2014: Battle won, does AAP have the stomach for the real fight?

The bribe is just the lowest common denominator. Will Kejriwal take on the basic arithmetic of corruption in the cozy arrangements between big money and political power?

FirstPost, 31 December, 2013

A minority AAP government is in place. It may get a few days or even a few months. It may or may not deliver entirely on its promises of free this and cheaper that. But if this ascent of people’s power must become game-changing in the long term, we need to go back now to its central issue of combating corruption.

Let’s look at the obvious first. Most of us understand corruption as bribing. People like you and me are often forced to bribe to access basic services, which are otherwise our entitlement or rights, because people like you and me often demand those bribes.

Broadly, it is corruption of power. A cop or a clerk or an autorickshaw driver finds himself or herself in a position of authority and in control of a service that enables each to put an unwarranted premium on it. The AAP has promised to end this practice with a helpline.

But do the bribe-seeking cop, clerk and autowallah have a choice in a system where positions of power must be bought? They do. They can turn sacrificing and heroic. The auto driver may pay from his own pocket, and not recover from riders, the bribe cops and transport officials demand. The government ‘servants’ – from collectors to clerks -- can also bear the ‘cost of posting’ (at times, the job itself) themselves.

The other choice they have is not to pay, not to join the scam. That results in frequent transfers, harassment and loss of livelihood or even life. But not everybody is expected to fight like a Sanjiv Chaturvedi or die like a Satyendra Dube.

Let’s look at corruption a little differently. Say, the autowallah is not overcharging you and me because he has to bribe the cop. How about him bribing the cop so that he gets to earn many times that investment by overcharging you and me? Of course, autowallahs (not the cartel bosses though) are generally poor and it is not politically correct to tarnish them even in a hypothesis.

But, wait, isn’t that the same story all the way up, to every dealing between private enterprises and sarkari regulators? Are corporate giants forced to break the laws of the land because they have to scale up profit in order to make up for the hefty payoffs they make to the political masters of the day? Or do they buy politicians and governments so that they get to play outside the rulebook? It works both ways, perhaps?

Before you answer, consider the politician’s choices. Yes, most of them have personal assets way beyond their legal means but who would not help themselves to a few cups or bucketfuls while presiding over a swell of illegal cash flow? Personal greed apart, why do you think our average politicians are always on sale?

Elections take a lot of money. Since the EC has set judicious expenditure ceilings, most of it has to be unaccounted cash. As voters, most of us can be bought or coerced (or intellectually influenced but more on that later). Some vote for a bottle and a few rupees. Others are scared away with muscle power.

Both vote purchasing and rigging are expensive exercises but they allow politicians to buy into power. Since this buyout is funded by corporate money, it is natural that the sponsors get away with breaking laws or even get to have the laws rewritten.

The biggest plus in the AAP upsurge is that at least 28 per cent of voters in Delhi did not sell their vote this time. This despite, as the AAP sting showed, attempts by other parties to bribe voters on election eve. While electoral rigging has never been brazen in the national capital, it was also equally significant that the AAP with its meager financial means could counter, thanks mainly to volunteers, the booth management machination of the traditional parties.

A corrupt voter is the root of all corruption in a democracy. The AAP upsurge in Delhi is as much a success of its politics of integrity as of a large number of aam aadmi who did not compromise their biggest democratic authority.

It is not easy for a poor voter to resist the temptation or withstand the intimidation. But it is certainly easier to stand firm once than to be tested every day for five long years. If the AAP or AAP-like movements elsewhere in the country are backed by similar show of character by voters, the 2014 general election may well be transformational.

But, can the non-corrupt voter have a game-changing impact on Indian politics by merely not being susceptible to lure or intimidation? For starters, only a poor voter would sell his or her vote for liquor or a saree or a TV set. The not-so-poor voter, unless intimidated, cannot be bought with such meager entrapments. For every compromised or absentee voter, another votes freely in most parts of India. Or at least they are made to think that they are ‘freely’ exercising their choice.

By all means, most ‘free’ voters in the 2014 elections will decide between Rahul and Modi, secularism and nationalism, liberalism and fundamentalism, dynasty and Parivar, corruption and growth, and so on. These are the entirely superficial choices constructed by the mass media to differentiate among parties that follow fundamentally the same policy when it comes to governance. This is another major investment by political parties and corporate interests to fund the intellectual corruption of voters who can’t be bought for a bottle.

The enormous symbolism of it is mind numbing. Even the AAP’s battle against corruption is so far only against the symbols of it — cops and babus taking bribe, a water or power scam or even the 2G scam. The real corruption is the corruption of state policies in favour of big money. This corruption enjoys continuity irrespective of political dispensations in power. That is why a Raja can always point fingers at a Shourie or the UPA can cite NDA precedence on convenient coal block allocations.

There is very little, if anything, to distinguish the policies of our national parties on real issues of governance. It is a combination of allowing a freehand to industry to profiteer at the cost of our health and natural resources and doling out wanton subsidies to garner votes. All political outfits do these in the name of national interest that legitimizes perverse government policies.

And yet, we do not vote on these issues. We do not question why every government would need to subsidise the basic needs of so many citizens if the use of natural and human resources was optimized to the benefit of all rather than a few. Even the righteous middleclass voter, who routinely pans the political freebies handed out to the poor, rarely questions the politician-corporate nexus as long as she benefits – a few more jobs and better salaries -- at the margins of this loot.

But of course the same middleclass voter cribs about every corrupt cop she encounters. So does the mass media. And both are rooting for the AAP till now because the party has so far targeted only the trickle-down effects of big corruption. But it is one thing to back the AAP, which may or may not extend its promises of change in time to what is fundamentally wrong with the system, quite another to create illusions of choice in the traditional politics.

Yet, the systemic intellectual corruption of voters makes the Congress — the party responsible for a distorted history of the freedom movement that banned any uncharitable portrayal of its leadership — a liberal choice. Or it makes the BJP — the party that presided over the brazen Karnataka mining scams and abandoned tribals in Dang and elsewhere in shining Gujarat — a remedy for corruption and poverty.

As always, the comments on this article below will show that a lot many of us believe in these constructs and vote accordingly, thinking we are exercising our choices when there is none.

The spectacular success of the AAP has created hope that a swelling proportion of Indian voters will refuse to be lured or intimidated in the future. That in itself is a big disincentive against corrupt political (and in turn electoral) funding and is great news for democracy.

Will that ‘free’ voter be able to see through the entrapment of intellectual corruption next and demand an alternative to the existing compromised political order? Will the AAP show the way by shifting focus from mere symptoms to real malaise? That is the biggest challenge for and expectation from aam aadmi politics in 2014.

AAP’s high moral ground alone won’t give better governanc

Most promises made by the AAP are not deliverable in the simplistic forms that they were promised. And the party can’t govern if it chooses to put every deviation to a referendum.

FirstPost, 24 December, 2013

AAP's moral grounds are higher than the elitist pedestals it shuns

Delhi is orphaned no more. We are going to have a government. It took the Aam Aadmi Party two long weeks to decide that they would take the plunge. The AAP’s pre-election stand was equivocally against joining hands with either the Congress or the BJP. Its choice was to stick to that position or respect the overall mandate for change. It was a difficult choice and the AAP leadership refused to be responsible for a decision either way.

While many thought the so-called referendum was a ploy to legitimise the party’s temptation to taste power, others argued that such a fundamental decision was best left to the people. This dramatic shift to direct democracy has placed the AAP on a moral ground high above the grassroots it claims its legitimacy from. Two legendary Vaishnava scholars, Roop and Sanatana Goswami, had realised the trappings of zealous humility that made the former too fastidious and arrogant to remember the very purport of being humble. Penance followed  but that was Vrindavan in the 16th century.

In contemporary Delhi, the AAP's high moral ground fits perfectly with the party's popular stand against so-called VIP-ism symbolised by red beacons etc (though there is not much to sacrifice here as Delhi’s ministers hardly enjoy the privileges lavished on their counterparts in other states). It is necessary to bridge the disconnect between the masses and the political class who tend to govern from pedestals of power. But merely replacing it with such a sanctimonious, some would say defensive or even opportunistic, moral position will not make for better governance.

To form a government or not might have been a momentous dilemma but governance will frequently bring the AAP leadership at a crossroads because most of its promises are just not deliverable in the promised form. While many are suitably abstract – making Delhi safer, for example – and allows the grey area (read elbow room) required for administrative limitations, some are surprisingly specific and non-deliverable as such.

For example, there is enough room for rationalising power tariff after a thorough auditing but a flat 50% reduction in bills will be impossible. Any rationalisation will require plugging widespread power theft and reorganising tariff slabs. Supplying 700 litre of water to every household for free and ending the tanker-raj will require cutting down supply to the VIP zones, relaying of leaking pipelines and building a delivery network in vast areas where there is none. Otherwise, the city’s sinking aquifers will be drained faster. And till these issues are assessed and resolved, the tankers that cater to much of the parched city will have to remain in business.

So, will there be a referendum for each of these deviations (read compromises) every time the new government finds that it can’t fulfill in entirety what it promised? Will the aam aadmi, not the party, endorse a crackdown on theft, not by the mafia but thousands of households that anyway ensure their unlimited share of ‘free’ (discounting the bribe) power and water? And will the AAP, thriving on support from three-wheeler owners/drivers, ever get a verdict from its cadres to crack the whip on the errant fleet of over-charging autowallahs involved in the most brazen corruption on Delhi roads?

Even if we agree that the masses are likely to behave more responsibly when empowered, who will foot the bill for holding frequent referendums that have a tendency to become never-end-ums when dealing with issues that involve more than a simple yes or no? Or will the AAP government take key decisions on the basis of SMS polls? Well, that may be fine for a political outfit (and telecom companies) but we will certainly need organised polling involving the Election Commission if state issues are to be put up for referendums.

Expenses apart, referendums globally are often the last resort of a government low on confidence and reluctant to risk its future by doing what it thinks is right. In short, it is a symbol of political dithering. Out there to clean the Augean stables of institutionalised corruption, the AAP will need more than a few brooms. And the party does not exactly have time on its side.

Besides, if everything is to be decided by the people and governance becomes simply a matter of implementing those decisions, bureaucrats will be good enough to run the state or the country. A true politician's unenviable job is to provide leadership. It is about creating confidence among the people that s/he has the integrity, wisdom and vision to decide for them. And also having the courage to face the consequence of those decisions, particularly the unpopular ones, made in the interest of the people.

Arvind Kejriwal is a most welcome break in our muddled politics that has for too long failed to offer any real alternative. He deserves his turn to deliver and it is grossly unfair to write off him or his brand of politics at this early stage. But from moral grounds so high, it is difficult to stay rooted. Kejriwal the rebel must now become Kejriwal the ruler. No, it is not a dirty word. He must tell his party members and supporters that having elected him their leader, they must now let him lead. The last time these words were spoken, Nelson Mandela the president was born.

Reading The Palm Right

Pushing oil palm cultivation at home to reduce import bills may put farmers at risk if India does not learn from the tragedies in the neighbourhood

Tehelka, 15 December, 2013

(Top photo) Early Mover The Yeroor estate, owned by Oil Palm India, came up in Kerala
four decades ago. Photo: N Bhakti

Last month, when Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar addressed the agriculture and horticulture ministers of the northeastern states in Gangtok, he urged them to promote oil palm in a big way to reduce India’s dependence on edible oil imports — worth more than Rs 63,000 crore last year — and to benefit the farmers in the region. “On account of its fertile land, abundant water resources, dependable rainfall and vast biodiversity, the northeastern region holds tremendous potential on the agricultural front. The country can save its import bills considerably if the farmers productively exploit the oil palm potential of the region,” he said, adding that, so far, only Mizoram has been promoting oil palm cultivation, while Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland are taking to it.

India is the world’s fourth largest producer of oilseeds. Oil palm contributes a meagre 0.1 million tonnes to our combined harvest of 31 million tonnes, dominated by rapeseed, mustard and soyabean. So why the emphasis on oil palm?

India accounts for nearly 15 percent of the global area under oilseeds, but only 6-7 percent of the global yield. Due to low productivity, the domestic supply of oilseeds cannot meet even 50 percent of the demand of our billion-plus population even though per capita consumption in India (14.1 kg/annum) is much lower than the global average (23.6 kg/annum), or that of China (22.7 kg/annum) and Pakistan (21.7 kg/annum). As a result, the dependence on imports has been surging, particularly since 2007-08. And palm oil contributes to around 75 percent of that.

Economic growth and higher per capita consumption will lead to greater dependence on imports. With rising competition over finite agricultural land among different crops, only higher productivity can bridge the demand-supply gap. The answer is oil palm that produces 4-6 tonnes of crude palm oil and 0.4- 0.6 tonnes of palm kernel oil per hectare during its productive lifespan of 20 years, compared to a yield of less than 1 tonne per hectare from other oilseeds. This also gives palm oil a distinct price advantage.

The arithmetic hasn’t escaped India. The government launched the Oil Palm Development Programme (OPDP) in 1991- 92 under the Technology Mission on Oilseeds and Pulses (TMOP) with a focus on area expansion in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Gujarat and Goa. From 2004-05 onwards, the scheme is being implemented as part of the Integrated Scheme of Oilseeds, Pulses, Oil Palm & Maize (ISOPOM) to support oil palm cultivation in another six states: Assam, Kerala, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Tripura and West Bengal.

Of the 15 million hectares under oil palm production globally, India accounts for only 0.15 million hectares. But the acreage has been growing at 21 percent compound annual growth (CAGR) rate during the past five years. Palm oil production in India has grown at 22.7 percent CAGR over the past five years to reach 105,513 tonnes in 2011. With 100 percent achievement of acreage target during 2004-10 under OPDP, Andhra Pradesh is the leading producer in India, contributing nearly 86 percent of the national production, trailed by Kerala (10 percent) and Karnataka (2 percent).

According to estimates, India has the potential to cultivate oil palm across 1.03 million hectares to produce 4-5 million tonnes of palm oil, enough for 330 million people. For 2011-12, the Oil Palm Area Expansion (OPAE) programme set a target of bringing an additional 60,000 hectares under oil palm cultivation. Of course, it is highly productive. It is cheap. The oil is not unhealthy (see box) as thought earlier. And yet, the government’s urgency to push farmers to oil palm may backfire.

Rise and fight The writing is on the wall
in Indonesia. Photo: L Karlo

The Dirty Palm
For all its economic advantage, oil palm is one of the most controversial crops. Thanks to rising global demand, palm oil production more than doubled in the past decade. Indonesia and Malaysia account for 87 percent of the globally traded palm oil. The plantation, spread across 16 million hectares in these two countries, is also responsible for a third of their combined loss of forest in the past decade.

The usual practice is to burn an area after felling forests or draining peat swamps. The resulting haze is a major health hazard. Whether burnt, dried or simply left to rot, dead trees and vegetation release greenhouse gases (GHG) that trigger global warming. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimated that the expansion of oil palm plantations is likely to cause 4 million hectares (more than twice the size of Kerala) of forest loss in biodiversity-rich areas — such as Sumatra, Borneo, Papua New Guinea and the Congo basin — by 2020.

Environmental damage, biodiversity loss and climate change apart, such rapid and widespread change of land use also has serious social impact. These include land conflicts, exploitation of labour, pesticide poisoning, land hoarding, smallholder indebtedness, food shortages and denial of the rights of the indigenous people.

A field visit to north Labuhan Batu district of Indonesia last month revealed how deep-seated the conflict between oil companies and local communities was. In every direction as far as one could see, it was oil palm monoculture. Barring a rare bulbul, not a bird chirped. The dense lifeless monotony of green — except for monitor lizards, rats and, therefore, snakes — told a grim story of biodiversity loss.

The plantations mostly belonged to “companies”, rued the otherwise hospitable villagers. And the oil mills too. Left vulnerable by the law, they have been fighting a tough battle under the banner of local NGOs to reclaim their ancestral land, or the right to sell their produce to whichever mill they choose for a decent price. Then, there were labourers, whose indigenous ancestors were brought here as bonded labour from other parts of the country, still fighting for basic minimum wage.

Farmers of Bukit Perjuangan village in Indonesia’s Labuhan Batu
district show off land they have reclaimed. Photo: L Karlo

The farmers differed in their choices. Issues of deforestation and biodiversity did not bother many, perhaps because Labuhan Batu lost its forests to oil palm many, many decades ago. Some wanted to abandon oil palm in favour of food crops. Others were keen to continue with the lucrative oil plant as smallholders or cooperatives. But all of them vied for the freedom to choose their destiny in a system where “companies” and the government decide pretty much everything.

At Medan, during a workshop on the plight of communities in oil palm areas during 7-9 November, the more articulate locals narrated story after story of gross violation of even the weak and inadequate Indonesian laws and human rights by the “companies”. The narratives did not change much across the oil palm world — from Cameroon to Malaysia. Everywhere, authorities rarely sought free, prior and informed consent from the smallholders.

To push for sustainably produced palm oil, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was set up in 2004 as a multi-stakeholder forum, bringing together oil palm producers, processors, traders, retailers, financiers and NGOs. The RSPO’s standard requires producers not to clear primary forest or any land that is important for wildlife and communities and also address soil erosion, pollution, labour health and safety, etc. Despite significant breakthroughs, the global market for RSPO-certified palm oil remains low.

“How soon oil palm cultivation will become an environmentally sustainable and socially responsible enterprise depends a lot on the consumer countries. Along with China, India accounts for 34 percent of the global palm oil import. Certainly, Indian companies, the government and the people have a role to play,” said Marcus Colchester, senior policy adviser with the Forest Peoples Programme, an international NGO.

India’s palm oil consumption has increased from 13 percent of the global consumption in 2007 to 15 percent in 2011-12, outpacing the global growth rate. As global palm oil consumption is predicted to triple by 2050, India will play a key role in driving the production, both in terms of quantity and quality. And now with this push to oil palm cultivation at home, India will be watched even more closely.

The Clean Palm
It may be difficult for the highly price-sensitive Indian consumer to pay more to import clean palm oil, but it is tempting to believe that domestic production is not likely to cause deforestation and biodiversity loss of the kind witnessed in countries with lax green norms.

Oil palm reached the Far East more than a century ago. The Dutch colonisers brought the plant to Indonesia in the 1890s and wiped clean vast areas in the absence of any regulatory mechanism.

Even today, Indonesian laws are nowhere close to the stringent environmental safeguard regulations India has on paper. Unless, oil palm rush becomes an issue of India’s “national interest”, like mining, necessitating the rulebook to be junked.

Even otherwise, oil palm can inflict significant damage to the environment by causing permanent loss of community forests in India. In Mizoram, for example, the success of the New Land Use Policy (NLUP) scheme means farmers are switching to permanent oil palm plantations from traditional shifting (jhum) cultivation. The same pattern will follow as oil palm penetrates other northeastern states. In other areas, plantation may replace food crops, such as paddy, if it is promoted as way too profitable.

But unlike the Eucalypt plantations that replaced massive swathes of forest during the 1970s and 1980s — particularly after the National Commission on Agriculture (1976) predicted huge demand for pulpwood by the turn of the century — it is not possible to clear forests to promote any crop since the National Forest Policy was revised in 1988.

At the same time, while many consider palm oil dirty, it is really the way the ground is laid. Where forests and peat land is not destroyed, farmers and indigenous people are not evicted or enslaved and production follows sustainable models, oil palm can be a useful smallholder crop that brings economic benefits. Is that the path the government is charting out for our farmers? Unfortunately, while they are certainly not being coerced to adopt oil palm, they are not being adequately informed.

Fingers Crossed Fresh fruit branches of oil palm in Odisha’s Ganjam district. Photo: N Bhakti

Though highly productive compared to other oilseeds, oil palm makes farmers wait for four years before yielding palm fruit bunches. Under ISOPOM, support is promised for planting material, cultivation cost, installation of drip irrigation system, diesel pump sets, training, development of waste land and technology transfer through demonstration and publicity. The government also offers subsidies to farmers and promotes inter-cropping, such as banana or pineapple, during the four-year gestation period. But will the farmer be secure even if he manages to tide over this period?

The ideal locations for oil palm trees are within eight degrees latitude north and south of the Equator. Therefore, India is not a natural oil palm area. The trees also need regular rainfall throughout the year but may tolerate 3-4 months of dry period with irrigation support. This puts significant pressure on local hydrological systems. In short, oil palm may not be a long-term prospect in many of the areas where they are being pushed.

But the most crucial factor is the small landholding nature of the average Indian farmer. Small and marginal farm holdings discourage investment. Big companies demand large, farm-owned estates (and cheap labour) for the economy of scale that ensures fat profit margins. No wonder, the entry of large private players into planting has been limited in India, compared to Malaysia or Indonesia. Worse, despite generous government subsidies, there are very few oil mills where farmers can sell the highly perishable fruits for a good price. As a result, a number of plantations have been chopped off in Andhra Pradesh, India’s palm oil champion.

“We cannot run too many mills depending entirely on small farmers or cooperatives for FFB (fresh fruit branches) supply. To ensure efficiency, we need company-owned plantations of substantial expanse like Indian companies have invested in other Asian countries and also in Africa. Even with subsidies, it is very risky investing in mills, betting on the skills and whims of small farmers,” says a senior official in an agro company on condition of anonymity.

However, an official with the OPDP feels that private companies resent the legal framework that disallows them “greater control” over the production process. “The price of FFB anyway depends on the global market over which the government has little control. On top of that, if we allow private players to influence procurement prices to their advantage, the farmer will suffer. I agree, we need an efficient market and we are trying,” he says, ruling out “any large-scale acquisition” of farmland by companies.

But if small farmers are drawn into oil palm in large numbers only to discover that there is no market for their produce after four years of gestation period, many of them may anyway be forced to sell their land to merely repay debts or get by. Inexplicably, the government is pushing the oil palm dream to farmers in many areas as a golden package that will ensure income for generations over 40 years. Depending on the breed, oil palm’s productive life is of 18-21 years, and unless a smallholder can recover enough (or is subsided again) for the expensive replanting process and support his family for yet another gestation period of four years, he may well be forced into distress sale.

Few remember that Rayalaseema farmers took to groundnut en masse after the Centre offered subsidised seeds in the early 1980s to reduce the edible oil imports bill. But restrictions on importing palm oil were removed in the 1990s and groundnut prices crashed spectacularly. If, as a nation, we have not become completely indifferent to the farmer’s plight vis-à-vis the accounting books, India may still learn from its own pockmarked history and that of its neighbours and ensure that our oil palm tells a different story.

The Palm Advantage

Oil palm originated in West Africa and is a perennial crop. The fleshy mesocarp of the palm fruit yields 45- 55 percent of the oil. Palm kernel oil, as the name goes, is from the kernel. Palm oil yield of 3.80 tonnes per hectare per year is around nine times that of soyabean, seven-and-a-half times that of rapeseed and six times that of sunflower oil.

Global edible oil consumption has grown from 123 million metric tonnes in 2007 to 158 MMT in 2012. At 48.7 MMT, palm oil is the largest consumed edible oil in the world, largely due to its substantial price advantage. Unlike vegetable oils, it requires little or no hydrogenation for production of margarine, bakery shortenings and confectionery fats. Most packaged food products — cakes, biscuits, icecreams — contain palm oil.

As a non-food ingredient, palm oil is used in the oleochemical industry (soaps, candles, etc), as a base material for the production of surfactants used in laundry detergents, household cleaners and cosmetics. According to US Department of Agriculture estimates, 75 percent of the global palm oil consumption is for edible purposes, 22 percent for industries and the remaining for biodiesel.

Concerns over the health hazards associated with trans-fatty acids (TFA) and genetically modified organisms (GMO) have also raised the demand for palm oil, which is neither derived from a GMO nor contains TFA. Several studies in the past have linked palm oil to cardiovascular diseases; excessive intake of palmitic acid has been blamed for rocketing blood cholesterol levels. However, recent studies have accepted it as a replacement for hydrogenated vegetable oils and observed that it brings down bad cholesterol while boosting the good.

Jay Mazoomdaar was a consulting editor and this is the last report he filed for TEHELKA

Homosexuality: Against nature? Look around and get a life

Every species that has sex engages in some form of homosexual act. But human homophobia is rooted in our denial of unencumbered happiness.

FirstPost, 12 December, 2013

Carnal intercourse against the order of nature. That’s quite a mouthful. While upholding Section 377, the Supreme Court judgment recorded different interpretations of the concept. We are told that “such acts have a tendency to lead to unmanliness and... to persons not being useful to the society”. We learn that Black’s Law dictionary defined “the order of nature” as something “pure”, that “the basic feature of nature involves organs, each of which has an appropriate place”.

What was that? Because the “most unnatural” penetrative sex I have ever heard about is beyond the “impurest” of human tendencies. Male Amazonian river dolphins penetrate the blow-hole -- the cetacean equivalent of our nose -- of other males. While the boys have "nasal sex", female Bottlenose dolphins use their snouts as dildos on other females. Talk about each organ having "an appropriate place".

Yet, we are told that every organ has "a designated function assigned by nature", that "sex and food are regulated" and why "what is pre-ordained by nature has to be protected". Really? Tell that to dolphins or, for that matter, any species that has sex. Animal homosexuality has been known since the time of Aristotle, who described 2300 years ago how he witnessed two male hyenas having sex with one another.

But morality gathered a lot of taboos over time and did not allow biologist George Levick to make public his observations of "depraved penguin behaviour" during Captain Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole in 1910. Levick stayed for an entire breeding season with a colony on Cape Adare but did not include in the official report the accounts -- suitably written in Greek -- of non-procreative (and homosexual) sex among male Adelie penguins. The fascinating details remained unknown nearly for a century.

Since Levick's embarrassment, homosexuality has been recorded in around 1,500 species. About one-third of these instances are well documented. From insects to primates, these species throw up ample cases of sexual activity, courtship, affection, pair bonding, and parenting among same-sex partners. While most show bisexual behaviour, exclusive homosexual orientation is not rare. Among domesticated sheep, for example, about 10% of males refuse to mate with females but readily mate with males.

Clearly, homosexuality is as natural as anything observed in nature and not an individual "lifestyle" choice. But a lot of us demand human conduct to be far above bestial standards. In 2008, when biologist Lindsay Young first reported that nearly one-third of Laysan albatrosses (that pair for life) were actually female-female couples, many shot back in anger, asking rhetorically if people should follow other “natural” practices, such as animals raping one another or eating their young.

Of course, such outrage conveniently overlooks the fact that, unlike rape or filial cannibalism, consensual same-gender pairing or sex does not violate or endanger. And this debate over “naturalness” and demanding biological justifications from the wild also trivialises the issue. We anyway understand very little of animal behaviour yet.

While some species may have practical purposes — group bonding, honing sexual skills or simply tiring out competition — for engaging in homosexual acts, it is equally possible that others do it simply because they enjoy it. There cannot be any single explanation of why individuals of different species engage in activities that appear homosexual to us, just like we cannot hope to understand every member of the LGBT community from a fixed perspective.

But obsessed with a distorted sense of purity, our social morality perhaps resents the very idea of "pure" pleasure and happiness for the sake of pleasure and happiness. Have we rushed too far down the Darwinian path -- where every aspect of our behaviour must eventually lead to reproduction – merely because it suits our Grinch mentality? Do we demand as a society that sexual pleasure remains a spinoff of a supposedly greater purpose and feel unsettlingly guilty when pleasure itself appears to be the goal?

But for the appalling hypocrisy, such moral tyranny would appear comical since none of us let go of any opportunity to pursue what makes us happy, even if it is socially taboo, as long as we can get away with it. We don’t really care what abomination the 30-million-strong LGBT community indulges in as long as they keep it, like the rest of us keep our own unspeakable deeds, in the closet. We want legal provisions to hold them guilty of pleasure because they refuse to feel guilty for their existence like the rest of us feel for our deviations.

We may want all we like to believe that our choice of pleasure makes us what we are, but it is who we are that determines what makes us happy. And derived consensually, no happiness needs justification.

One winter evening more than two decades ago, a young lecturer sauntered down uninvited to a coffeehouse table occupied by a bunch of university students busy exchanging notes over a few thin volumes of poetry. For a few minutes, they listened in silence as he guffawed and wondered what the “unproductive fad for abstract poems” ever achieved. Then, a deadpan girl cut in: “So why do you masturbate?”

Maneaters must be put down, not put away in crowded zoos

It is neither economically feasible nor biologically necessary to rehabilitate every maneater in overburdened zoos. When a big cat can’t hunt its natural prey, its time is up

FirstPost, 7 December,2013

There is no retirement in the wild. Nature has no welfare scheme for wild animals once they lose their ability to hunt or forage due to old age or injury. Carnivores, particularly, usually die in a matter of weeks once they are unable to hunt.

But we believe in welfare schemes and many of us love animals. Apart from the so-called rule of manmade laws that we perennially struggle to uphold, what distinguishes us, the civilized humans, from the wild is our claim to life, preferably good life, even when we are no longer earning our keep. That’s why the post-retirement plans, the painstaking savings and the state welfare schemes for the less endowed.

It is debatable if this lust for life beyond productive years has made us a better or happier species, but our insistence that the same yardsticks be applied to wild animals is certainly not helping nature. The latest example was the uproar against the shoot-at-sight order issued last week after a tiger killed three people between November 27 and December 4 at the edge of the Bandipur tiger reserve in Karnataka.

  

The 12-year-old male that killed three people at
the edge of Bandipur tiger reserve in Karnataka.

On several occasions in the past, similar demands for live-capturing maneaters have rocked the forest establishment. Of course, it is a safeguard against gunning down random tigers as maneaters or even declaring tigers as maneaters in a hurry without sufficient evidence. Even when repeated attacks on and consumption of humans leave no doubt about a big cat’s motive, and officials take ample care to zero in on the particular animal, live-capture allows us to examine the physical state of the maneater before deciding its future.

Usually, the animal turns out to be a young adult or an old tiger past its prime, edged out by stronger competition and incapable of hunting its natural prey. It is tempting to argue that a young tiger does not deserve to die. But does a wild tiger deserve an entire life in captivity? Animal rights activists demand natural open enclosures for better rehabilitation. Of course, it is important to transform our squalid zoos. But given that conflict is increasing by the day and will increase further if the big cat populations keep rising, what proportion of the meager public funds earmarked for conservation should we realistically pump in to support young maneaters in captivity?

Anyway, the majority of maneaters, like the Bandipur tiger captured last week, are old, injured animals with broken canines and blunted claws. They are in no shape to hunt in the wild. There is absolutely no reason why such old animals should not be put down when they target humans as easy prey. What does an old tiger that does not turn into a maneater do in the wild? It dies of starvation.

The Bandipur tiger was camera trapped 10 times between
2004 and 2013 before it was evicted from its range by
a stronger opponent and became a maneater.

Take the latest Bandipur maneater. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society-India, it was first camera trapped in the reserve’s Moleyur range on 30 March 2004. From its size and appearance at that time, the experts assessed it to be about 3 years old. Subsequently, the tiger was camera-trapped 10 times, during 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2013, across an area of 33 sq km (see map). 

“It appears that this tiger was evicted from his range after May 2013 by a more vigorous rival. He was in very poor nutritional condition, besides having a broken canine tooth. It is clearly an animal that would not have lasted much longer in the wild, having reached almost the full lifespan of 12 years or so. Dozens of tigers and leopards reach this stage in life every year and sometimes get into conflict situations. It may not be a practical long-term option to live-capture all of them or to house them in zoos beyond their maximum lifespan in the wild,” said Dr Ullas Karanth, WCS director for science-Asia.

 The Bandipur maneater captured last week was camera
trapped for the first time in 2004 when it was 3-year-old.

Attempting live-capture, rather than shooting, also delays intervention by the forest administration in volatile conflict situations. This fuels local anger and undercuts the goodwill that the tiger has traditionally enjoyed among the communities living in and around forests. Usually, the result is random revenge killing by the aggrieved community that targets any and every tiger in the vicinity.

“Such delay may undermine public support we need for conservation of tigers as a species. Management decisions have to be rational and practical rather than based solely on emotions: either hatred or love for individual tigers. All these issues should be carefully thought through now and a sound policy should be put in place before the passions aroused by this particular unfortunate incident are forgotten,” urged Dr Karanth.

Indeed, we need a debate because the clamour for humane rehabilitation of maneaters is at the other extreme of brash demands for declaring tigers as maneaters after every accidental attack on people. While the latter may seek justification in a sense of real panic (and electoral mileage in case of political endorsement), the former is driven mostly by a sweeping ideology of misplaced welfare.

Survival of the fittest is the only way nature preserves the balance of resources and robustness of species in the wild. That wilderness is now increasingly threatened by a self-destructive human population boom principally triggered by our welfare motive. Of course, welfare is necessary in our unequal human societies and we are also free to decide the limits of political correctness for ourselves. But unlike us, the wild are born equals and we have no business denying them the death that becomes the wild.