Author: ridhimaman

Categories
Issue 10

‘Mining’ Nothing but a Grave

As players in the crypto market hold their breaths waiting for a new regulatory bill to hit the benches of the Indian Parliament, a cloud of risk and doubt looms over its  FinTech space once again. Monetary authorities have now been debating the existence of a parallel decentralized economy for three years; the tangible outcome of which has been a draft of rigid laws and a detailed report strongly backing an outright ban of the trillion-dollar industry. Although our Finance Minister recently refuted the statement regarding this blanket prohibition, it is safe to say that stakeholders — at home and abroad — have had multiple premonitions of restrictive financial freedom for a long time now. What is surprising, however, is the degree of constraints and the severity of penalties developed to deter transgression. It seems that the government is not only planning to stop all forms of trading but is also stressing on disallowing any Indian entity from retaining crypto assets. If the draft holds, investors will be given a period of six months to liquidate their capital, post which any violations will be punishable by a jail period ranging from one to ten years and a fine triple the value of transactions. The outrage following this proposition has already led to more than one lakh individuals voicing their concern to lawmakers, and an even larger number joining the social media campaign of India Wants Bitcoin. Why then, are Indian financial bodies fixated on moving forward with such profound measures of control? 

According to the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) — responsible for taking a call on crypto’s future in India — the problem lies in the decentralized section of the entire framework. Ironically, this feature is exactly what defines cryptocurrency and sets it apart from the general fiat structure of an economy. Before moving forward, let’s address this idea of decentralization and distribution by comparing how money is accounted for in both systems. Our current financial configuration has a central bank — the RBI — responsible for issuing new currency and manipulating its value using gold and foreign reserves. It accounts for every note and transaction by keeping a track of how money is distributed among entities. While it’s unaware of the exact capital a specific individual has or what they have spent, all of this information is indirectly connected and relayed to the RBI by banks possessing the actual accounts. So, the tree representing how information is shared and structured has RBI as the nucleus and banking institutions as the primary nodes. Each bank is in-turn connected to millions of accounts acting as secondary branches. Thus, not only power but even knowledge is concentrated at the central level. Bitcoin completely revolutionized this setup when it was established in 2008 by introducing blockchain technology. Blockchain transformed the previous information tree into one that rendered each entity as a node connected to every other node in the system. This made it possible to distribute and share the ledger containing transactions among all members. The value of money in such a system was purely based on demand and supply principles, and any creation of money value was attributed to the volume of successful transactions rather than an authoritative decision by one node. 

Now it’s understandable that no central agency with regulatory powers over the Rupee will undermine its authority by permitting the reorganization of how money is perceived and valued among its citizens. However, in context of an increasingly globalised world, the State might want to reconsider its stance, since a complete ban hardly sends a positive message regarding the adaptability of contemporary ideas in India. 

Another interesting aspect of this entire debacle is that the restrictions on cryptocurrencies are perhaps their best advertisement. Saifedean Ammous, a Bitcoin economist, believes that if the government is adding constraints to what you can and cannot do, then maybe it is time to think about decentralizing power — “… I am sorry, if you’re telling me that I can’t send money from my bank account to buy the things that I want, then, that’s not really my money.” 

            Nonetheless, it would be unfair to say that the policies are entirely short-sighted.  They do make an excellent case for diverting our attention towards the underlying technology of blockchain. The IMC’s report lays out a series of arguments in favor of embracing the cryptographic data structure, but only in projects other than cryptocurrencies. This proposition is designed as a solution to the issue of citizens demanding trading rights to Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, suggesting alternative products with the same mechanical properties under the hood, is hardly a solution. Especially when India has over six million crypto investors holding a figure north of Rs. 10,000 crore in valuation. In essence, the government’s point is well taken — we do need to start looking at blockchain-based applications, which without a doubt remain vast unmined fields. Nevertheless, it’s a bit ignorant to force stakeholders to liquidate their positions and in return offer them a blockchain-based KYC to make up for any losses. 

An argument often triggered by this last statement is that the government has publicly announced an Indian crypto substitute for Bitcoin and Ethereum, which should work as a perfect middle ground for all parties involved. Unfortunately, this is not only a misconception but also a wasteful endeavor had it actually been true. Expanding on the former concern, the IMC has laid out plans for constructing a currency powered by blockchain known as the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). However, this is only an imperfect substitute since it is centralized and tied to the value of the Rupee. One could even think of it as a digital Rupee that is tradable, secure, and inexpensive to transfer around, thus bagging few of the appealing features of Bitcoin. Nevertheless, it continues to serve as only another regulated version of money, governed by the same laws and restrictions as a paper note. 

Secondly, having an Indian cryptocurrency while banning the rest isn’t all that feasible. Especially since replacing Bitcoin and Ethereum is almost impossible given the former’s market cap and the latter’s scalability. Start-ups around the world have already started building Decentralized Apps on top of Ethereum’s backend, which will soon take over the tech market by a storm. Even social media platforms are experimenting with decentralization to promote a more privacy-oriented future and reduce censorship concerns. So at a time when the next Twitter or YouTube might be driven by Ethereum or any other crypto for that matter, India cannot be left struggling to fix bugs in their own blockchain architecture. Moreover, there is no guarantee that regulatory bodies will even be able to restrict the trading of Bitcoin or Ethereum. US officials have already concluded that controlling access to an open-source network application requires enormous control over the Internet itself. So the bill might just result in an even more restrictive digital space in India. Besides, an outright ban of profitable opportunities will only motivate people to find newer loopholes and open up black markets; none of which will positively impact the country’s own crypto. 

The government seems to be approaching this issue with a binary vision as of now. However, the options are broader than just ‘ban’ and ‘not ban’. There is a need for deeper discussions and experimentation with FinTech. It is imperative, however, to acknowledge that the clock is ticking and if an environment of doubt is allowed to persist, the theory of Human Capital Flight will kick in. Not only will millennial investors start contributing to the FDIs of countries that allow crypto markets, but our extremely talented entrepreneurs will also be on the first flight out in fear of the dreaded regulations. Weighing the scales, it seems that the argument of cryptocurrencies and blockchains being the next big thing since the Internet does fall on the heavier side. And so taking a backseat at this stage of development can only set us up for future disappointments.

Picture Credits: @WorldSpectrum, Pixabay

Tanish Bafna is a ‘prospective’ (translates to undecided and widely confused) Economics and CS undergraduate at Ashoka University. He is deeply interested in almost anything that lies at either ends of these fields including Blockchain, Game Theory and the Economics of Technology. In his free time, you can find him curled up at previously unvisited spaces on campus or his neighbourhood doing absolutely nothing.

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 10

The Power Under My Burqa — Sri Lanka’s Proposal to Ban the Burqa

Recently, Sarath Weerasekara, the Sri Lankan Minister of Public Security said “the burqa has a direct impact on national security.” He claims to have signed a proposal and is awaiting the cabinet and the 2/3rd Sinhaleses’ majority parliament’s approval for closing over 1,000 Islamic schools (madrassas) as well as banning the burqa as he states they are viewed as symbols of ‘religious extremism.’ The burqa is a long, loose garment that covers the whole body from head to feet and is often worn by Muslim women in public. 

This is not the first time that the burqa has been banned within the country. Shortly after the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka in 2019, which resulted in more than 260 people losing their lives and two local Islamist terrorist groups claiming responsibility for this tragedy, the burqa was temporarily banned. The justification given by the state was that it would hasten the process of identifying the attackers and their networks. Even back then, the UN Human Rights Watch heavily condemned this move and called it a direct violation of one’s religious expression and human rights. 

But what is interesting to note is that Sri Lanka’s demographic is such that Muslims comprise less than 9 per cent of the total population, and the Sinhalese consist of 74 per cent of the total, with more than 69 per cent of the Sinhalese populace identifying as Buddhists. In addition to this, the current ruling government is in a Sinhalese Buddhist majority, with two Sinhalese Buddhist brothers, Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa being the leading representatives of the country, i.e, the President and the Prime minister respectively. With such a clear majority in population numbers as well as political power, why does the majority consider items of clothing such as the burqa a threat, such that it needs to be banned? And how can the burqa play a crucial role for the Muslim minority in the face of the ongoing threat of majority imposition? 

One obvious explanation for the burqa to be labelled as a threat is not because of its literal sense, but what it comes to represent. Lori G. Beamarí, an author of a research paper titled ‘Battle of the Symbols’ highlights how religious symbols do not have a meaning of themselves but are seen in the conveyance of religious ‘messages’ at a deeper level. While a burqa is not a religious ‘symbol’ like the Cresent and Star, it still explicitly acts as an indicator of one’s Islam identity and thereby continues to be a marker of it. 

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the burqa has been associated with the term ‘religious extremism’. Post 9/11, there is no doubt that there was a growing anti-Islamic climate within the world, and items like the burqa, hijab and even the long beard became ‘political banners for Islam’ and those wearing it were considered ‘terrorists’. Post the Easter bombings in 2019 by the local Islamic groups, this islamophobic narrative was reinforced even within Sri Lanka, which resulted in inaccurate causal links between Islam and religious extremism being drawn. 

However, such proposals to ban the burqa as well as madrassas, legitimise Islamophobia within the state and hinder the process for Islam to recover from this image of violence that has been constructed around it. 

Furthermore, another explanation surrounding this ban can be found in Arjun Appadurai’s book titled ‘Fear of Small numbers’. He introduced the concept of ‘predatory identities’ that are defined as “identities whose social construction and mobilisation requires the extinction of the other”. He highlights that there is an underlying belief that a nation should consist of a single ethnic identity, that establishes ideal nationhood and absolute ethnic purity, and when majorities that act as predatory identities are unable to achieve this, he terms this as the ‘anxiety of incompleteness’. He delves further on this idea by expanding on how this incompleteness occurs due to the presence of other minorities that become a symbol of hindrance in establishing this fantasy of national purity and wholeness. While the author mentions how in pursuit of this fantasy, majorities may not necessarily take the road of extinguishing minorities altogether, within Sri Lanka we can firmly state that the three major minorities — Christians, Tamils and Muslims — have been at the brunt of violence and conflict throughout history. Roshini Wickremesinhe, a lawyer and consultant engaged in religious freedom and human rights advocacy and research, compiled a report on religious intolerance within Sri Lanka. She highlights how each of these minorities has been at the receiving end of some form of violence, either hate speech, discrimination and facing demands to discontinue places of worship to serve, often directed by the majority Sinhalese Buddhist groups like Sinha Le, who are in contradiction to with the equality and condemning of hierarchies that  Buddhism stands for. Therefore, the banning of the ‘burqa’ can be seen as a means of removing the constant visual reminder and signifier that instigates the anxiety of the incomplete for the majority, and how Muslims stand in their way of resolving it. By banning the ‘burqa’ the visual representation of a female Muslim is no longer explicit to the eye, thereby no longer creating a distinction between a female Sri Lankan, and a female Sri Lankan Muslim. 

While the burqa continues to be a source of ‘threat’ for the majority, how can the minority use this to their advantage? It cannot be denied that it explicitly puts female Muslims in danger of violence and discrimination since it makes their religious identity visually accessible to a majority that feels threatened by it. However, post 9/11, various female American Muslims who were discriminated against for wearing the burqa and were seen as a ‘threat,’ used it as a symbol of protest to empower their Muslim identities. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad in her paper titled ‘The Post- 9/11 “Hijab” as an Icon’ emphasises how items like the hijab, niqab and burqa became symbols of protest against the attack on their religious identity. Wearing a burqa characterised empowerment and the pride one felt to be associated with Islam and slogans like ‘Islam is beautiful, Deal with it!’ became popular. However, it can be questioned whether the Sri Lankan female Muslim community will be effectively able to use this opportunity to come together to defy the Islamophobic narrative, especially when their identities are increasingly coming under scrutiny. While symbols like the burqa become threatening to a majority, they can also evolve into becoming threatening to a minority for embracing them since they explicitly state their identity as the ‘other’ in times of conflict. 

Author’s Bio: 

Harshita Bedi is a student at Ashoka University pursuing her Psychology major. In her free time, you would find Harshita catching up on her sleep. 

Categories
Issue 10

Commodification of Female Passing Bodies in the Age of OnlyFans

With the rise of on-demand services like Netflix for movies, Spotify for music, and Amazon for shopping, it was only a matter of time before similar services rose to occasion for adult entertainment. Unsurprisingly, paywalled platforms like Only Fans (OF), that provide content, including X-rated content, on subscription have witnessed a rise in their popularity. Sites like OF, that let creators regulate and keep 80 percent of the money earned from the viewership of their content, come as a fresh breath of relief in the porn industry that feeds off non-consensual streaming of videos. 

It is this reason that mainly adds to the appeal and makes OnlyFans one of the most popular source with sex workers, influencers, celebrities, and ordinary people alike, who consider it to be a more ethical outlet for the consumption and exchange of pornographic content. In this era of the gig economy, Only Fans might seem tempting as it has built a safer platform for providing nudity and selling sex related services, however, it is only liberating on the surface level. Services like OnlyFans are not as empowering as they seem. They encourage the commodification of women’s bodies under the pretense of providing the creators with the autonomy and agency of handling their own content. 

The fact that non-male passing bodies are treated as cashable objects is not news. Capitalism works insidiously and keeps innovating ways to keep monetizing bodies — services like OF not only perpetuate commercial commodification of sex and sex workers, but take it up a notch. The accessibility that OF provides normalises the idea of non-male bodies having to sell off their bodies in a way that adheres to the standard male gaze: in a survey collected by researchers Joshua Nichols, Marina Orrico, and Zahrina Jimenez, it was found out despite there being male content creators, it is only female passing bodies that are in greater demand, and sold at higher rates. OnlyFans has become so popular that it is now constantly referenced in pop-culture in passing. Even further popularised by celebrities like Cardi B, Beyonce, Megan Thee Stallion, and Belle Throne, Onlyfans’ growing fame and user base know no bounds. However, but it becomes especially harmful when teenagers on social media are being groomed on the internet to open an account the minute they turn 18. They are growing up in anticipation to come off age to be able to earn money using their pictures online. Normalisation of services like onlyfans perpetuates the idea of viewing one’s body as a money-making source. Teens have been lured to go out of their way to break and mend laws and post up their pictures online. 

An analysis by Facial recognition technology revealed that around a third of the users on different social media advertising explicit pictures of themselves are under 18. They generally use hashtags “nudes4sale” or “buymynudes”, as found out by the investigation. Of all the 7,728 profiles under these hashtags, more than 2,500 of them were of minors and people below a legal age of consent. The number has only grown since what was last calculated and explored in the new BBC three documentary, nudes4sale. This increasing number is dangerous to the underaged who are falling prey to cyber sexual harrasment. Pedophiles leech onto such sites, and force both adults and minors into indulging in pedophilic festish like dressing up in school uniforms and sexualising oneself. Teens have also become a target of pedophillia on Snapchat, another social media app, whose policies are lax when compared to OnlyFans.

One of the main reasons why OF is tempting is because of the convenience it allows. Onlyfans is open to any and every kind of service, it is mostly popular with X-rated content creators because it gives the impression of being a non-consequential, non-exploitative, and safe forum. Amy Brozovich also mentions this in her piece, that talks about the marxist ideas of prostitution. She says, that “contemporary sex work is born from and result in the same alienation and objectification from which capitalist wage labour is born.” By calling it a source that offers both sanity and assurity, two things that are one of the biggest criticisms of the porn and sex-traffiking industry at large, OnlyFans sets itself apart as a site that presents you with the opportunity of creating content from the comfort and privacy of your own bedroom, without having to worry about the shadiness of the situation. During the covid pandemic alone, the site saw a boom in its users by 75% globally, in its already existing 17.5 million user base and over 70,000 content creators. The “easy money” aspect and the appeal of the gig economy in a crisis that saw massive job losses only helped the matter. 

Sites like Onlyfans hide the labour and the usual conditions present for sexwork, in order to take that harassment online. OnlyFans and explicit content websites use marketing strategies appeal to the third wave feminists that equate sex work to wage work. This makes it easy for the general public to ignore and never acknowledge the vulnerability of the service.

Categories
Issue 10

Banking on the Government

March 15th–16th, 2021 witnessed the congregation of 10 lakh bank employees in protest and solidarity against the much-debated privatisation of two public sector banks (PSBs). Banking services such as loan approvals, cheque processing and cash withdrawals were disrupted — estimates suggest that a total of 2.01 crore cheque instruments (valued at Rs 16500 crore) were left unprocessed in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai. It was the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) — an umbrella organization comprising 9 trade unions — that blew the war horn, calling for a strike against the decision announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam during the Union Budget as a part of the government’s disinvestment plan. 

Voicing concerns over employee welfare and job security that could potentially be threatened by the privatization of PSBs, the trade unions also exhibited apprehensions about the implications for the economy. They echo arguments from the classic dichotomy of public sector banks and commercial banks, suggesting that such a move would prove to be detrimental to the Indian financial landscape. 

Worries precipitated by this decision date much earlier than the announcement itself since India’s long march on the road of privatisation has been in the works for years. In the banking sector itself, IDBI bank was privatised in 2019 while 14 other banks were merged in the last 4 years, foreshadowing the possibilities of further privatization. While such asset reductions are a part of the government’s strategic sales, they also stem from a cause of concern over the efficiency of PSBs. 

While the public sector is not completely devoid of pressures to earn a profit, a certain level of efficiency is expected. The PSBs’ share of bad loans, as compared to that of commercial banks, raises eyebrows. Banks claim that they have been in the green — quoting a profit of Rs 1,74,000 crore. However, the bad loans valued at Rs 2,00,000 crore led to net losses. But are profits or NPAs the best measures of efficiency for PSBs? 

Given that the private sector operates with a profit motive, it is but natural to use profit and loss accounts to measure the success of a commercial bank. The rise in conversation about fiscal stability also factors in the significance of NPAs in estimating a bank’s financial health. However, the measures of efficacy cannot be the same for PSBs and private sector counterparts. The mandate and role of a public sector bank is simply too different from that of a commercial bank. 

Historically, PSBs have been entrusted with achieving financial inclusion, poverty reduction, increasing access to credit, and other social objectives, thereby acting as beacons of social banking. Ever since the nationalisation of the State Bank of India in 1955, PSBs have played a crucial role in acting as financial intermediaries, channelling savings (particularly from rural and suburban areas) into the economy. Doggedly pursuing social objectives, these banks have been strong drivers of the success of many welfare policies. For instance, PSBs were responsible for opening 16.5 crore Jan Dhan accounts as part of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. In contrast, private banks only opened 68 lakh accounts. 

With the poor financial infrastructure post-independence, PSBs have been essential to making banking and financial services accessible in the remote regions of the country. In many ways, it is this progress in financial inclusion that has been an engine of growth by bringing unproductive savings into circulation. Tapping into the closed vaults of rural savings, PSBs encouraged saving in banks that mobilised resources and money that was otherwise stagnant. An example of the contribution of PSBs to the financial architecture is the State Bank of India that achieved 100% inclusion by covering 31,729 villages during the financial year 2014. State-owned banks also contributed to fostering an entrepreneurial environment by extending credit facilities to vulnerable groups and weaker sections that may not have the necessary collateral to secure loans in private banks. 

Any bank’s greatest asset will always be Trust. Without the public’s faith in the brand and institution, a bank will never be able to garner savings and deposits. Previously, crises like the Yes Bank crisis of 2020 have raised questions on commercial banks’ ability to manage liquidity, inspiring a feeling of uncertainty in the public. With the notional commitment of the government to fiscal stability, public sector banks emerge as symbols of trust causing the general public to hold at least one account in a PSB. Hence, the role of a state-owned bank extends beyond its social obligations — it acts as a propagator and preserver of faith in the banking system for the masses. 

Public sector banks also possess strategic importance for the country — they support key industries with stressed assets such as aviation, mining, iron and steel etc. By supporting these industries, PSBs ensure that certain strategic sectors of the economy are protected and preserved due to the role they play in ensuring stability, employment or the smooth functioning of the economy. Hence, the loans extended to these sectors are greater in PSBs than in commercial banks, subsequently leading to greater NPAs as well. The bad loans from these key industries, coupled with the NPAs from extending loans to vulnerable social groups, explain sufficiently why PSBs suffer from a greater percentage of non-performing assets. Are NPAs still the strongest measure of efficiency between commercial and public sector banks? Probably not. 

Due to the very difference in the mandates and incentives of the private sector and public sector banks, it is folly to believe that a profit-driven, private sector bank can do what a PSB does. The strong tug of the profit-motive and responsibilities to shareholders impose a natural limit to the amount of social contribution a commercial bank can make to the economy; especially, given that many cases involve a direct trade-off between profits and pursuing social objectives. Hence, calls for privatisation of PSBs imply a simple trade between social responsibility/financial inclusion and profits, or what one might term ‘efficiency’. While the government can certainly get rid of a few bad apples in the basket by dumping poorly managed/underperforming PSBs, any economy like India should retain a certain proportion of public sector banks in the financial architecture to encourage equality, welfare, and fair access to financial services.

Whether the two banks being privatised are inefficient is a matter of economic analysis, but one must be careful with the metric being used. One can argue that the 2 banks being currently privatised still leave enough social bankers to strengthen the financial fabric of the economy, but we know which sides the trade unions will take. As we possibly head towards a more privatised, profit-driven India, the question remains — can we still bank on (read: with) the government to ensure the strength of our financial landscape? 

Advaita Singh is a second year economics student at Ashoka University and is the president of the Economics Society.

Categories
Issue 8

Digital Detox in Isolation

I used to joke with a friend: if you want to feel time slow down,  either be on a treadmill or lose your phone for a day. This is more true than ever in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. From weddings, birthday parties and even funerals shifting online, there aren’t several options but to make peace with being relegated to a small square on Zoom. However, it’s not just Zoom that’s the culprit but also our escalating usage of social media that has increased our screen time. A study of 4500 individuals showed that the majority of respondents acknowledged that their social media consumption (72%) and posting (43%) has peaked during the pandemic. 

In the process of reflecting more critically on my relationship with technology, I started researching more about how social media affects us. A few hours later, I come across a purportedly ‘random’  advertisement asking me, no, almost accusing me of being a ‘social media addict’, “Are you a social media addict? Take this quiz to find out!” As much as I felt called-out by the advertisement, it was hard to avoid. The next thing I knew, I took the quiz. A few hours later, I was watching a rabbit video and had already stalked a friend’s boyfriend’s mother’s sister. How I landed there, I wasn’t sure of that myself either. However, by the end of the day, I knew I was a social media addict!

Social media addiction, according to Addiction Centre is defined as, “a behavioral addiction that is characterized as being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable urge to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to it such that it impairs other important life areas.” In the previous issue for OpenAxis, Rujuta Singh argued that “in many ways, the addictive nature of social media is a feature, not a design flaw.” Studies indicate that notifications from retweets, likes and shares trigger the release of dopamine within the brain — producing effects similar to that of consuming cocaine. 

A lot of people are increasingly becoming aware of how social media rewires the brain and affects our interaction, yet a few are willing to make a change. I would confess I am one of those who haven’t been willing to make a lasting change for long. Every now and then, I would delete Instagram after either getting bored, disgusted or both, however, my Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) would compel me to be back before the end of the day. This time though, I decided to try something new and radical — a digital detox in complete isolation. 

Digital Detox in Isolation

In 1654, the philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” I didn’t quite imagine how tough it is to sit still when I made the decision to quit social media for a week in complete isolation.

Usually, I would wake up to be reminded of my FOMO through Instagram stories of my friends being out. However, the decision of giving up my social media gave me another kind of depressing FOMO. Will I be okay with missing out on posting a cute #couplegoal picture on Valentine’s Day? Are my friends sending me memes that I am not able to see? I didn’t just intensely desire those mundane interactions but craved them. I found myself thinking about whether my friends and family might just forget my presence.

This wasn’t what I imagined when I decided on a “digital detox.” I imagined a calmer, more composed and mindful person. I expected myself to be someone who would want to exercise, be more productive and spend time reading books and doing yoga. Isn’t this how they usually portray people who do a digital detox?  Instead, I found myself getting agitated, bored and just re-reading the same emails — basically utterly unproductive.

I didn’t have the urge to pick up a novel when I knew I couldn’t post a picture or I didn’t quite enjoy my isolation meals as much as I would have. Neither did it lead to a decluttering of my mind, the way I anticipated it would. In fact, being away from social media during complete isolation made me feel bored at best, and lonely and depressed at worst.  Why was I experiencing what I was experiencing, and is digital detox even possible and a worthwhile endeavour to undertake in today’s age? 

Impossibility of a Digital Detox 

“I don’t think digital detoxes are realistic anymore” writes Dr. Doreen Dodgen-Magee, author of Deviced!: Balancing Life and Technology in a Digital World. She further writes “We can’t live a connected and informed life that we really need to now, without some form of tech.” At a time especially when one is isolating, alone or quarantined, is it really a wise decision to do a digital detox then? While some wellness experts and articles strongly suggest that digital detox is good for your wellbeing, I personally found that in my experience, it made me more agitated.

A study by  Lancaster University found that as previously postulated, there is no direct ‘proven’ correlation between poor mental health and social media. Even in studies that claim a connection between the two, fail to answer whether poor mental health leads to more social media usage or vice versa. In fact, the same study by Lancaster University posits that worrying about our smartphone use is likelier to cause more depression and anxiety than using the tech. 

It raises the question of whether our brains have adopted technology to the extent that social media has become indispensable and unavoidable? If so, will just accepting that lead to more mental peace? Dr Doreen certainly believes so. She compares our relationship with technology to that of an essential item like food, and in that light, a digital detox is an equivalent of extreme diet. What we could and should strive for then is a mindful, purposeful use of social media instead of a drastic step like a digital detox. This would not just help cultivate a more meaningful relationship with technology but also renegotiate the terms of technology to our terms.

Oh wait, brb, let me quickly share this idea on Facebook! See ya! 

Ridhima Manocha is a final year English and Media Studies student at Ashoka University and has authored the book, The Sun and Shadow.

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 8

Digital Detox in Isolation

I used to joke with a friend: if you want to feel time slow down,  either be on a treadmill or lose your phone for a day. This is more true than ever in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. From weddings, birthday parties and even funerals shifting online, there aren’t several options but to make peace with being relegated to a small square on Zoom. However, it’s not just Zoom that’s the culprit but also our escalating usage of social media that has increased our screen time. A study of 4500 individuals showed that the majority of respondents acknowledged that their social media consumption (72%) and posting (43%) has peaked during the pandemic. 

In the process of reflecting more critically on my relationship with technology, I started researching more about how social media affects us. A few hours later, I come across a purportedly ‘random’  advertisement asking me, no, almost accusing me of being a ‘social media addict’, “Are you a social media addict? Take this quiz to find out!” As much as I felt called-out by the advertisement, it was hard to avoid. The next thing I knew, I took the quiz. A few hours later, I was watching a rabbit video and had already stalked a friend’s boyfriend’s mother’s sister. How I landed there, I wasn’t sure of that myself either. However, by the end of the day, I knew I was a social media addict!

Social media addiction, according to Addiction Centre is defined as, “a behavioral addiction that is characterized as being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable urge to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to it such that it impairs other important life areas.” In the previous issue for OpenAxis, Rujuta Singh argued that “in many ways, the addictive nature of social media is a feature, not a design flaw.” Studies indicate that notifications from retweets, likes and shares trigger the release of dopamine within the brain — producing effects similar to that of consuming cocaine. 

A lot of people are increasingly becoming aware of how social media rewires the brain and affects our interaction, yet a few are willing to make a change. I would confess I am one of those who haven’t been willing to make a lasting change for long. Every now and then, I would delete Instagram after either getting bored, disgusted or both, however, my Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) would compel me to be back before the end of the day. This time though, I decided to try something new and radical — a digital detox in complete isolation. 

Digital Detox in Isolation

In 1654, the philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” I didn’t quite imagine how tough it is to sit still when I made the decision to quit social media for a week in complete isolation.

Usually, I would wake up to be reminded of my FOMO through Instagram stories of my friends being out. However, the decision of giving up my social media gave me another kind of depressing FOMO. Will I be okay with missing out on posting a cute #couplegoal picture on Valentine’s Day? Are my friends sending me memes that I am not able to see? I didn’t just intensely desire those mundane interactions but craved them. I found myself thinking about whether my friends and family might just forget my presence.

This wasn’t what I imagined when I decided on a “digital detox.” I imagined a calmer, more composed and mindful person. I expected myself to be someone who would want to exercise, be more productive and spend time reading books and doing yoga. Isn’t this how they usually portray people who do a digital detox?  Instead, I found myself getting agitated, bored and just re-reading the same emails — basically utterly unproductive.

I didn’t have the urge to pick up a novel when I knew I couldn’t post a picture or I didn’t quite enjoy my isolation meals as much as I would have. Neither did it lead to a decluttering of my mind, the way I anticipated it would. In fact, being away from social media during complete isolation made me feel bored at best, and lonely and depressed at worst.  Why was I experiencing what I was experiencing, and is digital detox even possible and a worthwhile endeavour to undertake in today’s age? 

Impossibility of a Digital Detox 

“I don’t think digital detoxes are realistic anymore” writes Dr. Doreen Dodgen-Magee, author of Deviced!: Balancing Life and Technology in a Digital World. She further writes “We can’t live a connected and informed life that we really need to now, without some form of tech.” At a time especially when one is isolating, alone or quarantined, is it really a wise decision to do a digital detox then? While some wellness experts and articles strongly suggest that digital detox is good for your wellbeing, I personally found that in my experience, it made me more agitated.

A study by  Lancaster University found that as previously postulated, there is no direct ‘proven’ correlation between poor mental health and social media. Even in studies that claim a connection between the two, fail to answer whether poor mental health leads to more social media usage or vice versa. In fact, the same study by Lancaster University posits that worrying about our smartphone use is likelier to cause more depression and anxiety than using the tech. 

It raises the question of whether our brains have adopted technology to the extent that social media has become indispensable and unavoidable? If so, will just accepting that lead to more mental peace? Dr Doreen certainly believes so. She compares our relationship with technology to that of an essential item like food, and in that light, a digital detox is an equivalent of extreme diet. What we could and should strive for then is a mindful, purposeful use of social media instead of a drastic step like a digital detox. This would not just help cultivate a more meaningful relationship with technology but also renegotiate the terms of technology to our terms.

Oh wait, brb, let me quickly share this idea on Facebook! See ya! 

Ridhima Manocha is a final year English and Media Studies student at Ashoka University and has authored the book, The Sun and Shadow.

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 7

Pets of the Pandemic

Human beings, as one knows, are social beings; be it with a fellow human or an animal. This inherent quality along with the advancement of technology and media has facilitated the sociality of a person. In the era of the internet, we are up to date and in touch with more friends, family and acquaintances than ever before. However, the year 2020 took such a turn and brutally limited this inherent sociality to being social in a room and connected through a screen. One was not only isolated but in-person social interaction also meant putting oneself and the people around at risk.

With almost completing a year amidst the pandemic, conversations around mental health concerns have seen a significant rise that has a correlational if not causal relationship with the pandemic. It is not uncommon that the pandemic, quarantine and the lockdown harboured a lot of feelings of uncertainty, isolation and loneliness. While a person to person interaction might have been risky, a number of people turned to the companionship of a pet. 

Historically, humans have always been a part of a culture of integrating animals within their lifestyle as both parties have been present in close physical proximity. Traditionally, animals such as horses, cows, dogs, etc. were domesticated to acquire goods such as dairy, meat, security etc; thus, they had a use-value. While these animals were resourceful, over time, this culture of domestication branched out into what a layperson would see as keeping a ‘pet’ in present times. One could see the emergence of keeping pets for companionship, comfort and support. A variety of research sheds light on the human-animal interaction, and one such research explores this bond through the Pet Effect. This effect addresses the impact of the symbiotic relationship of love, affection that the pet and owner share, that significantly contributes to each parties’ physical, emotional and mental well-being. A survey was conducted in 2016, which reported that 74% of the 2000 pet owners, felt that there was a significant improvement in their mental and social well-being once they acquired a pet.

Hence, to seek comfort in these unprecedented times, various individuals who could afford to, adopted a pet. If one would’ve stepped into a park in May, one would have noticed a good deal of what are called the ‘Pets of the Pandemic’. With the lockdown pushing work culture from in-office to a work from home format, not only did a pet provide companionship but also a positive and meaningful presence within the home environment. Owners could now fully distract themselves from the uncertainty and invest in attending to their pet and also indulging in physical exercise by taking them out for walks.

While pets may have been the solution to our loneliness, many have chosen to ignore the  impact of the pandemic on our four-legged companions? Research suggests that for newly born and adopted pets, socialisation is crucial within their first three months. The environment that a pet spends time in plays an essential role in their development. However, due to the pandemic, various pets like dogs and cats have spent a large portion of their initial months indoors. This leads to exposing pets to two pertinent issues: difficulty in adjusting to new environments and socialising and developing separation anxiety. 

Gradual exposure to society and socialization is an important part of taking care of and training pets, especially for a puppy. This training ensures that the puppy grows to be a dog that is comfortable with other people, animals and new environments and does not develop unnecessary fears and phobias. 

Furthermore, stemming from the same environment is the issue of separation anxiety. Separation anxiety is often noticed in dogs and is described as the dog displaying distressed behaviour when its’ guardian is about to leave the house. Distressed behaviour could look different for each dog, however, some common indicators are agitation, being upset, uneasy or restless and seeming depressed. Dogs suffering from separation anxiety bark and howl when they are left alone or cause destruction in the house, often causing self-injury and in some cases, make an attempt to escape. 

When we are experiencing distressed, often restoring to a pet for comfort is extremely normal. With owners spending 24×7 time with their pets, the latter have become a coping mechanism for many. The line between this mutually beneficial relationship and co-dependency has blurred during the pandemic. So the most important question to raise is what happens once the guardians move back to their 9-5 in-office lifestyle? How does the pet respond to getting all the constant attention for almost 11 months to transitioning back to the time when they were not? How does the owner resort to separating themselves from their pet, and find other mechanisms to cope with stress?

These are questions that one is yet to answer. 

Vanishree is currently pursuing Psychology and Sociology at Ashoka University. Vani enjoys cooking in her free time. 

Picture Credits: Sunehra Bhatura

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 7

Decoding the Union Budget 2021: Q&A with Professor Nishant Chadha

Q: There are a lot of worries about the Fiscal deficit for this financial year. Could you tell us the concerns around it and how the government plans to fund it? 

A: Very loosely put, the fiscal deficit is the difference between the government’s expenditure and its receipts. The concern that surrounds it is how do you fill up the gap between your spendings and receipts? Or if you borrow today, how do you repay it tomorrow, and will you have enough to repay it? 

And if we don’t borrow today, then how will we finance what we want to do? That is the same decision that any business or economic entity faces. Your borrowings are contingent on your belief that you can generate more income and pay off the debt later. Granted your activities are productive enough to cover the costs of borrowing. It’s the same logic that works for the government, but it can get a lot more complicated sometimes. 

The fiscal deficit is higher owing to the huge shock to the economy last year that resulted in low receipts and businesses shutting down.. So, where does the government get its revenue from? Now, since the government does not do any productive activity (like run businesses or earn profits from them), it essentially taxes other productive work, its citizens, businesses, etc. That is how it raises its revenue. Now, when you have an economic shock, especially one as large as the COVID-19 pandemic, your productive activity slows down as businesses aren’t creating much since they are not profitable. So, their tax revenues, which are the proportion of what they produce go down.

So that’s the reason why you have a higher fiscal deficit. Now, the question about concern is really about how optimistic we are about our future and about our ability to meet the government’s increased debt burdens. 

So the last part of the question you asked was how do you finance the fiscal deficit. One way is to disinvest. So you have wealth which you sell off and use the assets to finance expenditure.

The second way is that you go to people and borrow. So that’s the debt market. Typically, that’s the way the government fills the gap.

And the third way is by monetizing the fiscal deficit, which is essentially printing money. This is done by the RBI buying the government bonds and printing more money against that. So, it’s essentially just increasing the money supply. 

Q: Could you tell us something about the expenditure for the agriculture sector. A lot of reports mention that there isn’t a lot being done for the farmers, even against the backdrop of the protests. Can we observe an emerging pattern of inequality here? 

A: Yeah, I have an unpopular view about this. I think the only thing the government or the society can do for the farmers, is to ensure that we have fewer farmers. That is the only way out. 

So I think that agriculture adds about 14-15% to our GDP and employs about 45-48% of the people. That is where you have inequality. At the upper end, you have people who are in productive sectors like services but on the lower hand, people are tied to agriculture.

Increase in productivity with so many farmers is bad for the farmers, it is good for the consumers. So the only thing the government can do is, therefore, focus on moving people away from farming into value-added activities. Typically it would involve people moving to cities and into manufacturing or services. Our problem has been that we don’t have a manufacturing sector, so we have been unable to implement this transition. And it is a very difficult transition as services typically require the kind of skills and human capital that people in rural India don’t have. So now what happens? This is a structural feature and the government has two choices: either people’s income increases itself so that they are no longer poor and reliant on you or if they remain poor, you will have to pay to support them. And that is the essence of this distinction between growth and inequality discussion.

If you don’t do anything in terms of investing in people, if the skills don’t improve, if they don’t engage with other jobs, there’s nothing you can do. None of them are leaving agriculture or moving away from social security schemes. So where do you bring the money from? So to me, this expenditure needs to be balanced. This choice needs to be made. And the only way to have to be able to manage this is to invest in growth.

Q: So does the government have to invest in education training or similar programs to encourage having fewer farmers in the agriculture industry to increase labour productivity?  

A: See that is unfair. We all blame the government, but it is a difficult job to do. As I said, the government doesn’t engage in productive activities, but what it can do is enable the right kind of environment to generate productive activity. The bottom line is that businesses need to grow.

We need more of the right kinds of businesses and entrepreneurs, and more formality in our labour markets. The government’s job is to worry about why jobs are not being created. Now what they can do to resolve this is to encourage entrepreneurship and increased business activity so that people can start or grow businesses and hire more people. 

Now, what is the challenge here? Consider how in a lot of banks that you deal with, look at what has happened with the call centres. They’ve all been replaced by chatbots. Call centres are not really skilled jobs. You just have to talk to people. But they were a huge boost to India in some sense, because they moved a lot of people out of lower-middle-class backgrounds into a sort of middle class, but now they’ll all go away. Just like how mobile phones ran out the STD booths. This is a reality that we are going to run into very soon. So what should the government do now? Well, at the micro-level, they should essentially invest people with enough skills and create an environment which encourages business activity. 

So when we think about what the government can do in terms of job creation, I think over the long term, we need to be cognizant of the fact that by its own admission, this government is spending huge amounts of political capital on digitization but aren’t spending anything on creating it. The question is who will work in those areas? So if I look at the education of the labour force today in India, 28 to 30% or one-third of our labour force is illiterate. We don’t have the labour composition that can be a part of this economy that we are talking about. For example, mobile phone penetration in India is high, but only in absolute numbers. So it is a huge market for people. However, the government’s job is not to create huge markets, but to figure out what is happening to those people who don’t have mobile phones. How will they survive? 

The digital divide in this country is huge. So, what technology 4.0 we are talking about? We don’t even have automation of the basic kind right now. Most businesses in this country don’t have computers. We really need to understand the reality in which we exist.

We have this challenge in the long-term that we need to start acknowledging and addressing now, and then you hope that there is enough creativity and innovativeness in your country’s population, which will take care of itself. And I believe there is. The government’s job is just to create and keep creating the right environment and then hope for the best. 

There are things that they do in terms of job creation, for example, investing in infrastructure will create jobs, but they’ll create construction jobs. The whole world is moving towards, you know, having AI, ML and robots in construction and moving people away to more productive work. We are trying to create jobs where we have people moving from agriculture to construction. This is okay for now, but is this really what we want for the future? These are some hard questions that we need to answer.

Q: We also wanted to ask you about your expectations from the budget and whether or not they were met? 

A: Honestly, I think this is a fair budget and I’m quite okay with it. 

One of the things that I do like about the budget is asset monetization. There’s a lot of land that is lying around, which is not the government’s job to hold anyway. So, releasing productive assets and transferring them to other people in the economy who can use it better is a great idea. I would also like the Indian government to have a national social infrastructure pipeline at some point. 

And I really would like them to have a plan, (like the one that they have for capital expenditure they’re making on infrastructure, for example; in which they give a plan for three, five or 10 years) for education and health. I think now is the time to make commitments. India needs to start thinking about how they’re going to tackle this problem of a low level of education and skilling and increasing enrollment ratios in secondary education.

There is all this discussion around technology 4.0, but how are we going to do it? Our kids don’t even finish school. So what are they going to do? They just want to use YouTube. They become a market for others. Agreed, the mobile phone penetration is high in India, but that just increases the size of the market for somebody else, because the technology is not in the hands of producers or entrepreneurs, that technology is in the hands of consumers. So yes, we’re consuming technology a lot, but what are we doing with it? Or we are basically giving a huge market to Google and Facebook and YouTube.

And yes, we can replace TikTok with Tik Kik and PUBG with FAU-G. But that is not what we need to do. If you want to harness this technology, you need to turn these to as many people as possible, especially to producers and entrepreneurs.

We really need to have a plan for education and health, just like we do for other forms of investment because human capital is a form of investment, not expenditure. We really need to get our act together there.

Q: There’s a lot of information available about the budget. What would you recommend as a good, informative source for somebody who just wants to understand it? 

A: I would suggest that you just look at the budget documents, they are annotated along with footnotes explaining everything. You can just go to the website (www.indiabudget.gov.in).The best way to learn for yourself is to spend time on it and make your own judgments, that is what I would advise. 

Nishant Chadha is a Fellow and Head of Projects at the India Development Foundation, and a visiting associate professor of Economics at Ashoka University.

Categories
Issue 7

The Biden-Harris Campaign: Representation or Presentation?

On 20th January, as Joe Biden was sworn in as United States of America’s 46th president, Democrats celebrated Donald Trump’s departure from the office while also rejoicing in Kamala Harris’ entry. Kamala Harris, the vice-president with several firsts, has been the talk of the news cycles ever since she was picked by Joe Biden as her running mate, after she suspended her own presidential campaign in August.  USA’s first woman, Indian-American, Asian vice president’s candidacy has added onto the world’s fixation with US politics because of the position and the power the country holds in global affairs. It is extremely important to acknowledge and appreciate Harris reclaiming space where women, especially black and other women of colour are constantly overlooked, silenced and shut — as also noted by Harris in her speech. This joy gets doubled when one looks at it as a victory that comes off at the heels of an administration that has  enabled white supremacy. 

Though Kamala’s Harris’ entry is a historical win for the United States of America in most means, people of the country are looking at Kamala Harris unidimensionally, and reducing her existence to only her identity:  Indians, both in USA and abroad, have been quick to claim her as their own, just like they have always been with every successful member of the diaspora, with remote links that root them back to the homeland. The internet is flooded with people from all over the world, especially Indians reacting to someone who “looks like them” making a place for herself in a majoritarian white-male office. From people calling her “Kamala Aunty” to Mindy Kaling claiming that her toddler does not see a difference between Harris and Kaling herself, Indians, mostly Hindu, out of which a significant portion is upper caste, immediately appropriated every aspect of Kamala Harris’ existence to make it their own. Many feminists are referring to Harris as “girlboss”, a term most commonly used to describe women in power, that has been criticised time and again for straying away from activism. 

Such a reductionary approach to a politician is definitely not new but it is dangerous as it tends to be used as a weapon by the candidates to mask their intentions and mislead the voters into buying a revisionist identity. Kamala Harris’ campaign is often seen focusing on Harris “going back to her roots”, whether it is making dosas with Mindy Kaling or talking about the importance of idlis and festivals in her mother’s house, time and time again we have seen Kamala Harris’ identity been marketed as an identity tool to appeal to a particular kind of vote bank — the upper castes from the Hindu diaspora through quick and lazy surface level tropes. Identity Politics, that is crucial for bringing forward a diverse panel to avoid trampling of minorities in the country, is increasingly being misinterpreted and reduced to a marketing tactic that caters to the “feel good” sentimentality without actually bringing any tangible change. 

Representation holds concrete value, however, only when the candidate reflects back onto the struggles of the community they claim to represent. There is nothing about Kamala Harris’ candidature that separates her from her white colleagues and opponents. . It is extremely hypocritical of Harris to bring up her “Jamaican roots” and talk about smoking pot as a youngster and claiming to be for the legalisation of the same. when she saw around 2,000 marijuana related convictions during her term in San-Francisco.  All this is just talk that profits off people’s struggles by giving them a false sense of relatability when in reality it is hollow, keeps stereotypes alive,while enabling divide and rule of the proletariat. This kind of playing on the sentiments of the voters also helps the public hold their representatives less accountable — the marketing strategies of the campaign are rolled out in such a manner that only diverts all attention to just one part of the candidate, their persona, completely taking away the focus from their policies and ideology.  

During the peak of Black Lives Matter movement in America, the Jamaican side of Kamala Harris’ identity was brought out time and again. She called herself a proud black woman, talked about her experience as a black student in college, told the public about the societies she was a part of in college that helped her get a deeper understanding of her community and its struggles, she calls herself a “progressive prosecutor”. However, if one looks at her past actions, we can see how during her term alone in California, more than ⅔ of the men killed by police officers were people of colour, of which a majority were unarmed. She was also responsible for holding black men longer in jails when they were eligible for release just to extract cheap labour out of them. It is disheartening to see an important movement that seeks to bring resolution to racial disparity in the country being twisted to fit a political campaign and agenda, when the candidate does not comply with anything that the movement stands for. Kamala Harris’ campaign runs in a similar manner to that of any big co-operative, where they take people’s real struggles, and capitalise on them under the false pretense of bringing forward a social change — like how brands do with LGBT struggles during the pride month.   

Kamala Harris has also constantly referred to herself as a feminist beacon, who purportedly understands women’s struggles when her activites have shown otherwise. Harris has not done much that aligned with the feminist movement, more so, she has been dangerous to the sex workers and the trans community alike. In 2008, Kamal Harris opposed the Proposition K, which was directed at decriminalisation of sex work and prevention of STIs. She argued that Proposition K unfurled “a welcome mat for pimps and prostitutes to come into San Francisco”. Her campaign completely ignores this past of Kamala, which had put women into danger and continues to show her as a feminist crusader and a “girlboss” who would bring a fresh perspective and voice into the US politics. She willingness of people to selectively see their candidates as it seems fit to them, makes it even more convenient for the campaign to do so. She also claims to be pro-decriminalisation of sex work but has not even commented to make amends to this action she undertook as an attorney general. 

The Democratic party during the Biden-Harris campaign has shown exactly what happens when neo-liberals twist the identity politics model, and reduce it to a weapon that centres itself around one aspect of an individual’s identity and uses it as a ladder while aligning with interests do nothing to dismantle a pre-existing model, all the while disillusioning the masses into believing that they would bring some concrete and effective change. 

Madhulika Agarwal is a third year English and Media Studies major who is interested in literature by children and for children. When she is not lamenting over her tiktok career that ended before it could start, she likes learning about animals and reading books with good art in them. 

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).