Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra

WaPo and the White Man's Burden


Protests against the Citizens Amendment Act might be the harbinger of the last stand in the civilizational battles between decadent Nehru-Marxian intellectual complex and the emergent mass Hindu resurgence. The intellectual public sphere sees every policy move of Modi 2.0 as another nail in their coffin. Nehru-Marxian post-independent narrative with the ostensible aim is to deracinate the Indian psyche is being dared like never before. Current violent manifestations are pointers towards a rear guard battle being waged by the erstwhile establishment self-styled public intellectuals. Given the high stakes for Nehru-Marxian establishment, a virtual existential battle, it turning uglier should not surprise us.

The Indic psyche seems to be waking up from the long sufferings of Stockholm syndrome arising of long years of Islamic invasions followed by British rule. The first signs of the challenge emerged around the early 1980s, imaginably in part as reaction to Meenakshipuram conversions in 1981. LK Advani shaped the political contours of the same with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement becoming the symbol around which the Hindu forces rallied.

In the Nehurvian-Marxo intellectual domination, Hindus’ would be judged by the adherence to ‘moral virtue’ modelled on so called Gandhi-Ashokan principles. Any deviation would be frowned upon and involved in deliberate white washing of the physical and intellectual virtues that in the normal course determined the hard or soft power of a society. It was this characterisation of Hindu society that LK Advani began his battle against. The current battles are continuation at a larger level.


A key propaganda element necessitates a formation of ‘mass opinion’ in the Western world against the current establishment.  Like a push and pull narrative, the Western establishment of public intellectuals, media, celebrities and sections of political class are too happy to join the bandwagon. To them, it is an opportunity of reinforcing their alleged moral superiority conferring them a right of delivering sermons to the allegedly inferior rest of the world. Perhaps first off the block is Washington Post. Its editorial board is calling Indian government to withdraw the Citizenship Amendment Act. Further it seems to salivate the prospect, however faint it might seem, of a chink in Modi-Shah armour.

The context is appropriate to examine why Indian Nehruvian establishment loves foreign intervention and why the overseas intellectual pretenders love to play to the Indian intellectual gallery.

Inviting a foreign player to meddle in Indian affairs in nothing new. In medieval times, it was on invitation by Ibrahim Lodhi’s uncle, that Babur invaded India dethroning the Lodhi dynasty. Tippu in his battles with the British sought help from the Turkish Caliphate. In 1761, Ahmed Shah Abdali’s intervention and Battle of Panipat originated in a letter from Shah Walliullah. In fact, in July 2013, 65 Indian MPs from both houses wrote to President Obama requesting him to deny Narendra Modi,  visa to US. Ironically, just 6 years later, an US President is seeking votes in the name of the same Narendra Modi! As journalists and intellectuals quote ‘approvingly’ the Washington Post advice, they are merely following a precedent established centuries ago.  The current round of protests too has seen its share of foreigners participating to ‘save’ Indian democracy. The government crackdown on such foreigners unsurprisingly has invited crass reaction from the media and celebrity establishment. To the dying Nehru-Marxian establishment, the self-styled Western opinion builders are considered superiors to native Indians, partly the reason being their demi-God Karl Marx said so. Marx was one of the first to argue “British, the last of the wave of conquerors of India, represented the first one superior to the Indians”. He posited that this enabled a British resistance to Hinduisation, thus foundations being laid for Indian regeneration through destruction of native industry.

Ironically, Marxian claims of British superiority over the Indian race anchors the free flowing advice that keeps emerging from the Western intellectual establishment to rest of the world. Contrary to perception, the first roots of ‘White Man’s burden’ could be traced to Marxian description of Indian society. To Marx, Indian society revealed degradation of substantial magnitude best illustrated by worship of cow and Hanuman (monkey). To the British lay a duty, of regenerating the society. The pursuit of the same, in Marx’s words, lay in a path of first annihilating the existent way of life before regenerating through laying the fundamentals of materialist models of the West.

Imperialist theory attributes these duties to a poem by Rudyard Kipling in 1898 titled ‘White Man’s Burden’. Kipling urged the US not to abandon Philippines which they had conquered from Spain in 1895. To Kipling, Philippines represented the moment for US to demonstrate its civilizational superiority to transform Philippines from an ancient society to modernist by inculcating the Western values of life. Expanding this, to Kipling, the Western societies, Britain, mainland Europe, US were thrust with a serious responsibility. The responsibility was to engage in mission to transform the ‘savage’ and ‘semi savage societies’ across Asia, Africa and rest of America into modern ones. Western civilizational values were superior in all aspects and diffusion of the same across the heathen would be perhaps the achievement or fulfilment of the responsibility thrust on by history on the Western society.

The theoretical justification of imperialism still runs deep into the Western establishment. Many are yet to come to the terms of decolonization and   still harbour dreams of fulfilling their cultural responsibility. Unique to Hinduism is an uncluttered continuity in the face of frequent trials without sacrificing substantial degree of its intrinsic roots.  In contrast, China, Japan among others surrendered to Westernization in many dimensions, notwithstanding certain degree of retention of religion and culture.  To Hinduism, inward centric reactions, both strategic and tactical, conceivably helped retain the core. This resilience is what continues to ‘torment’ the Western psyche at the elite level.

The global elite club functions as if it’s a repository of all world’s knowledge. It proceeds on the premise it has the power to determine the narrative. There is sense of vanity that they are morally, intellectually, socially, economically, politically superior to the rest. There seemingly exists a sense of responsibility of liberating the ‘souls’ of the less privileged so as to speak. Any contrarian responses are dismissed with disdain. As they perch themselves in an ivory tower, they increasingly lose the touch of the ground realities. The realities are those what they believe are and not what exists outside.  
If facts do not fit into the worldview they have created for themselves, then facts are wrong. In other words, their ivory tower is oblivious of rest of world.

Washington Post opinion is thus a logical outcome of the ivory tower think they inhabit. It should be a surprise if its fellow mates New York Times, Economist, Guardian etc, don’t sermonize the Indian audience. The best way of course is to rub them more by ignoring them








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