What does globalisation have to do with caste relations in India? How does secularism differ from country to country? Can game theory be used to negotiate stable political coalitions? Read on.

Earlier this month I was one of ten MPs from various political parties who attended a specially designed programme at Yale University. Organised jointly by Yale and FICCI for the India US Forum of Parliamentarians (IUFP), it turned out to be rather different from the junket that some had supposed it to be.

The courses were conducted by some of the best minds in academia from among Yale’s world-renowned faculty in economics, law, political science and even management. But the sessions were not at all classroom-like; instead they were like highly combative seminars: detailed presentations were followed by animated discussions. The best theoretical hypotheses and data were pitted against grassroots experience and practical acumen.

Can loads of data, provocative questions and fresh perspectives make a dent on an Indian politician’s mind? The answer turns out to be yes, but so can practical gut feeling have an impact in better understanding such data and, possibly, new trends. Take globalisation and caste, for example. Fifty years of carefully collected data suggest that there has been no change in caste relations, as measured by inter-caste marriages, either in rural or urban India. No surprise for rural India, but got Mumbai? Isn’t that the cosmopolitan face of India? Nevertheless, the rate of inter-caste marriage there, as in the rest of India, has remained unchanged at less than 5 per cent.

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