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Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 11:15:23 -0400
From: Charudatt <charu@iced.com>
Subject: RE: debate on the 2-year army draft in India.

I propose we shut this debate down until the motivation or validity of
the premise [see below] is properly established

As I recall, this point evolved as follows:

Someone proposed [I'm paraphrasing]: 
"Indians are unable to work well in groups. This is because the Indian
is too arrogant and individualistic to do so. The Singaporeans and
Chinese can, why can't we?".

Someone proposed a solution to this supposed "problem" of Indian
arrogance to be 2 years of compulsory military service.

My comments:
This statement that Indians are too arrogant to work in groups was made
entirely unsupported with any anecdotal or statistical data and also
went unchallenged except later by me and Kush. By this time it was taken
by some as a given and they were debating solutions to this "problem"
that has not been established to exist in the first place.

IMO, debating conclusions without establishing their premise is wasteful
of our resources- especially when the premise can be shown to be false.
 
I don't oppose debating a military draft, but before we do so its
motivation must be clearly stated: what problem are we trying to solve,
or what values are we trying to foster.

-Charu