of animals. Then we find megalithic cultures which probably starts around 1000 BCE.
What are the characteristics of megalithic cultures?
Mega means big, lithos means stone. Huge stones they have used for burials. They also put a lot of iron artifacts in the burials. Dating is a little controversial. Earlier it was thought that it could be 3rd C BCE. But some of the thermo luminescence dates are going back to 1200 BCE. But iron there is about 700-800 BC. There is a lot of iron in each grave.
Which are the important sites of megaliths in the peninsular India?
Brahmagiri, Tadakanhalli and in fact all over the south with different types of megaliths in different regions. In Kerala they have dolmens. But a society which produced so much iron, must be an urbanized society. Must have produced a lot of agricultural surplus, but where are those sites? Megaliths are so spectacular and give such rich yield in terms of artifacts that you go after them and do not go into the habitation sites. What sort of people generated these megaliths? What sort of society was there has to be investigated. Also what is the history of agriculture itself in the South? At the moment you have three broad divisions; North-wheat and barley, East-rice, South-millets. But what was the relationship of south with Africa with which it had sea borne trade, contacts.
In the south there are lots of challenging problems which we need to investigate especially the changes in the settlement patterns, even history of technology.
And their maritime contacts....
Yes their maritime contacts which go back to pre-historic times. From Roman times we have quite a bit of evidence. My feeling is that this period studies are not getting the amount of attention they deserve so there are still those blanks.
And also northeast and eastern part of the country ...
In Assam some work was done by T C Sharma and A K Sharma. Problem there is the high rainfall and most of the sites are covered by forests and vegetation and difficult to dig. Conditions have always been disturbed there. That makes it dangerous for people from outside to work there.
Your training was in Chemistry. How and when did you turn to archeology?
I went into radiocarbon dating which was nuclear chemistry. When Willard Libby invented radiocarbon dating (he was awarded Nobel Prize for it) in the mid fifties. Nehru was very conscious of it and with his close relationship with Bhabha he said there is so much confusion about Indian chronology why not use this new method. So Bhabha took up the challenge and under the leadership of Prof D Lal a group was established. Lal went abroad and worked with Libby and we at TIFR were one of the earliest labs in the world. We went around different sites, collected samples, learnt about contamination. It was a very educative experience. We also developed the thermo-luminescence dating technique, in which my colleague Ashok Singhvi played a major role.
A couple of questions before we end this conversation today. All of us have been taught in school that there was an Aryan invasion, what is the archeological evidence for that? Second, what were the causes of decline of Harappan civilization?
The first is very controversial. What we know about Aryans is through literature and that also through the oral tradition. Equating that with archeological evidence is very difficult. Evidence after 1800 BC is clear that there is a cultural break. There are no more cities. Only village settlements. There is a degeneration, which could mean some new people came, perhaps Aryans. But there is no clear evidence in the Harappan towns that there was a major invasion . So if they came they came, in waves and somehow subjugated the natives. In the case of culture also there is birth, growth decay and death. This applies to Harappan culture also. We cannot say that Harappans were decimated. So some transformation took place. May be there was climatic change also and they moved to eastwards where there was more rainfall. But they could not adapt to monsoon ecology and hence decayed. It could be a combination.
You were also associated with Prof Yash Pal in writing the first paper on the lost river Saraswati, based on Landsat imagery. Can we say now that the Ghaggar system was the Saraswati mentioned in the Vedas?
We found that the Ghaggar dies somewhere near the coast. It is no longer a perennial river. Moreover in this area there were some tectonic disturbances which changed the direction and flow of the rivers. For example the Satluj which was a major tributary of the Ghaggar system was pirated by the Indus. Similarly paleoYamuna went into Ganga valley. So the Ghaggar died. .
The identification with Saraswati, how satisfactory is that?
That is more literary but the area they describe and the traditions associated with the Ghaggar seem to identify it with the Vedic Saraswati. However some want to identify the Harappans with the Saraswati only. They started calling it the Saraswati civilization. That is not right. Pakistan is a creation of the British so we cannot give away the Indus civilization because of that.
There is also a mirror reflection in Pakistan, which identifies the culture with West Asia rather than India.
Yes. Some people there even call it Moenjodaro because they think Mohenjodaro might identify it with Krishna and some people here say it is Saraswati civilization and not Indus. I do not understand the logic of both. The beginning of Indus civilization is in fact in Baluchistan in Mehargarh. How can you deny that?
We can only hope that if the relations between India and Pakistan improve then we could also have joint teams exploring archeology.
Yes I have also been mooting that idea. What is important for us is that the great Harappans are undeniably our ancestors. They are the first civilized people in this subcontinent. Now why do you worry whether they were Aryans, non-Aryans, Dravidians etc. Let us study them thoroughly and how they merged with later streams of Indian civilization. These are important issues and not any body’s political agenda.
(This interview appeared in Ghadar Jari Hai--The Revolt Continues, Vol II, No. 4, Oct-Dec 2008, see www.ghadar.in )
Friday, February 13, 2009
Knowledge@Wharton: Nuclear Power
(An article on Nuclear Power in Knowledge@Wharton which has my quotes....)
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm;jsessionid=a830bbe36a38b4352dc95a304d5205a3fe13?articleid=4352
New Energy: Nuclear Deals Mushroom in India
Published: February 12, 2009 in India Knowledge@Wharton
On February 2, India signed an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) allowing United Nations oversight of 14 of its 22 civilian reactors by 2014. Considering the amount of brouhaha the original Indo-U.S. nuclear deal had caused -- it nearly brought down the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in New Delhi -- the response was low key. "This ends 34 years of nuclear apartheid," said All India Radio. Very few people noticed.
Recent months have, however, seen a lot of action on the nuclear front. On January 26, at India's Republic Day function, the chief guest was Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The Central Asian Kazakhstan, one of the independent republics of the former Soviet Union, has never been particularly high on India's radar, so the president's pride of place at the ceremonies caused some surprise. The explanation came a couple of days later when, at a press conference in Kazakh capital Almaty, Mukhtar Dzhakishev, president of Kazatomprom, the state-owned nuclear holding company, said that new Indian atomic power plants would use Kazakh uranium as fuel.
Nazarbayev's team is only one of a series of delegations that have been visiting India to seal nuclear deals. They cover a wide range both in terms of countries and offerings, from raw materials to equipment and fabrication skills. A couple of days after the IAEA deal, nuclear giant Areva of France signed an agreement with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) to provide India with six new-generation reactors. "This is just the beginning," says Anil Kakodkar, chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission. "The deal is worth US$12.3 billion," adds NPCIL chairman and managing director S.K. Jain.
January was a hectic month. An 18-member delegation from the UK, headed by Lord Peter Mandelson, the British secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform, arrived in Delhi with executives of companies such as Rolls Royce, Urenco Enrichment, Thompson Valves and Weir Power. A Canadian delegation also visited India, led by minister of international trade Stockwell Day; it included representatives from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), uranium supplier Cameco and SNC-Lavalin, a nuclear engineering firm. "Canadian companies are well positioned to capitalize on opportunities and to work with their Indian counterparts to meet the needs of India's civilian nuclear market," says Day. "India is very enthusiastic about using Canadian technology and resources to help build [its] nuclear energy capacity." Earlier, there had been visits from French, Japanese and Russian teams as well.
But stealing the thunder both in size and significance has been the U.S. commercial nuclear mission (which was to have visited India in December 2008, but was delayed because of the Mumbai terrorist attacks). It arrived in the country with 60 senior executives of 30 nuclear power companies. The delegation spoke to an array of Indian companies, including Tata Power, Heavy Engineering Corporation, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Punj Lloyd. "The robust presence here of the U.S. commercial nuclear industry, so soon after the unfortunate events in Mumbai, speaks of the commitment of our companies to partner with India in the coming nuclear renaissance," says Ted Jones, director for policy advocacy at the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC). According to USIBC projections, Indo-U.S. nuclear cooperation could add up to US$150 billion over the next 30 years.
India can maximize its opportunity by getting some of the world's leading uranium suppliers or nuclear plant construction firms to compete with one another to offer the best terms, notes Jitendra Singh, a Wharton professor of management. "The opportunity is large, so I suspect this will happen," he says. The current economic slowdown could present India with an opportunity to negotiate long-term contracts at favorable prices and conditions to further its civilian nuclear program, according to Singh.
Done Deals
Some deals are in place. "We will develop long-term relationships and partnerships with industrial companies, design firms and academic institutions," Meena Mutyala, vice president of Westinghouse Electric Company told The Hindu, a national daily. The newspaper also quotes Brandon Bethards, CEO of Babcock & Wilcox Company: "We have world-class nuclear component manufacturing facilities and a strong commitment to safety, quality and performance. We recognize these are key tenets of India's nuclear programs and look forward to working with India as they begin to add more nuclear generation."
While NPCIL has taken the lead among public sector companies, L&T is racing ahead of its peers in the private sector. "L&T has signed an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with Westinghouse of the U.S. for work involving EPC (engineering, procurement, construction), manufacturing and construction activities for the AP1000 modular nuclear reactors which they intend to offer for Indian requirements," says M.V. Kotwal, L&T's senior executive vice president. "L&T has also signed an MoU with AECL of Canada. This covers the development of the Candu ACR 1000 heavy-water moderated reactor for the Indian market. Our company has been involved in discussions with other major players such as GE, Areva and Rosatom, which are likely to offer light-water reactors for the Indian nuclear program. This is because we are a potential participant covering project management, engineering, manufacturing and construction for any of the designs of nuclear reactors and can also play a cost-effective role in supplying critical nuclear equipment for projects outside India."
Kotwal says that exports are a distinct possibility. "One of the mandatory requirements for a company before it can export nuclear equipment is to have an 'N' (nuclear) stamp accreditation," he explains. "L&T is the only company in India to have been assessed and awarded both the 'N' as well as the 'NPT' (national pipe thread) stamps by ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), covering design as well as manufacture. L&T can therefore supply equipment to other countries as well."
Other companies are also seeking collaborations with foreign firms, though specific agreements have not yet been announced. "HCC (Hindustan Construction Company) is well engaged in the recent development of the nuclear power industry in India," says Vinayak Deshpande, the company's president and chief operating officer. "Having built more than 50% of India's nuclear power capacity, HCC has been a market leader in the space of civil and structural works required for containment building and other auxiliaries. As the trade is likely to expand multifold, within and outside the country, HCC has been seeking domestic and international opportunities in partnership with global players recently seen visiting India. HCC, with its strong engineering background, will also seek active participation in domain specific engineering, testing and certification areas."
Analysts have already started to identify Indian companies that could benefit from this nuclear summer of cooperation. Fenil Maru, an equity advisor at ICICI, has a laundry list that includes L&T; HCC; the public sector Bharat Heavy Engineering ("It is looking for a tie-up and has been in talks with Alstom, GE Energy, Russia's Leningrad Metal Factory and Siemens"); the public sector National Thermal Power Corporation ("It is setting up a 2,000 MW nuclear plant" to be operational by 2012-2013); Areva Transmission & Distribution, a subsidiary of Areva of France ("It is looking at a plant for uranium mining and recycling"); Alstom Projects ("The company already makes nuclear reactors and rotors"); Rolta ("The Rolta-Stone & Webster joint venture provides reactor-building technology"); Gammon ("It has undertaken turnkey construction for nuclear projects"); ABB ("It makes components for power projects"); Anil Ambani's Reliance ADAG ("It plans to invest an additional US$2.4 billion in nuclear power capacity); Crompton Greaves; Walchandnagar Industries; Siemens; and Tata Power. As is evident from this list, several multinationals already have a presence in the country through subsidiaries, which they are likely to leverage.
How large can the nuclear power business become? Today, nuclear power constitutes just 4,100 MW or 3% of the country's energy needs. According to NPCIL's Jain, by 2032, India will have to increase this to 63000 MW, at a bare minimum. This translates to 40 new reactors worth US$80 billion.
"It is premature to provide specific numbers as details of the work involved cannot be discussed with any of the foreign companies pending clearances from their respective governments," says Kotwal of L&T. "An approximate assessment of the business potential available for Indian industry could be on the order of US$1.5 billion to US$2 billion a year after a couple of years." The USIBC is more optimistic with its expectation of US$5 billion a year.
Even more optimistic is an L&T white paper, which takes a broader view. "The Indo-U.S. nuclear deal will open two-way cooperation between India and the U.S. on key technologies in the areas of defense, nuclear energy, aerospace and aviation," says the paper. "This is a business mega-opportunity of more than US$200 billion."
Political Risks
It could reach that level if everything goes right, but chances are that plans may hit a speed-bump. The first problem is political. General elections are due in India, and a new government will be voted into office by the summer. Analysts predict that this is likely to be a coalition government supported by left-wing parties. They could jam the works since they have vowed to rework the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. Even the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- which could have a shot at forming the government -- vehemently opposed the deal when it was discussed in Parliament.
Singh says he is "puzzled by the Indian left-wing political parties." Describing their ideologies as "intellectually bankrupt," he says the best outcome would be if in the upcoming elections, the winner gets a clear majority, "so that it is possible to avoid the dysfunctional dynamics of coalition formation between partners who do not see eye to eye on many issues."
Several critics believe that future opposition to the nuclear treaty will be ineffective. "I do not think any new regime in India or the U.S. would go back on the deal," says Shivanand Kanavi, who is writing a book on India's nuclear program and is the author of Sand to Silicon, a book on the digital revolution. "Basically, the Indo-U.S. deal was the key that was necessary to open doors globally for nuclear trade with India. The bilateral deals that have been signed with France, the U.S., Russia and Kazakhstan have proven that. The Left had objections to the deal with the U.S. but later claimed it had no problems with deals with other countries. Since then, not much has been heard from them on the subject. I do not see any post-election problem if a coalition involving the Left comes to power. The BJP had claimed that it would renegotiate the deal. But it, too, has not said much on the subject recently."
"I do not feel a reversal is likely," says Kotwal of L&T. Adds Vasant Natarajan, professor in the department of physics at the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc): "The current climate seems to be that being part of this nuclear clique is somehow strategic for India and I don't see any Indian government having a fundamentally different outlook. As a policy of course one can always reverse it, but once we sign some agreement to buy a reactor we can't go back on it."
No Silver Bullet
The second issue is that the nuclear deal is not an instant solution that will immediately increase energy supply. According to Kanavi, "The Areva agreement is just the beginning of a new project. The site has been identified as Jaitapur near Ratnagiri, on the coast of Maharashtra, but the size of the reactor, the price and the subcontracts to be outsourced to Indian companies have to be worked out. Areva has a proven design for the 1,000 MW pressurized water reactor. However, it is also touting a new 1,600 MW design. Which one NPCIL will finally choose remains to be seen. There are pros and cons for both options."
Kanavi notes that GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse are still a long way from signing any reactor supply agreements. "The reasons are twofold," he explains. "Areva and Rosatom [of Russia, which has just signed a deal for fuel supplies] are backed by sovereign guarantees on lifetime fuel supplies as well as indemnity. The U.S. companies being privately owned do not enjoy that luxury. Moreover, the 123 agreement between India and the U.S. does not give India pre-consent for reprocessing. Thus there is still work to be done by both the governments for U.S. companies to become serious players."
On another front -- raw materials -- the picture is clearer. "With the sanctions being lifted, there are enough low enriched uranium (LEU) suppliers for power projects," says Kanavi. "In fact, this embarrassment of riches is driving the department of Atomic Energy to think innovatively about using LEU in its pressurized heavy-water reactors, thereby achieving a high burn rate and greater power. On the whole, the worldwide downturn might give India a great opportunity to be tough negotiators for both uranium supplies as well as reactors. In the drive for job creation, we might get some very attractive financing options as well."
Whatever the immediate attractions, the opposition to nuclear power is not going to go away overnight. True, even the Leftists have seen a new light. For all the public criticism, the Left government in West Bengal, which has been ruled by the Communists for more than 30 years, wants a nuclear unit in the state. But others view nuclear energy with suspicion.
"I am not in favor of nuclear energy because it is expensive, and it also does not make a lot of sense for a country like India which does not have a large supply of uranium and other inputs," says Natarajan of IISc. "We will always be beholden to the suppliers. If they decide to turn off the tap one day, for whatever reason -- political or economic -- we will be stuck. Every country is going to look after its own interests. If the U.S. has any strategic interest in this region, it is because they want to ensure their supply of oil from the Middle East or have a counterbalance to China. Any time that India does not agree with the U.S., they will just turn off the tap. In the nuclear supply group, every country in a sense is a U.S. ally. I don't see any country which will be willing to counterbalance U.S. interests and take India's side through thick and thin. In fact, signing the Indo-U.S. deal is almost like signing a worldwide deal because everyone will toe the U.S. line."
Singh argues that it is "overly simplistic" to describe nuclear power as being expensive. "A different way of asking this question would be to factor in the total costs of thermal power from coal, for instance, by including the costs of its environmental impact," he says. "I am confident that such a calculation will show nuclear power in a much better light." Singh further asks if India isn't "already beholden to the oil-exporting nations. The imagined alternative is a false, autarchic fantasy which has little place in today's world. Would such critics rather see India go the way of Cuba, Angola or North Korea?"
The argument that the U.S. supports India's civilian nuclear program because it wants a counterbalance to China is also misguided, according to Singh. "Why is it in India's interest to look this gift horse in the mouth? In today's geopolitical reality, with only one superpower in the world, it is in India's interests to constructively engage with the U.S. across as many fronts as make sense," even as it protects its own strategic interests. Singh favors nuclear energy also because he believes India doesn't have the option to build thermal, coal-fired power plants to cover its power deficit in the next few decades. Also, the environmental costs could be "staggering," he says.
Big Business or Bust
Natarajan is skeptical for other reasons, too. "I don't see it as a big business opportunity for Indian companies because we do not have an indigenous supply of raw material," he says. "India is not a big producer of uranium and that is why our main investment is around thorium, which is available in plenty in India. That is important from a long-term view. If we can develop this [thorium] cycle or something which gives us an indigenous supply of raw material, there may be a business opportunity. But as things stand now, Indian companies can at best be collaborators and do marketing. This will be like any activity where one is a local agent. I won't call it a big business opportunity." (Thorium is not being ignored, however. Infrastructure company Punj Lloyd and the U.S.-based Thorium Power signed an MoU in December to form a 50:50 joint venture to explore commercial nuclear power opportunities. The proposed investment is US$1 billion.)
India's nuclear summer is only part of a global mosaic. With crude prices shooting through the roof last year -- they have come down now -- the nuclear option is being reviewed. "Increasing global consensus is in favor of setting up nuclear power plants for energy needs, especially in view of ever-rising oil and gas prices, depletion of oil reserves, the global warming caused by traditional thermal power plants and demonstration of safe and reliable performance of nuclear plants in the past two decades," says the L&T white paper.
"There are reasons to believe that there will be a nuclear renaissance in the next couple of decades," says Kanavi. "Global warming and carbon concerns have encouraged positive attitudes regarding nuclear power. The large reactor manufacturers have started investing in manufacturing capacity once again. The Bush administration had announced certain incentives for nuclear power. Accordingly, there are 20 proposals in the U.S. However, the Obama administration's policy is yet to be spelled out. The technology has evolved incrementally in the interim. No radical new design has come up due to the slowdown after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl."
Mumbai-based business magazine Business India points out that the financial motive has been a key factor in the slowdown in nuclear energy activity. "As many as 103 nuclear power plants were built across the U.S. between 1963 and 1973, after which no new ones have been erected," says the magazine. "Grossly overbuilt on expectations of runaway energy requirements, nuclear power became uneconomical when this did not materialize, especially because of uncertain licensing procedures for investments. In the UK, too, the last nuclear power station to have been built was Sizewell B in Suffolk, erected between 1988 and 1995. But the Gordon Brown regime decided to end this 20-year hiatus by approving a new generation of reactors to help balance high carbon generating power systems. Ten nuclear stations are likely to be built, at a cost of US$2.4 billion each."
"The attitudinal change that is happening even in Europe towards nuclear power is evident from the recent decision by Sweden to order two large reactors," says Kanavi. "Sweden is one of the most environmentally conscious countries and, in a referendum, had totally ruled out nuclear power decades ago."
China has also increased its nuclear generation targets. It currently has 11 civilian reactors with a capacity of 8.6 gigawatts (GW). The earlier plan was to bolster this by 2GW a year to reach 40GW by 2020. In March 2008, the State Energy Bureau raised the number to 50GW. In June, the China Electrical Council projected a target of 60GW. More recently, the National Energy Administration has been talking about 70GW by 2020. That plan still awaits government approval.
Such arguments fail to convince the skeptics, though. "Global interest in nuclear energy is probably because, in the short term, the greenhouse gas emission from nuclear power plants is almost negligible compared to a coal-fired plant. Global warming and greenhouse gas emission are important issues in the energy market," says Natarajan of IISc. "The long-term solution for a country like India or a continent like Africa is solar power, simply because we get so much sunlight. The developed countries are not thinking along these lines because they don't get the sunlight that we do. If we invest in solar power, we can be world leaders in this field. We should plan our future on something that we can be sure about. The sun is not going to stop shining because the political climate changes."
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Chandrayaan and all that
http://business.outlookindia.com/inner.aspx?articleid=2258&subcatgid=999&editionid=60&catgid=9
Outlook Business, 15 Nov 2008
Pie in the sky
Chandrayaan-1 is a statement of sorts: India has space capabilities and is a low-cost player. And now, it’s building an ecosystem for companies
Supriya Kurane
He just can’t conceal his excitement. "We are part of the moon mission," gushes TT Mani. His company, Avasarala Technologies, is responsible for a piece of Chandrayaan-1: heat pipes, a critical component that regulates temperature in spacecraft and satellites, and ensures that electronic components don’t fail in space. When India blasted off its first unmanned mission to the moon last month, it launched million-dollar dreams of space entrepreneurs like Mani with it.
About 40 companies have contributed to Chandrayaan-1. Companies like Tata Advanced Material, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and L&T built the body and solar panel array elements (which power the craft). A clutch of small companies made myriad components like heat pipes, ground fixtures and power packages—critical components that have no scope for error. They are all part of the troupe of about 100 Indian companies in the private sector—big (the Tatas, L&T and Godrej) and small (Walchandnagar Foundry, Venkateshwara Engineering and Shoma Industries)—that have been quietly powering the country’s space ambitions.
No limits in the sky
At the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), it’s take-off time. Following the success of Chandrayaan-1, ISRO is planning more launches. There’s Chandrayaan-2 in 2011, a mission to an asteroid or comet in 2015 and a Mars mission in 2019. ISRO is collaborating with several countries to carry an ultra-violet telescope (which captures images normal satellites cannot) in an Indian satellite within a year. It’s building a tropical weather satellite with France and collaborating with Japan on a project on disaster-management from space. It is building capabilities to launch heavier satellites (which can go 10-15 times further than conventional geo-stationary satellites that rotate along with the Earth) by 2010. The more satellites and crafts ISRO launches, the more business comes the way of Indian companies.
Besides its own launches, ISRO plans to step up commercial satellite launches for other countries and private players. This is a market worth $138 billion, and forms the lion’s share of the total global space opportunity of $251 billion, notes The Space Report 2008 (See table below: The Space Pie). To start with, ISRO wants to increase its commercial launches—which it began in April 2007, with the launch of Italy’s Agile astronomical satellite—from two to five in a year, and earn $70 million a year in the process. The bigger, long-term goal is a 10% market share, leveraging its 60-70% cost advantage over foreign players.
The business opportunity for India exists in three areas. One, building and launching satellites. Two, leasing space on these satellites for applications like direct-to-home (DTH) services, global positioning systems (GPS), education, telecom and weather monitoring, among others. Three, disseminating and processing data and images generated by satellites (for example, fisheries study water and weather patterns, and move their trawlers accordingly). In India, currently, ISRO dominates all three. The private sector, though, is gradually increasing its capabilities in satellite building and data processing. And, as the Indian space ecosystem develops, so will the opportunities for private firms.
Star wars
India’s space programme is largely self-sufficient—partly the unintended outcome of sanctions imposed by the US and Europe following India’s nuclear test in 1974—and aims to soon become completely independent of foreign support. India’s six remote-sensing satellites, the largest such constellation in the world, monitor the country’s land and coastal waters. India’s seven communication satellites, the biggest civilian system in the Asia-Pacific region, provide communication access, television coverage, even remote healthcare services and education to the rural poor.
What ails India’s space programme is weak marketing, which cramps the overseas There are three business opportunities: building and launching satellites, leasing space on these satellites, processing data and images generated by satellites
revenue potential of ISRO and private ancillary industries. The need to market better led to the birth of Antrix Corporation 16 years ago. Antrix, an anglicised spelling for Antriksh (space in Hindi), is the commercial arm of the Department of Space, and does the grunge work of convincing foreign space agencies the cost savings of launching payloads through ISRO.
In 2007-08, Antrix saw a spike in revenues to Rs 940 crore (Rs 660 crore in 2006-07), on the back of two satellite launches for overseas clients. The bread and butter, however, remains the leasing of transponder capacity on ISRO satellites. Even then, it pales before Europe’s Arianespace, which controls almost half of the global commercial launch business. But that’s also the opportunity for ISRO, Antrix and the private sector to aim for—and chip away at. Says Sridhara Murthi, Executive Director, Antrix: "PSLV is a proven vehicle to carry satellites. We are marketing its capabilities to get more business."
In addition, Chandrayaan is a statement to the world that India has top-notch space capabilities. And low cost—Chandrayaan is the cheapest moon mission. Says Murthi: "Opportunities for the private sector are huge because of growing demand for satellites. The challenge for Antrix is to cater to the diverse needs of the global market on the one hand and get the private sector ready on the other."
Still, in a business where geo-political loyalties run deep, because of privacy issues and because volumes aren’t big enough to look beyond, crossing over won’t be easy. In satellite manufacturing, Antrix competes with players like Orbital Sciences and Lockheed Martin of the US, Alcatel Alenia and Loral Space and Communications of Europe, and some Russian manufacturers. In services such as sale of high-resolution images, against SpotImage of France, and GeoEye and DigitalGlobe of the US. "We are competing with seasoned players. Currently, there is no integrated space industry in India that can work collectively," says Murthi.
This apprehension of competing in the global market is palpable across the sector. "Competing in the global market is tough," says B Malla Reddy, CEO, Astra Microwave Products, a Hyderabad-based company that manufactures TR modules (transmit/receive components) for remote-sensing satellites and automated weather stations. In 2007-08, Astra recorded revenues of Rs 25 crore from the space sector, with ISRO its sole buyer. Says Reddy: "Countries prefer sourcing from home. Indian component manufacturers can sell globally only if Antrix acts as a facilitator."
Antrix hasn’t yet started acting as a facilitator in a big way, but ISRO is helping component companies in the global market. Precision-machinery manufacturer Avasarala Technologies began by supplying heat pipes to ISRO. It has about 1,000 heat pipes in space, and recorded revenues of Rs 25 crore last year. This is expected to double next year when it enters the global market, with ISRO’s help. Avasarala will supply heat pipes to ISRO, which will then remake them into thermal panels and supply US satellite maker SS Loral. Says Mani: "Once volumes increase, we will go into the global market on our own. For now, we depend on ISRO, as we don’t have the financial muscle or technical capabilities. Also, future business is not assured."
Shifting priorities
Despite the teething troubles, everything points to greater private participation in space programmes. ISRO has been gradually getting out of the production cycle and has even been transferring technology to private players. Some large international players are also looking at India as an outsourcing centre to manufacture critical components or develop software to interpret data, and are looking to set up captive units in India. An increasing number of ISRO veterans are leaving to join private companies.
The ecosystem is building up and investment is trickling into the private sector. November 2007 saw the first private equity (PE) deal in the defence and nuclear space, with Blackstone picking up 26% in MTAR Technologies, a Hyderabad-based nuclear, defence and space components company, for Rs 260 crore. Shortly before this, AIG, through its AIG Asian Opportunity Fund II, had loaned $20 million to Avasarala Technologies to build a new production unit on the outskirts of Bangalore.
Most of the work being done by private companies is either low-end or marginal. "For the private sector to truly get into the space sector, a policy shift is needed," says Mukund Rao, COO of ESRI India, a GIS (geographic information system) software provider and an ex-ISRO scientist.
Rao says ISRO should take on only R&D and support functions, and pass on satellite manufacturing completely to the private sector, as it is in the US and Europe. Adds Shivanand Kanavi, VP-Special Projects, TCS, and a space industry specialist: "ISRO can only be unshackled through the creation and implementation of forward-looking, business-oriented policies. ISRO should network with private enterprise to pass on its scientific and engineering expertise and products," he says. Indian Inc would like that, and Chandrayaan-1 may just speed up the transition.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sand to Silicon: Book Review, Prasad Govenkar
Prasad Govenkar has reviewed Sand to Silicon in his blog: http://www.prasadgovenkar.com/
The text follows:
Book Review: Sand To Silicon
Book : Sand to Silicon
Author : Shivanand Kanavi
A book scripting down the history of the Semiconductors from the inception till date to the Information technology days. What I liked the most is the due credit given to the people in shaping this industry, mainly in India. I had no clue that so many Indians are actually instrumental in whatever technology we are enjoying today.
The sad part is that we Indians don't appreciate their contributions and they are known more by the people abroad, especially US.
Apart from this, this book is quite technical in nature. Since I am having the background in Electronics and Communication, it wasn't a heavy reading for me. But for those not having any technical background, would find it boring and not comprehensible.
Good book to read for those interested in knowing the Indians who have had global contributions. Histories and contributions of the whose who are given in detail. The Initiatives done by Tata's to that of Sam Pitroda are worth a read.
I did have a good refresh of what I had learnt in my 4 years of engineering and then comparing to what how exactly I am not using it.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Interview Ravindra Bisht: Rigveda & Harappans
(This interview appeared in the Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol II, No 3, July-September 2008. See www.ghadar.in)
Peepul ke
neeche:
Reconstructing
the past
A conversation with Ravindra Bisht.
Strangely, one rarely meets a historian and a field
archaeologist, who is also well versed in Sanskrit. Ravindra Bisht is one of them. We met him at the Red Fort, in the
Institute of Archaeology, run by the Archaeological Survey of India. He grew up
in the hills of Kumaon and studied ancient Indian history at Nainital and
Lucknow and trained as an archaeologist in the very same institute at the Red
Fort. He then joined the Department of Archaeology and Museums of Punjab
government. Quite early in his career (1968-71) he was involved in excavating
at Sanghol that led to the discovery of a site which extended from the late
mature Harappan period to the modern. When the new state of Haryana was created,
he was transferred to the new state and he was involved with the important
excavations at Banawali, Haryana. Later he joined the Archeological Survey of
India and led the team that excavated at Dholavira, Kutch. He has written a
large number of research papers on his findings. He is also one of the
prominent archaeologists who dismiss theory of Aryan invasion of India and
infact see Rigvedic Aryans as belonging to late-mature Harappan period. Since
his school days Bisht was fascinated by Sanskrit, though none in his family had
any knowledge of it. Today any conversation with him is sprinkled with generous
quotations from the vast Sanskrit literature. Shivanand spoke to him about the mystery of Harappan culture, a
sophisticated civilisation with no known literature one the one hand and that
of the vast Vedic literature with no archaeological evidence to locate its
chronology and evolution.
Shivanand: Dr
Bisht, welcome to Peepul ke neeche. We are conversing in the midst of this awe
inspiring structure of Red Fort and I hope we will discuss many mysteries of
Ancient Indian history.
Ravindra Bisht:
Thank you. I am pleased to participate in this discussion. As for Red Fort, I
am an alumnus of this very Institute of Archaeology where I learnt the elements
of my trade in the sixties.
Tell us briefly about
Harappan civilisation.
The history of this region starts from excavations in
Mehargarh, Baluchistan which have given us a continuous chronology of the last
8000 years. The Harappan sites which today number more than a thousand extend from Baluchistan, Afghanistan to
Punjab and Sindh in Pakistan and Rajasthan, Kutch, Saurashtra, Punjab, Haryana
and Eastern UP in India. This is a vast area which covers more than twice the
size of ancient civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Babylon. Based on the
level of development this culture can be classified as Early Harappan
(3500-2700 BC), Mature Harappan (2700-1900 BC) and late Harappan (1900-1500
BC). Mature Harappan is the most advanced and one can see town planning,
elegant architecture, seals. We also see a lot of pottery and this pottery can
also be found in Central Asia, Mesopotamia, Iran, Oman, Gulf and Afghanistan
indicating that mature Harappan culture had extensive contacts and trade with
surrounding areas. Clearly they had overland and maritime trade. In the late
Harappan culture you see the absence of cities and more like villages
indicating a retrogression.
The great mystery in
Indian history is on the one hand Harappan civilisation with no philosophy and
literature, leaving aside seals with a few characters, which are yet to be
deciphered and on the other hand this vast Vedic literature which does not seem
to have any archaeology associated with it, if you accept the dating (1200 BC) arrived
at by translators like Max Mǖller and some historians. What is your view?
Max Muller was not a historian and gave an ad hoc dating of
1200 BC for Rig Veda, 1000 BC for Brahmanas, 800-600 BC for Upanishads etc
based on some linguistic considerations. However that seemed to have stuck as a
dogma even though he himself tried to disown it! My own estimation is that Rig
Veda belongs to late mature Harappan period 2500-2700 BC. The geography
described in Rig Veda does belong to the Saraswati-Indus valley. There are
strong reasons to believe that the lost Saraswati is the Ghaggar-Hakra system
which flows from Himachal into Rajasthan and then disappears without joining
the Arabian Sea. Satellite imagery has confirmed that this river system used to
merge with the Arabian sea. Tectonic movements resulting in earthquakes might
have led to change in course and finally the river getting lost in Rajasthan.
Tectonic movements also seem to have shifted the Yamuna further to the east.
This could have happened around 2000 BC. Many Harappan sites have been found of
later periods in the dried up Saraswati valley. To call rig Vedic Aryans as
pastoral cowherds is a total misinterpretation. In fact there are many verses
in rig Veda describing agriculture and trade including maritime trade. There
are detailed descriptions of three masted sail ships, there are descriptions of
fortified cities with three different parts the citadel, Middletown and lower
town, (also found in Dholavira). There are hints of city life with its virtues
and vices in rig Veda. The latter have been found in Harappan sites. There are
many linguistic and conceptual connections between rig Veda and Ahura Mazda of
Zarathushtra of Persia.
Harappan civilisation
with its uniformity in weights and common architectural and town planning
features indicates an empire of some sorts. Where are as rig Veda still talks
of sabhas and samity and an elected Raja. How do you reconcile the two?
Harappa would have been an empire for a very short period of
time. May be 150-200 years. In fact all empires in India have not lasted more
than that. Look at Mauryas, Guptas, Mughals etc. That is centrifugal tendancies
take over after some time. But we still see so many features of culture and
arts and economy which are geographically wide spread in India. So it is not
necessary to be in a single political empire for certain common features to
exist. As for rig Vedic political system, sabha was a house of elders where as
samity was house of commons which had artisans, farmers and the elite that is
different classes and professions in it. Thus stratification had already come
into being. It would be romantic to call it republican and democratic. In fact
there is not a single instance of a Raja removed by the sabha or samity. Thus
rig Veda remembers a lot of things from the past and retains some of the forms
where as the actual state of affairs had moved on.
There is no single mode of disposal of bodies in rig Veda
and that corresponds to what we see in Harappan culture as well. The weights
system of dividing everything into sixteen parts is common to both. But after
that the decimals take over so we have ten, hundres, thousand, lakh, crore and
so on taking over. The architecture described in rig Veda is that of six
pillars and then 100 and thousand pillars similarly 100 doors and thousand
doors etc. So is the fort with seven gates.
One of the problems
discussed in the literature is Horse not being Indian and an import from the
steppes, where as Vedic literature mentions horse.
Rig Veda was composed after the horse came to India more
over there were different types of wild asses in India. Rhino elephant were
there and they have also been described in vedic literature and picturised in
seals. Similalry ther are questions raised on rath-chariot. But we have found
terra cotta figures with spoked wheel in Banawali, Haryana.
Saraswati seems to have flown roughly from 3000 BC to 800
BC. It was an important river and hence revered in rig Veda. Aridity set in the
area with probably tectonic shifts around 2000 BC and finally it vanished. In
fact in Yajurveda and Atharvaveda, Saraswati is not mentioned as a river. She
has already been deified as a goddess.
What led to the down
fall and disappearance of Harappans? Was it Aryan invasion as mentioned in
history texts?
Aridity seems to have led to retrogression and later
migration of harappans. There is no evidence of any invasion. In fact Aryan
invasion theory is pretty much discredited today. There are basically two
periods which are significant archeologically: the Neolithic culture of
Mehrgarh that is 8th millennium BC and the chalcolithic (copper age)
period in the fifth millennium BC. If some people migrated in small numbers
during this period it is a possibility but that is pre-Harappan.
Cutlures of Gandhar and Pira which represent alien
influences are from a later period but they were highly localised and did not
influence any one. There are many commonalities in the area of central Asia,
Iran and India before the Iron Age. Soma is common so are most gods except Indra.
Dr Bisht, you have
given us a fascinating view of ancient India and that too one contrarian to
what most of us learnt in schools. It has been a pleasure talking to you.
It is my pleasure. One could talk endlessly about
reconstructing ancient India. Unfortunately the atmosphere in India has been
vitiated by charges that anyone who disputes the Aryan invasion theory is a
communalist. And similarly the charges from the other side that all those who
stick to theories of Max Muller and William Jones of an imported Vedic culture
through invading Aryans are Eurocentrics and ‘Macaulay’s children’. This
precludes any dispassionate discussion.
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