ECONOMIC WAR ON THOSE WHO CRITICIZE: THE 'CASHEW-AL' WAY

Hello World,

While I am preparing my next vomit on Arthashastra, I went through the 2018 Budget documents and I have an observation to share with you. Let’s get started.

We will begin with an exhibit:

The 2018-Budget proposes to reduce the customs duty for the import of cashew nuts by 50%. What used to be 5% is going to become 2.5%. Cashew is high value crop and 50% slash is a significant gain and this is expected to make the import of cashew from international markets into our country much cheaper than what it used to be.

Usually, when two countries agree to help each other economically, they ease the selling of each others’ products and services in their respective territories. Also, when the nation needs a raw material for a specific product which also has to be affordable to the citizens, the administration usually relaxes the import duties and enables the market players to take advantage of the margins.

In an effort to understand the story behind I googled to find who the top producers of cashew nuts are. 

Fun fact: We are one of the top-3 producers!

Here’s a set of screenshots to indicate that:

I started wondering why cashew imports need to be relaxed in a country which is already in the top-3 producers list. The reasons are simple:

If cashew imports are relaxed:

1. The local producers will have to face international competition and might not necessarily win the price war. 
2. The local farming economy will face the brunt given that they are already producing the some of the major quantities, globally.

I wanted to know how big the local cashew farming economy existed and I landed at this:

So, 5 out of 7 states in the Top-6 Cashew Producers List are Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The others marked as top producers are West Bengal, Jharkand and Maharashtra.

If I look closely, most of these states have political rhetoric strongly criticising the current central administration and the political party that is running it. In essence, what I see is an economic war being waged against states who are not willing to collaborate with the political party running the central administration right now.

I might be wrong but here’s my set of questions:

Why is that cashew is the only agri-produce whose import duty is slashed by 50%? 

How come the crop which comes from select states with a similar political rhetoric can be imported for cheap? 

Is this an economic war against the farmers of the regions where political ideologies don’t necessarily match with that of the current central administration?

While I pondered this, scrolling through the budget document, I came across this:

National program from the central budget aiming at air pollution is something that needs to be lauded with a open heart. Such programs make the place a bit better for future generations. In this case the program directly aims at reducing the loss to the agricultural-economy as a result of air pollution.

However, why do such ambitious programs exclusively cover select states from the country?

This to me means that, the air-pollution-driven death and health hazards faced by citizens from the other states of this country is perfectly ok. 

The priority is just those states which face the MOST POLLUTION. You see, pollution is not bad. MOST POLLUTION is alone bad. Only those who face MOST POLLUTION are superior humans and deserving citizens for a centre-driven program. This is how the best brains work in this country as of now and I cannot imagine of an award that I can recommend the brains who voted these neuro-superior-homo-sapiens who are deeply passionate about protecting just those superior humans who face the MOST POLLUTION in this country.

For some reason, the states who stand to face the economic brunt of cashew imports do not match or even come close to the states included in the air pollution program. 

So some states can have cleaner air and no competition from foreign agri products while others can breathe more monoxides and eat unsold cashews until death. 

The reality might be something very different from the grim picture I paint here. 

The questions are: 

Is it, really?

At What point do we admit the fact as a fact?

Best regards,

HOW ARTHASHASTRA DESTROYED MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES: THE AMATYA IDIOCRACY

Hello World,

Image Source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/09/my-ministers-a-must-this-month-buhari/

This time we are going to discuss the concept of Amatya: The Minister from the section termed as ‘Amatyapatti’ the analogy for modern day management term being The Manager. You may recall your health insurance situation once if that may be of any comfort. It is all about management and in this case the focus is on how to get your managers as per Arthashastra.

So, one guy says the king can appoint his friends and classmates as ministers. Another idiot says the king has to appoint those whose secrets are known to him and that if these appointed ministers deviate away from the king’s opinion, he can then reveal those secrets and put them in distress. He goes on to blabber the king will also maintain a level of decency, simply because the ministers also would know his secrets. To me this is more of extortion than executive operations. Also the king and the ministers seem like teenagers threatening each other with fail videos of each other. To even consider this as a respectful piece of literature is insult to pretty much every word used in this sentence.

It is almost as if minister positions are jam jars to be filled with favourite flavours. Not one bit of people’s representation and this crap is supposed to display my history from hundreds of years back. Am I the only one observing Culture Coloured Publication Propaganda from the times of multiversal [this time drifting away from universe, kindly hang on] manic depressive monarchy.

Now look at this pic:

The idea thrown at us is that the king needs ministers because one wheel doesn’t turn.

Well, do you have any idea what a UNICYCLE is?????

This is the proof that back when this crap was composed, they did not have a unicycle and this author who is so Thought-Leaderly-Translating the nonsense into trendy-damp-turd with a chill-factor and yo-bro look has no clue this metaphor makes no sense in today’s time.

Again, something flowery and sounding obvious being thrown at us in the name of principle with the back-story that this is from great piece of literature that is old and valuable.

They must have had access to the best weed possible when they conceptualised this idea. Columbian cocaine involves petrol and acids and so can’t be placed in the arthashastra timeline. I am just being contrabandly fair, also herbal, so no chemicals from corporations. I am sure you feel the high-t. I am not sure what colour of elephants they saw flying when they decided they are going to literally manufacture this scripture of venom that can itch a society to divided-death.

Let’s proceed further, shall we?

Have a look at this.

The first part says the king should employ those as ministers whose fathers and grandfathers have served as ministers. This is similar to the noble-blood nonsense that was used to recruit high ranking military officers and officials of the king’s court [even in the west, recall Napolean??]. 

So this is where the great calamity of dynastic-politics got standardised. It makes sense now. The kings have established their dynasties as rulers and so the rest of the king’s joker-team decided to establish there own version of DYNASTIC-SLAVERY-THAT-PAYS-WELL and guess what they used as a tool: PUBLISHING. All they had to do was write ‘scriptures’ in their own Klingon and propagate the theory of dynastic ministerhood among the citizens and most importantly the kings.

‘…though offended will never desert him’ indicates how intricate was the conceptualisation of the DYNASTIC-SLAVERY-THAT-PAYS-WELL.

The next part is a gem of an example for ancient hypocrisy crystallised for the current and future. 

‘….such faithfulness is seen even among dumb animals: cow for example…’

WOW, just WOW……the GO-mother is a dumb animal but hey, it is faithful. Guess what uses GO-mother as example for dumb animals: ARTHASHASTRA. 

This is a case of a well fed goat getting into a pot and making a biriyani of itself. How considerate? or should I say, How Confederate? The all-important ever-comprehensive representative-of-cultural-history ‘principles of management’ has documented its belief in the existence of ‘dumb’ animals and used the all-holy-no-nonsense-not-to-be-butchered GO-mother COW as an example. 

How can a holy animal, considered a representative of the eternal-whoever-that-is can be dumb and why would Arthashastra have it that way? 

We need to be a bit fair and unlike arthshastra, a bit more nice. Let’s give it an escape. The translation of the Arthshastra has the mention of dumb animals and uses COW as an example.

This means the dumbass idiot [apologies for insulting all idiots who were, are and going to be] who authored this translation of Arthashastra had no clue what he was translating. The follow-up to that is: who on earth would even have the objective translating such nonsense and using it for spewing management principle satire that all readers will never recognise? Let me tell you who: The one who read Peter Drucker and wanted to become a local Peter Drucker assuming he is going to motivate a new South-East-Asian Toyota-level manufacturing business. 

Again, someone in the present/recent-past has had access to really good contraband and this time we can account cocaine as well as a possibility. Fairness is important you see, even if it were to be contraband. The shastras might take that as blasphemy and who knows they might spring out a new scripture so dumb that animals such as humans in the year 7018 might believe the 5000-year-old revenge-crap-literature is actually the work of ancient followers of a lord of the non-existent who had the capacity to stop breathing for 500 years and sing songs to get hurricanes and to add a bit of holy flavour, were able to split the ocean so the GO-mother can go on a pilgrimage that it must within its life. Boy! My brain is burning! [or is it ‘If you smelllllllll what the rock, in the temple, is cooking?’  sports entertainment is always fun when used in any context, even IPL, just my thought]

Have a look at one more exhibit [hope I am allowed to say this]:

‘…he shall employ as ministers such as are born of high family…’ indicates the institutionalised format of racism in the name of ‘nobility by birth’ and this was used as a statement defining the philosophy of getting ministers for administration. The statement ends with a cracker of a phrase ‘…ministerial appointments shall purely depend on qualifications.’ 

So, someone burped out the idea of born-of-high-family as a qualification-for-ministerial-appointment and the greatest-scholar-who-had-access-to-the-best-weed included that in the most misogynistic nonsense mankind has ever composed: Arthshastra. The world now has so many brain damaged intellectuals who believe the modern management principles come from or resemble what this misogynistic nonsense covers in great detail, not to miss out, in systematic ‘cerebral-haemorrhage’ style.

So the ‘Amatya’ part says get your friends, or those whom you can control through extortion or those who are born of high family. How intellectual, fair, sincere, correct, humane and representative of the culture of this part of the world. Absolutely DEMO(LISH)CRATIC, isn't it?  

The rest of the world better take good example of this or else the wrath of the holy one shall rain hurricanes and blow earthquakes or worse, appoint Trump as the president. Try being a believer now. Please remember, you need to be a good Amatya: The Minister/Manager....to the dot [may be the holy one as well]. 

Best regards,

HOW ARTHASHASTRA DESTROYED MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES: THE SWAMI NONSENSE

Hello World,

This is a multi-part blog-blast-series where I will be vomiting my thoughts on how nonsensical arthshastra is. Yes, we already cut to the chase and the chase is here. We might as well proceed further.

SWAMI: THE LEADER/KING

Let’s start with what’s out there in the public domain on this one. Please have a look at the image below and read the text in it. It is a screenshot of a translation of arthashastra available online.

To put this arthashastra conspiracy in perspective, please find below another image of a similar translation I found [in a paperback book this time].

I am sure by now you would have noticed that both the images present the same translation with just a minor change of words. The ‘reckless’ is replaced with ‘lazy.’ ‘Works’ is replaced with ‘wealth.'

Reckless and lazy are very different words with very different meanings [irrespective of the context].

Wealth and works are also very different words. 

One of these translators, or even both, might have copied from a common source and replaced the words to evade plagiarism issue and related lawsuit. 

I wonder if anyone would even go to court for such nonsense. 

Now to the idea presented in the translation, I think it is absolute bullshit. It starts with saying that if the king is lazy/reckless, his subjects will also be reckless/lazy. So what???!!?? 

Who gives a rat’s ass about a king’s subjects? The king’s primary role is to keep the territory intact, secure and enable the prosperity of the country’s entire population. 

Trump is reckless and lazy. He doesn’t think before he tweets and he wouldn’t take the time to read all that is given to him. They have to break it down and use his name a lot to keep him reading. 

The USA is still the country with the best economy in this world. 

The translation moves on to say, a lazy/reckless king will fall in the hands of his enemies. 

HELL NO!!!! 

Do you know which king falls into the hands of his enemies?

The one with enemies and very badly trained military forces. 

Even when a war is coming to a close, the weaker force will surrender to save its remaining soldiers unless the situation is a do-or-die one. 

Why would arthashastra define how a king should be? Kings existed even before this thing was written. How did kings exist before a ‘how should a king be’ doctrine came into existence?  There must have been a logic that helped kingdoms survive and in some cases even flourish. 

The fact that kingdoms fell and kings perished were largely because the invading army was stronger and in most cases much larger than the losing kingdom.

The fact that this part of arthashastra deals with king and his subjects indicates it is suitable only for monarchy and not democracy. Also, since it talks about the king’s subjects eating into his wealth/works, it blindly conveys the message that the king and his subjects are the prime focus when it comes to the responsibility of the king, in this case SWAMI: THE LEADER.

In other words, it is either outdated or out of sync with anything sensible, or, in my opinion, both, by leaps, bounds and light years. [going universal here, kindly drift along]

Any king’s subjects should be capable of handling the responsibilities given to them in the best way possible. There is no way all SUBJECTS can be the same as the king. For this to happen, they have to be cloned [for physical resemblance] and brainwashed through ‘workshops on policy-making and administration methods.’ [a very popular nonsense prevalent in democracies today]

From a different perspective, if the SUBJECTS  are indeed as the KING, then it only means the SUBJECTS are the Sancho Panza's of a Quixote-of-a-King. To be fair, king a windmill for a monster is reckless and a all-time 'Yes Master' means silly subordination without reasoning. At least with Quixote, Sancho Panza remains with the objective of protecting his master from big risks and embarrassment. 

I think I insulted Quixote, Sancho Panza and Miguel de Cervantes by using them in an analogy involving Arthshastra. Please accept my apologies for that.

If you think arthashastra can be interpreted in many ways, then, it has to be fantasy and not principles of management.

Anyone can come up with 'have a blue skin over your head at all times that can weep for your benefit' as a carefully crafted doctrine for those seeking enlightenment which can then be interpreted as 'the sky we know today.' 

One can't claim 'Principles of Atmosphere' as the title for such crap!!!! It is as simple as that!!!

Stop believing this nonsense please. Just because something is ancient and in sanskrit doesn’t mean it has to be right or relevant. Arthashastra could also have been the result of very good political satire written for the comedy shows of those times. Someone placed it under the wrong section of a new library and the rest of readers just flew with it, driven by their own imagination that said this piece of writing is actually principles of something they never knew. True they did not know, but what they did not know is that arthashastra is political satire and the statements shouldn’t be taken as such.

Anyways, let’s proceed further. I am loving this already. I’ll be honest, I am being a bit sadistic but hey, when it comes to nonsense, all one can do is feel good about criticising it. It is only fair because the subjects and the king will resemble each other and there is a big group of humans out there who believe in this crap.

The arthashastra or what should ideally be the most misogynistic nonsense mankind has ever had written, preserved and for the love of salted crackers, translated into torture tips for screwed up management ideologies, is ruining this world and I am now officially sick of it. 

Meet you again in my next rant of this blog-blast-series.

Best regards,

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Best regards,