Contrary to popular belief, beheading is not always a bad thing. Before you think I’ve lost my head, let me assure you that I’m not talking about beheading cattle, only humans. And if you’re a true liberal, instead of trying to outrage me into silence, you will calm yourself down, and allow me to make my case through reasoned argument.
I am not proposing some Islamic State-type barbarism. If you happen to be a Tamilian whose parents were also Tamil-speaking, you may be familiar with the concept of a ‘mundam’ . I heard the word for the first time as a 10-year-old when I asked my father to sign my report card. Just to be clear, he didn’t call me a ‘mundam’ . He was calling himself one for paying my school fees year after year, despite getting nothing in return except more pain, more debt, and more uncertainty about his post-retirement future. In my defence, I want history to record that I never promised to give him ‘Achhe Din’ in exchange for funding my education.
The headless chicken
For the benefit of provincials who only speak north Indian, ‘mundam’ is what you call someone who tells you, in May 2018, that demonetisation was a stroke of genius. Literally translated, the word means ‘headless body’. I was inspired to consider the headless body as a solution to India’s problems by the chicken that recently made the headlines for living without a head for nine days. I don’t know if you saw the pictures but the image is still stuck in my head, and laying an occasional egg.
If you missed the story because you were busy sharing question papers, here’s what happened. In late March, in Thailand’s Ratchaburi province, a chicken riding a bike without a helmet had an accident and got decapitated. A female vet who was passing by was distressed to see the headless chicken running around — and I don’t mean to trivialise the issue here — like a headless chicken. She took the bird to her clinic and treated it with antibiotics.
The chicken recovered fast and, last heard, was happier and more self-confident without its head. There is a video of it online, where someone asks the bird a pointed question. The headless bird responds using an alternative orifice, and proclaims, in a resounding chicken voice, “Na khaunga, na khane dunga!”
This is not fake news. Check the video if you don’t believe me. But I must caution you that a headless chicken walking the talk on camera is not as easy to digest as a fully furnished one on your plate. I watched the clip only because of my passionate commitment to solving my country’s problems.
Having spent the past fortnight pondering the pros and cons of mass beheading, I am convinced that the efficiency gains from it would create unprecedented economic value and win the UNESCO Genius Prize for our Prime Minister.
Think about it. Does India really need 130 crore heads? No one in their right mind would say yes. Yet we carry them on our collective national shoulders. And because we are a democracy, for every issue, there are 130 crore opinions on how to resolve it. As a result nothing ever gets done. A systematic nation-wide beheading — we can do it digitally and avoid physical bloodshed — of all those whose opinions don’t matter would make our democracy infinitely more cost-effective, both by saving decision-making time and by eliminating excess processing capacity.
An Indian Brain Template
Fortunately, India already has the basics in place to implement a national beheading policy. Scientists at the National Brain Research Centre have already created an Indian Brain Template (IBT). With the IBT, we no longer need every one of India’s 130 crore citizens to apply their brains to every problem. One brain, or its AI equivalent, will solve everything.
A scientist associated with the IBT project told me that the 150 brains which were scanned to create the national brain template belonged to members of ‘Super 150’, the high-performing team of a high-performing political party’s IT cell. The larger plan, according to the same source, is to reprogram the IBT into a powerful AI known as HBT (Hindutva Brain Template). Once everyone has linked their brains to Aadhaar, the government will, through a mass software update (which will be purely voluntary), replace all Indian brains with the indigenously developed HBT. This top secret project, if implemented with even 10% less incompetence than the GST was, could solve every one of India’s problems — from JNU and Babri Masjid to Kashmir and Kerala.
The good news is that the HBT project has already had a successful pilot run on social media, where its lab-made headless chickens rule the roost. As and when it is rolled out for the rest of the population, the official term they will go with, I am told, is “headfree”. Indians who still have their heads on their shoulders can expect to become headfree latest by 2019.
