Indonesia Trip #2

Indonesia: A case study of fluidity in religion

Religion in Indonesia has its own eccentricities. It has the largest Muslim population in the world. But it’s not an Islamic country. There is no state religion. But the first of the five principles of the state, created by the dictator-president Soekarno, is belief in one God! So, it does restrict itself to monotheistic religions. Islam and Christianity are fine, but Hinduism is another major religion, especially in Bali. What would they do?

So, Balinese Hinduism has a concept of an ultimate God who created the trinity Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh. No temples seem to be dedicated to this ultimate God, but He exists on flags and poles in the temples. Talk about adaptability!

The national monument of Indonesia is inspired from the linga-yoni statues of Hinduism!

Interior of the huge Masjid Istiqlal (Independence Mosque), built, as evident from the name, after Independence. It was built next to the Jakarta Cathedral, not to rub it in to the Christians, but to indicate that they could live in harmony together. The architect was the son of a Christian pastor.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity – all are outside imports, of course, though at different points in history. The real native religion is like indigenous religions in many other parts of the world, filled with local deities, concerned with local problems, deities of natural phenomena, song-dance-trance rituals, etc. Trade was the primary mode of religious import in almost all cases, although Christianity has more colonial history, than that of trade. Apart from that, conquest was not the primary mode of importing religion. So, overall, every organized or imported religion has been absorbed into existing religious and cultural practices. As an outsider, this mishmash is easy to observe.

A religious verse in Arabic, written in the shape of Semar, a local mythological character, which appears in all kinds of stories, apparently even in the Indonesian version of Mahabharat. Our guide is holding the phone showing a typical depiction of Semar for comparison.

The various kinds of puppet and dance performances are very much a part of Java’s cultural heritage, which is a Muslim-majority region. Yet, the characters from the Ramayana and Mahabharata have continued to have their place in these performances along with more local characters.

Shadow puppet performance based on Ramayana in Yogyakarta – the land of a “Sultanate”

Islam took an interesting turn (not great) in the late 19th and 20th centuries when “reformist” Islamic elements brought in stricter Saudi version of Islam to Indonesia. This clashed with the local “orthodox” Islam, in which local cultural elements, languages, dresses, and ceremonies were integrated with the belief in Allah and other Islamic practices. In Yogyakarta, our young female guide was covered head to toe in the resurging Islamic attire, but when we visited the mosque, which had a cemetery belonging to the Muslim Sultanate of Yogyakarta, it was essential to wear traditional dress, which did not allow women to cover their shoulders at all!

The real religion, I think, beneath the surface of the six state-recognized religions of Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, is the native animist religion. Although 20th and 21st-century Islamist “reform” may have brought some of it closer to Islam as recognized elsewhere, but I don’t think even the majority Islam with its “reforms” has removed the fundamental, local cultural elements in the day-to-day religion of people. Ancestral worship is also prevalent. I am not totally sure if it cuts across religious lines or if it is primarily a Hindu, Buddhist, and Confucian feature.

As an Indian raised in Hindu culture, Indonesia is at once familiar and unfamiliar. We watched three different types of Ramayana performances between Java and Bali. One Ramayana ballet, one shadow puppetry performance, and one Kecak dance. I do wish we could have caught a Mahabharata or some local stories in at least one of them. But Ramayana seems to rule supreme in terms of the number of performances. These are mostly watched by tourists, I think. Perhaps that’s why a more familiar story is getting used most often. One performance in the Ubud royal palace in Bali was thankfully completely local, and not another Ramayana. It was one of the best produced too.

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  Ramayana Ballet cast and crew (and one member of audience!). Hanuman is a funny, adorable white monkey in Indonesia.

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  Yet another Ramayana! Kecak fire dance performance with a Ramayana story!

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  Not a Ramayana – performance at the Ubud royal palace.

There are signs of a grand Hindu and Buddhist past in Java, which is currently majorly Islamic and also boasts of having a modern-day sultanate (more on that later). Highlights of our tour were the sites of Borobudur and Prambanan temples. Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. Prambanan is the second-largest Hindu temple complex in Southeast Asia after the magnificent Angkor Wat. We also visited Dieng temples, which are smaller but older than these and are among the few remaining of what may have been many such structures in the area.

Borobudur – from a distance!

Bali is still largely Hindu. But the Hinduism import is from a long time ago. So, there are things that are conspicuous by their absence for a modern-day Indian Hindu. None of the recognizable festivals from India are popular there. Diwali, Holi, Dushehra are not traditional. There are ceremonies around death (and perhaps other important life events), but they have a very different flavor than what we see in India. The biggest “festival” in Bali is Nyepi – a day of silence when streets, beaches, and even international airports shut down. Exceptions are not made even for tourists. They have to stay inside their hotels. The population will refrain from TV, radio, and even internet access. Although inside the hotels, the activities may not be restricted for the tourists.

A temple at Prambanan.

In a Bali tourist village we went to, if we understood the local man taking us around right, then cows are regular animals and it is buffalo that is sacred in Bali! A selling point of Bali to tourists (especially internal ones) is that because it is Hindu, they don’t mind selling pork. So, apparently, the pious Javanese, who won’t eat pork in their motherland, find their freedom in Bali.

Indonesia is a fascinating case study of fluidity in religion, where the old and the new, the local and the foreign, all intermingle in an intricate dance that continues to evolve. However, the rigidity is increasing in 21^st century. Much like the revival of traditionalism all around the world – in its most regressive and oppressive form. I sincerely hope that they are able to put a stop to that.

ज़िंदग़ी-मौत

ज़िंदग़ी का क्या है,
किधर भी चल पड़ती है।
मौत है वफ़ादार
हिलाए ना हिलती है।

If you are a liberal, how can you be ‘intolerant’ towards me?

Being a liberal is not being stupid or mindless. Being a liberal does not mean we don’t stand up for anything. We stand up for giving space to ideas, for diversity, for freedom of expression, for the value of human life irrespective of people’s group identities.

Disagreeing is not intolerance. Liberals stand for the right to disagree, to argue their case, to bring change in the society. What is intolerance and what is not accepted by a liberal is bullying, oppressing, silencing and in the worst case killing of people and ideas. Most liberals will be particularly against a powerful entity like State (or a big corporation or a powerful person) indulging in or encouraging such oppression on people. And opposing THAT is not intolerance. It is very much being a liberal and being a human being with a spine.

I disagree with people who think there should be a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. But I don’t believe that they should be bullied, murdered or thrown out of the country for their belief. I will defend their rights to their opinion which is contrary to mine. And their right to express it. But I will not stand for it if they bully, threaten, harm or kill me or anybody else. And yes – I will also defend to the death my own right to disagree with them and express it without having to be fearful of persecution.

This in no way contradicts my liberal position.

Thank you!

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Defenders of the regime these days think that they have closed the debate by asking this question to the liberals. “How can you say I am wrong if you are supposed to tolerate different ideologies?” is the question they pose in some variation or the other and think that they have illegitimized the liberals (‘libtards’ in their heads and even their speech all too often now) once and forever.

Above is an answer I wrote to one of them. If you get asked this question, and this answer helps, please feel free to copy-paste it. Just give a link back to this post so that some hate can flow towards me too and I can keep a track of just how f***ed up the world is.

 

Re-reading notes: The Discovery of India

Following my new year resolution of re-reading books for at least first three months of the year, I am re-reading The Discovery of India by Jawahar Lal Nehru. I had read it long back and only vaguely remembered being impressed by the way it inspired you to study history beyond a list of events, people and wars. While re-reading it now, that aspect has no longer remained novel. By now, I know that the only meaningful way to study history is indeed to go beyond those lists and dates. But the same exposure to more of life and world, which has made the idea not-so-novel, has given me better ability to use the content of the book in that way.

I have read only about one-third of the book till now. But I still find some observations worth noting down.

Among other things, Nehru discusses ancient India’s relationships with other contemporary civilizations. When I read his views on the relationship with ancient Greece, I was reminded of some portions of History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. Russell, of course, discusses the various philosophers of Greece at length. What is interesting is when he talks about the effect of orient (including India) on Greek philosophy, he makes it out to be mostly negative. The eastern influence, which according to Russell seems to have started only with Alexander’s conquests, brought esoteric practices, obsession with other-world, superstition, magic and everything irrational to ruin the more rational Greek philosophy. Nehru’s version doesn’t necessarily counter the influence Russell speaks of. But according to him the contact of the two civilizations much pre-dated Alexander. Nehru says that Pythagoras was influenced by Indian philosophy. (Pythagoras himself was a great influence on Plato.) Even during and post-Alexander period, Nehru’s version talks of more constructive synthesis between Indian and Greek thoughts, which does not feature in Russell’s version at all.

Of course, Nehru and Russell are writing for different reasons in different countries on presumably different subjects (History of India in case of Nehru vs. History of Western Philosophy in case of Russell). But what links the books together is that they were written at about the same time. In 1940s – during the second world war! Nehru’s inclination to find and point out praise-worthy elements in Indian history and philosophy is understandable. There was a need to bring respectability to Indian identity to justify India’s claim to independence. But when you read Nehru, you can also see that while he may be modulating his expressions for political necessity, he is not a fanatic nationalist, who needs to glamourize everything Indian. Nor is his ambition so misplaced that he will deliberately mislead you about India and history. He is critical of things he sees wrong in India. He appreciates the good that he sees outside India. So, I think there is a need to take Russell’s dismissal of oriental philosophy and its influence on West with a pinch of salt. I do not know what the contemporary Western philosophers think about it. But I hope, for the sake of the discipline, that it isn’t the same dismissal.

There is another interesting claim in the book. Vedic religion was not big on idol-worshipping. In India the first idols that were made were those of Buddha. And that too hundreds of years after his death. Vedic/Brahminic Gods made their entry later in the world of statues. The effect was apparently Greek. And the word बुत for statue apparently comes from “Buddha”.

One place where I cringed was when Nehru dismissed the linguistic diversity of India. Fifteen languages cover entire India according to him and the “so-called” hundreds of languages of India is about bad definition of language in census. Let’s be fair to him on this count though. The diversity of India – most visibly represented by the linguistic diversity – was considered a threat to or even a proof of non-existence of a united Indian identity. Many who tried to “impose” one language on India had no sinister motives against the other languages. They were simply overwhelmed by the need to maintain the unity of India which they were sure was essential for our freedom and progress. In retrospect it is easy to see the problems it created and easier still to find faults with what they tried. But let’s be a little generous here, and not judge those well-intentioned people by a future they couldn’t have known about. They did get a lot of things right. We do have a more stable country today than many other more unfortunate former colonies

Finally, do you identify with the following? 🙂

“Probably there was more unity and harmony in the human personality in the old days… But the problem is a more difficult and complex one now, for it has grown beyond the limits of the human personality. It was perhaps easier to develop some kind of harmonious personality in the restricted spheres of ancient and medieval times. In that little world of town and village, with fixed concepts of social organization and behaviour, the individual and the group lived their self-contained lives protected, as a rule, from outer storms. Today the sphere of even the individual has grown world-wide, and different concepts of social organization conflict with each other and behind them are different philosophies of life. A strong wind arising somewhere creates a cyclone in one place and an anti-cyclone in another.”

I do. Remind me to do another post about it!

Educomp might be dead, education is not!

The fateful Forbes article, if you go by the dysphoria, seems to have sealed the fate of all education-related startups. They are all doomed. Why? Because e-learning is dead! Why? Because Educomp is in trouble.

I hope when I put it that way, the ridiculousness of the tremors in investor, startup and media community becomes a little more obvious. Fine! Educomp has been the poster-boy of education and e-learning in India. But if Yahoo! being in trouble has not meant that Internet, online content and online advertising are dead. Educomp being in trouble can hardly mean that the business of education is dead.

What these FUD-rumour-mongers need to do it is to come down from their pedestal, stop taking a 100,000 ft high view of things and get into some nuances and bother their heads with some details. If we go by the article, Educomp’s troubles seem two-fold:

1. It diversified too much in search of quick growths, in areas that were not quite its core strengths (even if it all fell under the umbrella of education), could not manage the capital requirements, did some financial engineering to continue to make it look good, but ultimately could not avoid getting noticed by share market, investors and sensational journalism.
2. It’s original idea of “smart classes” was not taking it too far. From the anecdotal evidence schools were not adopting it and from the accounting evidence, they were not paying in time, if at all.

If #2 happens and there are investors and large number of employees to manage and give answers to, I would not be surprised that haphazard, hasty response results in #1. What startup investors really need to be concerned about is #2. Is there still an opportunity to bring value to education system using new technology, products and offerings? Or have all hopes died with Educomp?

Once you get past all the marketing jazz and buzzwords, what was Educomp’s offering? Multimedia content for school syllabus. Delivered over CDs. This is one of those concepts that sound right at a high level. Everybody in the world is wary of only “theoretical” knowledge spouted at the kids. What we need to show kids is how stuff actually work. What better way than animation, audio, video, right?

Possibly! But did someone do a field test to see which concepts are best explained through animations? What kind of animations manage to work better than a teacher explaining it in the class or the good-old textbook? Was there any measurable evidence of better learning outcomes? And given what matters the most to Indian parents, did the kids’ performance in exams improve? Beyond the ads, did jumping mathematical formula, instead of the one written on a boring board, really make kids more excited about going to the schools? Did teachers think that their lives became easier, or did they find it difficult to finish the syllabus while multimedia content took its own time to play and kids still sneered at everything in the classes?

All said and done “Smart Classes” are not about “technology”. The only “technology” involved is the use of multimedia content creation tools. The rest, and the most, of it is content play. And who is creating the content? Are these education researchers, who have an insight into how children learn? Or are these thousands of animation diploma-holders, who are going through the same “boring” textbooks and putting some graphics and sound around the same old content? My educated guess is that it is the latter.

Why should it be surprising, then, that the users did not adopt it? That nobody cared to research if the offering would work for them and it did not work? And that when the ultimate users (teachers and students) did not adopt it, buyers (management) stopped paying for it?

Content is not about technology. It is, unfortunately, tougher than technology. If it has to work, it can not be created trivially. Investors and journalists like to jump on the sales number. Those numbers can create initial euphoria. But if you are not monitoring how effective your actual offering is for the users, sooner or later the euphoria will die down. Accounting tricks and clever financial engineering is not going to make up for the basics faltering. The return in financial markets are governed by the value created in the market for real goods and services. It does not matter how complex we make the financial system, there is no evading the basics in the long run!

Educomp bet on usurping the educational content, did not do a great job of it despite creating some sales & marketing success, and instead of taking feedback and improving on its core idea, made some bad (in the hindsight, at least) diversification decisions. They are in a soup. They might be able to come out of it, or they might sink.

But this doesn’t prove that education does not need technology. Or even better content. There are real problems surrounding the quality and scalability of education. Someone needs to do a better job at these and create real value, which can justify the investment a customer would make in buying their offering. And if you are an investor, don’t run away from education sector. Or any sector for that matter. Instead of starting and ending with macro numbers, forbes articles, valuation in last round and valuation in next round, take some time to get into the details. Put yourself into the shoes of customers and ask these simple questions

1. Will I pay for it?
2. Will I pay enough for it?
3. Will enough like me pay for it?

Then put yourself into the shoes of the founders/team and ask

1. Will I be able to deliver what enough customers will pay enough for?
2. Can I create the team, if it doesn’t already exist?
3. Can I develop the technology/product/content?
4. Can I provide support after sales and keep getting revenues?
5. Can I do all this for a price that is lesser than customer’s life-time value?”

After these “small, little” questions have been answered, feel free to do the due-diligence on “stuff that really matters from 100,000 ft”.

I seem to be spouting things from Management textbooks. But I have kept the finance textbooks aside for a moment. Too few investors seem to do that.

This is true not just for education, but for any sector. And education, dear world, is definitely not dead! We have a large population of people looking to improve their lot in life through education. It is for us entrepreneurs to figure out how to make a profitable business out of it. The key will lie in creating something of value before creating newer buzzwords.

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P. S. Disclaimer: I am working with Aurus Network, which is in Education domain (but is NOT a competitor of Educomp). This is, however, not a marketing article!