At theotherindia, Tejal leaves the following comment:
Her list of class disadvantages is however, an elitist peception in my opinion. i wouldnt count “not being able to enter pubs, bars etc” as a disadvantage or a deprivation in terms of class, becuase the very existence of such gated institutions is the proof and perptration of existence of class categories and a divide between the haves and the have nots. If you do not objetct to the existence of elitist institutions then the objection to them providing access to only a previledged few is superficial as this consequence is inevitable. The debate then should be at a much more fundamental level (about what the existence of such elite, patriarchal institutions/systems means and not about who gets access to them and not).
Since, dear reader, your eyes will have glazed over reading that pile of opaque language, here’s a summary: Tejal thinks that if you don’t allow some people in to an institution, you create eliltism and a divide between the haves and have-nots. I get the feeling that she thinks this is a bad thing.
I think Tejal should set an example for the rest of us in ‘depreviledging’ systems by opening access to her arsehole. Everyone from Thakurs to Dalits to whites to blacks to barnyard animals to illegal Bangladeshi immigrants should be able to enter it at will. I see no reason why everyone should be a have-not when it comes to anal sex with Tejal, especially when she herself has the ability to make everyone a have.
Update: People, please read this post for an explanation of why I’m being so disgusting, and this post for the reason I think this comment is worth making so much of a fuss over.
Further Update, from Later: I stand by my criticism, but now realise that this analogy is hurtful and disrespectful to people who actually have suffered rape. I regret using it, and apologise to anybody it’s hurt. I’m putting up this apology rather than deleting the post, because I feel that keeping the post around is an important reminder to me not to be an idiot again.
the best cartellian post about it
soory, i meant to say: the best cartellian post ever
This is too cool Aadisht 🙂
A good point, well made. Some jokers won’t be able to see past the anatomical reference, of course! 🙂
isn’t it illegal to suggest people should rape someone? And is this the best argument you can come up with? for shame.
The very idea of rape presupposes the existence of privileged space that can only exist as part of a paradigm that treats exclusionary zones between the haves and the have-nots as part of the natural order.
Sasha, where did anyone suggest rape? Aadisht merely suggested that the lady in question should willingly dismantle the elitist class barriers she so deplores.
I actually agree with Shivam for once. This is the best post ever. It is a splendid illustration of the sanctity of the owner’s rights over his private property. Unfortunately, many people do not have the capacity, willingness or maturity to grasp the succinctness of Aadisht’s argument.
That was truly disgusting. If you can get beyond this patriarchal, partonizing mindset perhaps you would see that the criticism was of a system that engenders elitist institutions. I hope you realise the way this is written you come across as a reactionary male, who’s responding to an articulate, assertive young woman (whose politics you might not agree with) with the cheapest shot a man can give (as opposed to a reasoned political argument).
Saying that women should have control over their bodies is a patriarchical, patronizing mindset?
lod, articulate? You have to go at that comment with nitroglycerine and blasting caps to extract any sort of meaning from all that jargon. All that effort only to find that Tejal is criticising a system that engenders elitist institutions. The fact that it’s the same system which gives her the right to choose who she has sex with and how seems to have escaped her.
@ Ravikiran:
Saying that women should have control over their bodies is a patriarchical, patronizing mindset?
No, comparing access to a club / pub to a violation of a woman’s body is.
@Aadishit:
same system which gives her the right to choose who she has sex with and how
That is her fundamental right, surely it isn’t so hard to conceive of a more equitable system that guarantees the fundamental rights of its citizenry?
I’ve got some bad news for you, sunshine. Choosing who you want to let into your private property is also a fundamental right. Not one guaranteed by our Constitution, unfortunately, but fundamental nevertheless.
And please, it’s Aadisht, not Aadishit. Unless you were name calling. How mature.
I wasn’t name calling, don’t need to, to make a point.. 🙂 The comment you found so execrable was trying to criticise a system that engenders elitist institutions – you think this is equal to violation of a woman’s body?? Besides, the very equation of a woman’s body with a piece of land or brick and mortar structure is partiarchal and patronising to say the least..
Not one guaranteed by our Constitution, unfortunately,
I see, unfortunate indeed, so what makes it so fundamental again? We obviously disagree on this, and that’s ok, have had perfectly civil political disagreements with lots of people. It is the manner with which you chose to make your point that I find so deplorable. Something tells me that if had been me who made that comment, this would not have been the response.
I think violation of private property is no different from violation of a body.
Why is the right to do what you like with your body fundamental?
Why wouldn’t it have been the same response? Don’t you have an arsehole too?
Lod,
I agree that perhaps, Aadisht could have made his point without a specific reference to the commentator’s anatomy. But that should not draw one away from the merit of his argument.
Let us deal with it from your ”brick and mortar” pov. Suppose, I demand, unfettered access to your home. Why should only certain number of people(haves) should have access to your house and not I(have nots)? On what basis do you defend that right? Please note Tejal’s point is not that access is being denied, her point is that since access cannot be ensured(a big difference between the two) for everyone, somehow it becomes elitist. On basis of that argument, how can you deny me access to your bedroom?
Yes, the Constitution does not grant the right to property as a fundamental right, but then it has made homosexuality a crime too, do you support that? Also, please note, right to property was very much part of our constitution before it was taken away by the 44th amendment under India garibi hatao Gandhi’s regime. Pray, whose cause has it damaged? Have you ever heard of any middle class locality being demolished to make way for a new road? It has been used to deprive the poorest section of the society of their land!
And that is exactly what is wrong with socialism, it is equivalent to elitism. It only protects the right of those who are already part of the system, the copious tears it sheds for others hold little meaning.
for those that dont know the difference between ownership and access to property / commodities and respect for the human being/ intimacy and dignity it reflect a very sorry lack of priviledge to mental and emotional maturity.
While I completely agree with the merit of the argument, what the lady said was bull! The analogy is completely not acceptable, rather distastefull.
Nandita,
“respect for the human being/ intimacy and dignity” and “ownership and access to property / commodities” are inherently linked. I would say that “respect for the human being/ intimacy and dignity” leads to rights of “ownership and access to property / commodities”.
Aadisht,
The analogy might be distasteful from a woman’s point of view but it does get the point across. I think, you could have done better. However, you chose not to do so. That is your prerogative.
I visited your blog through Dilip D Souza’s blog. When I started reading DD’s rant about this post, initially, I felt that he is in the mood for introspection. He wrote – “Then you find, like so many of us also do, that there are indeed people who disagree, who don’t quite see your impeccable logic with the clarity you do. It puts those first niggling doubts in your mind. But oh no, you can’t admit to them for public consumption, because one of the lessons you think you imbibed from that premier establishment is never to admit to doubts.” Nothing can describe DD and his cronies more than what he wrote himself.
Sometimes, the people who cry copious tears for the poor and pretend to be the next carbon copy of the Mahatma need to be jolted out of their comfort zones. You have done just that. Thanks!
Regards,
I think i’ve given this stuff waaay more attention than it deserves, this is my last comment on this blog.
@ confused:
perhaps, Aadisht could have made his point
The point I was trying to make was that comparing a woman’s body to a piece of land, or a violation thereof to trespassing on someone’s land is not a mere logical slip of the tongue, it’s an example of the most deplorable kind of partiarchal mindset. It’s simply not the same thing as messing up a logical syllogism.
This whole business of ‘right to property’ etc. is a long debate, and not really to the point of the comment that Aadisht was referring to. The original poster suggested that she would not be denied access to a pub/club no matter how plainly she was accoutred thanks to the class she belongs to. Tejal’s point (as I read it) was that objecting to the lack of access at such institutions was pointless without thinking of the system that brought those institutions into being i.e. she is, albeit obliquely, critiquing the system that engenders these insititutions. If someone thinks a system that supports defined class hierarchies is somehow a desirable thing, then please respond with reasons for the same.
Let me turn this around a little, few (I hope) would support a (private) cafe/pub/educational institution/.. that admits only Brahmins or only Caucasians, or only men, so on and so forth. Why should this be any different when you replace identity (caste/race/gender/..) with class?
The opressed and the disempowered castes (and classes) have had their fundamental rights violated by the privileged and powerful for centuries before Ms Gandhi, and continue to do so. The politics of their opression is another story altogether. Her father (the Anglicised Papa Nehru) had no qualms abut displacing millions for various Big Dam (Temples of Modern India) projects to take but one example. I;m not sure if you were trying to suggest that Ms Gandhi was socialist, she was a totalitarian despot who used a veneer of populist rhetoric, to mask her thirst for power. She’s no more a Socialist, than Trujillo, Pinochet and any number of such US puppet despots were capitalists.
why is slavery illegal and ownership of property legal ? even in capitalist ( class based) societies
you cannot compare a human being to a commodity and you cannot compare access to property with sexual intimacy, anal or not.
…..and if you do it says something about you.It doesnt say anything about the person you seek to belittle or choose to commodify.
“he could have said it better but he gets the point across.”
what point has “he” got across to people who say this ?
Nandita,
Every society in the world is class based. Give me an example of a society which is not. Which managed to completely remove the difference between rich and poor.
Give me one example.
lod: The system that engenders these institutions is the system of property rights, and the absolute right of every property owner to do what he likes with his property. While a bar that admits only men or women, or only Caucasians or Hispanics, or only Brahims or Dalits might be in bad taste, we need to respect the owner’s right to do what he wants with his property. This is because it is that very same right which allows the owner to prevent someone who’s too drunk from coming in, someone who’s carrying a gun to come in, or someone with a history of bad behaviour from coming in. You can criticise the outcome of the system- class hierarchies- but criticising the system and trying to pull it down is a dangerous path to take- you endanger your own right to safety and life.
Nandita: slavery is illegal even when the right to property is upheld because a person is his own property. It doesn’t sound elegant, but when you make a person your slave you violate his right to own himself. And if you’l hand around, I’ll have a post up one of these days explaining why it is that respect for the human being is inseparable from respect for property rights.
What prevents any friend of mine to call me in the middle of the night? – respect for my personal space and privacy.
What compels a friend of mine to call me up and ask me whether I am free to talk to him/her? – respect for my time.
What prevents my boss to treat me like a slave and insult me in front of the others? – respect for my dignity.
What prevents me from treating poor people like garbage? – respect for their dignity and a recognition of their status as a fellow living being.
What prevents any stranger to get into my house and demand that I accomodate him/her? – respect for my existence and my property.
If I decide to help a stranger by inviting him/her to my house for temporary stay, that is my prerogative. It should not become society’s prerogative to force me to provide shelter to any Tom, Dick, and Harry.
If I decide not to allow non-Hindus to enter my house, the collective society has no business to interfere as long as I do not harm other people physically or emotionally within the bounds of my private property. I might be a communalist/racist etc. but I have the right to not allow indvidiuals that I do not like in my private property. Of course, in return, I have to be ready to pay a social cost for my refusal to treat everybody as equal. The point is that society has to respect my existence. My hateful personality or idiosyncracies are immaterial.
I agree that I have no right to demand this priviledge on the property that is not maintained using my money.
Clubs belonging to a certain group of people with certain objectives in mind, should have the right to say “yes” or “no” to let people enter its domain. If you do not like a certain class/group of people who are part of the club or their intentions, why do you want to join them? Nobody is forcing you to respect their beliefs but you still have to respect their right for existence. I would not like to join a club that provides its membership based on how much money I earn but I definitely support their right to be snobbish. That for me is “live and let live”.
Society should be allowed to interfere only when what happens inside the club or an organization affects the outside world in a harmful manner. By this I mean, if a private club disbars somebody based on race, caste, class, creed, religion, it should have the right to do so until and unless the effects of this exclusion policy end up harming individuals belonging to the club or spill over onto the mainstream society in a hurtful manner.
An interesting debate with colorful syllogisms. I would think that a person capable of this level of analysis and thought could make a point in a less crass manner.
The first issue is whether or not the human body is property, and if yes, then is the body one’s own property. You have assumed this in your assertion, but in my mind it is yet a debate that you yourself have promised in a later blog.
The second issue is whether or not likening the human (or woman’s) body to property (or asserting that is it) is patriarchal and patronizing. Again, this is not my primary interest here, and to give you credit, you did not expressly suggest that Tejal’s body – as a woman’s body – was property, while a man’s body was not. Regardless, it is a debate for a different page.
For the purposes of following your logic, if we should assume that the human body is indeed property, then perhaps Tejal would agree. She may however, validly disagree about the human body as property. It is irrelevant though to Tejal’s argument, or at least the excerpt that you presented of it here.
What Tejal is arguing is that the issue of access to institutions is insignificant compared to the issue of the existence of the elitist institutions themselves. (Ref: ” If you do not objetct to the existence of elitist institutions then the objection to them providing access to only a previledged few is superficial as this consequence is inevitable.”).
hmmm…….. aadisht, I think thats an intresting and rational argument. I never thought of slavery as a violation of our right to own ourself. As i understand your argument and to some extent anindo’s, what your saying is that our right to privacy, interms of space, extends beyound our body but to the physical spaces we occupy, weather they are homes, or clubs, places of public gathering etc and therefore, the same right that we have on the ownership of our physical self’s extends to those places.
While I think the concept of extension of personal self from the body to spaces you occupy, is quite intresting, somehow I cant get myself to agree to the equation of a human being to property perse.
How would you value a person in terms of money ? why cant we be sold ? when you tresspass/ damage a property, it can be compensation in money. When a person is hurt, insulted, our trust is betrayed, can we be compensated ?
I think human dignity is far deeper than ownership of property and I think sometimes right to property violates human dignity.
Anindo has said, exclusion from clubs doesnt harm anyone excluded. During the british raj in India, in aprthied south africa, Indians/ black were excluded from clubs, streets, areas. Do you consider imperialism/ aparthied in conformity with human dignity.
I think exclusion has many forms, it can be private, such as from entry to homes, marriages, sharing of food and it can be public such as from public places and opportunities.
In the case of private spaces, I agree with you that peoples rigths must be respected to such exclusion. In the public sphere ( even if privately owned), I am personally oppossed to exclusion because I believe it engenders prejudice.
The Indian cricket team is owned by BCCI, but wont a caste/ religion based exclusion affect society in general ? ( this is genuinly a question not a sarcastic remark 🙂 )
My God ! My comment has become a lecture………….sorry
also excuse my spelling, never can get the words together correctly
p.s. COnfused, I agree with you, unfortunately all societies have been class based, despite my socialist beliefs, i have to concede, that socialist societies have been very dictatorial and disrespectful to human dignity.
[…] Over the last few days, the comments in my controversial, disgust-inducing post have moved from outrage to debate. People who came in appalled at my use of such a crude analogy have begun to see the point behind the analogy, even if they don’t agree with it: that your body is as much your own private property as your house or your business is. If you are forced to throw open access to your property, you may as well be forced to throw open access to your body. […]
SIG, Nandita, please read this: The One Protects The Other. It answers your doubts about looking at a human being as property. I think the concept suffers a lot from the lack of adequate language to explain self-ownership- the words we use can certainly make it sound like a much more disgusting concept than it is.
Nandita, I’ll answer your specific questions about excluding people from privately owned public spaces in another comment on this thread.
aadisht,
i read your post ( is that what they are called) its very intresting. Warrants some serious reflection………..this whole idea of self ownership is something that i had never thought about. I will respond after thinking about it.
There is just one thing,as you have yourself suggested, a womens ( or mans) dignity can be violated/ tresspassed as much by disrespectful words, looks etc as by physical abuse. In all fairness, tejals comment was an expression of her view and was not violative of anyones right to property. To cut a long story short, I wish to extend an apology to tejal, if in any way my participation in this discusion, condones or endorses the comments targetting her, which if i had been at the receiving end of , I would have felt deeply hurt. I think discussions are to learn something from not to hurt and insult people.Sorry tejal, your comment was intelligent and respectfully presented.
.
Nandita,
Let me thank you for trying to understand my point of view. Not many people do that. Most of the self-confessed socialists that I talk to are so convinced of the moral superiority of their arguments from a humanistic point of view that they do not stop to think what their actions can lead to in a society. Somebody had said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Lets now focus on your question:
“Do you consider imperialism/ aparthied in conformity with human dignity?”
Ans – No. But I guess you already knew my answer.
“Anindo has said, exclusion from clubs doesnt harm anyone excluded. During the british raj in India, in aprthied south africa, Indians/ black were excluded from clubs, streets, areas.”
Barring clubs maintained by the money of the private members, I do not think we have a disagreement on any issue. Everybody must be treated equally irrespective of class, creed, religion, caste, sexual orientation etc. when the ownership belongs to the public. Streets and other public areas like gardens, playgrounds etc. are owned by the government and maintained by the public money.
I did say that if what is being done inside the four walls of a private property hurts somebody physically or mentally, the “right to life” takes precedence over any other rights and society has a legitimate reason to intervene. Barring that reason, a racist/communalist/casteist etc. has as much right to live and own a property as the normal citizens of the society. Therefore, he/she can choose to not allow certain individuals to enter his/her private domain. This is not true in the case of public spaces in a society based on providing equal opportunities to all the individuals.
Most people think equality means everybody has to be same in every aspect. In my opinion, this is not only wrong but also dangerous. The focus should be on providing equal opportunities to people irrespective of their background. What individuals choose to do with those opportunities should not be a concern of the collective society until it somehow threatens the rights of another individual.
Sincerely,
Aninda
kafi soch vichar ke baad, yeh hai jawab…..
issues : 1) human dignity and private property 2) private property/ services vs. public untilities/ services
my view on the 2nd ( in response to the guy, whose recommends we treat our loved ones like private property )
his basic argument as i understood it is , everything the government does specially roads is crap, because their is no profit motive, private ownership delivers; because profit makes the world turn around.
response : too general, rhetorical, not original or very intelligent. He obviously hasnt experienced the service of electricity in delhi after privatisation or the bus service after privatisation.
a. privatisation often doesnt function in a perfectly competitive market and oligapolistic structures dont elivate the consumer to a king. You pay more for worse service. The privateer bribes everyone from sheila aunty downards and makes profits. No nexus between performance and profit.
b. apolo hospital, takes lots of money kills you anyway. AIMMS, resource crunch, low paid doctors, fighting dengue in north India single handedly.
I dont say that private enterprise is useless, I do believe that the state should just be engaging in strategic and infrastructure sectors, but this rhetoric that state is useless and private is great ends with jet airways.
What i mean is too much generalisation and blanket critique of government enterprise is often inaccurate.
we all know how dhirubhai ambani made his money, and what enron was upto, definately not making money on excellence ?
issue 2.
my laptop is broken, i get a nervous breakdown, library laptop breaks, i dont care.
response : thats because we are brought up not to concern ourself with public goods: Singapore, your ass is kicked if you mess with public goods and everyone respects them. Thats sad.
but forgetting sigapore, there is a breed called “the spoilt brat” ram brand new BMW into people sleeping on the street, couldnt care less, no I didnt mean about the people, none of us could care less, about the BMW. Private property.
on a more sentimental note: after partition my nani and nana arrived, pennyless from lahore. My nani always said, where there is health, you can make the wealth. Couple of years ago, my nana passed away and on being consoled she said, we lived our life together as a complete person, now i have to complete my life as half.
I would like to believe that I am not so easy to replace as a laptop, or house in golflinks or car.
Aadisht, your examples of the nebuliser, grabbing of property etc are less about private property vs. no private property and more about break down in law and order in a private property system. I would argue that if there was no private property, the public health like NHS ( in the UK) would give anyone who needed a nebuliser so no one needs to grab. If you took all my money for public good, I assume I would also benefit under it, in terms of housing, healthcare, employment so, why would I dye of starvation.
I dont defend the Soviet model as ideal, but after the collapse of communism, thousands of old people froze to death because public heating was stopped.Russian women who were doctors, lawyers etc, were forced in to prostitution all over the world.
oh wait….dont go to sleep ..
However on private property and human dignity, i did read an intresting economist yesterday, thanks to all of you rightwingers making me think of the merits of private property, De Soto, you IIM types must know him well, latin american, argues the poor are rich, if the law recognises their right to property, legalising their assets will give them capital to further their capital.
I think in that sense yes, in a private property model, such recognition would be in consonance with human dignity.
ok now i must have the last word
the article you extended a link to says, ” taxation is theft”, I say, ” private property is colonisation.”
and once i said it to a white south african, who got mad with me…….
where did our private property come from, did we start from a position of equality and earn it all from hard work, or is its acquisition based on disrespecting other right to dignity ?
phew……….
anindo, I think we agree more than we disagree, especially about positive equality, i agree, that equalising opportunity is most important, then we can struggle for private gains in a level playing field………and may the best wo(man) win. :- )
Continued:…
In your example, the elitist institution in question happens to be Tejal’s body. And Tejal herself says quite clearly, “The debate then should be at a much more fundamental level (about what the existence of such elite, patriarchal institutions/systems means and not about who gets access to them). Your point (for Tejal to grant indiscriminate access to her body) and distasteful illustration thus are invalid. Because all Tejal is saying is that the discussion should be at the more fundamental level – why “her body” exists. My interpretation of her argument extends to state that by understanding the reason for existence of such instutitions, one can understand the reason for the discrimination (Ex: If profit is the reason for the existence of a pub, their discrimination of their clients based on economic class is a valid discrimination. Thus by understanding the reason for the pub’s existence, I have understood the reason for their discrimination). Her argument contains within it the idea that her body, by inevitability of its existence, is discriminating in who it allows access.
The debate then becomes about why her body exists and understanding that, according to her argument, is the key to understanding its inevitable consequence of why it discriminates.
I think your summary of what Tejal is saying is totaly wrong and therefore your logic to prove (or disprove) the validity of YOUR SUMMARY of Tejal’s argument is meaningless. Seems to me that you did not understand what Tejal is trying to say. You therefore summarized it in your own (flawed) words, and then used a distasteful example (for shock value ? Or to introduce your own idea that the human body is property) in order to invalidate your own (incorrect) interpretation.
Now, what is your point again ?
The only one that I’ve gotten thus far is that you believe that the human body is property. While that is interesting as an intellectual standpoint, it appears to me that you are are (mis) using someone else’s argument in order to revel in the shock value of your discovery of an entirely distinct belief.
Teehee. Well made point.
It would be nice if we could contact Tejal, ask her to comment. She might (understandably) be upset but I think her comment needs to be explained by her.
I think SIG nailed it perfectly. In short, Tejal was not advocating a ban on elitist institutions. This post created a strawman, then proceeded to destroy it, using anatomical references merely for shock value. It is a pity that all the bigwigs of the Cartelian movement who (allegedly) have a fine sense for sniffing out strawmen failed to do so here, instead, deciding to focus on a spirited defence of the validity of the anatomical references without bothering to check the basis of the post itself.
Again, great job, SIG.
SIG: Thanks for the illuminating comment.
Anirudh: I did mail her and she said that she was not interested in reading, let alone responding, to “juvenile posts by reactionary men”. Her choice.
[…] SIG explains how Aadisht Khanna’s abusive argument against Tejal misses her point, and that the issue of the human body as property is not raised in Tejal’s comment at all. […]
Aadisht, If Tejal takes offence at your comment and wants retribution in pretty much the same manner that you described, she shall definitely get such help.
What kind of retribution? By using his body as an example- Bring it on?
And what war? I thinkj its a valid point that he’s making. However, it could have been made in a less shocking way.
Explain something to me. If an institution reserves the right to selectively admit certain people, is it acceptable if it has a policy of no Indians (or no blacks, women, gays, whatever)? If not, when does it cross the line? And does it this mean laws against racism or sexism should not exist?
If she bothers to read this post and some of the comments, the lady might feel it’s been done.
Tell me, does a turd feel the same way wen it makes the journey in reverse? You should know.