India Against Corruption - Are you ?

I write this post on the background of a resounding success of Anna Hazare and India Against Corruption movement , which fomented a mass public revolution fueling itself using the dormant anger within each Indian against the corruption looting their country !

What I loved most about this movement is : Its nature !

The movement was very very constructive , not a single paisa of public property destroyed (Learn something Shiv Sena and MNS), the movement was not about group of people standing up and vilifying the government with cliches like " Sab neta chor hain " and "Kill all the politicians". It simply said - System is flawed ,We want to change it and MOST importantly it gave a solution in form of a Draft Jan Lokpal Bill (this is always missing from most of the mass protests we have ) - Now if you dont allow me to correct this flaw - I will hold you at moral ransom and make you see things the right way. Another important aspect of this movement was the self less nature or if the self was involved it was - the Self as an Indian.

We have had telangana , gujjar , jat and various other mass protest before this - but all of these were by a certain group of people working for their own good , none of them was for India - I guess thats where this movement set itself apart from others and got the pan India mass support. So all of you, who say that this protest has set a precedent or step by step guide to arm twist, "blackmail" the government into accepting your demands ,cant be right, because people understand who are you and what are you asking and if you are really self-less then only you will get the kind of support Anna got. I must confess here that the success of this protest gave a glimmer of hope to a hopeless pessimist(when it comes to prospect of doing good in India) like me that - Good things can happen if the people leading the change have that much clean energy to blast through all the obstacles

So the mass Movement culminated into formation of the Joint Drafting Committee for the Jan Lokpal bill - with 5 Civil society members and 5 ministers , Question have been raised that do these 5 civil society members actually represent the civil society - I think even if they dont , it really doesnt matter (coz the requirement that they should represent is only by the principle of democracy - We all know that when given option to choose our representatives we choose Sharad Pawars, Suresh Kalmadis and A Rajas) ,what matters is whether they are Good at what they do ! As expected we had Digvijay "I hate everything that is Good" Singh , teaming up with (out of and hence looking for action) Amar Singh and retrograde Mulayam Singh to malign one by one all the 5 members.

Now Anna and Kejriwal have an impeccable record hence the targets were Bhushans and Hegde ! Bhushans because they have been alloted 20Cr Home for 1 lakh in UP and the (forged or original ?!)CD , Hegde for being ineffective as Lokayukta of Karnataka. I would like to argue that these people are on the panel not because they have a good track record and are honsest , but becuase we believe that they have the right intension and skill to draft a non loopholed Good Lokpal Bill. I say today almost nobody is perfectly white or black for that matter - each of us at some level has contributed to corruption , so if I have a checkered past does that mean I can never do anything good for the country ? The adage that "Even if you have indulged in 1 paisa corruption yourself - then you lose the moral right and hence will be termed jealous If you point out fingers at others who are more corrupt " doesnt apply here . The argument of purity of means should give way to objectivism . Bhusans certainly aren't as corrupt as Sharad Pawar (who as heard doesnt take bribe but takes % in the project and is supposedly atleast a Dollar billionaire), I say if the Bhushans do contribute in forming a Good Lokpal Bill they do deserve the 20 Crore house for 1 Lakh ! Come on if Yuvraj Singh can get Porsche 911 turbo for individual achievement in a Sport - Bhushans are contributing a hell lot more, that to not for themselves, but for the country ! About the argument that what if corrupt Bhushans compromise the draft bill ? Well arent there 5 Ministers on that committee to whom we have gladly accepted and Bhushans were the original authors of civil society draft. Also the fact that impeccable Anna and Kejriwal want the Bhushans as a art of the committee is more than an assurance for me and media bashing or maligning wont make me impugn their integrity !

I think that we should believe in these 5 guys for once and lets hope that under the leadership of Anna ,they draft a perfect Lokpal bill and take ahead a movement on which all of us Indians had pinned our hopes - Jai Hind !

Gandhian Game Theory

After Seeing the Movie - " A beautiful Mind " for the first time- like most people I had became a fan of the legendary John Nash and his even more legendary "Nash Equilibrium" and had done quite some reading on the same issue by googling him , but I was little kid then who didn't understand the profoundness of Nash's Equilibrium. Then came a day when my grandfather, who was studying Nobel Laureates then , asked me -"Who's this guy John Nash ? Do you know whats so brilliant about his equilibrium that fetched him a Nobel ?" - There Began my Round II of research on John Nash and now being a 3rd year Engineering student - I guess I had matured enough to taste the Whiskey called John Nash and not spit it out saying "It tastes yuck" but let it sink in and make me "high"- and I am still high ....

John Nash's Equilibrium can be best explained using the Prisoner's Dilemma - A classic Game theory problem- Where 2 robbers on way to robbery have been caught by the police trespassing - Now the Police "know" that the robbers were up to a Robbery but they have no proof and can only book them for trespassing. But the Police are smart asses - they decide to turn the 2 robbers against each other to gain proof -They lock each of the robber in separate rooms and offer each of them a deal without letting them communicate with each other - Defect on your partner and we will let you go free without booking you even for trespassing and will screw your partner for the entire robbery.

So Now each of the robber has 2 options:

1.Betray Partner

2.Stay Silent with partner

Plotting this 2 options of the 2 robbers in a matrix form we get 4 scenarios

	B Stays Silent	B Betrays
A Stays Silent	Each serves 6 months	A: 10 years B: goes free
A Betrays	A: goes free B: 10 years	Each serves 5 years

Thinking from Point of view of A : A thinks " Whatever B does my sentence will always be less

if I betray him " because given if B remains silent , A get 0 if he betrays whereas 6 months if he too remains silent and if B betrays him , then if A remains silent then he gets 10 years and if A too betrays he gets only 5 ! So in any case - Mathematically speaking A is better off Betraying B.

But come on - Same is true for B too - B too is always better off betraying A. So as they say in Game theory Jargon - Betraying is the Dominating Strategy for both the players !

Now if you see there are 2 Equilibrium points in the matrix - (Silent,Silent) and (Betray,Betray) -where both get equal term. But (Silent, Silent) is an unstable Equilibrium because when engaged in that equilibrium , there is an "incentive" to change your strategy, your sentence reduces if you change given your opponent doesn't change. The (betray,betray) on other hand is stable equilibrium , because if u change your strategy from there and your opponent doesn't - then u r screwed ! This Stable Equilibrium is known as the "Nash Equilibrium" and it almost accurately captures the essence of natural human behavior and you can predict given such a scenario - its highly likely that the Game will end up at the Nash Equilibrium ! Don't believe that humans can act so stupidly - Nuclear Arms Race during the Coldwar - its Pure Nash Equilibrium in Action !!! Option to USSR and USA being to produce or not to produce nukes !

Now .......lets get back to the title of the Blog - Where Does Gandhi come into picture ?!

Gandhi somewhere down the line realized that - " Nash Equilibrium" which we saw was a very sad place to be in ! Win Win Nash equilibria do exist - but not in the case we were studying ! Gandhi realized that only way of avoiding a "lose-lose Nash Equilibria" is to for someone to take one step backward first ! Lets describe another scenario with help of a pay off matrix to justify Gandhiri

	B is Violent	B is non-Violent
A is Violent	Each gets hurt	A: is unhurt B: gets hurt
A is non-Violent	A: gets hurt B: is unhurt	Each is unhurt

The Dominating Strategy here again is to be violent and hence the Nash Equilibrium is at intersection of dominating Strategies of both players and unfortunately in it both get hurt !

Gandhi ideally wants you to be at the unstable equilibrium where both remain unhurt - but for that someone has to take the 1st step of immediate mathematical irrationality - Gandhi says taking this 1st step though apparently irrational is very important and requires true Courage !

the Courage he says u can only derive when U have truth on your side - Once you have taken the 1st step it causes your Opponent to morally move to the unstable equilibrium . So does Morality and mathematics mix is an open ended debate ? The first step of nonviolent Satyagraha is definitely not supported by Game theory - But one could argue that immediate rationality in being violent is myopic and Satyagraha is your way to support the unstable equilibrium which in the long run is Win win ! Gandhi here is supported by another polymath - Douglas Hofstadter

(whose book- Godel Escher Bach is a must read) - Douglas Hofstadter argues that rationality which ends in lose-lose situation is not rationality at all , hence He defines what he calls "Super Rationality" as a virtue of both players by which they will chose non-violence as their strategy which will get them better results in the end ! So is it morality or super Rationality - I dont know - but I know Gandhi as a man was able to break the "Nash Equilibrium" of pre-independence struggle , where British killed us in Jallianwalla Baugs etc and we killed their officers in return, and shifted the whole dynamics to a "Win-Win" unstable equilibrium and most importantly maintain it ! So cheers to the man who defied Game theory or should I say introduced us to a new Moral Game Theory - Gandhian Game Theory !