Manjul Bhargava, Sanskrit, Indian Mathematics and a Question of Relevance.

Several readers understood my last blog, regarding how science diverged from philosophy and progressed beyond the ancient philosophical paradigms, Indian or Western, appropriately. The readers also understood that I was not rejecting a study of any philosophy but only rejecting the notion that modern science and knowledge could still function within those paradigms. However, several readers took issue with the blog and misconstrued that I was rejecting the contributions of Indian, specifically Hindu, philosophy. A reader pointed out to Manjul Bhargava, Indian-American recipient of Fields medal, crediting his knowledge of Sanskrit for providing key insights, based on ancient Indian works, into mathematics. Yes, that's true but that's not the whole truth.

First, let me categorically state that I agree with the many studies that point out to the importance of a knowledge of liberal arts for any graduate. Study after study has pointed out that students must have an introduction to classical literature, philosophy and music. University education in America, unlike India, lays a heavy stress on liberal arts. Indian students of engineering and medicine would do well to learn Kalidasa, the upanishad and many other local variants of literature and philosophy in addition to at least an introduction of Plato, Socrates and Shakespeare. 

Second, I fully and completely support books of unimpeachable academic quality that explore ancient India's contributions to science and arts. If a beautifully academic book on how Baudhayana's math presages Pythagoras can be written I'd happily buy it. 

That said, what irritates and angers me are twofold. One, wallowing in wooly mysticism and connecting everything modern in science to ancient wisdom turning a blind eye to tenuous connections. Two, showing an interest only in the jingoism of establishing what the world learned from India and not even bothering to inquire into the possibilities of any influence from outside on Indian wisdom.

India has arrived on the world stage as an economic power, a strategic partner and a key exporter of talent but Indians still belabor under an inferiority complex showing an undue and ugly eagerness to grab credit for achievements of not just Indian expatriates but even those of Indian descent. This ugliness becomes more despicable when achievements by Indians could be tied to Indian heritage of yore. 

Manjul Bhargava, born in Canada to Indian parents, enjoyed a tsunami of publicity when he won the very prestigious Fields medal, one of two highest honor in mathematics, awarded to mathematicians under the age of 40 who've made a significant contribution. The very boyish looking mathematician has a stellar resume that boasts of winning honors like he was collecting candy and a tenured professorship at Princeton at 30 years of age. 

Manjul Bhargava - Image Courtesy Wikipedia

Indians went crazy over interviews of Bharghava that mentioned how he was thrilled to find mathematical ideas from Sanskrit texts of ancient Indian mathematicians.When Bharagava said he saw mathematics in everything including Sanskrit and the tabla music he played Indians, to  put it mildly, almost had a collective orgasm. When Bhargava came to India he was feted and everywhere he went he was asked to speak on how great Sanskrit was. Sanskrit institute located in, where else, Mylapore felicitated Bhargava and had him lecture on, what else but, "Sanskrit and Mathematics".

Amidst the din what was lost is there's much more to the Bhargava story than just Sanskrit and tabla. Bhargava's grandfather was a Sanskrit scholar who had jotted down excerpts from ancient texts but, let us painfully remind ourselves, was nowhere close to winning a Fields medal. Bhargava is a typical product of western education and a story that's almost impossible to be replicated in India, under both its current and past education system.

Bhargava's mother was a mathematician at the Hofstra university in Long Island, NY and played an instrumental role in turning the boy's interest in mathematics into a career. Bhargava is not the first and nor would he be the last genius from the western world who takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the chosen subject. American university system lays a stress on diversified thinking and drawing inspiration from as many sources as  possible. This western approach is why a Schrodinger could easily see in Vedanta a spark for his quantum theory while no Indian philosopher or Indian scientist could connect the dots similarly. Bhargava's theory that won him the Fields medal was inspired by the Rubik's cube and was the result of a journey from Bhramgupta to Gauss. 

That Bhargava won prize after prize in America shows a society where meritocracy rules (along side affirmative action). A 27 year old Bhargava was a visiting scholar in that most American of research institutes, The Institute for Advanced Study. The Institute for Advanced Study was established in Princeton by Abraham Flexner who had played a vital role in reforming medical education in America. Flexner's article, published in 1939 in Harper's Weekly, titled "The usefulness of useless knowledge" is an intellectual tour-de-force and sets the objectives of the Institute where Fellows could indulge in anything that might fancy them without the pressure of having to invent anything or create anything in particular responding to any external demand. A Harvard professor , Flexner recalls in the article, who was given a stipend wrote to Flexner asking "what are my duties" and Flexner replied "you have no duties. only opportunities". This is where Bharagava flowered.

Bhargava to his credit has been clear that while he'd like to see books about contributions of Indians he insisted that it should be accurate."It's not your agenda to show everything originated in India. It's your agenda to show what originated in India in an accurate and clear way". 

I wish Bhargava had been asked to speak about research topics in mathematics but Indians were interested in only thing, to get a Fields medal awardee to speak in glowing terms of an ancient heritage and nothing more.Once any Indian expatriate wins any award abroad the Indian government of the day will make a despicable show of awarding some Padma award. Bhargava was awarded the Padma Bhushan. V.S. Naipaul, most acerbic and acidic critic of India, wrote in his 'India: A wounded civilization' about how India treated Har Govind Khorana, "India invited him back and feted him; but what was most important about him was ignored. 'We could do everything for Khorana,' one of India's best journalists said,'except do him the honor of discussing his work.' "

A reader pointed to an interview by George Geverghese Joseph's interview in 'The Hindu' which spoke about how possibly work done mathematicians in Kerala could have traveled to Europe and influenced Isaac Newton's conceptualization of the infinite series. Incidentally I had bought Joseph's critically acclaimed book "The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European roots of mathematics", published by Princeton University.

Joseph's book speaks of ancient Indian mathematics and in addition has lengthy chapters on Egyptian and Chinese contributions but the interviewer from 'The Hindu' chose to ask him only about how great Kerala's mathematicians were. My reader complained, borrowing from Joseph, about a Euro-centric view on the history of sciences that ignores contributions, probably more significant, by non-Europeans.

Many Indians who are critical of India's education system and yearn for what they consider the fabled past of ancient Indian education system without fail gnash their teeth about Macaulay's imperialist comment that a shelf of European literature is worth more than a library of oriental literature. A recent controversy over Professor Sheldon Pollock, editor of the Murty library of Indian literature, cited a passage from a speech of his that appeared insulting to India. The protest letter was signed by professors from all and sundry universities of India including professors of Sanskrit who, unlike Pollock, had no publication. A simple google search revealed that Pollock's statement was deliberately torn out of context and twisted. The age of colonial imperialists like Macaulay is long gone but Indians, including Joseph, recycle statements of a bygone century to present a world at war. 

Indians do not realize that many books that document India's rich heritage are courtesy of Westerners. A sharp reviewer of Joseph's book points out that Joseph draws a connection between Euclid's legendary book 'Elements' and Panini's grammar but he fails to credit Frits Staal who first wrote about such a connection.  The reviewer also accurately picks issue with Joseph broad generalization every unsympathetic view as "western" and almost intentionally ignoring other westerners who worked to give a more honest history of ideas. It is also unfair to charge that but for an Indian author like Joseph the oriental contributions would not receive their due. The reviewer points to several examples by European authors in that regard.

To circle back, demanding an accurate history to be written is fair and necessary too. However, it appears that Indians are more interested in writing history, that too an exaggerated one, than in worrying about the pathetic state of Indian education and academics today. Several of the signors on the protest letter against Pollock teach in IITs and JNU, including Makarand Paranjape, and all of them are just plain guilty of witch hunt of a good professor of unimpeachable academic credentials. 

Bhargava is also the recipient of the "Ramanujan Prize" from SASTRA university (my alma mater). While 3 Indians figure on the list of Ramanujan Prize since it was instituted in 2005 not one of them did their work in any Indian university. Ironically, at SASTRA a tech festival was held for which a computer science student wrote a blog about how a weapon used in Mahabharata was the precursor of modern day Inter-continental-ballistic-missile. This is how Indian universities are being run.

While India went insane over Bhargava and his love of Sanskrit it was conveniently ignored that there were 3 other awardees for the Fields medal. Amongst the other awardees were an Iranian woman and a Latin American mathematician. I'm sure that those two have no idea of Sanskrit or Tabla and still won the Fields medal. 

When Indian's count Indian Nobel laureates they often include Amartya Sen, Venky Ramakrishnan, Har Govind Khurana and S. Chandrasekhar. Though Sen won the prize as an Indian, unlike the others, he too did his work in foreign universities and was, like the others, a product of western universities. 

For unsurprising reasons Venky Ramakrishnan's name is rarely mentioned unlike Bhargava's name. Ramakrishnan, as usual, was feted by India after he won the Nobel and he too was given the Har Govind Khorana treatment. Ramakrishnan was invited to attend the Indian Science Congress, a venerable institution that stretches back to the Colonial era actually. Aghast at seeing paper presentations about how ancient Indian epics had the precursor of modern flights Ramakrishnan said "the Indian science congress is a circus" and that he'd never ever attend it again. After his Nobel prize it was rumored that Ramakrishnan took up a job in a premier Indian lab, he vehemently refuted it saying "Nobody has approached me about an offer to work in India. However, I can categorically state that if they did so, I would refuse immediately".

It is laughable when an Indian author, known for his militant fundamentalist outlook in favor of Hinduism, called Hindutva, asserted that J.C. Bose could arrive at the conclusion that plants respond to stimuli because his Indian worldview is, unlike the western, is a holistic one. Andrea Wulf's critically acclaimed biography of Alexander Von Humboldt quotes Humboldt, "In this great chain of causes and effects no single fact can be considered in isolation". Wulf, continues, "with this insight he invented the web of life, the concept of nature as we know it today". Humboldt, Wulf points out, influenced a wide array of intellectuals. Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, William Wordsworth, Coleridge and Henry David Thoreau were influenced by Humboldt. Wordsworth, incidentally, also was in awe of Isaac Newton. Goethe, who admired Humboldt, wrote 'The Faust', laid the foundations of morphology and a treatise on light, "Theory of colors". Vladimir Nabokov wrote 'Lolita' and researched butterflies. Nabokov's theory on the evolution of butterflies was recently proved correct. While it is difficult to list Indian thinkers who showed diverse interests or achieved in diverse fields it is common to see such personae in the western intellectual tradition.

Alexander Von Humboldt - Image Courtesy Wikipedia

Write history all you want but the more urgent need for India today, is not in proving that Bhaudhayana was better than Pythagoras but in creating an institutional framework that can produce a Manjul Bhargava. 

References:

1. Manjul Bhargava https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manjul_Bhargava
2. SASTRA Ramanujan Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SASTRA_Ramanujan_Prize
3. Fields Medal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal
4. Institute for Advanced Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Advanced_Study
5. Abraham Flexner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Flexner
6. Flexure's article "The usefulness of useless knowledge" https://www.ias.edu/ideas/usefulness-useless-knowledge
7. "The Crest of the Peacock" by George Gheverghese Joseph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crest_of_the_Peacock:_Non-European_Roots_of_Mathematics
8. Review of "Crest of Peacock" by Clemency Montelle http://www.ams.org/notices/201311/rnoti-p1459.pdf
9. Venky Ramakrishnan on Indian Science Congress http://www.firstpost.com/india/indian-science-congress-is-a-circus-wont-attend-it-nobel-laureate-v-ramakrishnan-2572268.html
10. "I'll not accept any job in India" - Venky Ramakrishnan http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2009-10-13/news/27645273_1_nobel-laureate-venkatraman-ramakrishnan-venki-ramakrishnan-nobel-prize
11. Goethe's Scientific work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe#Scientific_work
12. "Nabokov Theory on Butterfly Evolution is Vindicated" - New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/science/01butterfly.html?_r=0
13. "The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt's New World" - Andrea Wulf
14. Manjul Bhargava's Theory (an explanation) https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140812-the-musical-magical-number-theorist/
15. About Bhargava's award http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/a-professor-who-sees-common-thread-in-sanskrit-music-and-mathematics-114081400051_1.html
16. "India has to be its own cultural ambassador, but it has to be scientific about it" - Manjul Bhargava -- Lecture on "Connection between Sanskrit and Mathematics" http://thewire.in/2016/01/19/india-has-to-be-its-own-cultural-ambassador-but-it-has-to-be-scientific-about-it-manjul-bhargava-18524/
17. Another blog on the same lecture http://varahamihiragopu.blogspot.com/2016/01/manjul-bhargava-on-sanskrit-and.html
18. "Nobel, Nationality and Venky Ramakrishnan" - My blog in 2009 http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2009/10/nobel-nationality-and-venky.html
19. Alexander Von Humboldt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
20. George Joseph's interview in 'The HIndu' http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/history-and-culture/dr-george-gheverghese-joseph-tsays-the-work-of-kerala-mathematicians-influenced-their-european-counterparts/article7818063.ece

S.Ramakrishnan and Eddie Murphy Come To America

Eddie Murphy plays an African prince in ‘Coming to America’ who is on the lookout for a queen. Saying 'what better place to find a queen than in Queens' Murphy lands in NY and goes through Murphy-like experiences that showcase America in Hollywood slapstick comedy fashion. Contemporary Tamil writer S.Ra, as S.Ramakrishnan is popularly known, also came to America and has shared his opinions of Yankee land.

 

S.Ra's recent interview to a magazine had two interesting observations. First, he laments how Tamils in USA who have been emigrating since the 50's, lack any creative literary output, unlike Sri Lankan Tamils in Toronto. He says Tamils in USA lack any social awareness for what happens in Tamil Nadu and show not a 'single' good trait found in Canadian Tamils.

Second, he dishes out freely his ideas of what US is. USA is a country where cities are dispersed like islands amidst forests. Dwellings are situated within forests. Americans create cities by the side of forests resulting in an imbalance. Americans lack a distinctive culture and live a life of intellectual emptiness. The capitalist system compels everyone not to look beyond one’s own self or borders. Thousands of Tamils have emigrated to US but unlike Chinese, Japanese and Jewish immigrants there are no literary creations by Tamils.

S.Ra was invited to Canada and USA for his creative acumen and literature. A Canadian Tamil Sangam honored him with an award and that was how all this journey happened. It is disappointing that S.Ra did not bring to bear his literary sensibilities to what he saw. His interview makes it appear that he has little understanding of US history and intellectual traditions and that is what surprises me most given that he is a voracious reader.

When I met S.Ra at FeTNA I asked him about his impressions of the country until then (did not ask what he read of America). S.Ra said he was interested in seeing art galleries. He wrote a nice article about Diego Rivera museum but offered this drivel now. S.Ra added that he would read about US when he returns to India. He said it would be meaningful to read about a country after the visit because he can place what he reads. Fair enough. On the other hand, in his acceptance speech in Canada he expressed great admiration for Canada and how he was desirous of visiting Canada since childhood and mentioned his reading of books on Canada. 

Canada, due to its liberal asylum policies, is a magnet for Sri Lankan Tamils fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan Tamils are by nature reputed to be more literary minded than Tamils in Tamil Nadu. Sri Lankan Tamils had to flee their homeland under tragic circumstances and did not emigrate, like Tamils from Tamil Nadu, in search of greener pastures. As exiles Sri Lankan Tamils have a deeper yearning for their mother tongue and homeland that none of the other Tamils can experience. 

Asians emigrated to US in a big way only after Ted Kennedy sponsored immigration reform in 1965, not 50's as S.Ra thinks. Tamils emigrated by the thousands only recently thanks to H1B program. That our education system produces clerks with no knowledge of fine arts is a much lamented fact. The high concentration of engineers, IT professionals, amongst immigrants in US is a prime reason for lack of literary output. US immigration policies also define what kind of Tamils can immigrate to US. Amidst job concerns, green card anxieties, layoffs, taking care of families in two continents, raising kids in a different culture, by and large the Tamil society, like Indians in general, is still trying to find its feet. Creation of literature by a people results from many factors and almost none of which exists in US for Tamils and, again, for Indians in general. Jewish Diaspora, not just those who came to USA, have a high concentration of not only literary creativity but creativity in every sphere of activity and the reasons for that are varied. But the Chinese and Japanese have not produced any great 'body of work' that makes the Tamils in US look sorry.  Anybody can state a fact but to see the reasons behind what happens and what does not happen is supposed to be the preserve of the intellectual. S.Ra failed to show that nuance in understanding.

About his pathetic understanding of US geography and culture I am speechless. He just traveled by road from Toronto via New York to Baltimore and visited few other pockets. America is a vast country with widely varying topography. Such elementary awareness has escaped this screenplay writer. I'd forgive that too but not his statements on US culture. S.Ra was an English literature student and should have known better about US 'culture'.

How can he talk so lightly of a country where Mark Twain, Saul Bellow, William Faulkner, Robert Frost, Margaret Mitchell, Philip Roth, Joan Didion, Gore Vidal, Henry David Thoreau, Emerson, Santayana, Dewey and an endless list lived. Time Magazine runs a special issue every July 4^th picking out one American to talk about how that person helped shape America. The first person, who was not in the pantheon of founding fathers like Jefferson and Franklin, to be on that cover was Mark Twain. A literature that reflects American issues and shapes American thinking was created to give expression to the needs of this country. Americans have always prided themselves in creating American institutions distinct from their cousins across the Atlantic. This desire for distinctness was so ingrained that Americans even created their own dictionary, by Noah Webster, spelling ‘centre’ as ‘center’, ‘colour’ as ‘color’. 

American Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 at Philadelphia functions even today. Franklin founded the society so that Americans might 'cultivate the finer arts, and improve the common stock of knowledge'. I asked S.Ra if he planned to visit the Library of Congress, Jefferson's creation. He said he did not have time. OK, understood but does he know the hoary history of that library. Does he know how Jefferson created the University of Virginia and designed its rotunda? Jefferson desired that University of Virginia provide an ‘American education’ to Americans. S.Ra's guides are also to blame. They did not take him to Monticello, home of Jefferson. Why do Indians not visit places like Monticello or Mount Vernon or Mark Twain’s home? Or the library of congress? (I am talking about most not all).

The comment about America’s 'intellectual emptiness' is the worst absurdity. This to a country that stages plays by Eugene O Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. This to a country that has the world’s most lavishly equipped prestigious Symphony halls. This to a country of Jazz, Blues, Rock and Roll, Soul music, country songs. S.Ra might know of some books influencing America, like Harriet Beecher Stowe's 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin'. I am not sure if he knows how Thomas Kuhn's 'Structure of scientific revolutions' is still revered in the study of science or how Allan Bloom's 'Closing of the American mind' came to be written and its influence decades later. Fleeing Nazi Germany Thomas Mann came here and wrote his immortal 'Faust'. Alexander Solzhenitsyn fleeing USSR found a home in New England. The largest number of Shakespeare’s much revered First Folio copies are in the Folger library in Washington DC. Not in England.

Not many immigrants know much about the deep intellectual currents that form the bedrock of America. Louis Menand's 2002 Pulitzer winner 'Metaphysical club' details of a philosophy club founded by famous jurist Wendell Holmes, philosophers James and Pierce. Jefferson is revered for not just his intellect but his desire to create other Jeffersons. The ratification of US constitution by the colonies is itself a story worth reading. The Federalist Papers, written by Hamilton, Madison and John Jay, marshaled support in unprecedented polemical manner to pass the constitution. Those opposed to the Federalist papers articulated their opinions as, what else but, ‘Cato’.
Bernard Bailyn's Pulitzer winning 'Ideological origins of American Revolution' is a detective story that traces the origins of the ideas of a magnificent constitution. Bailyn threads the story of how Magna Carta, Montesquieu, Roman history and more flowed into creating an intellectual achievement that stands in a class of its own. Gordon Wood in his Pulitzer winning 'Radicalism of American Revolution' makes the case of how American revolution was 'radical' in creating a new paradigm of nation state. Wood painstakingly explains how a monarchical society transforms itself into a republican society.

 

America is the country of think tanks. Brookings institution and ‘American Enterprise Institute’, ‘Rand corporation’ amongst others ensure a vigorous intellectual stirring about and create a pipeline of intellectuals to inform those who govern. 

Harvard,Princeton, Johns-Hopkins, MIT, Stanford are all not mere accidents. Many countries have tried to replicate them and failed miserably. A compelling read on American universities is, "Great American Universities" by former President of Columbia University, Jonathan Cole. Cole was part of a team that China formed to create a Chinese Harvard. The attempt floundered and Cole wrote this book to tell the world why America's universities are unique and how to protect them.

The capitalist system that he decries is what drew thousands of India to seek their fortunes here and see more of the world. Does he know how MBA courses are being altered to include a stint in Asia to know the emerging economies. S.Ra should try to understand what leaps of creativity and ingenuity are involved in building the Empire State Building or the Brooklyn Bridge. He could explore and learn why Frank Lloyd Wright is revered as the creator of American Architecture? Capitalism is involved in all that.

Silicon Valley can only come from America's womb. No other country can give the space for Steve Jobs. Microsoft, Apple and HP were all born in garages. That Silicon Valley would be created in West coast and not in the equally prosperous East coast is an interesting study of how America has different cultures in its two coasts. Not to mention how the Midwest is re-inventing itself today. Is it an accident that Rockefeller, Carnegie, Stanford etc lived and flourished here? The US transcontinental railroad was not only an engineering marvel but a financial marvel too. Gordon Wood narrates how Americans made 'commerce' as the connective tissue of a country that lacked any other historical glue. The miracles brought about in industrial manufacturing and productivity were possible only in America. Calvin Coolidge, US's 30th President, stated 'the business of American people is business'.

 

A vague silly chatter of the California gold rush insults the westward expansion of America and the taming of the West.The Jefferson commissioned Lewis-Clark expeditions are stories of not just adventurism but of a unique human spirit that is amorphously labeled 'American'. Jefferson told them not just to travel and map out but they were charged with studying flora and fauna in each area and to see how economic expansion can be carried out. Forgotten for long today that expedition is canonical. 

S.Ra thinks that America does not have its own cuisine. That his guides, fellow Tamils who did not know better, took him to pedestrian restaurants they are used to going is not America's fault. Crab cakes in Maryland,  lobsters in Maine, Soul food in New Orleans and so on were not even tasted by him. Yes America is a land of immigrants and it is home to so many cuisines but they all have taken a distinctive American flavor too, sometimes losing their originality but mostly a new character.

Many Indian immigrants lack a curiosity to know and understand how a motley group of colonies in 1776 evolved into a super power. The 'super power' is not because America is unrivaled in arms and military but its deep intellectual nature. S.Ra maligns that US has not created its own culture but is a hodge podge of immigrant cultures. Nothing is further from truth. In every art forms streams of immigrant cultures have commingled and they have been transmuted into what is called 'American'. This is true of every civilization and every country. It is puzzling that this anthropological truth escaped S.Ra.

Not just S.Ra but every immigrant who has made America his/her home should spend some efforts to understand this country that we all have come to call homeland.

Indians skewer medicos on TV: "Physicians, Heal Thy Selves"

I am the son of doctor, my brother is a doctor so are many cousins, nephews and nieces. For a long time I had meant to write a blog on the state of medical education in Tamil Nadu but hesitated out of antagonizing some good people unnecessarily. Anyone who reads this further please understand that I know what I am talking about here and I do so with utmost honesty and in the larger public interest.

Aamir Khan is hosting a talk show and a recent episode was on the state of healthcare in India. The episode highlighted callous malpractices that resulted in loss of life, atrocious practices that fleeced patients, gross incompetence etc. The incidents cited have not been disputed till date, most comments were by the general public on live TV. Doctors flew into a rage and now an association demands that Aamir should apologize. Not one of them thought it fit to say "there is lot of anger out there we should do some soul searching" or "I feel sorry that a mother died due to a doctor we need to get better", or "it is outrageous that a doctor would tell a patient that liver transplant is needed when just an ordinary flatulence medicine would do". No. Not an ounce of empathy for the poor souls but buckets of outrage at Aamir. The worst remark was "a realtor gets 200% commission so why not a doctor get a marginal cut on tests" (referring to commissions to doctors from labs for tests ordered). And then doctors wonder why there is public anger and distrust.

This is not an isolated instance of public ire. Some years back Vijay TV in Chennai hosted a similar show and again the doctors came under withering criticism from the public. Across India there is ire towards doctors. I'd like to give a peek into stinking world of medical 'industry'. Like everything in India there are always exceptions, there will be honest to god good doctors but they are, as I said, 'exceptions'. The good is always an 'exception' in India.

So Many Ways to Earn Money

Very few professions afford so many ways to earn dishonest money as it does for a doctor, especially for a surgeon. Padding prescriptions with expensive drugs to earn cuts from drug reps and pharmacy owners. Cuts from laboratories for tests, again, not infrequently padding tests required. Cuts from scan centers, again many times ordering unnecessary scans. Sometimes a doctor might be a partner in all those centers too thus practically milking the unsuspecting patient from all corners. Most doctors do not even know the words "conflict of interest". Doctors in government hospitals take it a step further. 'Admission practice' is a term for a doctor soliciting bribes from patients to schedule surgeries in government hospitals. Government hospital doctors are also known to scoot out of hospitals to attend private practice. Surgeons scare patients into scheduling unnecessary surgeries, cuts from nursing homes for admitting patients. Again doctors do own nursing homes and admit patients only there even if their nursing home is unsuitable for a particular surgery. Even doctor owned nursing homes lack basic amenities like ambulances (let alone equipped ambulance), clean operation theaters. I am a capitalist, I love profits. Profits are what one makes after all necessary expenses are made NOT at the cost of essentials. MBBS doctors practicing is a stupidity possible only in India. It is a pathetic state that many villages are dependent on such doctors. Doctors prescribe medical devices like cardiac stents and hearing aids indiscriminately to milk cuts from device manufacturers.

Nursing homes and especially private hospitals specialize in fleecing patients than medical care. When a patient chooses to stay in a room rather than a general ward the patient pays room rent. Not content with that most hospitals charge the patient in a room higher prices for lab tests than what they charge a general ward patient. Note, this is not redistribution, the general ward patient is NOT subsidized by the richer patient, both pay full price and more. Nursing homes will not admit certain patients unless a substantial amount is deposited. Clean sterile environment etc are unknown commodities even in pricey hospitals at the center of the city.

Cavalier prescription of expensive drugs to boost bottom-lines of in house pharmacies is a common practice. When hundreds of students come out of private colleges paying tens of lakhs almost no one has the ability to empathize with a poor patient. Private university hospitals used to pay the doctors on their rolls a cut in black money. Its the same doctor who is also a professor teaching students. By the time one comes out of a nursing home one is out of pocket by tens of thousands. At the end of all this if the reader does not feel dizzy or like puking you have either resigned yourself to fate and have thick skin or ...I don't know what to say.All of the above is only scratching the surface.

Degrees Sold as 'Package Deal' and Incompetency

In a country like India the one area where is the government can play a legitimate role is in providing education. Speaking from observing Tamil Nadu, it is in that specific area where state governments have failed miserably. The doctor:population ratio is miserably low in India accentuated (or caused) by low number of colleges. In the 80's Tamil Nadu underwent a revolution in privatizing tertiary education in Engineering and Medicine yielding divergent results. Self-Financing, as they are called, engineering colleges sold seats for Rs 40,000 in the 80'-90's. While that was a large sum it was within the reach of many parents whose children, may not have scored good to enter the few government colleges or, as was the case mostly, sidelined by the brutal corrupt quota system. Private Medical colleges on the other hand collected Rs 10 lakhs in the early 90's, now running into Rs 50 lakhs. This prohibitive cost meant that only the stinking rich could afford it. That category of students usually fell, with minimal exception, into children who cared a damn about academics but had rich parents who wanted their children to have an M.B.B.S. Now it has reached a level where a candidate can do a package deal for Rs 1 crore+ for MBBS+Any PG degree. Do I expect a student who paid Rs 1 crore just to sit in MBBS to clear exams honestly before going to PG? No.

A US Medical aspirant goes through a 4 year degree and THEN sits for a grueling 7 hour MCATS exam. Tamil Nadu students shiver in their slippers to sit for an entrance exam and enter MBBS after +2. For instance, in first year MBBS,  students write two separate exams like Anatomy -1 and Anatomy 2 for a single subject. The University declared, to raise standards, that they need to pass each paper individually as against a 'combined pass' as in past years. Scared students recently took out a rally asking that they should be declared "pass" based on "combined" basis. So before you go under the knife of a doctor in TN ask "did you pass both theory papers separately". Tamil Nadu PG exams are even more ridiculous. If a student served in the government after MBBS he/she gets 1 mark per year of service, they were labeled, "service candidates". So if you warmed a seat for 5 years  you get 5 marks, often times most do not even report to duty. Then there is 69% quota. SC/ST candidates are exempt from eligibility criterion of 50% marks. One reason why FC's shy away from MBBS is that the torture of quota does not end. Quota for MBBS, quota for PG, quota for getting a government posting (thereby becoming a service candidate), quota for government hospital after graduation. Heck one would forget walking on ones own leg after being on crutches for long.

Private colleges have mushroomed so much that getting qualified teachers is difficult. Every retired doctor is now wooed to be a professor. That also serves to satisfy MCI (Medical Council of India) requirements for 'experienced' professors. Most doctors, like most other Indian professionals, think that reading and learning ends on the day of graduation. Result is now private colleges have as teachers old retired people who have not touched a reading material barring a vernacular newspaper.

Are all private colleges bad. Of course not. Some private colleges, in order to earn more money, reach for a higher bar. Now, NRI's are a market to be tapped. Rather than spend close to $300,000 for a medical degree in USA many parents send their kids to India. This market pays higher than TN people but they also expect better facilities and slightly better teaching. Some private medical colleges are now tapping into this and is re-inventing itself. Note, that such NRI students would return to USA after MBBS so the PG degree is still catering mostly to local students.

Private colleges (and government colleges too) are notorious for hiring professors for a day to meet MCI requirements on the day of inspection. MCI chairman was recently arrested by CBI for bribery. He had several thousand crores.

UK's much vaunted NHS stipulates that doctors applying for medical teaching centers have to meet higher standards. That is not so in Tamil Nadu for clinical specialties. 'Teaching' is not considered as requiring separate skill set from being a practicing doctor. The logic being 'if you can do it, you can teach it'. Bollocks, to use a British expression. That's how we have doctors examining students across decades without ever having read any book or journal after their graduation.

To Be Fair, Doctor's Grievances

The medical association that asked Aamir to apologize said "doctors are not aliens and are part of the same corrupt society, do not hold them to a higher standard". That is very sadly true too. Lost in a quagmire of corruption where the fruit we eat, the water we drink, the driving license we renew, the school teacher, the electrician, the land registrar, the jeweler are ALL corrupt can we expect one set of professionals alone to be different. However convincing that argument is it is a cop out. No other profession holds in its hand the ultimate question of life and death. I've seen patients prostrate themselves before a doctor, see a parent swell up with gratitude when a doctor saves his child, see a child go home with a cured mother no other profession, especially in India, begets such gratitude. No other profession holds a critical imbalance in knowledge between the provider and the requester. In no other profession is knowledge or its lack can have such immediate impact. 

How can we expect teachers in medical colleges to be like Lewis Thomas while the government enshrines mediocrity with policy and sometimes with lack of policy. 

My biggest anguish is that the medical community instead of trying to do soul searching is throwing brickbats in self-righteous indignation. It is sad, but it is not surprising. That is India.