The best article I read in 2018

Matthew Stewart, ‘The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy,’ The Atlantic (June 2018)

Rhetorical devices/ figures of speech most amenable to computer detection

Devices which use repetition of a specific word or a sequence of words are most amenable to automatic computer detection algorithms.

Thus, these figures of speech are easier to detect than other rhetorical devices

Anadiplosis

Anaphora
Epanalepsis
Epiphora or epistrophe
Conduplicatio
Epizeuxis or palilogia
Mesodiplosis
Polysyndeton
Symploce

Other figures of speech which are also similarly amenable are

Alliteration — one or more letters at the beginning of a word, rather than an entire word, being repeated
Anti-metabole — the word order is reversed, so slightly tougher for the computer to detect
Homeoteleuton — reverse of alliteration. One or more letters at the end of a word, rather than an entire word, being repeated

যবনিকা, যবন, Ionia

‘যবনিকা’ শব্দটির অর্থ ‘পর্দা’, তা সে নাটকের অভিনেতার সামনেই হোক, বা পিছনে ‘drop scene’ হিসেবে। এই শব্দটি বাংলায় প্রবেশ করেছে প্রাচীন গ্রীক ও ভারতীয় সভ্যতার মেলামেশার কারণে। ‘যবনিকা’ শব্দটি ‘যবন’ শব্দ থেকে এসেছে। ‘যবন’ শব্দটির মানে ‘গ্রীক মানুষ’। এই ‘যবন’ শব্দটি এসেছে  ‘Ionian’ শব্দের থেকে। Ionia প্রাচীন গ্রীস-এর একটি জায়গার নাম, যে জায়গাটি বর্তমান টার্কি-তে।

Hunting in War and Peace and Fowling in Anna Karenina

Hunting in War and Peace and Fowling in Anna Karenina

Abstract

            This paper looks at the depictions of hunting in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and fowling in Anna Karenina to figure out the kinds of multi-species leisure politics in these two novels. Both these novels are well-known for presenting well-rounded depictions of human characters. However there is a lack of depth in depicting non-human animal characters in these two works and this paper places such narrative techniques in the broader literary career and life of Tolstoy. The paper associates the depth of depiction with sensitivity and empathy towards non-human animals. It looks at leisure activities in these two novels where other animals, in addition to humans, derive pleasure. However, it points out that whereas pleasure of some non-human animals is emphasised, empathy towards other non-human animals is not evoked. It points to a hierarchy of relationships. The paper seeks to explore the politics and ethics of such relationships.

            The paper also comments on the general nature of the hunt, and cites secondary scholarship on the politics and leisure of multi-species leisure activities involving dogs. The paper highlights the relevance in the twenty-first century of revisiting literary artefacts from an earlier period, such as the nineteenth century, in order to foreground ethical and political issues and use it to frame our present and future actions. The paper concludes by positing imaginative literature as an apt method for imagining another species and highlights these two novels as being prime examples of reading such imagination or empathy for another species.

Keywords

culture, history

Article

Introduction

            Multi-species leisure is a term which is open to interpretation. Are humans privy to the mental thought-process of any species other than itself? Even if humans think that they can empathise with another species, can humans represent that species? Or is the issue of representation of another species an exercise in anthropomorphism, where other species may not be represented in terms of human behaviour and according to a human paradigm, but where the non-human species is thought of using human parameters. These are some of the larger issues that perhaps have no single answer but remain open to subjectivity.

            Literature provides an apt perspective for addressing this issue. A literary text, in the form of a poem, a play-text, or a novel or a short story, is a work presenting the author’s subjectivity. It rarely lays claim to presenting an objective view of its topic of representation.

            Animals often feature in literary works. Most often, animals feature in human language in the form of metaphors, and this use of language is carried forward into literary works. Metaphors usually say more about the subject being compared rather than the object to which the subject is being compared. Animals usually feature as objects in metaphors. Claude Lévi-Strauss, in his work Totemism, writes that natural species are chosen as totems because they are ‘good to think’ with (Lévi-Strauss, 1991). Going beyond Durkheim’s and Radcliffe-Brown’s reasonings for choosing animals as totems, Lévi-Strauss cites Rousseau and writes:

Metaphor, the role of which in totemism we have repeatedly underlined, is not a later embellishment of language, but is one of its fundamental modes. Placed by Rousseau on the same plane as opposition, it constitutes, on the same ground, a primary form of discursive thought. (Lévi-Strauss, 1991, p. 102)

Writers use animal metaphors because metaphor is one of the primary forms of discursive thought. Animals in metaphors are usually zoomorphised humans, and usually the subjects of the comparison are human beings, whereas animals only feature tangentially as objects of the comparison. However, animals also feature in literary works in other forms, such as animals that serve as identifiers of the natural world and provide a backdrop or a setting for a discourse on human nature, such as in pastoral literature; or anthropomorphised animals, reflecting on human nature. Very few animals appear in literature as animals per se, where the work tries to present either an interior view of the mental faculties of animals in order to understand them as fellow creatures of the writer, or a view of animal-human relations in society. Animals are often presented, even in this category, with human beings, but the focus is firmly on the animals and either their inner lives or their relationship with humans, as opposed to the focus on humans in the earlier three forms.

            One may question even this last form of representation, and question whether the non-human species is ever actually represented or whether it is ultimately a human projection of animals and ultimately a kind of anthropomorphism, but one which reflects on human-animal interaction rather than reflecting solely human behaviour. However, this form remains the best method to understand multi-species interaction in literature. Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877) is one of the most famous examples of such representation. There are several other such examples of literary multi-species interaction. However, when it comes to multi-species leisure, the number of examples is obviously fewer.

            Multi-species leisure is perhaps always thought of in terms of the definition of leisure according to human parameters. Thus, running, walking and swimming (not for work but for relaxing) are thought of as leisure for animals as well. Human beings can ultimately perhaps understand another species only by its own parameters and project unto another species its own ideas, and defined by multi-species interaction, analyse the other species again by human parameters. The other species thus lies in a relationship of interaction, followed by external projection by humans, then reflection by humans and finally representation by humans.

            Hunting is one of these human-animal interactions which human beings often classify as leisure. Hunting is often also classified as work and not as leisure. The essay also analyses these aspects of the hunt. The main focus of this essay, however, is to look in detail at representations of hunting and allied activities in two exemplary works of literature, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina, in order to analyse other issues concerning multi-species leisure. These two novels are chosen because they are well-known literary works and also because among the myriad topics that these two novels address, multi-species leisure is an activity which stands out. Whereas in War and Peace, the multi-species leisure is often difficult to trace and a reader needs to read with special focus in order to find such markers, in Anna Karenina, multi-species leisure is highlighted more strongly.

Body

            Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (first published in its entirety in 1869) and Anna Karenina (first published in its entirety in 1878) are well-known for presenting balanced views of its characters where the view-point of most major characters are presented and used as a tool for understanding their actions. There are no explicitly villainous or evil characters in these two works. Anna Karenina and Vronsky’s actions form one of the central plots in the text in spite of leaving behind a trail of broken lives in their wake. The novel is based on the reader empathising with these two characters despite their actions which destruct not only them but also those around them. Similarly, in War and Peace, Anatol Kuragin’s affair with Natasha Rostova is marked by Kuragin’s for-the-nonce pleasure. If there is one character in War and Peace who is portrayed in a relatively negative light, it is Anatol Kuragin. Yet, Tolstoy’s style of depicting most major characters involves giving the reader an idea of the character’s thought-process. Anatol is not described as a villain. Rather he too is described as a human being with his own ways of thinking. In not de-humanising any character and not marking a character out as a villain, it may be argued that the third-person omniscient narrator does not condemn this character’s treatment of other characters. On the contrary, all kinds of actions are condoned by the narrator in a kind of a way. Such however is the narrative style that Tolstoy follows in these two novels.

            One of his descriptions of Anatol Kuragin is as follows.

Anatol was always content with his position, with himself and with others. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was impossible for him to live otherwise than the way he lived, and that he had never in his life done anything base, but he was quite incapable of considering how his actions might affect others, or what the consequence of this or that action might be. He believed that just as a duck had been created to live in water, so God had created him to spend thirty thousand a year and always to occupy a prominent position in society. He was so firmly convinced of this that looking at him others were persuaded of it too, and refused him neither a leading place in society nor the money he borrowed right and left, obviously with no notion of repaying it...All that he cared about was pleasure and women; according to his ideas there was nothing ignoble in these tastes, and as he was incapable of considering what the gratification of his desires entailed for others, he was quite sincere in regarding himself as an irreproachable man, felt genuine contempt for wrongdoers and scoundrels, and with a clear conscience held his head high.

   Rakes, those male Magdalens, cherish a secret belief in their own innocence similar to that of female Magdalens, and based on the same hope of forgiveness. “All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; all will be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much.” (Tolstoy, 1980, Vol.2, Part 5, Chapter 11, pp. 686–687)

Anatol’s behaviour is justified if the reader looks at him as he looked at himself.

            The point of this example was to highlight the balanced and well-rounded style of portrayal of characters that Tolstoy uses in these two novels. Tolstoy’s style of depicting the mental thoughts of characters is not restricted just to human characters. He also depicts the mental workings of non-human animal characters, especially hunting dogs. However, Tolstoy fails, in these two novels, to present a well-rounded style of portraying hunted or preyed upon animals and birds. He also does not write much about the horses used for riding out to the hunt, be they riders on horseback or in carriages drawn by horses. The horses in Tolstoy, more often than not, are barely discussed.

            The nineteenth century Russian land-owning aristocracy which Tolstoy depicts in these two novels was heavily invested in hunting. Tolstoy himself partook of such pleasures before his spiritual conversion in the 1880s, after which he renounced not only hunting but also eating meat. One of Tolstoy’s early works, ‘The Bear Hunt’ (published in 1872, about a real-life n incident in 1858) is a testament to Tolstoy’s early hunting phase. Whereas in War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy as a writer is able to attribute a mental thought-process to the hunting dogs, it took Tolstoy till the 1880s to also be able to empathise with the hunted animal, and which in turn led him to renounce hunting completely.

            Empathy with animals is a developing trait in Tolstoy’s works and one can thus argue also in his life. Josephine Donovan, in an article titled ‘Tolstoy’s Animals’ (Donovan, 2009), looks very briefly at depictions of animals in a few shorter fictional works by Tolstoy—‘Snow Storm’ (published in 1856, a story about getting lost where animals play a very minor part), ‘Strider: The Story of a Horse’ (published in 1886, though begun in 1861, a story which deals primarily with a horse and is almost like a bildungsroman; it belongs to that uncommon genre of imaginative literature which deals primarily with animals and human-animal relations), ‘Master and Man’ (published in 1895, similar in theme to ‘Snow Storm’ and where animals, again, play a minor part) and ‘Esarhaddon, King of Assyria’ (published in 1903, a story about empathy and imagining oneself in another creature’s position and then behaving unto that creature — including animals — as one would unto oneself). Donovan points out that while his later works, especially ‘Strider’ and also ‘Esarhaddon’ to an extent, deal with animals in a more sensitive manner, his earlier works also carry some traits of his sensitivity which developed more fully later on.

            A more explicit statement of Tolstoy’s beliefs can be found in his aphoristic work, A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, a kind of common-place book, which has several entries dealing with human-animal relations. This work, A Calendar of Wisdom, was written across a period of almost twenty years and was one of Tolstoy’s last major works to be published. Tolstoy’s changing sensitivities regarding animals could also be gauged from an earlier work, his 1892 preface (titled ‘The First Step’) to Howard Williams’ The Ethics of Diet. In that preface Tolstoy describes his experiences in visiting slaughterhouses, where he used to go in order to see what industrialisation had concealed from public view—the slaughtering of animals for meat. Tolstoy wanted to be responsible for his actions and so he wanted to visit his scenes of crime as it were, in order to let its full moral effect sink into him.

            Ivan Turgenev, with whom Tolstoy had a difficult association, once visited Tolstoy at his estate, Yasnaya Polyana, and wrote about the strong impression that Tolstoy’s close sense of kinship with animals, especially a horse, made on Turgenev. Jospehine Donovan also mentions this in her article cited earlier (pp. 45–46). Even those who did not have unqualified admiration for Tolstoy, also remarked on Tolstoy’s affinity with animals, in the later stages of his life.

            All these works, both fictional and non-fictional, highlighted the changing and changed sensitivities of Tolstoy. However, War and Peace and Anna Karenina are works from a different period of Tolstoy’s life, pre-spiritual conversion as it were, and though the reader can read a heightened sensitivity towards non-human creatures in these two novels, the works lack sensitivity towards hunted animals.

            For what they are worth, the depiction of the hunting scenes in these two novels, present a kind of multi-species leisure—human master and faithful dog on one side, and the hunted bird or animal on the other. The dog is as interested in the hunt as the human master, if not sometimes even more, as Tolstoy depicts. Whereas in War and Peace, there is a depiction of hunting mammals, in Anna Karenina, it is shooting of birds or fowling. Fowling and hunting are two distinct activities, yet they are connected by their concepts of the game.

            In my earlier research, I had analysed some aspects of the hunt (Ghosh, 2017). It is worthwhile to recapitulate some salient points over here. The word ‘hunt’ descends from a proto-Indo-European word meaning ‘to catch, to seize’. Hunting has conventionally been understood to refer to the hunting of animals by animals (this includes humans in both roles). Other forms of human activity often use this as a metaphor, such as ‘hunting for the truth’, ‘sexual predator on the hunt’ and so on, and the hunting scenes in both War and Peace and Anna Karenina can also be read metaphorically (such as the hunt in War and Peace providing a contrast for Nikolai’s success on the battlefield, or the fowling in Anna Karenina providing examples of Oblonsky’s self-sufficiency, Velsovsky’s casual attitude and Levin’s wavering luck), but even if one restricts oneself to hunting of non-human animals by humans, what constitutes hunting is a difficult question.

            Conventional common sense is that when humans hunt, the hunted animal has to be big enough for the hunter to see from a distance of say ten metres or so, because it is difficult to hunt animals smaller than the size of say a bird. Thus, flies are not hunted in the conventional sense of the term ‘hunting’ though ‘catching’ or ‘seizing’ such small creatures is a common human practice. The hunted animal’s fastest speed of movement is also an important factor. Animals whose fastest speeds are significantly slower than the fastest speed of humans, such as cows, are usually not ‘hunted’. They are captured, seized, devoured, but the verb ‘hunt’ is not usually used in case of cows. Rather, the verb used is ‘butcher’. Fishes are also not ‘hunted’ in this sense. Size and maximum speed are perhaps the only two conditions which are common to the animals commonly ‘hunted’ by humans.

            From my study of the reasons why humans hunt, I think the kinds of hunting can roughly be categorised as follows.

1. Hunting for food

2. Hunting to remain safe from wild animals

3. Hunting to kill vermin

4. Hunting for pleasure

5. Hunting as a show of status

6. Hunting out of peer-pressure

7. Hunting for obtaining medical, cosmetic and sartorial goods

8. Hunting as a mark of protest

9. Hunting as a show of bravado

10. Hunting as training

The hunting in War and Peace and the fowling in Anna Karenina fall into the fourth category listed above, that is, hunting for pleasure.

            The hunt in War and Peace takes place in Book 2, Part 4, Chapters 3-6. There are three distinct hunts that take place though all happen on the same trip. The first is a hunting of a wolf, the second is a hunting of a fox, and the third of a hare. In Oscar Wilde’s 1893 play A Woman of No Importance, one of the characters says ‘...one knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.’ It is interesting to note the choice of prey in War and Peace — only the hare is conventionally consumed by humans. Wolf meat and fox meat were and still are rarely eaten by humans. The wolf and the fox were not the primary choice of prey till the 19^th century. They were most often viewed as vermin and fell into the third category above. The deer was the primary prey in 16^th and 17^th century Europe. When over-hunting had drastically reduced the deer population by the 19^th century, wolves and foxes became significant animals hunted for pleasure in Europe, and from their status as vermin, they changed to animals hunted for pleasure.

            In War and Peace, like in a lot of hunting narratives, the depiction of the hunt offers vicarious participation for the reader. Through the detailed portrayal of the almost-successful-yet-momentarily-unsuccessful-but-finally-successful hunt, Tolstoy offers the readers similar kinds of anguish and tension that the portrayed characters also seemingly endure. Several features of the depiction of the hunt stand out.

            One is the sincerity and passion of the hunters. Nikolai Rostov, in the heat of the moment, thinks the hunt is the most important aspect of his life. This getting carried away by the present and the constant changing of priorities is a characteristic feature in both these novels. Pierre Bezukhov’s changing priorities, Nikolai Rostov’s changing love interests, Levin’s changing agricultural schemes—one of Tolstoy’s distinctive narrative style in these two novels is to show that life is unexpected and what may seem very important at one point of time in life may seem insignificant in the larger scheme of things. It is the same with Tolstoy’s notion of history, where seemingly important historical actions are often of little consequence in shifting the stream of a larger historical narrative.[1] The reasons for Napoleon’s defeat and the course of the war, as analysed by Tolstoy, bear testimony to this claim. Tolstoy also claimed that whereas the historian often has to bend events to fit into a grand narrative, the artist, on the other hand, is free to not have any narrative and on the contrary present as many views as possible.[2] This is one of the reasons why characters in Tolstoy’s works are often well-rounded and balanced, as he chooses a narrative style of presenting multiple views about most of his major characters. Also, just as Tolstoy encourages the reader in War and Peace to read against the dominant narrative and to read between the lines and make all possible connections; similarly, Tolstoy’s own narrative can also be read against, and it is in the spirit of Tolstoy to read between the lines of Tolstoy’s narrative and try to uphold issues such as those concerning animals and multi-species interactions and leisure.

            During the hunt, Nikolai Rostov is depicted as thinking of the hunt as of supreme importance in his life.

…Nikolai, with a shamefaced awareness that at the sight of the hunting weather, the hounds, and the huntsman, he was being carried away by that irresistible passion for the chase which makes a man forget all previous intentions, as a lover forgets everything in the presence of his mistress. (p. 597)

[Nikolai] prayed with that passionate compunction with which men pray in moments of intense emotion arising from trivial causes. “Why, what is it to Thee,” he said to God, “to do this for me? I know Thou art great and that it is a sin to ask this, but for God’s sake, make the wolf come my way and let Karai get his teeth in his throat and finish him off…”No, that won’t be my luck,” thought Rostov. “It would be worth anything! But it won’t happen. I’m always unlucky — in cards, in war, in everything!...Just once in my life to run down a full-grown wolf — I want nothing more!” he thought…(pp. 604–605)

“Ulyulyu!” cried Nikolai in a voice not his own… (p. 605)

That instant when Nikolai saw the wolf in the gully struggling with the dogs, saw her gray coat and outstretched hind leg under them, her head with her ears laid back in terror and gasping (Karai had her by the throat), was the happiest moment of his life. (p. 606)

Nikolai is extremely high-strung and passionately involved during the hunt.

            The second important feature of the hunt in War and Peace, as opposed to the fowling in Anna Karenina, is the participation of women. Natasha Rostova is compared to Diana by one of the huntsmen, Ilagin. However, she plays a minimal part in the actual hunting though she is clearly impressed by it and is joyous at its successful completion. This is in contrast to the fowling in Anna Karenina where the shooting functions as a male get-together away from the world of women and offers Levin a world where he can indulge in manly activities with his male acquaintances away from the world of cares and familial obligations. This dichotomy is not implicit and is not left to the reader to deduce. Tolstoy makes Levin explicitly aware of it. In doing so, it may be that Tolstoy was offering a critique of the exclusively male hiatus, or maybe he was depicting a more realistic view of the way society functioned. Levin’s awareness of this dichotomy bothers him and attracts him at the same time.

            The opulence of the landed class in these two novels is striking and extends to the hunt as well. About a hundred and fifty dogs were used in chasing an old she-wolf and her cubs in the Otradnoe forest in War and Peace.

            What is missing from the description of the hunt though is empathy for the prey. It is interesting to note that even wolf cubs do not elicit any empathy from Tolstoy the narrator. This sentence quoted earlier to illustrate a different point — ‘That instant when Nikolai saw the wolf in the gully struggling with the dogs, saw her gray coat and outstretched hind leg under them, her head with her ears laid back in terror and gasping (Karai had her by the throat), was the happiest moment of his life’ — is the only mention of the horror that the prey feels.

            The hunt was a social activity with its own set of rules and etiquettes. The character referred to as ‘Uncle’ cuts off a pad off the hare and gives it to the dog, Rugai, who had managed to kill the hare. This was in keeping with hunting etiquettes mentioned regularly in hunting manuals in Europe over the course of several centuries, such as The Boke of St. Albans (first published in 1486) and Jacques du Fouilloux’s La vénerie (first published in 1561).

            The fowling in Anna Karenina involved guns, unlike the hunting in War and Peace. The fowling in Anna Karenina is also less elaborate and less opulent than the ones in War and Peace. There are no ventures involving one hundred and fifty dogs to hunt primarily one prey! The shooting in Anna Karenina always involve Levin, and mostly take place when Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky goes to Levin’s estate primarily to shoot. Levin’s estate in the countryside with a lot of animals, appears to Oblonsky mostly as a game preserve. He makes specific trips to Levin’s estate only to indulge in fowling. It is a kind of leisure tourism or a shooting or fowling tourism. The first shooting takes place in Part 2, Chapter 15 (Tolstoy, 2016) when Oblonsky and Levin shoot woodcocks. The second shoot is very briefly described and does not take place on Levin’s estate but rather when Levin goes to visit Nikolay Ivanovich Sviyazhsky in Pat 3, Chapter 26 (p. 332).

            The hunting dogs in War and Peace often appear very eager in the hunt. In Anna Karenina, Levin’s old dog, Laska usually appears more eager than even Levin and other humans in participating in the venture. During the shooting of the woodcocks in Part 2, Chapter 15, Levin asks Oblonsky whether Kitty had gotten married to Vronsky and Oblonsky replies that the marriage was called off and Kitty had fallen ill. On the heels of this discussion came this bit of the narrative:

As they were speaking, Laska had pricked up her ears and was gazing both up at the sky and also reproachfully at them.

‘A fine time to talk,’ she was thinking. ‘There’s one on the way…Sure enough, here it is. They’ll miss it…’ thought Laska. (p. 168)

Unlike War and Peace where the hunted animals are chased down by the dogs and the humans on horseback, in Anna Karenina, the shooting is usually of birds which are gunned down by the humans and brought back to them by the dogs. There is also an extremely brief mention of a bear hunt in Anna Karenina in Part 4, Chapter 1–2 (p. 359) with the help of a peasant stalker (Russian: obkladchik) who tracks the bear and drives the animal towards the hunter, and the subsequent measuring of the bear-skin (Part 4, Chapter 7, pp. 378–379).

            The most detailed depictions of fowling in Anna Karenina take place in Part Six, Chapter 8–10, 12–13 when Oblonsky brought along Vasenka Veslovsky to Levin’s estate with the express purpose of shooting in another example of fowling or shooting tourism. Oblonsky, Veslovsky and Levin go away on a two-day shooting trip. The scene begins with the depiction of the eagerness of Laska, Levin’s old dog, and Oblonsky’s dog, Krak.

The next day, the ladies had not yet risen before the trap and the little cart which made up the two hunting vehicles were standing by the front steps, and Laska, aware since early morning that they were going shooting, and having yelped and leapt about to her heart’s content, was sitting next to the coachman in the trap and looking anxiously and with disapproval, due to the delay, at the door, through which the sportsmen had still not emerged. The first to appear was Vasenka Veslovsky, wearing new high boots…Laska came bounding up to greet him, and after leaping about, asked him in her own way whether the others were going to come out soon, but when she received no reply from him she returned to her waiting-post and again sat stock still, with her head cocked to one side and one ear pricked. At last the door opened with a crash and Stepan Arkadyich’s gold-brindle pointer Krak flew out, spinning round and turning over in the air, followed by Stepan Arkadyich himself, with a gun in his hand and a cigar in his mouth. ‘Down, Krak, get down!’ he reprimanded the dog affectionately when it thrust its paws on his stomach and chest, and got them caught up in his game-bag. (p. 577)

Later when Levin comes out to inspect the trap, there is the following passage.

‘Sorry, gentlemen!’ he said, running out onto the steps. ‘Have you put the lunch in? Why is the chestnut on the right? Well, it doesn’t matter. Stop it, Laska, go and sit down!’ (p. 578)

The best descriptions of the multi-species leisure evident in a hunt is to be found in passages like these, where the eagerness of the human hunter is matched with the eagerness of the hunting dog, for both of whom the hunt provides an eagerly looked forward to pleasure activity. The depictions of the hunting dogs are in keeping with Tolstoy’s style of creating well-rounded balanced characters and trying to see events from all possible sides. As mentioned earlier, he however fails to depict the perspective of the hunted prey to any significant extent.

            Just like Anna Karenina and Vronsky’s actions which form one of the central plots in the novel, leave behind a trail of broken lives in their wake and Anna Karenina is based on the reader empathising with these two characters despite their actions which destruct not only them but also those around them, similarly the descriptions of the fowling in Anna Karenina encourages the reader to empathise with the human shooters and their successes and failures, and even with Laska, the dog in the company of Levin, one of the major characters in the novel. The text does not encourage the reader to empathise with the hunted animal or bird. It is only in reading against the grain that one can choose to view the hunted animal or bird at all, who is otherwise obliterated in the discourse of the narrative.

            Reading against the grain also raises the issue of human-horse relationship in these two novels and specifically in the hunt in War and Peace. There is not too much scope for reading against the grain here for there is very little material to read into. In Anna Karenina, there is the scene of the horse race (Part 2, Chapter 25) in which Vronsky takes part with the horse Frou-Frou. The scene describes the close harmony where both Vronsky and Frou-Frou know exactly what to do and when and when one anticipates the movement of the other. However, the reader’s belief is shattered when the narrative takes a turn for the worse and the close synergy between horse and man is shown as false and empty, as Vrosnky fails to keep pace with Frou-Frou and due to his incorrect movements, Vrosnky ends up accidentally fatally breaking Frou-Frou’s spinal cord. The horse is later euthanised by being shot. The multi-species leisure activity that the horse and the man take part in ends disastrously for the man and fatally for the horse. There are no other leisure activities with significant depiction of horses in either novel. Some concern is shown for the horses, such as horses being driven too fast during regular transportation, or Vronsky’s estate managers being stingy with grains for horses of visiting guests—but such activities are not leisurely activities, nor do such passages say or intend to say much about the horse. Those passages primarily reflect human characteristics, such as reflections on Vronsky’s estate, or eagerness of the human riders in riding the horses too fast. In War and Peace, there is very little description about the horses during the hunt.

            Other examples of passages in Anna Karenina which depict multi-species leisure are when the shooters reach the first and the second shooting spots.

They had barely managed to stop before the dogs were already haring off towards the marsh, racing one another.

‘Krak! Laska!...’

The dogs came back.

‘Not enough room for three people. I’ll stay here,’ said Levin, hoping they would not find anything other than the lapwings, which had soared up away from the dogs and were crying plaintively above the marsh, wavering as they flew.

‘No! Come along, Levin, let’s go together!’ Veslovsky called.

‘Really, there won’t be room. Laska, come back! Laska! You won’t need another dog, will you?’ (pp. 580–581)

When they reached the second marsh…Krak went straight for the tussocks. Vasenka Veslovsky was the first to run after the dog…

Levin was beginning to be consumed with huntsman’s envy. He handed the reins to Veslovsky and walked into the marsh.

Laska, who had long been whining pitifully and complaining about the injustice, sped off ahead, straight to a reliable patch of boggy ground covered with tussocks which Levin knew, where Krak had not yet been.

‘Why don’t you stop her?’ shouted Stepan Arkadyich.

‘She won’t scare them off,’ answered Levin, pleased with his dog and hurrying after her.

(pp. 581–582)

The humans and the dogs seem to be deriving equal amounts of pleasure. The ‘hunstman’s envy’ that Tolstoy attributes to Levin is comparable to the hunting-dog’s envy that Tolstoy also depicts between Krak and Laska. When Levin’s shooting was going haywire, he came across a more successful Oblonsky. The meeting is described as follows.

Before he saw Stepan Arkadyich he saw his dog. Completely black from the stinking mud from the bog, Krak leapt out from behind the upturned root of an alder and began sniffing Laska with the air of a conqueror. (p. 587)

The longest stretch of the narrative devoted to Laska occurs on the second day of the hunt and occupies most of pages 595 and 596, and hence too long to quote in full. The passages describe Laska’s style of hunting and the close synergy between man and dog and the equal amounts of pleasure that both derive from the exercise.

            As can be seen from these examples of hunting and fowling in War and Peace and Anna Karenina, multi-species leisure is an important aspect of these activities. Yet certain species are privileged over others. Animals are segregated into three kinds—one that of the hunted prey; two, that of the intermediary between the hunting human and the hunted non-human animal. This intermediary is also a non-human animal. The third kind of animal belongs to the species homo sapiens. This relationship involving three parties, where two parties derive pleasure at the expense of the third, and the entire relationship is co-ordinated by only one of the parties—casts the parties into a clear hierarchy with the human animal on top lording over the canine intermediary and the base of the ladder occupied by the mammalian or avian prey.

            Neil Carr, in a book titled Dogs in the Leisure Experience, analyses several aspects of this relationship and hierarchy among humans, hunting dogs and hunted animals. His work does not discuss Tolstoy or literary artefacts but is rather concerned with social practices. Carr points out several issues which are relevant to the discussion here. He briefly points out the debates surrounding the legality of the fox hunt in the United Kingdom (pp. 43–44) and whether the joy the hunting dog may feel (pp. 51–53) justifies the pain and the fear that the hunting dog, which is ultimately used as a tool or an intermediary or a middle animal (in the way we have middle-men or agents) as it were by the human hunter, may feel (pp. 46–48). Carr however does not provide any answers as to how multi-species leisure can be truly multi-species and not primarily subservient to human needs. He recognises that hunting dogs would be bred less and perhaps even made extinct if there is a lack of a ready market for employing such hunting dogs. Dogs which will serve well as pets in small apartments and so on would be bred more. However, Carr, like Tolstoy, does not question the ecological sustainability of the practice of hunting.

            In the twenty-first century when climate change is one of the most pressing concerns and is even responsible for multi-national wars (such as the Syrian war), ecological sustainability is a pressing concern. Multi-species leisure has to take into account whether it is sustainable over a long term. Hunting for pleasure, as opposed to killing for food, or killing for medicines or cosmetics or sartorial goods to be used by humans, can be unsustainable. Think of the deer in early modern Europe and the paucity of such practices in the twenty-first century. Even if one were to discount the ethical conundrums that Tolstoy faced later on in his own life and which forced him to change his views and lifestyle, whether hunting can be a multi-species sustainable leisure activity is an ethical, political and vital question for human beings in the twenty-first century.

            Carr points out in his work that dogs like running and humans who like dogs want their dogs to be happy and run. Hunting, however, is one of the least natural forms of encouraging a dog to run. Advocates of hunting may perhaps use the examples from War and Peace and Anna Karenina to point out the multi-species leisure that hunting entails. What such a reading however obliterates is the lack of empathy for the hunted creature, the lack of sustainability of such a practice, and the ethical issues of using one animal as an intermediary to express dominance over another creature.

            When we think of leisure in the twenty-first century, revisiting literary artefacts from an earlier period, such as the nineteenth century, helps in foregrounding ethical and political issues which were often overlooked in earlier times. Our modern concerns make us excavate the past and reconsider it, in order to form a better idea of the present and the future. For instance, leisure tourism in Anna Karenina is often fowling or shooting tourism when it comes to Oblonsky in Levin’s estate. Whereas in the nineteenth century such tourism was rarely considered unethical or unsustainable, such tourism in the twenty-first century is usually extremely debatable. Organisations such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) often promote articles where hunting tourism is considered good for the hunted species and for other non-hunted animals in general. Such is the thrust of an article by Chris Brown of the Namibian Chamber of Environment (Brown, 2017), who points out that rather than pitting humans against animals in a battle for resources, where humans would undoubtedly dominate over animals, if humans can use animals for their economic benefit, they would try to look after the animals as in doing such ‘husbandry’, humans too stand to gain monetarily. Chris Brown, in that article, points out two kinds of animal conservation — one followed by Namibia where hunting tourism is encouraged (and where over 70% land is used for wildlife management) and one followed by Kenya, where it is not supported, and points out that Namibia has now a greater amount of wildlife than in the last 150 years, whereas in Kenya wildlife continues to decrease despite discouragement of hunting tourism. He also points out that once forest land is converted into agricultural land or industrial land or buildings, there is very little chance of recovering the forest and the wildlife within. Then wildlife is only restricted to natural reserve pockets rather than large masses of land.

            On the other hand, conventional wildlife conservation practices would emphasise separation of wildlife husbandry and wildlife consumption from wildlife tourism, and making humans gain economic benefits from such tourism through other means, such as in the form of tourism service providers. This debate about best practices of wildlife conservation is not the main thrust of this article and this debate has very little significance with respect to the two novels by Tolstoy. However, this debate provides a modern concern about multi-species leisure, whereas one can read other concerns about multi-species leisure in War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Conclusion

            When one thinks of multi-species leisure, humans can only guess at what other species may understand by leisure and pleasure. Imaginative literature occupies a unique space in its ability to represent human projections about the mental thoughts and concerns of other species. Empathising with another entity requires one to imagine oneself in place of the other. Literature enhances the ability and scope for imagining oneself in other roles, and thus enhances the ability to empathise with another entity, be it even an entity of a different species. Thus, when one thinks of multi-species leisure, one is forced to imagine the other species and empathise with it. Literary texts provide a good example of such empathising, and these two novels in the realist mode by Tolstoy are prime examples of such methods of understanding multi-species leisure.

Works cited

Brown, C. (2017). The important link between hunting & tourism in Namibia both working for conservation. The Conservation Imperative. Retrieved from http://theconservationimperative.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Hunting-and-tourism-key-partners-for-conservation-April-2017.pdf

Carr, N. (2014). Dogs in the Leisure Experience. Wallingford: CABI.

Donovan, J. (2009). Tolstoy’s Animals. Society and Animals 17, 38–52.

Ghosh, D. (2017). Writings on Animals in Early Modern England. Ph.D. diss. Jadavpur University.

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1991). Totemism, trans. Rodney Needham. London: Merlin Press.

Tolstoy, L. (2014, rpt. 2016). Anna Karenina, trans. Rosamund Bartlett. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tolstoy, L. (1968, rpt. 1980). War and Peace, trans. Ann Dunnigan. New York: Signet.

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[1] More analyses of Tolstoy’s notion of history can be found in Jeff Love, The Overcoming of History in War and Peace (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004); and in a review of the previous work by David Sloane in Tolstoy Studies Journal 17 (2005), pp. 104–108. Two different approaches to this theme can be found in John Givens, ‘The Fiction of Fact and the Fact of Fiction: Hayden White and War and Peace,’ Tolstoy Studies Journal 21 (2009), pp. 15–32; and Andreas Schönle, ‘Tolstoy’s Critique of Modernity in War and Peace: Intersections with Foucault,’ Tolstoy Studies Journal 25 (2013), pp. 42–51.

[2] It is not strictly just a post-modernist trait. Tolstoy uses this technique in exemplars of nineteenth century realism.

Honourable English

      Dear reader, you probably know that the humanities have rarely been popular in the job market. Humanities courses are not professional courses after all and do not prepare a student for a specific job. People may derive comfort from a philosopher but employers rarely deliberately seek philosophy graduates. One branch of humanities study, however, is popular enough to warrant its place even in Indian private universities, that being English. The course labelled English in universities and colleges has usually taught English literature. My knowledgeable readers will know that this seeming love for literature is a love which dissipates as soon as most students attend their first few classes.
      Unrequited love is one of the greatest subjects of speculation. My wise readers however will have already figured out the reason for this match made outside heaven. It is not literature which has captured the Indian imagination. Bengali, Urdu or Hindi literature courses are difficult to find in Indian private universities. Most public university and college teachers of literature in ‘Indian’ languages keep calm and carry on when they assess answer scripts. Literary studies do not drive the education market.
      It is the study of language, particularly English, the language spoken by Donald Trump to Jack Ma, and the world and power which they inhabit and possess, to which the Indian population wants to belong. This is the true love which the Indian population as a whole generally feels. Love is studied in myriad ways, through eloquent avowals to grudging rejections. The Bollywood buffs among you will have seen in Dum Laga ke Haisha or Mukkabaaz the love and loathing for English in times of daily war and peace. The film Hindi Medium deals specifically with this love. The knowledge of the English language is what the Indian population aspires to. Unlike smart-phones, it cannot be bought outright with money.
      It is this love and aspiration which drives the English market in Indian colleges and universities. The Indian economy is one of the fastest growing among the larger economies of the world. If, as some theorists claim, markets move towards efficiency, why then does the English higher education market function as a marker of failure?
      It is because of this gap in supply and demand. The market demands English language skills and proficiency but the market supplies English literature courses. When English studies were introduced in India at Hindoo College in 1817, the rationale was that studying exemplary works of literature in English would enhance skills in the language. That stream of thought has continued since. These two hundred years have undoubtedly turned out a high number of individuals who have proved that rationale to be a meritorious one. That high number though would not be higher than fifty percent. A far greater number of students in these two hundred years have applied to the English course the single greatest spanner in the cogs of humanities education—the ‘note’ book. The ‘note’ book is not to be confused with the ‘text’ book. Whereas the latter provides means for the student to access information, the ‘note’ book has only one raison d’être, to facilitate memorising. Memorising is a wonderful human ability and is something human beings yearn for as our brains keep getting older. At the college and university level though, if applied uncritically, it serves little purpose to the human brain except for providing kinds of stimulation and exercise as would be experienced while playing memory games on a smart-phone or the shopping-list round in Rojgere Ginni.
      In literary studies at the higher education level, a text book would be either in the form of an edition of a literary text, or a book presenting critical views on literature. It is not prepared for the sake of an examination. Hence, there is no question-and-answer format in a text book for literary studies. The note book, which made its appearance in the book trade in India in the nineteenth-century soon after the establishment of universities, offers a different take on literature. Original research or critical analysis is not the forte of such compilers. Nor do such volumes present the actual text of long works, such as a novel or a play.
      More often than not, the eager English student, impatient to assume the world, enters the portals of higher education in the bliss of youth and is soon alarmed to find a series of lectures instead of a stream of notes as they were used to in school. The lectures moreover are often about an entire novel, which as the professional nineteenth-century novelists realised to their pecuniary benefit, run into hundreds of pages.
      My dear readers, I have little doubt that articles like this offer you either new avenues of cogitation or confirmation of your beliefs. We belong to the fortunate lot, who by virtue of social capital and hard work are at ease with such witticisms. My kind readers will however spare a thought for those who were unlucky to not have that social capital while in school. They are the ones who have that love and aspiration for the English language which we have already transcended.
       For such aspirational learners, stringing together a few sentences in English is a daunting task, even when they have managed to successfully cross their higher-secondary education. It is this vast population of young India which the English market targets. The Indian market is undoubtedly a success story. Otherwise, despite the population boon or bane, India would not have managed to provide a better life to its citizens than some of its immediate neighbours. Prospective employers who seek English graduates seek personnel who can draft letters in an acceptable manner, go through large volumes of textual material, process it mentally and prepare concise reports based on such critical mental processing. Language skills and critical thinking are the two USPs of English graduates for prospective employers.
      Such is the demand. What does most of the supply chain look like? The lack of social capital during schooldays robs the student of language skills. On entering college and opting for English, students try once again to acquire that one skill which will catapult them into the league of the extraordinarily powerful. However, they realise that the course does not address their lack of capital at all. Instead it assumes that they already had it or would acquire it tangentially by reading not English language primers but rather Shakespeare, Paradise Lost and sometimes even Homer in English translation. If the student feels cheated and hard done by the syllabus, I am sure my gentle readers would empathise with them.
      Critical thinking is the other factor which employers feel that humanities students would be trained in. English students who may have had a chance of acquiring that skill through other roads, find that their road is blocked—blocked using language. Whereas they had expected a primrose path lined with English language primers, they find the way is steep and thorny and is pot-holed with texts in an obscure language. My gentle readers will again excuse them for abandoning the difficult path and choosing other means of survival.
      In a system where admission in colleges is often based solely on marks received in school-leaving examinations and sometimes the cut-off is 99%, dear readers, I am sure we will not grudge them for thinking that marks maketh the mark in life. Where there is a will, there is a way. If classes and text books prove incomprehensible, note books often provide a path to interpret question papers. If even the profitable business of note books fails to provide relief, there is the world of private tuition, but that world, dear readers, is a subject for exploration for another day if I have managed to whet your appetite.
      What then is the solution? How is the market to remedy the supply chain? The answer is not only blowing in the wind, it is there in the colleges as well. It is called Communicative English. It is just what most of the students and the employers want. Why then is it not more widely taught? Is English literature to be dispensed with then? These are questions that may be troubling you. Let me assuage your concerns. Literary pursuits are indeed a valid and well-established discipline of higher education, just as performance studies or film studies. Yet, these subjects are rarely taught in India and there are only a few places which offer these specialised courses. Let literary studies be also pushed into that domain, offered by only those colleges and universities which manage to attract those with the privilege of social capital which is necessary for pursuing such academic interests. Let other institutions identify what their students possess and want, and if it seeks to satiate the aspirational desires in the English language of such students, replace English with Communicative English. They may be turning their backs on two hundred years of Shakespeare studies in India. In doing so, they would also be turning their backs on almost two hundred years of Indian note books on Shakespeare. There will be no job-loss of the teachers either as teachers of English are well-equipped to also teach Communicative English.
      The Indian English market will perhaps become more efficient through this rationalisation of the supply chain. Even if one is not bothered about education as a commodity and ignores the close relation between education and capital, dear reader, perhaps you will agree that society owes it to the students to free them from the bond of incomprehensible texts.

An earlier example of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’s ‘palat’

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans. Rosamund Bartlett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), Chp. 15, p. 487.

Etymology of Inspector Morse

In season 1 episode 3 ('Service Of All The Dead') of Inspector Morse, the principal of the school in which Lionel Lawson studied, remarks that Morse is a very Oxford name, and the etymology is the same as the French word 'Maurice' which means 'swarthy' or dark. While the etymology of Maurice seems to be correct according to Wiktionary -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Maurice, the etymology of 'morse' seems to be different according to Wiktionary -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/morse.

While Maurice is from late Latin Mauricius, derived from Maurus (“Moor; dark, swarthy”), popularised by a 3rd-century Roman soldier martyr, Morse seems to be from middle French 'mors', from Latin morsus (“bite; clasp”), from mordere (“to bite”), such as morse (plural morses), a clasp or fastening used to fasten a cope in the front, usually decorative; or such as Russian морж (morž, “walrus”), Sami morša, Finnish mursu (all attested later), such as morse (plural morses), (now rare) a walrus.

Brief look at some features of online education in India

Brief look at some features of online education in India

Abstract

     The essay seeks to look into the world of online education in India — at the school level, at the university level, at the level of entrance tests and professional certification courses. The approach of the private sector and the public sector in India is extremely different when it comes to online education. Whereas, for the private sector, the focus is more at the school level and primarily at the level of entrance tests or at the level of university degree courses through distance mode or professional certification courses, the focus of the public sector is more at the university level with non-credit courses.
     Online education itself is a parallel education system. However, offline education, especially at the school level also has a problematic twin, that of private tuitions. The whole system of private tuitions is based on the idea that the actual schooling system is inadequate and unable to deliver a high teacher to student ratio of attention and hence the quality of education imparted is unsatisfactory. Personalised learning is the foundational logic behind private tuitions. Online education at the school level also tries to borrow this logic and promises to deliver high quality education through the internet specially to those in remote areas and in the safety of their homes.
     The public sector though has a very different aim, online distance degree courses being an exception. The aim of most government aided platforms is to provide additional resources to aspiring students. There are no certificates nor are they in preparation for any exam, either at the class level or at an entrance level. The focus is not to replace standard contact forms of higher education in universities or even to replace correspondence or distance courses. The focus is as an additional study material, much like books, websites, Wikipedia or YouTube videos.
     The essay plans to discuss these issues in greater detail.

Main paper

     The essay seeks to look into the world of online education in India — at the school level, at the university level and at the level of entrance tests and professional certification courses. While internet resources to be used as additional tools have been a part of education ever since the advent of the internet in India, courses or tests which can be taken online, or online coaching is a relatively recent phenomenon. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is a term used to describe some of these courses.
     The approach of the private sector and the public sector in India is extremely different when it comes to online education. Whereas, for the private sector, the focus is more at the school level and primarily at the level of entrance tests or at the level of university degree courses through distance mode or professional certification courses, the focus of the public sector is more at the university level with non-credit courses.
     Online education itself is a parallel education system. However, offline education, especially at the school level also has a problematic twin, that of private tuitions. The whole system of private tuitions is based on the idea that the actual schooling system is inadequate and unable to deliver a high teacher to student ratio of attention and hence the quality of education imparted is unsatisfactory. Personalised learning is the foundational logic behind private tuitions. Online education at the school level also tries to borrow this logic and promises to deliver high quality education through the internet specially to those in remote areas and in the safety of their homes. (See Rohan Swamy, ‘Internet Classrooms: How India Is Studying Online,’ NDTV Gadgets360, 2nd July 2014, http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/features/internet-classrooms-how-india-is-studying-online-551475, accessed 24th May 2016)
     The public sector though has a very different aim. As a look at the ‘E-Contents’ section of the website of the Ministry of Human Resource Development will reveal, there are several platforms for getting additional information at the undergraduate level though a lot of the resources mentioned in the list are no longer extant. There is already an existing one called NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enabled Learning). Another platform more well-titled acronymically called SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) is coming up. Both of these are primarily video-based. There is another called Virtual Learning Environment which is primarily text-based. The aim of all these platforms is to provide additional resources to aspiring students. There are no certificates nor are they in preparation for any exam, either at the class level or at an entrance level. The focus is not to replace standard contact forms of higher education in universities or even to replace correspondence or distance courses. The focus is as an additional study material, much like books, websites, Wikipedia or YouTube videos.
     Private sector enterprises at the school level and entrance test level include ventures such as Meritnation (which also had a television commercial at one point of time), Gradestack, Toppr and Vedantu . Then there are ventures which focus solely on entrance level tests for both higher education as well as for jobs such as banking, schools, etc. Examples of such ventures are Testbook and Entranceindia. As the news report on NDTV’s Gadgets360 by Rohan Swamy which I cited earlier states, even Akash Institute, a coaching centre chain, has started offering online courses. The aim of all these enterprises is to act as a kind of parallel system rather than an addition. Since these enterprises strive to act as a parallel system and are for-profit ventures, therefore their courses are also more comprehensive in the sense that they try to cover more of the syllabus of the school curriculum that is there in standard contact forms of school education. Public sector MOOCs being not-for-profit initiatives are far less comprehensive in structure. They have only a few discrete videos in a few courses for a specified subject. Thus, by its very structure, such initiatives do not attempt to portray themselves as replacements. Rather as the acronym SWAYAM and its expanded form, Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds, indicate, such platforms are for the eager student willing to seek out other resources and learn more. By their very structure, such platforms encourage curiosity and initiative, the hallmarks of education, where the focus should not be on learning by rote.
     There are two points of view regarding private tuitions and coaching centres. The more widespread one is that they thrive on an unhealthy nexus of societal and parental pressure and a malafide career trajectory path of some school teachers who may be deliberately teaching badly in schools and then teaching often the same set of students in a slightly better manner in private classes. This is of course not true of every teacher but it is perhaps true of some teachers. There are of course teachers giving private tuitions or in coaching centres where that is their only scope to teach and that should be recognised as a respected career path. However, the foundational logic of private coaching is that schools are not doing their jobs well. It is like an industry which thrives on the premise that another industry will not perform well, like a tangible product which is sold in the faith that it will soon malfunction and will have to be turned in for repairs and thus another round of profit can be obtained from the same product.
     The second point of view is that there is a social comment that needs to be made here by way of clarification. It should be recognised that human beings and society are flawed. That is the reason why the security sector exists. Crime and mal-intent are natural human tendencies. They should not be seen as defects in society. Rather they should be seen as a part of society. Similarly, it may be said that the inadequacies of the schooling system should not be seen as a defect but rather as a part of the system. That is perhaps a valid comment and it should perhaps end any further vilification of the rationale behind the existence of the parallel education system that is offered by private tuitions and coaching centres.
     This point of view regarding private tuitions is also borne out by some advertisements. Just before the West Bengal legislative assembly elections 2016, the ruling party brought out a series of videos intended for social media with hashtag annotations. One of these advertisements showed a female school student who had received a bicycle as part of a social welfare scheme. The student says that previously she had to waste a lot of time commuting between her home, her school and her several tuition centres. The bicycle has reduced that wastage of time. The point to be noted regarding the advertisement is that a ruling party in a promotional video acknowledges the several tuitions that a school student undertakes. The failure of the government school education system to provide satisfactory education is acknowledged. It is as if the unsatisfactory nature of school education is not to be seen as a problem but rather as a social trait.
     It may truly be that some school teachers may not be attentive enough to the large student base in schools or that some teachers may not be intellectually rigorous and exciting enough for the curious student that may lead to students seeking private tuitions in their quest for getting a good education for themselves. Whatever be one’s one point of view regarding this parallel system of education which finds takers from every economic section of society, the fact remains that it exists as an almost parallel system.
     Let us return to the content of some of these courses. For example, if we take the class 12 mathematics course under the CISCE board at Meritnation, the list of available courses does not show statistics (http://www.meritnation.com/icse/class12-science/studymaterial/math/math-part-i/2_12_1_648, accessed 24^th May 2016) though it is there in the syllabus (http://www.cisce.org/pdf/ISC-Class-XII-Syllabus-2017/17.%20Mathematics.pdf, page 124). Thus, even in its attempt to cater to better examination grades, the entire syllabus is not covered. In their attempt to simulate the offline world of private tuitions and coaching, such private online initiatives have not been thorough.
     The focus on better grades is also replicated in the structure of such platforms. Meritnation has a system of points and badges and students are ranked according to how many points they earn. On the one hand it may seem like a game and a form of incentive to students. On the other hand and in a more disturbing vein, what it does is reinforce the spirit of competition rather than learning. The unhealthy pressure which forced guardians to enrol their wards in private tuitions, coaching centres and online courses is not released in such platforms. An additional competition is heaped upon the student in these parallel systems which tout themselves as support systems. The support system adds to the pressure and competition for the student rather than relieving students of it.
     However, private initiatives have some advantage over public initiatives. Public initiatives are funded usually by a one-time grant. Personnel are hired for the duration of the project. Once the project’s duration is up and the grant is over, such initiatives are no longer maintained or updated. The defunct resources in the list of ‘E-contents’ on the MHRD website are an indication of that. Private initiatives on the other hand are meant to rake in profits. Hence, the websites are periodically updated if the accrued profits justify it. Since private initiatives closely follow the syllabus, therefore they also try to keep updating themselves with the change in syllabi. The exam preparation sites for instance need to change their format with the change of format of the entrance examination.
     Both private and public initiatives also offer distance degree courses online. There is a website called U18 which offers distance courses which are approved by a public state university, the University of Mysore and a private university, Don Bosco University in Guwahati. The difference in a platform like this is that it is a full-fledged degree course, taken through a distance or correspondence model but the platform is online. Thus lectures are through internet videos. Private universities like Amity University also offer degree courses online. The fee structure for online distance learning courses indicates that it is double the cost of offline distance learning courses. The costs for additional facilities are worth noticing. These are the costs for add-ons for the online mode of the B.A. (English) course

Face to Face Classes (Personal Contact Program), INR 5000/ Semester, 5 hours of sessions per subject
One on One Live Query Handling Sessions, INR 2000 / Subject/ Session, 45 minutes per subject
Reference Books, at Actual Cost, List available on request

     After the success of the shopping site Flipkart, several other websites came up in India which bore the suffix -kart. Lenskart and Medkart are two such examples. There is also a website called Edukart, where the user interface is similar to that of shopping in Flipkart. One can narrow down by providers, courses and other features. Edukart lists several private and public universities which offer degree courses through online distance mode.
     Several other universities, such as Sikkim Manipal University, Pondicherry University, Karnataka State Open University, Assam Down Town University, Tamil Nadu Open University, Annamalai University and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University offer degree courses online as part of distance education. Standalone private institutes such as National Institute of Business Management also offer online degree courses. If online distance education seems like an easy way to get accreditation and degrees, one also needs to be aware that the University Grants Commission does not recognise online distance education degrees yet (Jeevan Prakash Sharma, ‘Beware! That online degree may not be valid in India,’ Hindustan Times (New Delhi edition) 14^th April, 2015, http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/beware-that-online-degree-may-not-be-valid-in-india/story-IzoQfPHgv7Ckj4vRSUofeI.html, accessed 24^th May 2016). Distance education degrees themselves are always caught in a mire of unacceptability with several employers refusing to accept them. Online distance education degrees seem one step further away from universal acceptability.
     Professional certification courses such as courses in Big Data offered by platforms like Simplilearn (which recently came out with television commercials featuring Irrfan Khan) offer their own certificates. These courses offer information which can also be gleaned from the internet for free but these courses offer it in a more structured manner and are thus useful for those willing to pay.
     In short, in online education in India, be it school-level examination focussed websites or entrance examination websites or university-level distance degree courses or non-credit discrete videos, there is either a lack of comprehensiveness or a lack of universal acceptability. Whereas school-level examination focussed websites lack comprehensiveness, university-level distance degree courses face similar issues as distance or correspondence courses go. Distance or degree courses may be great for acquiring knowledge and certification but more often than not it is seen as an easier way of getting a paper degree. Hence, their lack of universal acceptability. Though open universities are sometimes government sponsored, yet a lot of government agencies refuse to recognise distance and correspondence degrees. The lack of synchronisation leads to harassment for students who enter such degree programmes and complete them but fail to apply for several jobs as then their degrees are not recognised.
     Non-credit discrete videos on the other hand, such as on platforms like NPTEL or SWAYAM are not seen as replacement programmes. They are seen as additional resources. Thus they project themselves as incomprehensive. This self-projection of incomprehensiveness leads to such resources as being meant for self-study and knowledge enhancement rather than for career-focussed educational programmes.
     Thus the ones that portray themselves as serious and comprehensive are dubious and the ones which portray themselves as casual are more like hobbies rather than for vocational education. This, in short, is what can be deduced about the state of online learning in India.
     One point which connects school-level examination focussed websites, entrance examination websites and university-level distance degree courses are their high costs. The costs are so high that it can be deduced that they are not meant for the financially downtrodden who cannot be a part of the formal schooling system or regular contact methods of higher education. It is not as if such online education bridges the economic gap that offline methods fail to. Rather, such education is aimed at the financially well-to-do. So who are the main consumers of such education?
     Let us analyse each type of education at a time. The university-level distance degree courses delivered online are targeted at the well-to-do who may find it even easier to keep up with the minor formalities online rather than having to do them more physically. The school-level examination focussed websites which are competing with contact modes of private tuitions even though these websites may not be as comprehensive and be able to provide as much personalised attention and as high a teacher to student ratio that some private tutors may be able to, such websites do make money and can raise capital from the markets. As the news report on NDTV’s Gadgets360 by Rohan Swamy which I cited earlier twice suggests, they target perhaps those who are well-to-do but live in remote areas or perhaps those, who irrespective of their location, are looking for a kind of safety that lack of physical proximity provides. It is also to be borne in mind that travelling among home, school and tuition centres is a physically strenuous activity. As the student in the ruling party promotional video said, the travelling led to the student taking fewer tuitions. With travelling reduced, either through a bicycle acquired through a social welfare scheme, or completely obliterated through the system of delivery being online, it is easier on the physical and mental health of the student. That is perhaps another reason why such forms of online education thrive. Solely entrance examination focussed websites where the focus is not on learning but rather taking lots and lots of practice tests, the internet provides perhaps as good a platform as any offline mode. For final entrance tests which are in fact taken on a computer, the online websites perhaps provide an even better platform that offline physical coaching centres where some of the tests are perhaps taken offline rather than on a computer.
     These are some of the forms of online education in India, the ways in which they function and speculative comments about the reasons why they exist. Whether such forms of online education are the best form of education or not is a topic of contention. However, the reason for being for both private tuitions as well as distance and correspondence courses is that they make up for the failures of the standard school and higher education system. Both of them are remedial measures. Whereas no government initiative has ever encouraged private tuitions, distance and correspondence courses are actively encouraged by policy makers. Distance and correspondence courses too should be seen as a parallel education system just like private tuitions. Selective encouragement for one defies some logic. However, that is the way things are. The best remedial measure of course would be to strengthen and increase the scope of the standard models of delivery of education, that is, the regular school system and increasing the number of institutes of higher education and helping them with funds to improve their quality of education.
     Online education in India thus seems to address a kind of a gap or a failure in standard modes of education. They provide what theoretically is available in the best educational institutes of India, be it at the school level or at the level of higher education. The point, it may seem, is only to increase its reach and extend it beyond the privileged few who make it to those institutes. However, as any survey of the ‘best’ schools in India (which is usually interpreted as schools whose students score the highest marks in board examinations or in entrance examinations) will reveal, even students of such schools take private tuitions. The reason for that may be that the teacher to student ratio is low and thus individualised attention is not available for the students. What the fascination for private tuitions thus reveals is thus an across-the-range failure of the school system in India to provide education which is satisfactory to students. It is a greater issue than one of extending a successful model in best schools and extending it to others. Online education for school students in India rather addresses the need that school students have for good education with individual attention being paid to students, a high teacher to student ratio with a high quality teacher who not only knows the subject well but can also explain it to students well. Thus able teachers and lots of teachers seem to be the actual answer for the problem that affects India’s schooling system. With the decreasing percentages of budgetary allocation for education in India, the problem seems far from going away. The parallel system attempts to provide what the regular one fails to do.
     With higher education, similarly the answer to India’s problems perhaps lie in increasing the number of educational institutes and giving such institutes greater economic support. The quality of education which non-credit discrete ‘expert’ videos seek to spread is perhaps achieved from an environment which leads to creation of such ‘expert’ videos in the first place. Such an environment is perhaps brought about by having a pool of academically enthusiastic students and teachers and adequate economic support. To increase that pool of academically enthusiastic students (who also later go on to become inspiring teachers), their school education is perhaps what needs to be improved.
     Distance and correspondence courses do cater to a certain category of students seeking knowledge and certification but encouraging that rather than the contact modes of education seems to be addressing the problem from the other end. Online education in India will perhaps increase in volume given the skewed directions of policy makers.