The relevance of Gandhi

In early 1922, India was in the middle of the Non-Cooperation movement against the British administration. The goal -- human dignity and self governance. The path -- non-violent insistence on the truth. And then it happened on February 4th 1922. Police firing killed three protesters and injured others in a crowd of about two thousand in the town of Chauri Chaura. The furious mob, in retaliation, attacked the policemen who tried to hide inside the police station. The police station was set ablaze; twenty-three policemen were burnt alive. Afterwards, nineteen people were hanged for the incident, and over a hundred received various jail terms varying from two years to life.

Gandhi's response was to halt the movement completely. He also went on a five-day fast as a gesture of repentance for what he believed was his complicity in the killings. Most of the contemporary Indian leaders deprecated his action - describing it variously as mistaken, cowardly, madness or betrayal. Historians tend to agree that the stray incident of violence, although regrettable, did not undermine a nation's plea for political freedom.

The incident defines Gandhi. For him, non-violence was not a conscious choice, but an instinct. So too was his refusal to impose on others what he did not practise himself. Come to think of it, non-violence is just one component of the expansive "practise, then preach" philosophy. This fundamental principle is known by many names: the Ethic of Reciprocity, the Golden Rule, or the Principle of Tolerance -- and it forms the basis of the very concept of human rights. The principle, however, is incredibly hard to follow to the extent that Gandhi did. And in a political leader with a hundred million eager followers, it is unthinkable.

But does an incident of violence undermine a nation's plea for political freedom? Absolutely not. However, political freedom is insignificant when compared with freedom of the mind. What does political freedom mean? The power to choose our leaders, to make our own laws perhaps. Political freedom is a means to an end, the end being a state where people may live without fear. To reach that state, it is necessary that all individuals practise mutual respect and tolerance. Achieving freedom from fear is far more difficult and also much more important than any regime change. It was probably clear to Gandhi that the British would leave sooner or later, and then people would celebrate their freedom, but their lives would not change overnight.

Political freedom for a nation is like allocating funds to make something gigantic happen. Without the right mindset, things soon sour up, a few people have a good time with the money, and in the end fingers are pointed and a few scapegoats are punished. India, a nation with a population larger than that of the North and South Americas put together, and with immense diversity in languages and cultures, would have very little chance of surviving as a nation in the absence of mutual respect and tolerance. And non-violence is a stepping stone for tolerance.

As far as usage goes, the term 'diversity' is viewed quite positively, but for all practical purposes, it is a bomb waiting to explode. The notion of identity is very important to human beings. We all have many identities: I am an Indian, residing in the USA, male, Hindu, Brahmin (priest by caste), married, straight, an electrical engineer, with a PhD, employed, the list can go on. Most people attach the most importance to one or a few identities, commonly based on nationality, religion, race, ideology or sexuality. We identify with the grievances of people who share our chosen identities, and we blame all who share the identity of individuals responsible for causing the grief. The fact that all individuals are responsible for only their own actions, and that we share common identities as human and living beings, matter no more. Our mind loses its sense of justice, and replaces it with a senseless rage. It is a state where actions are not born out of reason, rather reasons are made slaves to justify unconscionable actions.

Gandhi realized the importance of tolerance when others were fascinated with self-governance। In a way, he was years ahead of his time, indeed years ahead of today. As Albert Einstein said: "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood." Who knows when, if ever, our species will evolve to a point where all of us value kindness the way Gandhi did.

My father

Being a father seems to me a difficult task. And I don't mean the 'providing' part. It is not always clear how a child's experiences influence its behavior or personality. Maybe the prospect scares me even more because I live in the shadow of my own father, or his memories since he died in 1997.

For the most part, my father 'observed' me. It was unlike him to give me instructions. Mostly, he did what he could to create the right environment without appearing harsh to the pleasure-loving creature that a child is. Objects that provide entertainment but no learning had a difficult time finding their way into our home. Before classes started each year, we would sit down and put covers on textbooks. He did it like it was an art, finishing with writing my name on the front cover in a handwriting that would seem to have come from a printing press. He had won gold medals in Engineering for his Bachelors and Masters degrees. The standards were set as high as they could be, but never was a word uttered about any expectation of meeting them. I had once asked while watching Ivan Lendl play tennis with the usual tense expression on his face - is it important to play to win or to play happily? The answer came immediately - It is better to play happily. I didn't think that was necessarily right at that time, but now I see how personal ambition has brutalized humanity throughout history. Gentle hints came my way on rare occasions. He once asked me about the TV - Can't you overcome its attraction? I gave him a sheepish shrug.

Few words were exchanged between us. For the most part, he would seem aloof, and I might have been tempted to nurture that belief, but that was as far from the truth as it could be. Let me tell you about one incident that took place when I was eleven. In school I had a clean record - I never caused any trouble. Therefore, on the Friday when my teacher gave me a dressing down for my poor handwriting, and wrote a complaint in my school diary, my heart altogether sank. This was a new experience for me. How would I show my face at home? I had to get it signed by my father by Monday, but the weekend passed and I could not muster the courage to tell him. Monday morning came, and I woke up unhappily. Surprise, surprise, my father was sitting with my diary at the edge of the bed. He smiled and I babbled something. He asked me to write - I shall diligently try to improve - and then he signed it. To this day I don't know how he came to know. Maybe someone told him. Or maybe he just sensed it, but one cannot help wondering how attentive he must have been behind his facade of 'aloofness'. I guess fatherhood is another department where the standards are sky high for me, not that I am planning on having kids in near future, but still.

Fairness in reward and remonstration

A fundamenatal legal premise is:
"No person shall be punished but for an action violating a rule that was in force at the time when the action took place."

If my father was a murderer, no modern court of law would hold me responsible. Strangely, if my great great great grandfather had belonged to an oppressed section of society - identified by race or religion perhaps - I would likely be entitled to preferential treatment today, irrespective of my current living conditions.

There is a curious incongruity in the ways in which the modern world disseminates rewards and punishments. The law punishes individuals for what they consciously do. In contrast, government policies often reward groups of individuals for attributes they have no role in determining.

Explain yourself!

I am impatient. If I am convinced that something is correct, then I usually don't like to explain why. What do you mean 'why?'? Most things can be explained, and it is useful to explain things patiently. It is better than annoyance for reasons of popularity, and better than silence if you want credibility. And if my audience is not listening, well that's their problem not mine :)

INTP

I took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. It is a simple test that classifies you into one of 16 personality classes. You can take it free on a number of websites. And no, you don't have to sign up for a free ipod. Mine turned out to be INTP (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving). Actually, some tests give you the extent of each. I am strongly introverted and thinking, and somewhat intuitive and perceiving. Here is a link to a brief description of INTP that I found in the web. Pretty accurate I think.

http://www.e-mbti.com/intp.php

Free advice

A young friend of mine was feeling frustrated with the way some professors treated students. People who have gone through an undergrad engineering school in India can identify with that at some level. So I gave him some advice. Now, giving advice is one thing, and following it yourself is another. It is far easier to preach than to practise. But then again, you cannot effectively teach what you don't follow. So, I will put my advice on the record here, to remind myself what I should be doing:

As a child, I used to be scared of my neighbor's rooster, which would steal every chance to take a peck at me. Time has flown by since then. I have grown. If I were to encounter the rooster today, it would probably not try the same strategy.

Things will change. One of the only things that never changes is the fact that things continue to change. And in the bigger scheme of things, my approval rating with the rooster does not count for anything. What would be sad though, is if I became a miserable, grouchy rooster myself, giving a hard time to those whom I was supposed to nurture, protect and guide. It is the responsibility of the strong to protect the weak, the privileged to uplift the underprivileged. Those who act contrary to these principles, are just plain irresponsible. Period.

No one can tell you what in principle is right. No person, nor book of wisdom (even if it is believed to have come straight from the mouth of God) can ever do that. They may tell you what they think, but you are the ultimate judge of right and wrong in your life. There will be some questions to which you will never find convincing answers, and it is good if you can grow comfortable coexisting with these questions. It is far better than living the lie of pretending to have all answers.

Nurture the strength of your own spirit. Look around yourself. Help those who are more miserable than you. It takes the mind off from dwelling on one's own miseries. It keeps you from joining in the league of ordinary roosters.

Understanding and familiarity

Learning science and technology is largely about understanding new concepts and ideas. The emphasis is not on retaining information, but on organizing it. But some concepts are really hard to understand, or maybe they are hard to explain and few people have ever had it explained to them. Over time, we grow familiar with these concepts and we start believing that we understand them. Then we start conveying our familiarity to others, sometimes to show off, and sometimes to avoid looking foolish. I feel that this is a tendency that we should all be aware of, and guard against. I causes so much misery, especially to children and students.

I once read in a children's book that a ventriloquist is someone who can throw his voice. Of course it made no sense to me. I looked it up in some kind of dictionary and coincidentally found the same definition. Who knows, maybe the author of my book had consulted the same source to find out what a ventriloquist does before he went about telling others about it. Later, I figured that a ventriloquist is someone who can change the sound of his voice and speak almost without moving his lips. It gives the impression that someone or something else is speaking, especially if you have a dummy in your hand, and move its lips. I also realized that sounds like m, p, and b need the lips to be closed. Interesting stuff it was back then, and I tried a bit of it myself. But I still don't think throwing your voice describes it very well.

Reviewing papers

Farbod once told me about a rule of thumb for reviewing papers. I think he attributed it to Prof. Jim Massey.

There are three conditions for rejecting a paper:
1. The results in the paper are wrong.
2. The results have been previously published.
3. The results are obvious or trivial.

I think that is a pretty good rule-book to go by, although I think I would add a fourth condition.
4. The paper is so poorly written that the reviewer, despite being knowledgeable in the area, is unable to make sense of the contributions.

It goes without saying that one should never undertake to review a paper in an unfamiliar field of research. It hurts the field by populating it with superfluous publications.

Checklist before paper submission

In an ideal world, a researcher would not have to worry about formatting mistakes. In the real world, we have to handle much more than just formatting before we can send an article for reviewing or publication. Keeping track of all the things to check is a hassle, so I decided to make a list to go through before submission. If nothing else, the list will alleviate the uncomfortable feeling that an obvious blunder that I missed will catch the eyes of the reviewer.

- spellcheck
- search ? and []. They signify errors or missing references. Since you know that you will be searching for ?, you may put a ? (or any other special character) in places where you want to add something later or if you are unsure of some detail.
- draw a tree showing the hierarchy of sections, subsections, and subsubsections, and see if it is what you intended it to be. Sometimes, two topics of similar importance, which should be at the same level in the hierarchy mistakenly form parent-child pairs.
-check the latex output for errors and warnings.
- search \ref{ and replace with ~\ref{ for sections, appendices, figures etc.
- use consistent and correct hyphens eg. use "ad hoc", NOT ad-hoc, NOT a mix of the two
- read paper and cite appropriate references wherever making claims that need to be supported
- try to number equation arrays consistently either in 1st or in last line (unless you have reason to number all lines)
- punctuation before an equation and at the end of each equation should be consistent and correct
- use consistent format (including font for all figures)
- maintain a consistent format for matlab plots. I stick to 16 by 12 cm, fontsize 12, stretch axes to fill figure (in figure options). It produces easy to read figures in 2 column format.
- check cross-referencing of equations (whether you are referring to the correct equation)
- check that the bibliography references are all consistently punctuated and named. eg. don't let one reference say 'ITW', and another 'Inform. Th. Workshop'. To save space, use the abbreviations for journals recommended by IEEE
- check all abbreviations to see that they have been defined ONCE and only the FIRST time they occur in the text (not in the abstract).
- after the last major change, spellcheck and read entire paper once before submitting.

Do let me know if you can think of something else to add to this list. I will be grateful :)