The r/K selection, far right wing rise in Meitei Community

Yumnam Devjit *

The r/k selection is a theory in ecology. It relates to the selection of traits in organisms that trade off between quantity and quality of offspring. Those organisms that emphasize on quantity of offsprings are considered to be under r selection and those organisms that emphasize on quality of offsprings are considered to be under k selection.

The r and K comes from the equation known as the standard ecological algebra given as:

where r is the maximum growth rate of the population(N), K is the carrying capacity and dN/dt denotes the rate of change of population with respect to time.

Some good examples of r selected organisms are small rodents, like rats, rabbits and small herbivores like gazzle. An r selected organism is characterised by high fecundity(fertility), shorter life span, early sexual maturity and the ability to disperse offspring widely. R selected organism predominate in unstable and unpredictable environments where specialization has little advantage in survival. Less crowded ecological systems also promote r type selection.

In case of small a herbivore like gazzle, it's food source which is grass is available in abundance, there is no competition amongst gazzle for food and shelter. So those gazzles which can reproduce faster will be able to take advantage of the abundant food source. So the focus for them is on quantity of offspring not quality. Besides this as they are predated upon by carnivores, they are not able to reach the carrying capacity of the food source. Hence not affected by the K factor at all and are solely driven by rate of reproduction, the r factor.

On the other hand, good examples of K selected organisms are predators like owls, lions, wolves or large herbivores like elephants or the blue whale. A K selected organism is characterized by production of fewer offspring, extensive parental care until they mature and longer life expectancy. Stable and predictable environments favour K selected organisms and unlike r selected organisms, they have population close to the maximum carrying capacity. In this case specialization of traits help K selected organisms maintain their competitiveness and hence K selected organism are highly specialized.

Let us examine the case of lions a highly k selected organism. They are on top of their food chain and require a large population of herbivores to sustain them, they have no natural predators and the biggest factor affecting them is the limitation of their food source. Hence they are limited by the carrying capacity of their territory. They cannot reproduce like rabbits, if they did so then they will not have enough to eat. Since they cannot have numerous offsprings it becomes necessary that the few they have, get the best chance of success, this is achieved by higher degree of parental care. These conditions automatically result in K selected organisms having higher family value, intelligence and complex social structure.

It is interesting to observe that the r and K characteristic also exist in our human society. We can observe this in the Israel and Palestine conflict. Palestine with its unstable and unpredictable living conditions has adopted a r selected society with a high fertility rate of 4.45 per woman and a shorter life expectancy of 73.02 years, strong r selected characteristics can be seen here. Where as Israel has a lower fertility rate of 3.04 and a higher life expectancy of 81.7 years and a more stable society giving them more K selected characteristics than Palestine. We also see more specialization and technical advancement in Israel as compared to Palestine.

Like in the case of lions and gazzles, societies which are based on K selection principles produce specialization. Japan with a fertility rate of 1.41 and life expectancy of of 83.1 years is a highly K selected society and excel in electronics, automobiles and other cutting edge technology. Where as Afghanistan with a high fertility rate of 5.14 and life expectancy of only 60.51 years is very much an r selected society. As r selection does not promote specialization , Afghanistan is technologically very backward and dominated by tribal culture and Islamic extremist views.

Recently there has been a rise in the popularity of far right wing groups in Europe. What is a far right wing group? Far right groups are those who are have conservative, nationalist views and the extremes are openly racist, Fascist, Nazis, imperialist and religious fundamentalist like the Taliban and ISIS. The recent refugee crisis in Europe is a major reason for their rise.

Ironically in other totally unrelated places like Japan we also see a rise of the right wing and the surge of nationalist ideals. Even our country India has changed from a left leaning congress govt to a right winged BJP govt. at the center. The rise in popularity of Donald Trump in the Us presidential election campaign now is largely due to his extreme right wing ideology. And in islamic states we also see the existence of far right winged fundamentalist like iran, saudi arabia and extremes like the ISIS. It is as if the whole world is going to the right! But why?

To answer this I must first explain what the left and right politics is. In simple words the most extreme left can be described as complete indulgence and the extreme right as complete obedience, both of them are bad. Somewhere in the middle we have the moderates. The regime of Hitler and the Taliban’s are examples of extreme right where as the reign of the roman emperore Caligula and the more extreme forms of hippie movement of the 1960 with indulgence in drugs and swinging partners are examples of extreme left. None of them are ideal.

The right wing ideologies favour family values and preservation of their societies. Where as left wing ideologies favour individual freedom and equality of people. The left support immigration on the basis of their ideas of equality and freedom. The right oppose immigration because it harms their nationalist ideas and family values. Between the left and the right, the later is more inclined to fight for their territory and family.

This protective inclination is what we observe as a characteristic of K selected organism like lions. Lions fight for territory and safety of their family against other lions and hyena. An r selected gazzle seldom fight for territory or protection of their family, if they do fight it is rarely as intense as a lion.

with the world population reaching 7.4 billion by now, human being is reaching the carrying capacity of the earth. Migration of people from already overpopulated and fully exploited areas to less populated ones are evident. We are going for some serious K selected conditions, this has lead the whole world to adopt traits that are characteristic of K selected organism. Taking a right wing stance is more suited for K selection condition. Well there some exceptions, but it is either because of instability in the region favouring r selection approach or the influence of Islam, a religion based on r selection.

Just observing people's reactions, comments and status updates on facebook during various crisis is Manipur, it is easy to conclude far right wing ideologies are gaining popularity amongst the meitei. Some even idolizing Hitler. ILP is also an anti immigration movement similar to the ones we see in Germany, Poland, Greece, England and the rest of Europe right now. One can draw an uncanny similarity between the hooligan riots by the far right in europe and the ILP protester here in Manipur. Rising right wing sentiments are conditions ripe for the rise of psychopathic leaders like Hitler. As this is the beginning of right wing fundamentalism in manipur and else where, strong leaders are yet to emerge.

Sadly though there isnt any political party which is able to channel these developments in a meaningful and constructive way. This leaves a lot of room for extremist to come up. Coupled with large scale corruption in govt. Little economic opportunity we have some pretty bad ingredients being tossed in together. Not to mention the various armed revolutionary group of Manipur which would very much promote a fascist Manipur.

The recent right wing inclination of the Meitei community is a natural biological reaction to the changing ecological conditions which favours K selection. It is in sync with the right wing movement visible in other highly developed parts of the world like Japan , Europe and America. As time progresses and things remain in a deadlock the forces pushing us towards right wing inclination will increase, pushing the society towards even more extreme right. Fasisit and Nazists elements will try to take advantage of the rising right wing inclination of the general public. We have to adopt right wing policies but shy away from going to the extreme.

The two solutions I see before us are the ILP movement and the schedule tribe demand movement. Both will have similar effect but one is clearly going extreme and taking a fascist approach which is dangerous for Manipur. Looking at the way things have been handled I am in favour of the schedule tribe demand movement as compared to the ILP approach. It is more achievable. I do support the idea of ILP but its inflexibility and communally exclusive decision making are clear indications of it fascist inclination. They may not know it but they are on that path. Let us appreciate the need of the hour but not become the next Hitler's Germany.

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* Yumnam Devjit wrote this article for e-pao.net
The writer can be contacted at yumnamdevjit(AT)gmail(DOT)com
This article was posted on May 11, 2016.

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