Games Indians Play: Why we are the way we are?

"Why are we a nation that is individually so smart and collectively so naive? Why do we mistake talk for action? Why is our self-worth massaged only if we have the ‘authority’ to break rules? Why are we among the world’s most corrupt? Why do we jump red lights? Why do we dump our garbage at the neighbour’s doorstep? . . . Can it be our climate, population density, poverty, colonial past or even genetic encoding?"

It is 10:30pm and I've just finished the book, "Games Indians Play: Why we are the way we are?", by V Raghunathan, a book recommended by a friend of mine, and surprisingly my eyes replete with sleep have suddenly lost all of it and I'm eager to share this book with all of you (thanks to the last chapter, that has delivered the knockout punch to my drowsiness :-)). Any educated Indian would have encountered a subset of the above questions, if not for all of them. We all know the problems and all of us have our own opinions on how these can be solved. But the author makes it interesting by explaining situations we encounter in society by drawing analogies to Prisoner's Dilemma (PD), a game theory problem popularized by Robert Axelrod in his book "The evolution of co-operation".

He starts off by explaining 1-time PD and then moves on to iterative PD (which is more realistic in populations). The author refers to Axelrod's experiments that proved the Tit-for-Tat strategy as the best solution for the Prisoners Dilemma problem as it maximizes the gains of the individual as well as that of the population. Selfishness maximizes short term gains, but in the long run co-operation leads to maximum rewards is one of the key point the book brings out. I understand that the above terms may not make sense in the first go for many of you, but I would highly encourage you to read the book, as it is written in very simple english and is easy to comprehend. One more observation the book makes is that external regulation cannot solve the issues in hand. The solution should come from within each member of the population, either by observing others or by understanding PD and the best strategy to solve this dilemma.

The anecdotes in the book are hilarious and embarrassing at the same time. It demonstrates how hypocritical we are and how we use our intelligence to 'defect' rather than to 'co-operate'. Some anecdotes like the insurance for ticketless travel in Mumbai and the filling of customs forms in domestic flights that have international connections are particularly hilarious, though the former is very ingenious too. The author talks about our lack of self-regulation and how we ignore the "system" by changing the definition of its result rather than fixing the system. The book also touches upon free-riding, a phenomenon where some individuals try to get the rewards of an investment (effort or capital) without actually having invested in a community effort. From his experiments involving Indian and western students, the author has found out that the Indians score higher grade points for freeriding :-). The author highlights how, we as people mistake talk for action and boast about our glorious past when we actually live in a filthy present.

I don't know whether Krishna told the Gita or not, but definitely some wise person did write the Gita in its current form and most likely he/she is from India. If the Gita is perceived with some polarising filters, you can see that it gives a robust solution to PD with maximum gain for the individual and the society. How?

1. The Gita preaches Tit-for-Tat. Tit-for-Tat is defined as follows, "Never defect first, follow what the other party did in the previous iteration of PD". So you start of co-operating with the other party involved in the interaction till the other party defects. Now, if the other person defects, defect back in the next round. However, if the other party starts co-operating, then forgive, forget and start co-operating again. Co-operating is your dharma and defecting if the other person defects is also your Dharma. Isn't this what the Gita says?
2. The Gita says never expect results for your actions. In a PD scenario, the moment you start thinking about the possible actions of the interacting party you have fallen into the trap of selfishness and expectation. Co-operate no matter what, in a PD scenario and you are detached from the result. Good means always yield the best results when the amortized costs are taken, though the results may not be apparent and immediate.

We had this wisdom in us, in our wise men, in our scriptures, but there seems to be an eon where we as people have lost this wisdom. The author brings this to our notice by giving us another perspective to the essence of the Gita in his last chapter.

Overall, a good and light read that introduces you to concepts of game theory and puts light on the right mentality for a successful and happy population. The notes section below gives some of my insights after thinking and discussing some concepts with my friends. It also has some theory presented in the book and you can skip it.

Notes:

1. C-C and D-D are both Evolutionarily Stable Strategies. Indians mostly use D-D strategy in most PD situations. In some situations they are even know to use C-D. Since D-D is an ESS, the strategy still survives but gains are not maximized.
2. PD is possible if 2 conditions are satisfied, 1) Temptation points > Reward > Punishment > Sucker's payoff 2) (T+S)/2 > R
3. Systems can have 2 kinds of errors. 1) Type 1: An unworthy event passes through the system 2) Type 2: A worthy event fails passing through the system.

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