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Q & A on the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: Session4

Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Q & A on the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: Session4

Dr. Sven van de Wetering is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of the Fraser Valley, Canada. His research interests are in “Conservation Psychology, lay conceptions of evil, relationships between personality variables and political attitudes.” In a 4-part interview series, we explore the philosophical foundations of psychology.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen:  You have an interest in ecological validity and critical thinking from a psychological perspective. Psychology requires a Swiss army approach to problem-solving, as you have noted in other conversations with me, which is exemplified in the number of disciplines and sub-disciplines within the field. The external validity amounts to the extent that one can extrapolate and generalise the findings of psychology. Ecological validity is one aspect of the extrapolation and generalisation. It looks at the extensions into the real world. From a psychological perspective, how can the apparent simplicity of a research finding become troublesome when taken into the real world?

Dr Sven van de Wetering: I think your phrasing captures the problem: “simplicity of a good solid psychological research finding” is a delightful phrase because it captures so succinctly what is wrong with the way many research psychologists (including me in my less reflective moments) think of their research findings. Findings in physics are often satisfyingly simple and reliable. Think of Newton shining light through a prism, Galileo dropping stuff off of towers, or Robert Boyle goofing around with a vacuum pump. In this model of science, you find a result, you assume that the physical reality underlying the result is fairly simple. Furthermore, you assume that that physical reality will not change over time, and you feel free to draw sweeping generalisations based on the simple experiment (though it turns out Boyle was pretty cautious about doing that, an example we could probably learn from). That approach has gotten us far in physics, presumably because the assumptions of simplicity and changelessness correspond fairly well to the physical reality. A similar approach seems to be less useful in psychology, and I would argue that that is because the subject matter of psychology, human behaviour, is neither changeless nor straightforward.
To take a straightforward example, any good social psychology textbook, and most bad ones as well will talk about the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is also called correspondence bias, a term which I much prefer. In its simplest form, FAE (correspondence bias) is the tendency for people to assume that other people’s actions tell us a lot about their inner traits, beliefs, and values while ignoring the fact that many of the influences on people’s actions are situational in nature. The thing that irritates me about the name “Fundamental Attribution Error” is the word “fundamental” which seems to imply that the error is anchored in a core aspect of human psychological functioning, one that is universal across individuals, cultures, and situations. When this assumption is examined, it is found that the tendency fails to occur in some situations, that there are individual differences in the degree to which people fall prey to this bias, and that members of individualist cultures are much more susceptible to the bias than members of collectivist cultures. In short, many investigators of the FAE (correspondence bias) seem to assume that people’s behaviour in a small number of fairly contrived situations tells us something important about the way they behave all the time. To maybe highlight the illogic of this, it almost looks like many of these investigators engaged in more egregious examples of FAE than the people in their experiments. If I were more psycho-dynamically inclined, I might even accuse these researchers of projection.
As I said above, I am probably as vulnerable to this tendency as anyone else. I wonder if part of the problem is linguistic. Research psychologists often formulate their hypotheses as universal generalisations, something like “People do X.” It is certainly true that some people, some of the time, under some circumstances, do X; if they didn’t, the results of the experiment wouldn’t have come out the way they did. Researchers are aware that universalism is an assumption, but it’s not problematized as much as it probably should be. Usually, if the phenomenon is replicated with a few slight procedural variations and a couple of different populations, the assumption of universality is considered provisionally acceptable. I don’t really want to be too critical of this; the time, energy, and money necessary to really thoroughly explore the limits of the phenomena studied by psychologists are often not available. Psychologists do what they can, and perhaps are too busy and harried to really take a long, hard look at the intellectual baggage that psychology has picked up that leads to those assumptions of universality.

SJ: What research findings seem to show robust findings – highly reliable and valid – in the ‘laboratory’ but fail to produce real-world results? Those bigger research findings one may find in an introductory psychology textbook.

Dr Sven van: I’m certainly not in a position to give a comprehensive list, but here’s one I find a little ironic. One of the cornerstones of the critical thinking course you cited above was confirmation bias, which is a cluster of biases centred around the tendency to selectively test one’s hypotheses in a way that makes it relatively easy to confirm the hypothesis one already has in mind but difficult to disconfirm that same hypothesis. Some of my best students started to look into the literature and found that the whole intellectual edifice of confirmation bias was based on only a small number of experimental paradigms. Snyder and Swann developed one of the research paradigms in question in 1976. They asked people to prepare to interview another person. Their job in that interview was to find out whether the person in question was an introvert or an extrovert. It found that people often used what is called a positive test strategy; that is, if the interviewer was trying to find out if the person was an extravert, they chose a lot of questions that an extravert would tend to answer “yes” to. This has been taken to indicate confirmation bias on the part of the research participants.
What doesn’t get emphasised when most textbooks cite the above study is that the research participants did not create their interview questions from scratch. Instead, they were asked to choose some from a list. My students wondered if research participants would do the same thing if they could make up questions. We ran a small study on this question, and we did weakly replicate the original study; that is, people asked to find out if someone was an introvert were slightly more likely to ask questions that an introvert would say “yes” to, and people asked to find out if someone was an extravert had a non-significant tendency to ask more questions that an extravert would answer yes to. What we found striking, though, was that a substantial majority of the questions our participants came up with were not yes-no questions at all, but rather open-ended ones that at least had the potential to be informative regardless of whether the hypothesis was true or false. Thus, confirmation bias was, at best, a minor undercurrent in the test strategies used by most of our participants.

Jacobsen: How can those former examples become the basis for critical thinking and a better comprehension of ecological validity?

Dr Sven van: One thing I take from these examples is that human behaviour is highly context-dependent. The issue in these examples is not that people have made a false universal generalization about human behaviour that needs to be replaced with a true universal generalization. The issue is that universal generalizations may not be the way to go in order to explain most facets of human psychological functioning. Nor do I think that we can see people as passive recipients of cultural influences or some other form of learning. Any given person does have neural hardware, an evolutionary history, a history of learning experiences, a social milieu, a set of goals, of likes, of dislikes, of behavioral predispositions, and so on. Most psychologists recognize that this is so, but their hypothesis-testing methods tend to be designed with the assumption that all these different factors operate independently of each other, without interacting. This is probably not a useful assumption to make. I also don’t know what to replace it with, because I’m not mathematician enough to know how to cope with the sort of complexity one gets if every factor interacts with every other factor. I know that some people advocate for a turn from a hypothetico-deductive psychology toward a more interpretive one, but no one has yet shown me a version of this that is disciplined enough to give investigators a fighting chance of overcoming their own biases. So I’m kind of stuck in a methodological cul-de-sac. My own tendency is to more or less stick with existing methodological precepts, but to try to be a little bit skeptical and aware that things may go badly awry. Situations matter, and should be in the forefront of the investigator’s mind even when there is no way of actually accounting for their influence.

Jacobsen: Let us take a controversial example with the pendulum swings within the educational philosophies. Some are fads, while others are substantiated. In either case, the attempt is to make a relatively controlled setting, e.g. a single school’s educational environment in one community or standardized tests, extrapolate into improved school performance on some identifiable markers such as those found on the PISA tests, university English preparedness or – ahem – university preparedness, or even training for citizenship in one of the more amorphous claims, and so on. What educational paradigms, within this temporal and cultural quicksand, stand the test of time for general predictive success on a variety of metrics, i.e. have high general ecological validity for education and even life success?

Dr Sven van: I confess I find this a thorny issue. Once again, culture matters. In the US, asking children to work on problems they have chosen themselves is very much more motivating than asking them to work on problems chosen by their mothers. In some collectivist cultures (maybe most or even all, this hasn’t been tested a lot) the reverse is the case. This sort of thing makes me wonder how important something like child-centred education is.
One fad we probably shouldn’t get too excited about is the idea that all important learning is procedural, and that it is, therefore, unimportant to learn about content. In the area of critical thinking, it turns out that the most important single tool (if you can call it that) is lots and lots of domain-specific knowledge. Once a person has that, procedures may increase that person’s ability to use that knowledge effectively, but without the knowledge, all the procedures in the world don’t seem to do any good. Reading an article from Wikipedia doesn’t cut it; those bullshit detectors that are so important to critical thinking only develop as a result of fairly deep engagement with a body of material. That said, procedural knowledge is tremendously important; my issue is with the assumption that because knowing how is important knowing what is unimportant.
Probably the number one most important factor in education is an attitudinal one. If we think of educating our children and young adults as a sacred mission, we have a reasonable chance of success. This goes along with reasonably high social status for educators, though not necessarily money. If we think of education as something we do because it keeps kids off of the streets until they are 18 or because it enhances people’s “human capital” for the sake of the job market, then we may be trouble. Then you risk having educators going through the motions; if your educators are not passionate about what they are doing, it is pretty much guaranteed that your students won’t be, either, and then you’ve got a real problem.

SJ: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Sven.

Dr Sven van de Wetering: Thank you, Scott. As always, a thought-provoking exercise.

Read Q & A of Session 1 with Dr Sven van de Wetering here 
Read Q & A of Session 2 with Dr Sven van de Wetering here 
Read Q & A of Session 3 with Dr Sven van de Wetering here

Ram Janmabhoomi Temple at Ayodhya is more about India’s honor than religious belief

Vivek Sinha
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Ram Janmabhoomi Temple at Ayodhya is more about India’s honor than religious belief

I vividly remember that Sunday afternoon when I was loitering in the neighborhood along with other children. We were school students then and apart from cricket the other topic of our passionate discussion was the ongoing agitation at Ayodhya. A few minutes into our discussion, we saw a hefty man running towards us. He was panting. Tears were rolling down his cheeks as he repeatedly yelled “Jai Shri Ram”. Before we could react, several others in our locality had joined in and roared back “Jai Shri Ram”. Within minutes almost everybody, including me and my friends, were chanting “Jai Shri Ram” in unison.

This day was December 6th 1992.

The Babri Structure at Ayodhya had been demolished and news spread like wild fire. Conch shells were blowing, sweets were distributed, diyas and candles were being lighted all around.

This was the scene and extent of celebrations at a small colony in Kanpur an industrial town some 220 kilometers from Ayodhya. Remember this was 1992– a different era with no Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter. Mobile phones were super luxury and 24×7 television news was nowhere. The only mode of communication was landline phones and word of mouth. Yet, news of the demolition of Babri Structure spread like wild fire and instigated hysterical celebrations all across the country. Post the demolition of Babri Structure a few political commentators and historians began calling this structure a Masjid and said that Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6th , 1992. But this Structure was never a Masjid (Mosque). Islam never permits demolishing one religious structure (be it a temple, church or synagogue) to construct a mosque.  

In fact, many historians and commentators like to describe the history of post-independence India as pre-1992 and post-1992. Such was the impact of Ram Janmabhoomi Movement on the lives of Indians. This impact has only grown over time.  

In recent years during my interaction with journalists and political observers, especially from the West, one question almost recurs: “How could a political party (read BJP) whip up mass frenzy on a scale that remains almost unparalleled in post-independence India”?

Well, first things first. The Ram Janmabhoomi Movement was never the brain child of one political party or any of its offshoot. So neither the BJP nor its ideological mentor RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) or the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) can claim sole ownership rights of the Ayodhya movement. None of the people in my colony who were celebrating the demolition of Babri Structure were members of the BJP or VHP or the RSS. 

Let’s go back in history to put things into a perspective.

Mughal invader Babur’s commander-in-chief Mir Baki demolished the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple in 1528. The psyche behind temple’s demolition was to prove to the indigenous Hindu population that world order has changed and Babur is the new ruler who is here to take possession of the country, its people, women and their God. Since Ram is an integral part of India’ psyche so demolition of his temple at his birthplace would send a powerful message to the locals, went the thought in the minds of invading army. Yes, Babur did demolish the temple but faced stiff resistance from the then local population to an extent that he was unable to build a grand mosque in its place. It was a hurriedly built “Structure” that resembled a mosque; the minarets, place for ablutions and other essential structures of a mosque were starkly absent. The Mughal invaders paid no heed to the basic Islamic tenet that a temple cannot be demolished to construct a Mosque. 

During Babur’s short rein of four years the then local people fought four battles to regain control of the Ram Janmabhoomi site. The very fact that Babur was unable to build a grand mosque even after being the victor speaks volumes about the resistance he faced from the then Hindu population. And then these fights never stopped. Till 1934 Hindus fought a total of seventy six battles to regain control of the Ram Janmabhoomi site. Be it the rein of Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan or the brutal Aurangzeb at no time did the Hindu population stop battling to re-gain control of the Ram Janmabhoomi site. Since the year 1934, and thereafter India’s independence in 1947, this fight shifted to the court rooms. So, while earlier the battles were bloody and violent with time it has now become judicial. 

For people of India, a temple at the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya is not merely an issue of bricks and mortar. It is an issue of our cultural resurgence and identity, where Lord Ram has a prime place of importance. The movement is an expression of the collective consciousness of the our ethos, our national honor and dignity.

Any interpretation of the Babri Structure, other than that of it being viewed as a monument which celebrates our slavery will clearly indicate that Hindus and all Indians are being asked to live with the feeling of humiliation that Babur wanted to inflict upon us as “conquered people”.

Now where does this leave the country’s Muslim population? Since it was never a mosque the Babri Structure was never a holy place for Muslims and there is absolutely no need for them to own up the barbarism of Babur and others like him. A little bit of historical research proves that present day Indian Muslims are converts from Hinduism and it is their forefathers who died fighting the marauding army of the likes of Babur. Later on, their families were forced to convert to Islam by the invading Mughal army. The right way for Indian Muslims is to distance themselves from such acts of vandalism and barbarism of the past.

In 1857, the year when India fought its first war of independence against British colonialism, Amir Ali the local Muslim leader from Ayodhya announced that Muslims must hand over the Babri Structure to their Hindu brethren. Unfortunately, rebels lost the 1857 war and British army hanged Amir Ali and his associate leader Ramcharan Das from a tamarind tree on March 18, 1858. For several years this tamarind tree was worshiped by both Hindus and the Muslims. The developing camaraderie between Hindus and Muslims worried British colonial rulers. Soon they uprooted the tamarind tree that was turning into a rallying point for the indigenous population. Sadly, this portion of history is skipped in present day narrative.

Elsewhere also there has been several precedents of such acts. When the Germans are asked to apologize for the crimes of Hitler, they never hesitate to do so, clearly indicating that they do not own Nazism.

In 1918 in Warsaw, at the end of first Russian occupation of Poland, one of the first things that Polish people did was to bring down the Russian Orthodox Christian Cathedral that was built by Russians in the center of the town. This was done despite the fact that Poles are Christians and Jesus Christ was worshiped in that Cathedral. The Poles demolished the Cathedral built by Russians only because they viewed the Cathedral not as a place of worship, rather as a structure that reminded them of their slavery.

The Babri Structure was a similar construction that reminded India of the savagery and so its demolition was celebrated all across the country. A grand temple at the birth place of Lord Ram will instill a sense of pride for Indians in their rich cultural heritage and correct the historical wrong.

Madhubala, the eternal heroine of Hindi cinema

Narender Yadav
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Madhubala, the eternal heroine of Hindi cinema

She was the epitome of beauty. That million-watt smile on her innocent face made Madhubala the cynosure of all. Her films were super hit at the Box-Office and she ruled the heart of millions. And yet Madhubala kept yearning for true love till her death 

She remains the mystery woman of Indian cinema. Her meteoric rise from ashes to the high pedestal of beauty and fame as well as her sudden and tragic disappearance from this world has made Madhubala a profoundly mystical figure. One of the most enduring and celebrated legends of Indian cinema, Madhubala had won millions of hearts with her magical charm and powerful acting skills, a combination that remains unmatched in the film industry till now.

Her transformation from Mumtaz Jahan Begum Dehlavi to Madhubala was not just a mere change in the name. It signified the reincarnation of a young girl, belonging to a conservative Muslim family, into the world of glitz and glamour. A world which she was destined to rule, a world which got subdued by her ethereal smile and sublime grace and a world where she is still the epitome of natural beauty. Very few people know that it was the veteran actress Devika Rani who gave her the name Madhubala, impressed by her talent and beauty. But it was not just her stunning beauty that was to make her an icon, her road to success and glory remains an inspirational saga of unbridled hard work against all odds.

Madhubala got her first break at the age of fourteen and that too opposite Raj Kapoor in Neel Kamal (1947), but the real show time for her came in 1949 with the release of mega thriller Mahal. Working opposite Ashok Kumar, she attained immense popularity with her stunning performance and captivating beauty. No one can forget the melodious and thrilling number from Mahal ’aayega aanewala’, which made Madhubala a sensation during that time. But that was just the beginning. Very soon she was in the league of other established actresses of that time Nargis and Mina Kumari. Since the beginning of her career Madhubala never hesitated from donning new and challenging roles. Be it the sensuous role of a cabaret singer in Ashok Kumar starrer Howrah Bridge (1958) or that of a cigarette smoking dancer Bella in the film Kal Hamara Hai (1959), Madhubala redefined modernity and conventionality in the Indian cinema in her own way. In a span of just ten years she had worked with all the established actors and directors of that time including Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Kishore Kumar, Pradip Kumar and Dilip Kumar. But the best was yet to come. It was with K Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam (1960) that Madhubala reached the zenith of her career in the Indian film Industry. Anarkali’s character, which she played with perfection and elan, remains etched in the heart of young and old alike. Tragically, in more than one way, this was also the time when she was passing through several ups and downs on the personal front that eventually cut short her life.

She met professional success quite early in life but yearned till the end of her life for true love and companionship. Madhubala had a long affair with Dilip Kumar, which continued for several years but couldn’t result in a life-long relationship. The beautiful romance that started blossoming during the filming of Tarana (1951) couldn’t survive to see the phenomenal success of Mughal-e-Azam. Mired in several personal and professional issues, their affair took an ugly turn and ended following a highly controversial court case in 1956. But that couldn’t remove feelings for Dilip Kumar from her heart and Madhubala loved Dilip Kumar till the day she died. Her husband, actor and playback singer, Kishore Kumar failed to fill this void in her life. Since the beginning of their married life in 1960, the relationship remained under great strain and made her more restless and lonely with time. This situation was to a great extent responsible for decline in her health (she had a long standing heart problem) and premature death in 1969 at the age of 36.

In a life span of less than four decades Madhubala successfully donned several roles in her real life too. Be it of an obedient daughter, a passionate lover or an indefatigable fighter–she met with success in all her endeavours. Perhaps, that’s how legends live and become a part of the eternity when they are gone.

Q & A on the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: Session3

Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Q & A on the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: Session3

Dr. Sven van de Wetering is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of the Fraser Valley, Canada. His research interests are in “Conservation Psychology, lay conceptions of evil, relationships between personality variables and political attitudes.” In a 4-part interview series, we explore the philosophical foundations of psychology.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the epistemology underlying statistics in psychology? Where does psychology begin to find its statistical limits?
Dr. Sven van de Wetering: I think the more or less explicit epistemological assumption underlying the use of statistics in psychology comes right out of Skinner and his notion that the human organism can be thought of as a locus of variables. In other words, human cognitive, emotional, and behavioural propensities can be meaningfully studied as dimensions that can be expressed numerically, as can environmental events likely to influence those propensities. Furthermore, the task of psychology is conceived of as being to figure out ways of measuring those underlying variables and of inferring how they influence one another. We depart from Skinner, though, in rejecting his absurd claim that one can explain all variability, that the concept of error variance is meaningless. Because error variance is a fundamental feature of the complexity of human organisms, and the even more complex environment in which they operate, inferential statistics then become an important tool to separate incorrect hypotheses from correct ones. Also important in all this is the assumption that human beings are very good at finding patterns in any sort of data, including pure noise, and that safeguards are needed to prevent us from inferring patterns where none exist. Human beings are seen as very fallible creatures, and inferential statistics are seen as safeguards against that fallibility.

“We depart from Skinner, though, in rejecting his absurd claim that one can explain all variability, that the concept of error variance is meaningless.”

SJ:  What are some of the most embarrassing examples of statistical over-extension in psychology studies ?
Dr Sven van: I’m not sure, I routinely get embarrassed by over- or misapplication of statistics, but I do sometimes think people don’t know what inferential statistics means. Two patterns frequently bother me, though I can’t think of particular examples off the top of my head. One is people who conduct a study with a small sample size, fail to find a statistically reliable difference between treatment groups, and then blithely proclaim that the null hypothesis is true, as if the study’s lack of statistical power is some sort of virtue. The second pattern is almost the opposite of the first: people who conduct studies with enormous sample sizes, find a statistically reliable difference between groups, and then trumpet the finding as an important one. They don’t bother to report effect sizes, probably because to do so would be to acknowledge that the effect they have found, though statistically reliable, is too small to have a lot of real-world significance.

SJ: We did some preliminary work in an interesting area, environmental psychology. You have an expertise in political psychology. How can statistical knowledge about political psychology influence knowledge around issues of environmental psychology, e.g. climate change denial – as opposed to scepticism?
Dr Sven van:  Many people who are very concerned about anthropogenic climate change are baffled by the large numbers of people who deny that human actions are having an appreciable effect on the Earth’s climate. The scientific evidence appears to be so overwhelming to those who accept it (not that most of them have read much of it) that the only explanation that they can fathom for climate change denial-ism is that it is rooted in sheer ignorance of the scientific facts. Statistically, though, scientific ignorance does not appear to be a major factor in climate change denial-ism, given that the correlation between belief in anthropogenic climate change and general scientific literacy is close to zero. Instead, we find an extremely strong correlation between belief in anthropogenic climate change and measures of ideology. In the US, people who strongly identify with the Republican Party or who self-identify as very right-wing are very likely to deny that human actions are responsible for changes in climate, regardless of how much they know about science in general or climate science in particular.

SJ: The statistical approaches often come in conjunction with “folk psychology.” So, some Folk psychological explanations for a phenomenon exist, then they either become supported or not through scientific studies. Why is this the basis of lots of research? How is it weak? How is it robust?
Dr Sven van: We use folk psychology as a heuristic because we don’t really have standardised procedures for hypothesis generation. If we don’t have a formal theory that acts as a source of research hypotheses, then informal theories (i.e. folk psychology) are the next best thing. The primary strength and primary weakness of folk psychological theories are the same, namely that they are fairly easy for us to understand with our limited cognitive apparatuses. This is a strength because theory is always under-determined by data, so if multiple theories are possible, we might as well go with the ones that are easy to understand. This is a weakness because there is no a priori reason to believe that true theories of human psychological functioning are easily comprehensible. An example of this is connectionist modelling of human cognition. Connectionism has some pretty substantial explanatory successes to its credit, but has not caught on as well as might be expected just because it is so absurdly non-intuitive that nobody really has a good gut sense of what connectionist models are actually asserting.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Sven – pleasure as always.

Read Q & A of Session 1 with Dr Sven van de Wetering here
Read Q & A of Session 2 with Dr Sven van de Wetering here

Hurriyat should strongly condemn Human Rights violation by Terrorists in Kashmir

Jaibans Singh
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Hurriyat should strongly condemn Human Rights violation by Terrorists in Kashmir

On December 10th, the world will celebrate Human Rights Day. This date coincides with the adoption and proclamation of the universal declaration of human rights by the United Nations General Assembly’s in 1948.

In Kashmir, the day is normally marked by protests orchestrated by the Hurriyat Conference, a miniscule separatist segment in the Kashmiri political landscape that attempts to project the fallacy of the Indian state as an oppressor of human rights. Its fallacious attempts have not elicited any results so far. This year, it has decided to up the ante by spreading the disruptive activities over a week from December 3rd to December 9th and then culminate the deceptive narrative on December 10th, the Human Rights Day. In its itinerary will be some candle light vigils, a sit-in or two, especially outside the United Nations Military Observers Group headquarters in Srinagar, some seminars, street protests and other disruptive and provocative activities aimed at a vocal round of India bashing.

Sadly, the conglomerate holds a subjective posture on the sensitive issue of human rights, due to which, the so-called protests invariably end up being what can be best described by Shakespeare’s famous lines, “full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.”

The issue of human rights violations by terrorists has plagued Kashmir ever since the advent of foreign sponsored terrorism in the state. Highly respected personalities like the devout Mirwaiz Mohammad Farook, separatist leader Abdul Gani Lone and several others were not spared by the terrorists. They were brutally murdered despite being unconditionally committed to the cause of self determination. Surprisingly, the Hurriyat has never criticised these cold blooded and senseless murders. It has, instead, alleged that these luminaries were killed by Indian security forces and intelligence agencies. If the aim of the Hurriyat was to malign the security forces and the Government of India, then its plan misfired very badly as its allegations were never accepted by the people of Kashmir or the international community.
The Hurriyat sees human rights violation when the security forces fire at a mob trying to help an armed terrorist escape, but it does not consider the abduction and killing of innocent Kashmiris as a case deserving strong condemnation. Terrorists have also resorted to the killing of Kashmiri Police personnel and Kashmiri soldiers in the most brutal and sadistic manner. Mohammad Ayub Pandith, a 57-year old Deputy Superintendent of Police was lynched by an irate mob outside Srinagar’s Jamia Masjid, on June 23rd, 2017 an evening preceding the holy occasion of Eid al-Fitr. Just a month earlier to this gruesome incident in May 2017, terrorists brutally murdered Lt. Umar Fayaz, a young Kashmir Army officer from Shopian who was not even posted in Jammu & Kashmir and had gone on leave to meet his family. Another brave Kashmiri soldier of the Indian Army, Aurangzeb, was also abducted and killed by terrorists in June this year when he was off-duty and going home to spend Eid with his family.

Will the Hurriyat protest against such atrocities and cruelties perpetrated by terrorists upon its Kashmiri brethren whose only fault is that they have taken on Government service as a profession and are merely doing their job to sustain their families? The Hurriyat puts each and every action of security forces through minute scrutiny while turning a blind eye to the misdeeds committed by terrorists. It is quite prompt in ordering shutdowns to protest against the killing of terrorists in encounters and has been falling over backwards to organise misleading events like the ongoing Human Rights Week, but it becomes a mute spectator when innocents are killed or injured by terrorists. All such actions embolden the terrorists who have made life a hell for the common man in Kashmir.

The Hurriyat wants the world to believe that terrorists are Mujahedeen– noble souls who are putting their lives at stake for the sake of the oppressed Kashmiris. However, the gruesome manner in which terrorists have been murdering civilians on mere suspicion of being informers and endangering lives of civilians by using cover of crowds to attack security forces belies this claim. Hurriyat’s repeated attempts to bail out terrorists harming innocent civilians by shifting blame on the security forces has been done so often and in such a shoddy manner that now no one takes such accusations seriously.

What Kashmir needs is honesty and sincerity. It cannot be denied that the Kashmiri people have faced certain violation of the rights in this period of turmoil marked with foreign sponsored gun culture. Even being incessantly checked on the streets is a violation of human dignity. Undoubtedly, the people have suffered immensely in this sad situation. The fact of all of this being an outcome of the advent of terrorism which has led to the establishment of a security dragnet to challenge the same cannot be overlooked. Both aspects have to be considered in tandem.

The complete lack of concern that the Hurriyat leadership exhibits whenever terrorists commit acts of violence against innocents is what raises serious doubts regarding the sincerity of this separatist amalgam towards the people of Kashmir. When the Hurriyat is openly following double standards on the issue of human rights violations then how can it expect the world community to take note of its protests? If the conglomerate wants the world to believe and take notice of them, it should to take an objective view and have the moral courage to condemn all violent and brutal acts with equal vigour, irrespective of who the culprit may be.

Leaving aside the Hurriyat, on Human Rights Day, the Indian nation needs to stand as one to take a solemn oath to do whatever is possible to wrest the beautiful land of Kashmir and its people from the foreign sponsored shadow of the gun. A consolidated effort in this direction that involves the people, the government and the civil society is bound to accrue positive results.

We still do not have an Olympic gold medal in wrestling: Bajrang Punia

Nishant Kumar Azad
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We still do not have an Olympic gold medal in wrestling: Bajrang Punia

India is a cricket crazy nation where all other sports appear bland. Not anymore. Bajrang Punia is the talk of the town after being ranked World No. 1 in freestyle Wrestling in the 65 Kg category. With 96 points Punia has a massive 30-point lead over the second placed wrestler from Cuba. In a free-wheeling chat, the soft-spoken grappler talks how the mind-set change has turned the country into a wrestling powerhouse

Q. First of all, congratulations for becoming the No. 1 wrestler in 65 Kg category. How does it feel to be at the top?
Ans: Bahut accha lag raha hai (Feeling great). I cannot express this feeling in words. Every player dreams about this, and it’s like a dream come true for me. I want to thank the Almighty for his blessings. I also want to thank the Wrestling Federation the way they support players. This achievement is not mine alone, this is a national achievement. This achievement will motivate the upcoming talents in wrestling.

Q. In recent years, Indian wrestling has been achieving new heights. What do you think is the reason?
Ans: I agree with you. It’s a combined effort of all the players, and that’s why we are now getting results. When Sushil Kumar won bronze in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it worked as the changing moment for all the wrestlers in India. When it comes to wrestling in India, now the first names that hit your head is Sushil bhai (Sushil Kumar) and Yogeshwar bhai (Yogeshwar Dutt). We are fortunate to have them around us. They always keep us motivating and tell us we can beat anyone. Their consistent performance motivates us that we can also perform well and win medals. We are just following their footprints.

Q. If we talk about ranking, in men’s category you are the only Indian in top ten while in women’s category there are five Indian wrestlers. How do you see the growing interest of girls in wrestling?
Ans: The reason behind the rise of women’s wrestling is a change in thought. Pehle ladkiyon ko wrestling nahi Karne dete the, ise mardo ka khel maana jaata tha (Earlier girls were not allowed to participate in wrestling, it was considered to be men’s game), but things have changed now. Especially after Sakshi Malik and Phogat sisters brought medals for the country. Their performance encouraged many girls to take up wrestling. The movie ‘Dangal’ also helped in breaking this barrier.

Q. Haryana is considered as the land of wrestlers now. Primarily it was only men who were into wrestling, but now woman wrestlers are coming out in large number.
Ans: Haryana ki mitti me hi jaadu hai (There is a magic in soil of Haryana). And, then it is the sports policy of Haryana that motivates both men and women to choose sports as a career. Earlier there was no money in sports except cricket, but now the perception and rewards both have changed with the success of wrestlers. Earlier there was no respect for pehelwans (wrestlers), people thought that pehelwan to sirf laadai jhagde ke lie hote hai (wrestlers indulge only in petty fights), but things have changed now, especially after Sushil Kumar won bronze in the Beijing Olympics and gold at the 2010 World Championship. Later India has built a reputation of being a wrestling power when Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt bagged silver and bronze at the 2012 London Olympics. Now the wrestlers receive respect wherever they go.

Q. You made your international debut at the Asian Wrestling Championship, 2013 in New Delhi. You were not in the original Indian squad but included at the last hour. How do you see this incident?
Ans: It was a life-changing moment for me. I have fond memories of that tournament as it was my international debut in the senior category. I was preparing myself for the Junior Championship. Then Yogeshwar bhai had to pull out due to an injury and then I gave the trial and got selected. He told me to give my best and ensure his absence was not felt. His belief and my hard work helped me to bag bronze medal in that tournament. After that, I haven’t played at the junior level for almost two years. From 2014, Yogeshwar bhai started playing in the 65Kg category, and I got the chance to play continuously in 61 Kg category, and because of change in category I got an opportunity to represent India in 61 Kg freestyle wrestling in Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.

Q. Whom do you consider as your guiding force?
Ans: Yogeshwar bhai is my role model. Mai unhi ko dekhkar bada hua hoon aur hamesha se yehi chaha ki mai unke jaisa pahalwaan banoo (I grew up seeing Yogeshwar bhai and always wanted to be a wrestler like him). Even I have been training with him for the last ten years. I must say that it is Yogeshwar bhai whose inputs always helped me besides all the guidance from coaches.

Q. If we talk about training methods, do you think that Indian wrestling is different from other countries?
Ans: Yes, we have a different style of training. In the beginning we train ourselves on mud floors, but players of other nations train on mat from the beginning. They don’t train as hard as we do. They spend a lot of time in gym and on mat but we spend our time in Akhara (wrestling arena), doing utthak baithak (sit-ups) and desi style of exercises.

Q. At what age, you discovered your interest in wrestling?
Ans: I was seven when I made up my mind to choose wrestling. My village Khudan (a village in Jhajjar district of Haryana) is a wrestling hub. I still remember Narendra Pehelwan ji, a Bharat Kesari awardee who took me to Chhatrasal Stadium. There I met Yogendra bhai and from there wrestling became my life. Because of Narendra ji, there was an atmosphere of wrestling in the village. I started my wrestling with him.

Q. How do you see the role of family and society in your success?
Ans: It is family and society that plays a vital role in nurturing you. If the people around you are confident, they keep motivating you till the time you meet your goals.

Q. How do you see the role of present government in sports?
Ans: Things have changed after Narendra Modi government came to power. When a Prime Minister of the country wishes you personally before big tournaments, it is a big morale booster. For a sportsperson, it is recognition and respect matter the most.

Q. What is your next target?
Ans: My priority is to perform well in every tournament. But one thing upsets me most that though we have silver and bronze medals in wrestling in the Olympics, we still have not been able to win a gold medal. So my next target is to win gold in the Tokyo Olympics and bring laurels for India.

Q & A on the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: Session2

Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Q & A on the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: Session2

Dr. Sven van de Wetering is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of the Fraser Valley, Canada. His research interests are in “Conservation Psychology, lay conceptions of evil, relationships between personality variables and political attitudes.” In a 4-part interview series, we explore the philosophical foundations of psychology.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What philosophy best represents the opinion of most psychologists regarding the means by which human beings think, feel, and act?
Dr. Sven van de Wetering: I think we are still very far from a consensus on this issue. My personal take would be to still use the metaphor of the human as a computer. The gross outlines of the computer’s programming have been laid down by the process of evolution by natural selection, and the fine tuning done by various forms of learning. Feelings are part of the overall system, not some sort of exogenous factor.
These ideas are all at least several decades old, and to my mind, they work well together, but each component of the triad of information processing, evolution, and learning is rejected by some psychologists. Some psychologists find that thinking of cognition as information processing is unhelpful, others believe in information processing, but consider the human information processor so general in its functioning that evolutionary psychology has no heuristic value, and some are happy with the concept of the mind as an evolved computer, but think that learning processes only do some very minor tweaking around the edges, and are not really worth worrying about.
I guess what I am trying to say is that psychology is a fundamentally pluralistic enterprise. No single theory answers your question because the human mind is a very complex device that can be fruitfully described at many different levels and from many different points of view. Pluralism is an uncomfortable and cognitively demanding stance that is not for everyone, even among people with PhDs in psychology. Furthermore, even pluralists get things wrong (a lot), so one sometimes wonders what the payoff is. Other than psychology being fun, of course.

SJ: What is the worldview, and statistical outlook, that you try to inculcate in students?
Dr Sven van: As with several other aspects of psychology, I find that it has to be taught in two ways. One is at the level of the community standards of academic psychology. Certain statistical procedures need to be taught because academic psychologists expect one to know them, and one therefore needs to know them because it is expected, regardless of the intellectual merits of doing so.
The other is to do whatever it takes to find out what the data actually means. This often entails doing more descriptive work than what you see in many journal articles. In some really egregious examples, I have seen published articles where authors claimed their hypothesis was supported because some test said p<.05, but when I actually looked at the group means, the difference between them was in the opposite direction from the one predicted.
This is an extreme example, but something I see much more commonly is people writing things such as “Variable y induces people to produce behaviour x.” But when I look at the actual data, I find that both groups actually tended to avoid engaging in behaviour x, but members of the experimental group were slightly less likely to avoid behaviour x than members of the control group, and therefore people actually engaging in behaviour x made up a fairly small proportion of the overall sample.
Still more frequently and less egregiously, people will write about a difference in means as if everyone in every group was behaving in the exact way that the group mean indicates they are behaving. There is often little or no acknowledgment of variability in responses, even though the reported standard deviations indicate that this variability is substantial.
If I can summarize this paragraph, let me say that p values are given too much attention at the expense of descriptive statistics, and descriptive statistics are often being treated as if they describe everything, rather than being highly aggregated summaries that throw a lot of information away. It is of course right to summarize and to ignore individual cases in our research reports (because to do otherwise would invite cognitive overload), but we should try to avoid conventions in writing that make it seem like the individual cases don’t even exist or that the summary statistics contain all the information of interest.

Pluralism is an uncomfortable and cognitively demanding stance that is not for everyone, even among people with PhDs in psychology. Furthermore, even pluralists get things wrong (a lot), so one sometimes wonders what the payoff is.

We of course go into research with hypotheses in mind, but if we don’t spend many hours playing with the raw data, we don’t get to find out what the data are actually telling us. It’s always exciting when p<.05, but that’s always only a small part of the story. Playing around with the raw data, graphing them, noticing anomalies, etc. helps keep us alert to the complex messiness of human behaviour, and helps steer us away from unjustified formulations such as “variable x causes this change in variable y” when really all we know is that in one study, on average, variable x was associated with that change in variable y, and there is seldom evidence that variable x had that effect on variable y for every single person in the study, or even for a majority of people.

SJ: Between rigour and relevance, where has there been the most fruitful growth of real data about people?
Dr Sven van: I am very hesitant to pronounce on this, because I am more attuned to developments on the side that emphasises rigour. That being said, I think developments have not been entirely positive on my end of the playing field, given the replication crisis and all. It may be that things are even worse among those who emphasise social relevance, but my personal opinion is that no branch of psychology is in a great place right now.

SJ: Thank you for your time, Sven – always a pleasure.

Read Q & A of Session 1 with Dr Sven van de Wetering here 
Read Q & A of Session 3 with Dr Sven van de Wetering here 

Drug Addiction is Kashmir’s new Terrorist

Farooq Wani
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Drug Addiction is Kashmir’s new Terrorist

Foreign sponsored violence in Kashmir and the resultant trauma to the youth has largely remained unaddressed. Lack of focused healthcare services and increased proliferation of drugs has exacerbated the problems multi-fold. Drug addiction has been on the rise for last few years and as a result today over 2.5 lakh (0.25 million) youth are either addicted or affected by drugs across the Kashmir Valley. With hardly any mental healthcare facilities or de-addiction centres, Kashmiris have been left to fend for themselves in the face of this debilitating problem.

Latest data of the Srinagar police control room’s (PCR) de-addiction centre paints a grim picture. Out of the entire lot, most drug abusers fall in the age group of 18-35 years. While the numbers affected is very high, the patient flow at the de-addiction centre is alarming. Last year, 633 were registered at the PCR, which has gone up to 1,978. While 81% were male, there were over 19% females also, suggesting that the number of female drug abusers too is on the rise in an otherwise conservative society. Started in 2008, the PCR’s de-addiction centre has treated 6,693 abusers till date. It is high time to take steps to check this alarming rate of addiction in the Valley.

Kashmir’s youth, faced with the larger issues of lack of education, capability building, unemployment and corrupt practices in the areas related to recruitment for government services, are taking refuge in drugs. The highest number of addicts belong to the category of youth that were born in 1990s and have seen maximum violence. They are the ones who need opportunities and means to realise their dreams.

Conflict, high unemployment rate, tenuous relationships, peer pressure, family disputes, love breakups and death of loved ones and split families are main reasons behind the addiction,” says a psychologist from the Indian Army who has recently been instrumental in starting a series of drug de-addiction centres by the Indian Army in the Valley.

The PCR’s stress management cell has received more than 567 calls from February 2018 to September 2018. “Suicidal tendencies were evident. Exam-related stress queries also topped among the callers. The PCR is grappling to address the increasing rush of patients. More than 55 patients are in the waiting list this month,” explains a government doctor working on the problem.

Another doctor from a government hospital says, “We don’t have enough space to accommodate all the patients. We treat them during the OPD hours.” The doctors consider easy availability of drugs as one big reason for the alarming rise in abusers.

Commonly abused drugs are benzodiazepine, sleeping pills, cough syrups and Alprax. “Besides opium, fluid, brown sugar and alcohol addiction is also common among the youth. More than 85% patients have recovered through ‘social intervention plan,’ and it has played a pivotal role in rehabilitation process,” adds the doctor from government hospital.

The social intervention plan comprised individual sessions, family sessions, identification of stressor in the family, antagonist consent, work rehabilitation, relapse prevention education and pre-discharge counselling. Kashmir University directorate of lifelong learning is planning to initiate a one-month vocational course for rehabilitating drug addicts. This way many will earn livelihood and recover as a fruitful citizen. Experts are convinced that society must come forward and help the drug addicts to recover. They need to be integrated as normal citizens.

A patient’s mother said “Why is the drug problem of this magnitude? Why are the authorities not doing anything about it?”

Several studies carried out on addiction in the Valley reveals a strong correlation between conflict and drug abuse. The studies show that in Kashmir, drugs are not used for recreational purposes but as a coping mechanism to deal with the stresses. Apart from the immediate damage to drug abusers, the medium and long term corrosion to the very fabric of the society by the use of prescription drugs and banned narcotics has been well established in many other places in the world. In a study done at the Government Psychiatric Diseases Hospital (GPDH) in 2002, doctors compared drug trends in patients from the 1980-88 and in 2002. The figures not only show a shocking state of affairs but also indicate how deep-rooted the scourge of addiction is. An alarming increase of over 60% was reported in the use of opiate-based preparations (9.5% to 73.61%), and an over 25% increase in multiple substance-abuse (15.8% to 41.6%), from the 1980s to 2002. It is difficult to break the nexus between chemists, peddlers and the police, admits a high-ranking police official. As per his estimation districts of South Kashmir such as Sopore are the worst hit in the Valley.

The drug menace in Kashmir is quite different from any other part of the world. Here addicts avoid alcohol due to religious reasons and also because it is traceable (it has a strong smell), injections also leave marks, so they stick to benzodiazepines, codeine phosphate and opiates, which are easily available and can only be traced during the middle and the severe phases of addiction. Unless there are immediate measures taken from all quarters of society, and a long term effort is made to re-integrate this population into the mainstream, youth of Kashmir will pass on this disease to their next generation. After terrorism, drug addiction in Kashmir has become a new threat for the Valley’s youth.

In order to offset the acute shortage of Drug Rehabilitation Centres in the Valley the Indian Army, under its welfare initiative “Operation Sadbhavna” is opening facilities. Two centres in Srinagar and Baramulla are already functional and more are in the pipeline. It is high time for the Government to come up with certain concrete steps to curb this menace and save future generations in Kashmir. Such a step would also be in tune with the attempts to cut off recruitment of youth into the fold of terrorism which has emerged as a core policy of the government to usher peace in the Kashmir Valley.

Q & A on the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: Session1

Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Q & A on the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: Session1

Dr. Sven van de Wetering is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of the Fraser Valley, Canada. His research interests are in “Conservation Psychology, lay conceptions of evil, relationships between personality variables and political attitudes.” In a 4-part interview series, we explore the philosophical foundations of psychology.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Dr. Sven van de Wetering, I would like to dig deeper into our conversation about the philosophical foundations of psychology. So let us start with what is psychology?
Dr. Sven van de Wetering: Psychology is the attempt to apply the same high epistemological criteria that have made the natural sciences such a success to a set of questions that preoccupy almost everyone, namely, why our fellow humans think, feel, and act the way they do. Because psychology asks an enormous range of questions, its various subfields have relatively little in common with each other, aside from striving for epistemological rigour.

SJ: Psychology seems to create epistemological issues, which, in turn, make for ontological issues. Could you please further discuss the place of epistemology in psychology. And what are some of the more hotly debated issues surrounding it?
Dr. Sven van: Every undergraduate programme in psychology that I know of teaches two lower-level courses that deal almost entirely with epistemology. One of these is a course in statistics, and the second is a course in research methods. Between them, these courses introduce the fundamentals of methodology in psychology.
These courses are difficult to teach. Perhaps because so many psychology students are terrified of math. A frequent response of students being forced to take their first course in psychological statistics is to get very focused on the details of conducting the statistical analyses, and lose sight of the worldview on which those psychological statistics are based. Essentially, the idea is that the human world is a very complex place, and that the common western intuition that single causes give rise to single effects is not helpful in trying to figure out what is going on. Instead, a human being is subject to many influences at any given time, some internal, some external, and some with their roots in the individual’s distant past. Many of these influences are practically invisible, and even if we went to the trouble of attempting to make ourselves aware of every single one of those influences, we still would not know how all those different factors interact. To cope with the uncertainty induced by this overwhelming complexity, we create the simplifying fiction of random variation.
Instead of seeing causes and effects as being tightly coupled in human affairs, we see influences that increase or decrease the probability of certain human behaviours within that allegedly random matrix of behavioural possibility. Thus, we partition this blooming, buzzing confusion of human behaviour into two components: a portion that we think we can attribute to a small group of influences we are currently examining, and another portion that we attribute to the much larger group of influences we are not currently studying, and that we thus dismiss as error variance.  Statistics is therefore used to separate the signal from the noise in this framework, and research methods are a set of techniques we use to amplify the signal so that the statistical techniques can be picked out more easily.
One thing that has always bemused me about psychological research is the extent to which we can typically only explain a few percent of the variances for any given phenomenon. This is due to nothing more than the fact that picking up the signal is hard. This is nothing to be ashamed of, but the focus on the signal is so intense that I think we often lose sight of the fact that the noise is also human behaviour. I would love to see psychological discourse focus a little more on the variances we cannot explain, not so much as a lesson in humility, but just as a way of cultivating an awareness of what incredibly complicated creatures human beings are.

SJ: What was the first tacit epistemology in psychological research? In other words, who can be considered the first psychologist? And what was their approach to psychology?
Dr. Sven van: At the risk of sounding very boring and conventional, I am going to say Wilhelm Wundt. He called his approach “physiological” (what we now call experimental). What he meant by this is that he would attempt to present people with highly controlled stimuli in order to evoke a tightly circumscribed set of responses. This actually does not make him that much different from some people that came before him, such as Fechner. His really big innovation however was to create a group of researchers (i.e. graduate students). Wundt recognized that science is a fundamentally social enterprise, and that the proverbial mad scientist in the tower in the thunderstorm is an object of suspicion and derision not because he is mad, but because he is socially isolated.
Communicating one’s findings with other scientists (Wundt also created the first psychology journal) and training other young scientists in one’s techniques is not a peripheral enterprise. The essence of science is that it is self-correcting, but for various psychological reasons, individuals are not very good at correcting themselves. It is only by subjecting their work to the scrutiny of other scientists that any given scientist can obtain the benefits of this self-correcting aspect of the scientific method. It is for this reason that I consider the hype surrounding Wilhelm Wundt completely justified.

SJ: What are some of the major sub-fields, and their fundamental philosophical disagreements, of the discipline?
Dr. Sven van: The number of subfields in psychology is very large, but I would have to say that the major tension within psychology is between people who emphasize the epistemological rigour discussed above and the people who focus on real-world relevance. Few psychologists want to discard either rigour or relevance, but there is sometimes a bit of a trade-off between the two.
Experiments that allow researchers to establish tight linkages between causes and effects often make use of highly controlled laboratory tasks that are quite unlike the sort of situations most people face in their day-to-day lives. Real-world relevance, on the other hand, may come when we try to conduct therapy on someone with real psychological problems. Because the client is often in the midst of a highly complex life situation, strict experimental control is likely to be difficult or impossible to implement, and opportunities for rigour are greatly diminished.
As I said, most of us want both rigour and relevance, but we often have to trade them off against each other. Some people are willing to give up relatively little rigour in the name of relevance, and stay in their laboratories. Others prize relevance above all else, and will sacrifice a great deal of rigour for the sake of having a fighting chance of being useful to people in need.
I think part of the reason this creates so much tension is exactly because psychologists value both rigour and relevance. The ones who, to many outside observers, seem pretty irrelevant, tend to justify themselves by claiming to be more relevant than most other people think they are. Similarly, the relevant practitioners often think they are more epistemologically rigorous than they really are. Thus, much of the tension comes not from differences in opinion about what to give up for the sake of what, but rather anger at the other group for disputing their self-perceptions as both rigorous and relevant.

SJ: Thank you for your time Dr. Sven van de Wetering. It is always a pleasure talking to you.

Read Q & A of Session 2 with Dr Sven van de Wetering here
Read Q & A of Session 3 with Dr Sven van de Wetering here

ISRO Scientist was maliciously prosecuted

Dr KBS Rajan
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ISRO Scientist was maliciously prosecuted

The state government of Kerala and its police framed ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan in a bid to derail India’s prestigious cryogenic programme

The sensational case of Nambi Narayanan, a renowned ISRO scientist, which commenced with his midnight arrest on November 30, 1994 on allegations of espionage were found to be false by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) during its initial investigations and they filed a closure report before Criminal Court. The CBI’s closure report came after meticulous, sustained and painstaking investigations after which they concluded that the allegations of espionage against Narayanan and other scientists were false. The acceptance of the said report by Criminal Court thereby discharging Nambi Narayanan was affixation of an indelible stamp of malicious prosecution by the Kerala Police. It is thereafter that the CBI, independent of its above closure report, rendered another report addressing it to the Chief Secretary of Kerala highlighting the omissions and commissions of the Kerala State Police stating that it was unprofessional on the part of Sibi Mathew (his designation at that time) to have ordered indiscriminate arrest of top ISRO scientists.

The CBI further stated that Sibi Mathew and his team miserably failed even in conducting verification of the records of Hotels which were located at Trivandrum to ascertain the veracity of the statement of accused persons and suggested that “the above facts are being brought to the notice of the competent authority for their kind consideration and for such action as deemed fit.” With filing of the Closure Report by CBI before the Criminal Court, criminal case of espionage against Nambi Narayanan should have come to an end and their other report submitted to the State Government of Kerala must have initiated criminal and departmental proceedings against the erring Police Officers of the Kerala Police.

But, marginalizing the CBI reports, the State Government of Kerala decided to withdraw the earlier notification entrusting the matter to CBI and to have the re-investigation conducted through its own State Machinery, raising another pregnant legal question as to the power of the State in this regard. This issue was considered exhaustively and decided by the Apex Court in the case of K. Chandrasekhar vs State of Kerala (1998) 5 SCC 223 which declared lack of jurisdiction of the State Government in ordering for re-investigation and in addition, the Court profusely dealt with the main matter of illegal arrest and conspicuously highlighted the high handedness of the State Government and passed strictures against it and branded the entire action of the State as one of “malafide exercise of power”. The Court has held: “Even if it is assumed that the State Government had the requisite power and authority to issue the impugned notification, still the same would be liable to be quashed on the ground of malafide exercise of power, eloquent proof thereof being facts and circumstances on the record.”

Coeval with the challenge to the jurisdiction of the State in ordering re-investigation, was the filing by Nambi Narayanan of a complaint before the National Human Rights Commission against Human Rights Violations which he was subjected to at the hands of erring Kerala State Police. The Human Rights Commission examined the case and inter alia held as under: “In our considered opinion, this is an unusual case of gross violation of human rights of a repute scientist whose long and distinguished career in space research has been tarnished apart from the physical and mental torture to which he and his family were subjected in the above manner. It is difficult to assess in precise terms the monetary compensation to which he is entitled… The Commission considers the sum of Rs 10 lakhs as the appropriate ‘immediate interim relief’ under section 8(3) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 to be paid to the complainant by the Government of Kerala. This amount be paid within a period of two months and compliance reported to the Commission.”

Nambi Narayanan has also asserted his legal rights in claiming compensation for the damage suffered by him, by filing a civil suit which is still pending. The comprehensive report of the CBI addressed to the State which ought to have triggered the state machinery to function swiftly in taking action against the erring police officials was only made to hibernate and in its own testudinal pace the cunctator government dealt with the issue in its leisure hours, and on the basis of certain reasons: One, on the advice of State Police Chief on CBI Report and two, the absence of any direction by the Chief Judicial Magistrate or the Apex Court to take action against the investigating officers. With the passage of 15 years time by then, the State Government of Kerala decided to close the entire case and thus exonerated the said police officials.

It was this decision of the State that forced Nambi Narayanan to approach the High Court for redressal of his grievance. A Single Judge examined the entire issue and framed the material question as to whether the State Government was justified in deciding not to take any action against the erring police officers. The learned Single Judge analysed the case from all angles -– the casual approach of the Kerala Government in considering the report of the CBI; torture inflicted upon Nambi Narayanan, (pointing out that “the very arrest and detention of innocent persons on false accusations Is nothing but torture”), the calamitous effect and consequence of “midnight arrests or house breaking by the police” throwing the constitutionally guaranteed right to life and liberty to the mercy of the executives which would sound the death knell of an egalitarian democratic society and came to the conclusion that the decision of the Kerala Government “does not comport with the known pattern of a responsible government bound by rule of law ” and thus held that the decision should be reconsidered and any action taken “shall not be namesake, making administration of justice a mockery.” However, against the above decision of the Single Judge, the Kerala State did not move to the Division Bench of the High Court but the private respondents – the three police officers – did. The Division Bench of Kerala High Court etiolated the CBI report as one of the opinion and held that it is for the government to consider or not to consider and its decision is based on sound reasons and ultimately, it narrowed down the entire case into a single question when it stated, “Whether relying on such a report any disciplinary action should be taken against the concerned Police officers is the only question”. And stating that it is within the realm of the Government and that “it may not be proper for this Court exercising power under Article 226 to interfere with such decision making process and arrive at a different finding or to direct Government to reconsider the same” and further stating that as to the finding “whether the accused were tortured or not is a disputed question of fact”, and thus it is for agencies such as the National Human Rights Commission and the Civil Court which Nambi Narayanan has approached to arrive at a proper finding regarding such disputed facts. The Division Bench of the Kerala High Court not only allowed the Appeal but also set aside the earlier Judgment of the Single Judge. Undaunted by the aforesaid decision of the Division Bench of Kerala High Court, Nambi Narayanan decided to challenge their order and knocked at the doors of the Supreme Court in July, 2015. The Apex Court unhesitatingly and with a comprehensive order, issued notice to the State, the CBI and the three private respondents. And after elaborate hearing on a number of days and also permitting Nambi Narayanan to present his case, in the final judgment, the Apex Court stated, “To say the least, the delineation by the Division Bench is too simplistic.”

The Supreme Court analysed the matter under an enlarged horizon. First the Court adverted to the aspect of compensation and viewed the same from the point of public law remedy. It has reflected the anguish of Nambi Narayanan in the following words: “It is urged by the appellant that the prosecution launched against him by the Kerala police was malicious on account of two reasons, the first being that the said prosecution had a catastrophic effect on his service career as a leading and renowned scientist at ISRO thereby smothering his career, life span, savings, honour, academic work as well as self-esteem and consequently resulting in total devastation of the peace of his entire family which is an ineffaceable individual loss, and the second, the irreparable and irremediable loss and setback caused to the technological advancement in Space Research in India.”

After profusely quoting from the CBI report, the Supreme Court has categorically held, “From the aforesaid report, the harassment and mental torture faced by the appellant is obvious”. The Apex Court further observed, “The criminal law was set in motion without any basis. It was initiated, if one is allowed to say, on some kind of fancy or notion. The liberty and dignity of the appellant which are basic to his human rights were jeopardized as he was taken into custody and, eventually, despite all the glory of the past, he was compelled to face cynical abhorrence. This situation invites the public law remedy for grant of compensation for violation of the fundamental right envisaged under Article 21 of the Constitution. In such a situation, it springs to life with immediacy. It is because life commands self-respect and dignity.” The Apex Court next focussed its attention on “custodial torture”. It held, “From the aforesaid analysis, it can be stated with certitude that the fundamental right of the appellant under Article 21 has been gravely affected. In this context, we may refer with profit how this Court had condemned the excessive use of force by the police.” The Supreme Court extracted from yet another decision in the case of Delhi Judicial Service Association vs State of Gujarat, wherein it has been held – “The police has power to arrest a person even without obtaining a warrant of arrest from a court. The amplitude of this power casts an obligation on the police … [and it] must bear in mind, as held by this Court that if a person is arrested for a crime, his constitutional and fundamental rights must not be violated.” In fact, it was on the aforesaid principles and parameters that the case of Nambi Narayanan has been examined and the Supreme Court has arrived at the firm conclusion, “…there can be no scintilla of doubt that the appellant, a successful scientist having national reputation, has been compelled to undergo immense humiliation. The lackadaisical attitude of the State police to arrest anyone and put him in police custody has made the appellant to suffer the ignominy. The dignity of a person gets shocked when psycho-pathological treatment is meted out to him. A human being cries for justice when he feels that the insensible act has crucified his self-respect. That warrants grant of compensation under the public law remedy. We are absolutely conscious that a civil suit has been filed for grant of compensation. That will not debar the constitutional court to grant compensation taking recourse to public law. The Court cannot lose sight of the wrongful imprisonment, malicious prosecution, the humiliation and the defamation faced by the appellant”. Keeping in view the report of the CBI and the judgment rendered in 1998 the Supreme Court has held that “suitable compensation has to be awarded, without any trace of doubt, to compensate the suffering, anxiety and the treatment by which the quintessence of life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution withers away. We think it appropriate to direct the State of Kerala to pay a sum of Rs. 50 lakhs towards compensation to the appellant and, accordingly, it is so ordered.” Time calendared for payment of the above amount is eight weeks. Apart from awarding the aforesaid compensation as public law remedy, the Supreme Court also stated, “…We hasten to clarify that the appellant, if so advised, may proceed with the civil suit wherein he has claimed more compensation.”

On the issue of conducting inquiry against the erring officials, the Supreme Court said: “We think that the obtaining factual scenario calls for constitution of a Committee to find out ways and means to take appropriate steps against the erring officials. For the said purpose, we constitute a Committee which shall be headed by Justice D.K. Jain, a former Judge of this Court. The Central Government and the State Government are directed to nominate one officer each so that apposite action can be taken.” The case of Nambi Narayanan is unique and unprecedented. That all the media afforded priority to the Supreme Court’s Judgment in Nambi Narayanan’s case with front page coverage is the eloquent evidence to this fact. The case has multi-facets within. The human right violation has earlier been dealt with by the NHRC. The public law remedy has now been taken care of by the Apex Court and the civil Court has before it the pending compensation suit for damages. In between, the jurisdiction aspect of the State Government of Kerala by ordering re-investigation after the highest investigating agency (CBI) had conducted the investigation has also been dealt with by the Apex Court in its earlier judgment. While the National Human Rights Commission, the Supreme Court in K. Chandrasekhar case (supra) and in its present judgment and the Single Judge of the High Court of Kerala have all held in favour of Nambi Narayanan, it is only the Division Bench of the Kerala High Court that held against him by vilipending the judgment of the Single Judge of Kerala High Court. If one may say so, when target is fixed and justifications sought thereafter, justice is the casualty. Nambi Narayanan’s perseverance has brought him his remarkable success. No doubt, he had to wait for twenty four years. But his patience paid. As the Hindi saying goes, there may be delay but not darkness in God’s Court. Faith of the general public in judiciary has increased manifold. The motto of the Apex Court “Yato Dharma tato Jaya” (where there is Dharma, there is victory) is overwhelmingly manifested in the judgment in the case of Nambi Narayanan.  

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