From: kumarv@blaze.rutgers.edu (kumar vadaparty)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Mr. Gupta: Correlation and Causation
Date: 15 Apr 92 15:59:42 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Mr. Gupta's postings of some professor from AMU make a blunder in
confusing between correlation and causation (I am not an English
major; so i define these terms below, for our benifit). They are two
different things. Whether Mr. Gupta agrees or disagrees with these
postings is his decision to make. Since he (Mr. Arun Gupta) so
strongly lamented about not having a meaningful discussion on the AMU
professor's postings, here I invite Mr. Gupta for a meaningful
rebuttal (or, an agreement) of what I say. I dont talk about the
author's religion or place of work or even place of worship. I talk
about his ingenuity at twisting facts, and Mr. Gupta's naivette or,
incorrect reasoning.

The AMU professor (henceforth AMUP) claims that there is a lot of
police/military brutality against Muslims in India. Since the
police/military is appointed by majority Hindu-elected govts, it
follows (as the AMUP subtly implies through his twisted-writings) that
Hindus hate (and also persecute, to some extent as Mr. Gupta hints or
subtly implies in his replies to my posting (see my another posting
criticising Mr. Gupta line by line)) the muslims.

Definition Correlation in this context: Whenever police brutality
occurred, it occurred on only muslims.

Definition of causality/motivation: The govt is motivated against the
muslims, and this motivation reflects majority hindus' hatred to
Muslims since govt is elected by majority govt.

First, there is not even a correlation between police brutality and
muslim victims. Nevermind a causality/causation/motivation. 

Mr. Gupta, here, you tell me, whether you agree with the above claim
or disagree? If you agree with me, you dont have to read the rest.
Otherwise the ball is in your court: disprove me.

The military beatup everybody (Hindu or otherwise) who they are supposed to control
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Examples.  The AMUP (and mr. Arun Gupta) would like to know that CRP
(central reserve police) had discharged beatings and shreaded tear-gas
bulbs and hurled bullets at mobs of students who were sometimes
peaceful, sometimes not so peaceful (i.e. hurled anti-govt slogans)
and the author of this article is a first-hand witness of some of
those beatings. This is during the "Jai Andhra" movement, in AP (I was
in a small town called Narsipatnam in AP; my schoolmate was killed in
one of those shootings, and you guessed it! He was a Hindu, as most of
us are at the shooting session).

A well known case where a bunch of police/military people mass-raped a
village full of women and when the latter reported in the court, the
honorable judge said that "These women can lie for Rs. 1 and hence
there is nothing to believed in what they say".

Ask Srinivas Budaraju for the latest 100 incidents of police human
rights violations in India.

Mrs. Gandhi arrested (ordered to arrest, i mean) an innumerable number
of Hindus during emergency (some of my college professors, who were
arrested are Hindu brahmins). I would not claim that Mrs. Gandhi was
ANTI BRAHMIN or ANTI HINDU. Or, anti Telugu-brahmin, or anti-telugu
Hindu, etc. I guess you got the idea. I can digup this kind of issues
a ton of them and claim that Mrs. Gandhi was anti-hindu. Do you
buy this argument? 

The Govt went out of its way to suck up to Muslims (and other
minorities)
---------------------------------------------------------------

Occassionally, the govt sucks up to some minorities. You should not
immediately conclude that govt loves them. It's just political
expediency. For example, the shabanu case, or the laws against
female-inheritence in hindus etc. These should not be construed to
believing that govt loves muslim fundamentalists, or Hindu males.

What can we generalize
--------------------------

The govt messed up with many minorities (language minorities,
political minorities, religious minorities, etc.) whenever they were
perceived as a threat. Attrributing religious motivations to these
actions is nonsense. Simply, the govt is afraid of losing the power.
To maintain their power, they spew the right words at the right time:
"Patriotic bullshit or religious bullshit, or whatever bullshit".

Second. Even if the govt is anti-muslim, attributing anti-muslim to
majority Hindus because they elected the govt, is a bigger nonsense.
This correlation (not even causation) requires control experiments
of the following kind:

(i) Is it the case that when a party running for power got the power on
the basis of religious persecution (not religious self defense)?

(ii) Is it the case that when a party espoused secular feelings, lost the
power?

The case of MP losing BJP and Maharashtra losing BJP stand as counter
examples of (i). UP got BJP primarily due to "mosque/mandir" stuff as
a defense of hindu dignity rather than as for persecuting muslims.  I
wonder if any single politician campaigned to persecute muslims.  I am
not defending the BJP view of mandir/mosque. That is a different
issue. All am saying is persecution is not in the minds of majority
Hindus, as you seem to subtly imply. You better correct this picture
of yours.

Congress winning in Maharshtra is a negative example of (ii). 


The govt does what it feels is good. It may or maynot reflect the
impressions of majority population. To conclude the latter, we need
far more evidence than is available currently.

I feel sorry if some of my postings are a bit unfriendly, but be
assured that that is not my interest. I can not take this pseudo
scientific analysis of people like AMUP.

Kumar Vadaparty.
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