Issue 44 Vol II, July 31, 2007

F E A T U R E S

Non-Humans are More Rational than Humans
Vinod Anand

There is enough evidence to support the hypothesis that human choices are neither limited to market interactions nor do they fully meet the precept of rationality. One can never be fully rational due to exogenous and endogenous reasons. Under given circumstances, the degree of rationality (or irrationality) may vary from person to person. As against this, non-human choices appear to be more rational. This is exemplified by a number of experiments.

A recent study by Janis Dickinson of the University of California, Berkeley and co-authored with the UK-based Andrew McGowan, that appeared in late 2005 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, draws unique parallels between human and bird families (of Western bluebird breed). According to this study, accumulation of wealth brings family stability especially for this breed of birds just like the humans in terms of the fact that the female fledglings fly off on their own in late summer, but their brothers hang around through the winter and into the next breeding season, living off the bounty of their parents larder, and when the “wealth” (in terms of mistletoe berries, a winter food) runs low, the kids split. According to this experimental research, such a precept of close-knit families is common among cooperatively breeding birds of the given breed as well as humans, subject of course to the assumption that there occurs a continuous accumulation of wealth. This parallel is based on the fact that animals, including humans, can stay in one place to accumulate resources and also because of the benefits of access to accrued resources. It can, thus, be concluded that family stability comes either through ‘inherited wealth’ or ‘continuous accumulation of wealth’ or through both, especially when the family groups (humans or non-humans) are mutually cooperative.

The applicability of economic principles to non-humans is well demonstrated (poetically) by Prof. H.R. Singh (the former Vice Chancellor of Allahabad University), who is a zoologist by profession, and a poet by heart. His poem is entitled “Honeybee”. It is about honeybees and their daily routines.

“Honeybee starts early in the day
And follows the direction of the sun
It knows best its priorities in life
Knowing where to stop and when to run.

There is division of labour in the colony
A worker is busy in collecting pollen
A drone is to mate with the only queen
The queen lays eggs having tapering abdomen.

Dancing in circles it tells of food close to the hive
And recognises the odour of a flower on way
Performs tail-wagging dance for food at a distance
Working ceaselessly during the whole day.

In the honeycrop nectar is converted into honey
It communicates in the language it knows
It can sting you on disturbing the hive
It works very hard, never begs or bows.”

There is another example that supports the focal point of this Paper. In a recent study undertaken by the Université Libre de Bruxelles of Belgium it has been reported that cockroaches have a much better concept of living as a strong household, with the motto of ‘one for all, and all for one, indicating the precept of ‘family decision’, as motivated by ‘Pareto Optimality’.  Such an outcome of this research is based on a group of 50 cockroaches for which three distinct nearby places were arranged. It was observed that the whole group settled at only one place. Later, these places were changed in terms of space in a way that only 40 cockroaches could stay in any one place. It was then seen that the group got itself divided into two sub-groups of 25 each, and got settled at two different places. Such a way of living together brings in collective wellbeing of the group in various ways. This is also applicable to other non-humans like ants, fish, and birds of various breeds, to a large extent.

The parallel between humans and non-humans is also demonstrated in a study in terms of the simplest grammar which is historically regarded as one of the skills that separates man from beast. It is thought that while many animals can roar, sing, grunt or otherwise make noise, linguists have contended for years that the key to distinguishing language skills goes back to our elementary school teachers and basic grammar. Sentences that contain an explanatory clause are something that humans can recognise, but not animals. In other words, it means that ‘recursive grammar is uniquely human.’ as maintained by the famed linguist Noam Chomsky on the basis of an experiment performed a few years back in this context on ‘tamarind monkeys’ that, despite thorough training, failed to recognise the most basic of grammar in terms of differentiating between a regular sentence and one containing a clause of another sentence. A similar experiment was recently done with about 15,000 training attempts on songbirds for about a month or so by a psychology researcher, Tim Gentner of the University of California at San Diego, and the result was surprisingly different from that of Chomsky in terms of the fact that after training, nine out of 11 songbirds picked out the bird song with inserted phrases about 90 per cent of the time’ whereas ‘two continued to flunk grammar. This experiment clearly shows although language and animal cognition is a lot more complicated, yet it can be achieved to some extent.

There is no dearth of such specific studies. For example, Hirshleifer and Glazer, while discussing the optimizing behaviour, say that ‘Birds Do It! Beers Do It!’. They give an illustration to show that Biologists have discovered that the decisions of animals can often be interpreted in marginal terms. Consider a bird foraging for seeds or insects that are distributed in patches. The bird must decide when to leave its current patch and fly off to look for another. As it continues to exploit the current patch, food becomes sparser and sparser there; the bird’s marginal “revenue” (energy intake) per unit of time spent in the patch is falling. But if the bird abandons its current patch, it loses energy intake in the dead time before it locates a fresh patch. Bio-economic reasoning in this situation says that the bird should continue to exploit its current patch until the marginal “revenue” per unit of time spent there falls to equality with the average “revenue” it can attain elsewhere, allowing for the dead time between patches. They further mention that field studies confirm that foraging birds do indeed behave as if they solve this economic problem. In this context the laboratory studies of Cowie in the case of birds, and Hodges and Wolfe in the case of bumblebees are very relevant.

Hirshleifer and Glazer mention another example revolving around the law of demand where they refer to the work of Lea reviewing a wide variety of demand studies including animal experiments, retailing experiments, and econometric investigations.   In the case of 18 animal experiments, it has been found that the law of demand was supported in 15 (83. 33 per cent) experiments, contradicted in 1 (5. 55 per cent), and there were mixed or  uncertain results in 2 (11.11 per cent) experiments. This is just indicative of the fact that the law of demand is also applicable in its own way amongst the non-humans.

In terms of what we have said above, it very clearly appears that economics is progressing very well to its endless frontiers. It is really amazing! There is no doubt that in time to come its horizons would widely expand and it would surpass all knowledge in a way that it will become an “infinite” science.

[The author is professor of economics at the National University of Lesotho in Southern Africa]

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Presence of Women in Political Process: Some Impediments
Manju Singh

‘All our work stops half-way because women are not participants’ –Mahatma Gandhi

India’s decision to include reservations for women, Scheduled Tribes, and Scheduled Castes in the Panchayati Raj Institutions is groundbreaking. The closest parallel is in Sweden and Norway, who implemented a 40% quota for women’s representation in political parties.

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments have provided the legal basis for direct democracy at local levels, both in rural and urban areas. The result is that toady there is 0.25 million elected panchayats in the country, for which more than 0.32 million elected representatives are working. Out of these 0.12 million elected representatives are women. A noteworthy feature of the above Amendments is the opportunity to bring the marginalised groups into the political process through creation of reserved seats for women and scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

Gandhiji believed that Panchayati Raj would offer opportunities for real participation at the rural level, in which the individual saw herself as part of the greater whole. Therefore, she would engage with others to improve herself as well as the community at large. In Gandhiji’s decentralized democracy, development would grow out of the village, where people would collectively work to conceptualize what they meant by ‘development’ and ‘progress’ and then learn and act together in ways that allowed them to realize their visions and common aspirations.

Unfortunately far from Gandhi’s vision, what we have today in Panchayati Raj Institutions are a series of structural constraints and contextual conditions that have failed to empower women, their panchayats, or village communities as a whole.

A unique empirical experience based on the innovative collaborative study provided the understanding of presence of women leaders in political process in Rajasthan. Various dimensions were observed during the study period.

At the outset it is important to understand the  concept  of ‘presence’ in any political process or institution like PRI. Presence or Representation can be divided into three aspects — descriptive representation, substantive representation, and personally transformative representation.

Descriptive representation refers to the physical fact of particular individuals being located in political, economic, social institutions.  It is the symbolic effect of quotas for women’s representation; it simply means that they are physically in these institutions and everyone can see them there.

 Substantive representation refers to the substantial content of one’s representation.  In other words, it is the influence or impact of one’s presence on the political discourse, the culture of politics, the political party, or political outcomes.  It is the substantial content of one’s presence.

Personally Transformative representation deals with the impact of one’s representation on oneself, one’s identity, one’s meaning-making systems, and one’s world.

While the other two forms of representation are essentially external, this aspect of representation deals with the internal and the individual herself.  It is neglected by most theorists and academics and rarely enters the vocabulary of social science.

Regarding influence of political presence in the political process my observations are based on an empirical collaborative study carried out in Rajasthan titled ‘Women Leaders in Panchayti Raj’.

One of the goal of the study was to understand reality of presence in political process to women in Rajasthan. The observations reflects that majority of women leaders were having feelings that their social status has pushed up due to their presence in the political process and consequently their confidence level has also rose. Though they felt that not much difference could be seen in their economic status .Some women leaders were having feelings that they have full support from fellow women they empathize their feeling. But they strongly felt that because of lack of exposure and training they are not able to perform their duties well. If some training were provided they would be better equipped to deal with the problems. They strongly felt that this special provision made them many of us aware about our own rights and especially about importance of education. Now they always are willing to educate their daughters for having their bright future. Some of them also want to emulate Indira Gandhi. Now women are willing to come out from their weaknesses, want to be literate and change their lives. They are concentrating all their efforts to have educational facilities for girls in their own villages. They also asserted to have water facilities that were not on the top of the priority earlier.

Some other interesting observations need to be share that now women are feeling more confident and self-sufficient, they have started taking decision regarding their daughters, their attitudes are shifting towards freedom. Women leaders also preferred to have female assistant at their work, as they would understand their problems better. They also ask more power and control to run PRI more effectively. Some of them felt that women leader can contribute more and efficiently as women are considered as better worker, manager, more concern and less corrupt. Some women leaders were keen to go ahead in the politics as MLA’s / MP’s but some are reluctant as they feel it’s a man’s field, politics is not meant for women. Moreover because of household and social burden, it is difficult to adjust in this field. Emotionally also, some time they felt that they have to face humiliation. They demand to change in the social structure so they could avoid those limitations while working. Women leaders were experiencing a silent battle for their rights and were willing to cope all difficulties so that they can prove themselves competent, empower and leader.

In some panchayats Women Sarpanch expressed that current structure of PRI have a hollow authority for they lack executive power. State appointed civil servants keep control of panchayti minutes and tries to control panchayat budget. If the sate govt carries such influence in decision making process of the panchayat  , where is the space for creativity, autonomy and leadership in panchayat. For example, schemes run out of the state and center, like Indira Avas Yojana, Jivan Dara, and Integrated Rural Development Program, are particularly stifling. They decide the needs and plans of the panchayat in advance, and thus determine the path of development all villages are to follow. Yet, in preventing active conceptualization, planning, implementation, and evaluation by the panchayats themselves, such schemes fail to recognize diversity and knowledge and instead reinforce a financial and conceptual dependence on the state.

If we pay particular attention to representation by women, the Acts reveal additional structural impediments.  For example, the Rajasthan Panchayat Act requires that the sarpanch be able to read and write Hindi. Although this clause appears to be gender-neutral, given Rajasthan’s low rate of literacy among rural women, it limits the number of possible women candidates.

It was observed that women could able to secure some presence in PRI because of constitutional provisions but in many cases they don’t even understand the significance and importance of the position (Sarpanch). In one Panchayat a woman sarpanch told openly that her husband take care of all the assignments. She was absolutely unaware about the village information. She was not even able to utter a single word in front of her husband. This is not only a case of  this village but many other women sarpanch were also  alike. For these women there is no meaning and importance of presence or absence in the political process.

When enquired why they don’t speak out if their confidence level has improved? Their answer was :due to traditional norms and cultural values, it is not good to have words in front of males. At what extent globalization is making differences in lives of Indian rural women even when they have constitutional privileges

Thus socio-cultural context is also critical to understanding the obstacles to women’s representation in PRIs.  In the panchayats I studied in Rajasthan, the stereotypes of women focused on their incompetence, their lack of merit, and were highly correlated with their levels of literacy. As one up-sarpanch explained, “Because they are illiterate, women do not know how to think. If they thought, they would speak. Nearly quoting Susan Pharr, another panch explained that women only stood for election, because they were pushed by their male relatives. Therefore, they could not be judged by their own personal merit like male candidates were.  Confronted with such attitudes, it is not surprising that low self-esteem and lack of confidence appear to be a problem for women panches in rural Rajasthan.

Some other social and cultural barriers are also found as major impediments for women for having effective presence including issues like, Restrictions on women’s mobility that affect their access to information and resources; Entrenched patriarchal mindset that defines women’s rightful place only in the home; Politics is considered as male domain in the public view; There is a lack of a societal acceptance of women’s political role; Women are hindered to participate as voters and as candidates by the local power brokers.

These observations helped to locate some of the the main impediments in making effective presence in political process. They are Inadequate political training of women, lack of capacities and know-how of the political system, lack of education and awareness of women of their political rights, high level of illiteracy among women, lack of confidence and trust among women, lack of political skills, lack of financial resources and social capital, lack of experience in playing a decision-making roles, lack of voter’s education.

Male domination in power politics, lack of interest of political parties to orientate themselves toward the political participation of women, lack of government will to create enabling environment for women’s political participation and representation were also seen as challenges towards having substantive presence of women in the political process.

Despite these bleak pictures, there are a few bright spots. For example, women in one of the Rajasthani panchayats expressed that they had gained a knowledge of public affairs and they realized that they too could do public work. Although these examples may seem small in the face of larger problems, they do offer us foundations upon which to suggest recommendations for change. Strategies like networking and advocacy, sensitization of local political leadership, mobilization and support to women, development and dissemination of print material, capacity building of local CBOs, regular coordination with political parties and government agencies, gender sensitization trainings and  capacity building of line agencies and political parties may be adopted for the making Gandhi Ji’s dream come true.

Senior Fellow, Council for Social Development, Southern Regional Centre, Hyderabad 500 030.
manjusinghajm@gmail.com

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