Notes on Dravidian Words - vi

Neuter plural in Kannada:
In Kannada, the neutral gender singluar is adu. The plural form is avu. However, people have generally felt comfortable using avugaLu as the plural form. -kaLu generally form plural of a word in Kannada. Even in places where people use 'avu' for plural, they prefer to add -kaLu in various cases (eg. avugaLige, avugaLannu etc..).

I think the problem arises because both adu and avu were initially neuter singulars. As declensions appeared in languages these took various forms. In many Dravidian languages, male and female third peson pronouns were built upon neuter avu. For example, in Kannada, avanu -> he, avaLu -> she. In some languages 'adu' is the base word. For example, in Pengo, adel -> she. Interestingly, Kannada also has masculine form of 'ad'. The word Ata or Atanu could be found in literature though I haven't come across its spoken usage. Its feminine form Ake's origin is mystery to me.

In Kannada, avu became plural for adu. However, this appears to be largely a semi-optimization and never really taken by native speakers. Kannada speakers still by and large use 'avu' in singular sense though never as a singular term.

Road to True Capitalism - iii

The profit sharing policy enacted by the Indian government again appears to be socialist stagnation than capitalist mobility. Get over the guilty feeling - that's all they are interested in doing.

In between, there was another proposal to bring the tribals to mainstream. An Indian minister, Kantilal Bhuria, a tribal himself, has advocated for tribal regiment in Indian army. I believe if this were to become true the transition would be tribalism->feudalism-> capitalism-> welfarism.

I think this mode is more practical than triabalism->capitalism->welfarism model. However, what we have to make sure is with warrior life, we can legally kill tribals' present way of life and replace it with another tribal way of life, generally known as the Western life. I believe in this case, tribals may not have to be derided for adopting a foreign way of life since the fundamentals of both societies are the same.  Western Europeans have always been (with brief interlude) more egalitarian and a communal society.  For them the ideology of individualism was an artificial way to accept individual freedom. In contrast, sedentary Indian caste society is highly individualistic within its caste communal identities. The individualism comes from the occupational identity and communality comes from the hereditary caste identities. Thus it requires two levels of emancipation;
- Individualism at the caste identities (thus no-caste identity)
- Communality within the occupational identity (thus team work across different ideas)

However, the Indian tribal society is more akin to erstwhile western European society. Of course, we surely don't think a Dravidian tribal wearing his Bison horn is similar to present day Scandinavian wearing his imagined Viking Horn or a Scot wearing his skirt.  But the overall social dynamics are still the same.

This brings another issue to the foreground. In a democratic system is it possible to make policies that may show results after a generation (say 30 years)? A number of governments with different ideologies can come to the power during this period. Therefore, we need to have a democratic system where a party can implement its generational policy. However, we also require a little flexibility that it doesn't affect all Indians as the social realities are different for different regions. Thus;

- A state government should have a constitutional authority to make generational policies
- A generational policy should remain unchanged for 30 years
- The policies should mainly concern with socio-economic life of people (which includes religion)
- The conspicuous failure of the generational policy should only result in its modifications and not in its complete removal until the period is over

Random Thoughts - i

All groups — Sindhi, Pakhtun, Baloch, Seraiki and Punjabi - should get an equal share in corruption

Abdul Qayum Jatoi, Former Pakistani minister for Defense Production

I cannot decide whether Mr. Jatoi was sarcastic or serious. It's a good farce anyway there. However, my understanding is that many middle class Indians sincerely believe if they are smart and practical about corruption then they can also benefit from the corruption or corruption can be egalitarianized.

Battle of the Sexes - vii

The stereotype has been confirmed. Women turn men corrupt. But it's unclear whether men from the corrupted generation then pass their corrupt outlook to the next generation or they reset themselves to their 'true man self' and teach altruism.

They found that because, historically, women moved about more than men, and so are less related to their neighbours, our paternal and maternal genes are in conflict over how we should behave -- with our paternal genes encouraging us to be altruistic whilst our maternal genes encourage us to be selfish.

'This leads to conflicts over social behaviour: the genes you receive from your father are telling you to be kind to your neighbours, whereas the genes you receive from your mother, like a demon sat on your shoulder, try to make you act selfishly.'

Via Science Daily 

I just remembered that there was a study that concluded mothers influence only their daughters and have no influence on their sons. That means selfishness is passed from mother to daughter but sons are immune or purely altruistic. So, even if we consider absent fathers where did all the selfish males come from?