The Deep State

Look up Wikipedia and ‘the deep state’ is defined as a term that came into being in relation to Turkish politics: “the deep state (Turkish: derin devlet) is alleged to be a group of influential anti-democratic coalitions within the Turkish political system, composed of high-level elements within the intelligence services (domestic and foreign), Turkish military, security, judiciary, and mafia”,

 Doesn’t this give you the impression that the deep state is a phenomenon that is confined to Turkish society and politics? Of late there have been murmurs about the deep state in Egypt. But the deep state phenomenon cannot possibly exist in open, democratic societies. Or can it?

Two days ago an article was published in a respected US political analysis site that has the blogosphere aflutter and the ripples are likely to spread to the mainstream media. Mike Lofgren’s essay “The Anatomy of the Deep State” is not the result of the fertile mind of one among many conspiracy junkies that inhabit the Internet. Lofgren is a Fullbright scholar who was for 28 years a respected US Republican Congressional aide and whose essay is a balanced, well-argued piece.

Lofgran’s essay is full of well-established facts and illustrative linkages establishing the causality of the Deep State. The seminal paragraph that summarizes his Deep State premise comes almost half-way through the essay: ” Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.”

All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.”

To the student of history the Deep State is no surprise. Its antecedents can be traced to the military-industrial complex that ranged across the Western hemisphere embracing both sides of World War 2. The machinations of the Deep State in the Western hemisphere can be glimpsed in a couple of high-quality entertainment products: John Le Carre’s latest novel “A Delicate Truth” and the high voltage Netflix series “House of Cards” Does the Deep State exist in India? Does the apex power of the iron frame that holds Indian governance together – the civil and armed services- go well beyond the powers of their apparent but transient masters – the politicians? Is big money interested just in the realtive pettyfoggery of fixing prices?

How about the media barons and mavens? We Indians might be love a good argument in private but when it comes to public discourse the quality, as in many other spheres, abysmally low. Will we have in the foreseeable future an Indian Lafgren analyzing the Deep State in India? Not likely. AAP had a chance of doing so but all it is interested in lowest-common-denominator fumigations about the corrupt. Good election strategy but hardly ground-breaking expose.

Perhaps we Indians lack the intellectual fortitude and courage to address a tricky issue of current import in detail and authoritatively. It is no accident that the erudite and articulate Ramchandra Guha decides to focus on the minutiae of by-gone eras. Time and again it has been an enterprising opportunity-grabbing Western scholar that has undertaken the journey. Perhaps because they do not fear the Indian state and more importantly, if it exists, the Indian Deep State.

Stand

Once in a while, I find it amusing and occasionally edifying to meditate on a single word in the only language I know half-well (to my regret I do not have felicity in my mother tongue – Hindi – and this has left not only my education woefully incomplete but has cut me off from the deepest form of self-expression that a human being has). Take “stand”. Consider “I cannot stand him!” What does she mean? That he doesn't “sit well” with her? Not just that. She cannot bear to even have a standing arm-length conversation with him. In this context it would seem that “sit” is a superior position to “stand”. Now consider “to stand for an election” and compare it with say “sitting MP”. Seems to me that we human beings, at least the ones who think in English, consider sitting to be the just reward for the exertion of standing. In fact in today’s lexicon very often it is “running for an election” and when sales stop growing your progress as a sales manager “stands still”. Seems to me that we have further demoted “stand”- from an exertion that will be rewarded to a state of decay. What about “they also serve who stand and wait”? So? Who want to be an “also” in today’s hyper competitive world? And “wait”? Come on! Go get a life! Sometimes “stand” can be funny too. I got a snigger from my friends at the local club when I presented a particularly pompous gentleman as “a long-standing member”. Get it?

"What makes a short story short?"

A brilliant teenager once told me "the trouble with literature is that you have to read it". How true. I love to read and the habit has got me a passing acquaintance with the world of literature. My formal schooling in literature is limited to high school reading assignments and a course I took on Twentieth Century Literature at IIT Bombay as part of the required quota of humanities courses. Twentieth Century Literature was conducted by an elegant, erudite lady, which fact, I suspect, accounted, in large part, for its popularity. My biggest contribution to the study of literature to date has been a question I asked while the class was discussing the various forms of literature: What makes a short story short?. The rest of the hour was devoted to pondering this deep question and it even got Mrs Saxena , after the class, to treat me to a cup of coffee and batata wada at the canteen. Largely unschooled in literature that I am, if you ask about the things that give me joy, the reading of literature would be pretty high on the list. So what is the relationship between being schooled in something and deriving pleasure from it? Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain of India’s cricket team, has a private mantra for raising his performance on the field. In his mind, he says, he harks back to the days when he played cricket for the fun of it. The simple atavistic arcs of the ball and the bat resonating with swinging arms and dancing feets. The schooling, he says, fades into the background, pleasure takes over and the zone, that so many sportsmen talk about, is reached. All of us are schooled in a few things and most of us make a living out of the things we are schooled in. But find those few among us who can put the schooling in their chosen field into the background and approach their art anew everyday and you will find fulfilled people making a real difference to the world and the practice of their art form. The other side of the coin of this simple mantra is that great pleasure awaits you when you approach any activity in which you are unschooled. In fact, if you think about it, the human pursuit of leisure, recreation and entertainment is governed by this core principle. Dive a little deeper into the relationship between knowledge and pleasure and, I suspect, you will come up with many pearls. Wisdom and pleasure are two sides of the same coin? Unlearning is, at least, as important as learning? Before you jump in though do not forget the diving suit and the oxygen supply. Happy hunting!

Sunday Musings 02/02/2014: What after the Information Age?

It is interesting to examine the clichés and pet phrases from past decades. Just about a decade ago "The Information Age" was the favourite tool in every pontificator's tool box. With the projections of Moore's law more than coming true, with the third generation of the Internet already in the geriatric ward, isn’t it surprising that the phrase has kind of been laid to rest. But do a little bit of digging and you realize that this is just a minor manifestation of a much deeper cycle at work. The phrase “The Industrial Age” was currency in the intellectual discourse of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s and disappeared with the coming of the flower children of the 60’s. And then in the 70’s the first mutterings of the phrase “The Information Age” were heard in the 80s and the 90s one could get sick of hearing it. And faded out in the Oughts. Which gives rise to an interesting question? What’s next? I have a dog in the fight. Many years ago on a mellow evening with a friend I had expounded a theory. And felt warm satisfaction when the cover story on the future of jobs in The Economist dated January 18 sort of confirmed it. A paradigm shift in a society’s technology creates a new class of jobs that in time change the very structure of the society. The Industrial Age created blue and white collar jobs that in turn created the middle classes which lead to the creation of modern society with social, economic, cultural and political structures that the world had not seen before. The Information Age on the other hand while democratizing information has paradoxically created a global elite and a weakening of the middle classes. The next epoch will have network of computers, smart fabs and things take over functions that while hastening the demise of the middle classes will also destroy the power structures that today feed the global elite, especially the vast and global manipulation of money. So with the networks doing most things that today we do as work what will be the future of work? The Economist’s article stops short of saying what that will be but does express optimism that the world will find a way to have all our children and children’s children productively engaged. But where The Economist does not tread I shall venture further. The currency of the Industrial Age was material goods, the currency of the Information Age is information and it is my prediction that the currency of the next age is going to be emotion. Fifty years of now the principal economic activity will be that of decoding, generating, storing, buying and selling of emotions. We can see the crude, early prototypes of these key economic activities of the future in the music, art, cinema, TV and gaming products and services of today (they are like the abacus was to the computers of the Information Age). What will this coming age be called? If humanity is fortunate enough to take the right route than perhaps we will have the Spiritual Age. If not we will have the Entertainment Century before humanity discovers the secret at the core.