PSI Main 2012 - Paper 1

Question No. 186 to 190 :
           At a given moment the eye of faith must have observed the nibbling of the demoniacál serpent. For suddenly and simultaneously all those on the lowest steps of the Ghats threw themselves into the water and began to wash and gargle, to their prayers and blow their noses, to spit and drink. A numerous band of police abbreviated their devotions and their bath in the interest of the crowd behind. The front of the waiting queue was a thousand yards wide; but a million people were waiting. The bathing must have gone on uninterruptedly the whole day. Time passed, the serpent went on nibbling imperceptibly at the sun. The Hindus counted their beads and prayed, made ritual gestures, ducked under the sacred slime, drank, and were moved on by the police to another installment of the patient million. We rowed up and down, taking snapshots. West is west.
             In spite of the serpent, the sun was uncommonly hot on our backs. After a couple of hours on the river, we decided that we had had enough, and landed. The narrow lanes that lead from the Ghats to the open streets in the centre of the town were lined with beggars, more or less holy. They sat on the ground with their begging bowls before them; the charitable, as they passed, would throw a few grains of rice into the each of the bowls. By the end of day the beggars might, with luck, have accumulated a square meal. We pushed our way slowly through the thronged alleys. From an archway in front of us emerged a sacred bull. The nearest beggar was dozing at his post-those who eat little sleep much. The bull lowered its muzzle to the sleeping man's bowl, made a scouring movement with its black tongue, and a morning' charity had gone. The beggar still dozed. Thoughtfully chewing, the Hindu totem turned back the way it had come and disappeared.
                  Being stupid and having no imagination, animals often behave far more sensibly than men. Efficiently and by instinct they do the right, appropriate thing at right moment-eat when they are hungry look for water when they feel thirst, make love in the mating season, rest or play when they have leisure. Men are intelligent and imaginative; they look backwards and ahead; they invent ingenious explanation for observed phenomena; they devise elaborate and roundabout means for the achievement of remote ends. Their intelligence, which has made them the masters of the world, often causes them to act like imbeciles. No animal, for example, is clever and imaginative enough to suppose that an eclipse is the work of a serpent devouring the sun. That is the sort of explanation that could occur only in human mind. And only human being would dream of making ritual gestures in the hope of influencing, for his own benefit, the outside world. While the animal, obedient to its instinct, goes quietly about its business, man, being endowed with reason and imagination, wastes half his time and energy in doing things that are completely idiotic. In time, it is true, experience teaches him that magic formulas and ceremonial gestures do not give him what he wants. But until experience has taught him - and he takes a surprisingly long time to learn - man's behavior is in many respects far sillier than of the animal.

Question No. 191 to 195 :
            Pollution is not a technical problem. The fault lies not in science and technology as such but in the sense of values of the contemporary world which ignores the rights of others and is oblivious of the longer perspectives.
             There are grave misgivings that the discussion on the ecology may be designed to distract attention from the problems of war and poverty. We have to prove to the disinherited majority of the world that ecology and conservation will not work against their interest but will bring an improvement in their lives. To withhold technology from them would deprive them of vast resources of energy and knowledge. This is no longer feasible nor will it be acceptable.
             The environmental problems of developing countries are not the side effects of excessive industrialization but reflect the inadequacy of development. The rich countries may look upon development as the cause of environmental destruction but to us it is one of the primary needs of improving the environment for living, or providing foods, water, sanitation and shelter, of making the deserts green and the mountains habitable. The research and perseverance of dedicated people have given us an insight which is likely to play an important part in the shaping of our future plans. We see that however mush man hankers after material goods; they can never give him full satisfaction. Thus the higher standard of living must be achieved without
alienating people from their heritage and without despoiling nature of its beauty, freshness and purity so essential for our lives. The most urgent and basic question is that of peace. Nothing is so pointless as modern warfare. Nothing destroys so instantly, completely as the diabolic weapons which not only kill but main and deform the living and yet to be born, which poison the land, leaving long trails of ugliness, barrenness and hopeless desolation. What ecological project can survive a war ?
               It is clear that the environmental crisis which is confronting the world will profoundly alter the future destiny of our planet. No one among us, whatever our status, strength of circumstance can remain unaffected. The process of change challenges present international policies. Will the growing awareness of "one earth" and "one environment" guide us to the concept of "one humanity" ? Will there be more equitable sharing of environmental costs and greater international interest in the accelerated progress of the less developed world? Or will it remain confined to a narrow concern based on exclusive self sufficiency?

Question No. 196 to 200 :
           Of all forms of symbolism, language is the most highly developed, most subtle, and most complicated. It has been pointed out that human beings, by agreement, can make anything stand for anything. Now human beings have agreed, in the course of centuries of mutual dependency, to let the various noises that they can produce with their lungs, throats, tongues, teeth, and lips systematically stand for specified happenings in their nervous systems. We call that system of agreements language. For example, we who speak English have been so trained that, when our nervous systems register the presence of a certain kind of animal, we may make the following noise :                  'There's a cat'. Anyone hearing us expects to find that, by looking in the same direction, he will experience a similar event in his nervous system - one that will lead him to make an almost identical noise. Again, we have been so trained that when we are conscious of wanting food we make the noise 'I'm hungry'.
There is, as has been said, no necessary connection between the symbol and that which is symbolized. Just as men can wear yachting costumes without ever having been near a yacht, so they can make the noise, 'I'm hungry, without being hungry. Furthermore, just as social rank can be symbolized by feathers in the hair, by tattooing on the breast, by gold ornaments on the watch chain, or by a thousand different devices according to the culture we live in, so the fact of being hungry can be symbolized by a thousand different noises according to the culture we live in : J'ai faim', or 'Es hungert mich', or 'Ho appetito', or 'Hara ga hetta', and so on.
                However obvious these facts may appear at first glance, they are actually not so obvious as they seem except when we take special pains to think about the subject. Symbols and things symbolized are independent of each other: nevertheless, we all have a way of feeling as if, and sometimes acting as if, there were necessary connections. For example, there is the vague sense we all have that foreign languages are inherently absurd : foreigners have such funny names for things, and why can't they call things by their right names? This feeling exhibits itself most strongly in those English and American tourists who seem to believe that they can make the natives of any country understand English if they shout loud enough. Like the little boy who is reported to have said : 'Pigs are called pigs because they are such dirty animals', they feel that the symbol is inherently connected in some way with the things symbolized. Then there are the people who feel that since snakes are 'nasty, slimy creatures' (incidentally, snakes are not slimy), the word 'snake' is a nasty, slimy word.