WEEKEND LIGHTER: RELEVANCE OF TOLERANCE
WEEKEND LIGHTER : RELEVANCE OF TOLERANCE
(This week, Weekend Lighter is publishing Dr Raghuram Rajan’s convocation address at IIT, Delhi on
October 31, 2015. Reason being, many are commenting on the speech without
referring to the text.)
M G Warrier
“The golden rule of conduct is mutual
toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall always see
Truth in fragments and from different points of vision.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Tolerance and Respect for Economic
Progress*
Thank
you very much for inviting me back to the Institute to deliver the convocation
address. I graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering 30 years ago. I
was overly anxious then about what the future held for me, because I did not
realize that the Institute had prepared me so well for what lay ahead. Our
professors – and I will not single out any to avoid a disservice to those I do
not name – were dedicated professionals. They asked a lot of us, knowing that
in challenging us they allowed us to learn what we were capable of. Equally
important, our Electrical Engineering class – in those days, Computer Science
was part of Electrical Engineering in IIT Delhi -- had some of the smartest
people it has been my privilege to know. After working with them as colleagues,
and competing with them for grades, I learned what it took to succeed in the
fiercest environments; very hard work, friendship, and boatloads of luck. Those
lessons have stayed with me since.
IIT
Delhi then, as I am sure it is now, was not only about studies – it was about
growing up. We were, with a few notable exceptions, the proverbial school nerds
who had been excluded from all school sports by the macho sports cases. With
almost everyone in the same boat at IIT, for the first time in our lives we got
a chance to bat and bowl at the nets, instead of being posted at deep long on
to retrieve the odd six by the stars. Everyone did something, ranging from
photography to publishing. Of course, we all aspired to join dramatics, where
you got to spend long hours with members of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, I
was no good at acting, so I had to look for self-actualization elsewhere. But
there were enough places to look.
Student
politics was vibrant, with plenty of scheming, strategizing, and back-stabbing.
It was an intellectual pastime, however, without the violence and corruption
that plagues student politics elsewhere in our country. You had to convince the
small intelligent electorate to vote for you, and in figuring out how to get
that vote, we all learnt the art of persuasion.
So we
grew up in the classrooms, in the squash courts at the RCA, in the civilizing
SPIC Mackay overnight classical music concerts and in the over-crowded rock
concerts at the OAT. Some of us spent long hours waiting hopefully outside
Kailash Hostel, and when occasionally our wait was rewarded, beautiful autumn
nights with our friends, chatting and gazing at the stars while sitting on the
roof of Convocation Hall. The Institute replaced our naivety with a more confident
maturity. We came in as smart boys and girls and left as wiser young men and
women. I am confident that the Institute has done to you what it did to us. You
will thank it in the years to come for that.
In
speaking here today, I am aware that most convocation addresses are soon
forgotten. That creates a form of moral hazard for the speaker. If you are not
going to remember what I say, I don’t have the incentive to work hard at
crafting my
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words.
The net effect is what economists refer to as a bad equilibrium; my speech is
forgettable, and you therefore forget it soon. If so, we are all probably
better off with me skipping the rest of the speech, and all of us going on to
other pressing duties.
Nevertheless, I am
going to look beyond my personal incentives and fulfil my dharma as Chief
Guest. I will speak on why India’s tradition of debate and an open spirit of
enquiry is critical for its economic progress. Let me explain.
Robert Solow, won
the Nobel Prize in Economics for work that showed that the bulk of economic
growth did not come from putting more factors of production such as labour and
capital to work. Instead, it came from putting those factors of production
together more cleverly, that is, from what he called total factor productivity
growth. Put differently, new ideas, new methods of production, better logistics
– these are what lead to sustained economic growth. Of course, a poor country
like ours can grow for some time by putting more people to work, by moving them
from low productivity agriculture to higher value added industry or services,
and by giving them better tools to do their jobs. As many of you who have taken
economics will recognize, we in India are usually far from the production
possibility frontier, so we can grow for a long while just by catching up with
the methods of industrial countries.
But more
intelligent ways of working will enable us to leapfrog old methods and come
more quickly to the production possibility frontier – as for example, we have
done in parts of the software industry. And, of course, once you are at the
frontier and using the best methods in the world, the only way to grow is to
innovate and be even better than others in the world. This is what our software
firms are now trying to do.
Our alums, whom
you students will shortly join, are leading India’s charge to the frontier and
beyond. Take the fantastic developments in E-commerce, ranging from the
creation of electronic market places to new logistics networks and payments
systems. Today, a consumer in a small town can have the same choice of clothing
fashions that anyone from the large metros enjoy, simply because the Internet
has brought all the shops in India to her doorstep. And while her local shop no
longer can sell shoddy apparel, it now focuses on the perishable items she
needs in a hurry, even while sub-contracting to provide the last leg of the
logistic network that reaches her. Economic growth through new ideas and
production methods is what our professors and alums contribute to the nation.
So what does an
educational institution or a nation need to do to keep the idea factory open?
The first essential is to foster competition in the market place for
ideas. This means encouraging challenge to all authority and tradition, even
while acknowledging that the only way of dismissing any view is through
empirical tests. What this rules out is anyone imposing a particular view or
ideology because of their power. Instead, all ideas should be scrutinized
critically, no matter whether they originate domestically or abroad, whether
they have matured over thousands of years or a few minutes, whether they come
from an untutored student or a world-famous professor.
I am sure many of
you have come across Richard Feynman’s Lectures on Physics, a must-read when we
were at IIT. The Nobel prize-winning physicist was
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one
of the giants of the twentieth century. In his autobiography, though, he writes
how he found the atmosphere at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton
stultifying. Now, as you know, the Institute of Advanced Studies brings
together some of the finest scholars in the world to ponder problems in a
multi-disciplinary environment. But he found the atmosphere sterile because
there were no students to ask him questions, questions that would force him to
rethink his beliefs and perhaps discover new theories. Ideas start with
questioning and alternative viewpoints, sometimes seemingly silly ones. After
all, Einstein built his theory of relativity pondering the somewhat wacky
question of what someone travelling in a train at the speed of light would
experience. So nothing should be excluded but everything should be subject to
debate and constant testing. No one should be allowed to offer unquestioned
pronouncements. Without this competition for ideas, we have stagnation.
This then leads to
a second essential: Protection, not of specific ideas and traditions,
but the right to question and challenge, the right to behave differently so
long as it does not hurt others seriously. In this protection lies societal
self-interest, for it is by encouraging the challenge of innovative rebels that
society develops, that it gets the ideas that propel Solow’s total factor
productivity growth. Fortunately, India has always protected debate and the
right to have different views. Some have even embedded these views in permanent
structures. Raja Raja Chola, in building the magnificent Brihadeeswara Shaivite
temple at Thanjavur, also incorporated sculptures of Vishnu as well as the
meditating Buddha thus admitting to alternative viewpoints. When Shahenshah
Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar invited scholars of all manner of persuasion to
debate the eternal verities at his court, he was only following older
traditions of our Hindu and Buddhist kings, who encouraged and protected the spirit
of enquiry.
What then of group
sentiment? Should ideas or behaviour that hurt a particular intellectual
position or group not be banned? Possibly, but a quick resort to bans will
chill all debate as everyone will be anguished by ideas they dislike. It is far
better to improve the environment for ideas through tolerance and mutual
respect.
Let me explain.
Actions that physically harm anyone, or show verbal contempt for a particular
group so that they damage the group’s participation in the marketplace for
ideas, should certainly not be allowed. For example, sexual harassment, whether
physical or verbal, has no place in society. At the same time, groups should
not be looking for slights any and everywhere, so that too much is seen as
offensive; the theory of confirmation bias in psychology suggests that once one
starts looking for insults, one can find them everywhere, even in the most
innocuous statements. Indeed, if what you do offends me but does not harm me
otherwise, there should be a very high bar for prohibiting your act. After all,
any ban, and certainly any vigilante acts to enforce it, may offend you as
much, or more, than the offense to me. Excessive political correctness stifles
progress as much as excessive license and disrespect.
Put differently,
while you should avoid pressing the buttons that upset me to the extent
possible, when you do push them you should explain carefully why that is
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necessary
so as to move the debate forward, and how it should not be interpreted as a
personal attack on me. You have to tread respectfully, assuring me that
a challenge to the ideas I hold is necessary for progress. At the same time, I
should endeavour to hold few ideas so closely intertwined with my personality
that any attack on them is deemed an intolerable personal affront. Tolerance
means not being so insecure about one’s ideas that one cannot subject them
to challenge – it implies a degree of detachment that is absolutely necessary
for mature debate. Finally, respect requires that in the rare case when an idea
is tightly associated with a group’s core personality, we are extra careful
about challenging it.
Tolerance can take
the offense out of debate, and indeed instil respect. If I go berserk every
time a particular button is pressed, rebels are tempted to press the button,
while mischief-makers indeed do so. But if I do not react predictably, and
instead ask button pressers to explain their concerns, rebels are forced to do
the hard work of marshalling arguments. So, rebels do not press the button
frivolously, while the thuggish mischief makers who abound in every group are
left without an easy trigger. Tolerance and respect then lead to a good equilibrium
where they reinforce each other.
For example,
rebellious youth in the United States used to burn the American flag. It was
calculated to upset the older generation that had fought in America’s wars, for
the flag was a symbol of all they had fought for. And the police, many of whom
were veterans, used to react with violence, which was precisely the reaction
the rebels sought to further their cause. Over time, though, U.S. society has
become more tolerant of flag-burning. Because it no longer triggers a reaction,
it is no longer used as an instrument to shock. In sum, if group sentiment
becomes more tolerant and less easily hurt, the actions that try to hurt it
will diminish. As Mahatma Gandhi said “The golden rule of conduct is mutual
toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall always see
Truth in fragments and from different points of vision.”
Let me conclude.
IITans like you will lead India’s race for ideas. The India that you will
graduate into is much more capable of using your technological prowess than the
India we graduated into. I wish you unlimited ambition, and forecast great
success for those of you who continue thinking and challenging. But as you go
out in the world, remember our tradition of debate in an environment of respect
and tolerance. By upholding it, by fighting for it, you will be repaying your
teachers in this great institution, and your parents who worked so hard to send
you here. And you will be doing our country a great patriotic service. Thank
you and good luck.
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*Convocation
address by Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India at the IIT Delhi
Convocation, October 31, 2015.
Source: RBI Website
Comments
The error is regreted.
Thank you, Mohan.
M G Warrier