The modern thinking Indian

In the last election, the NDA was the dominant party, and with the 'India Shining' campaign, it seemed that nothing could stop the BJP led front from coming to power. However, the people of India had different ideas, and did not give the BJP the required number of seats so that the BJP could come to power as a part of the NDA. It was the Congress that had a larger number of seats; it was at that time that the Congress, probably for the first time in its long existence, developed the ability to form coalitions. The Congress looked far and wide, and allied itself with a number of parties that would have earlier opposed the Congress (with some of the alliances being before the election, and some after the election). So the Congress allied itself with people as varied as Sharad Pawar's NCP, the Bihar parties of Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan, DMK, PMK, and a few other smaller parties. More importantly, the Left parties, who are sworn allies of the Congress in Kerala and West Bengal were also induced to be supporting parties due to prevent the coming to power of the BJP.
Most of these alliances existed almost till the end of the Congress term, with remaining in power being a great inducement for all involved. However, these stable alliances now seem totally in disarray as we are now in the midst of polls. Take a sample of what one of the most trusted allies, Laloo Prasad Yadav says (link to article):

The Railway Minister, who all along has maintained that Manmohan Singh was the UPA candidate, on Tuesday sang a different tune against the backdrop of his party RJD and the Congress going their own ways to fight the elections in Bihar. "UPA is a confederation of secular parties and does not belong only to the Congress. We will sit together (after the elections are over) to chalk out a common minimum programme and in consultation with all our partners select a leader who will be the prime minister," Prasad told reporters in Patna.
Asked about the strained relations between the RJD-LJP alliance in Bihar and the Congress, Prasad said, "These things are natural during elections. Do you expect us to worship each other. There is a famine of candidates in the Congress, which is busy rebuilding and reviving its organisation. But despite the presence of Congress candidates in the fray in large numbers against nominees of secular parties the NDA will be wiped out," he said.

In addition, everybody knows how the Left is already in open opposition to the Congress, and has been so ever since Manmohan Singh made his effort to push for the India-US nuclear deal. The UPA has also other constituents such as the PMK, and has managed to make enmity with both Mayawati and Mulayam Singh.
Part of the reason for this strain in relations, especially in the Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, is the need for Congress to remake itself in these states. It was in the 1989 election that the Congress downfall in these key states became apparent, to the extent that the Congress is almost non-existent in these states. It is the dream of Congress strategy makers to make the Congress more powerful in these states again, and the only way they can do that is to regain the support of many caste groups that were with them, and are now with these parties. It is also for the same reason that the caste groups are fine with allying with the Congress as long as the Congress plays second fiddle, and gains ground in other states.
The irony of the disintegration of the UPA as a pre-election alliance is that it was the BJP that has been suffering the jolts earlier. They were deserted by Chandrababu Naidu earlier, and on the eve of this election, it was the close partner, Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janta Dal who deserted the BJP (and it was the Congress which was being gleeful when all this happened).
However, does something really change ? If the elections throw up a hung parliament, one can be sure that these parties will come together, as the need to throw up a 'secular' alternative to the BJP will still remain as a glue to make sure that they retain their power.

Labels: Alliance, BJP, Caste, Conflict, Congress, Election, India, Laloo, Left, Parliament, Political, Politics, Ram Vilas Paswan

For the past several days, ever since the UPA Government announced that a trust vote will happen on the 22nd, there has been an incredible amount of horse-trading ongoing to secure support. Everybody knows how Amar Singh ran circles around Shri Karat of the going-into-decline Left and left it in a position whereby it now has no influence and no leverage over the policies of the Government. So, one can assume that Amar Singh did what he could to win over rival MP's, while Mulayam Singh led the effort to ensure that the MP's of the Samajwadi Party did not bolt (seeing the final result where the Congress won it fairly comfortably, one can assume that all the efforts were successful). Who is left with egg on their faces ? Both the BJP that staked a lot of its political power on this no-confidence motion, and the Left, which went from a position where it was guiding the hands of power (a remote-control if you may) to a position where it does not count for anything more for the moment.
Given the low profile that Uttar Pradesh has played in the past few years in terms of a Government at the center, it was surprising that politicians from the state played such a key role. Mayawati was like the magnet, drawing in the likes of defectors from the SP, from the Congress, pulling in Ajit Singh (will the Government now rename the Chaudhury Charan Singh Airport back to another name now that Ajit Singh did not support the Congress ?).
There were a number of people who played up to her ego, calling her a future Prime Minister. Maybe it was a combination of this ego-massaging, a feeling that she is the future, as well as a call to the Dalit community all over the country to support her that she made comments such as these:

Undeterred by the outcome of the trust vote, BSP chief Mayawati on Tuesday alleged the UPA and as well as the NDA of "conspiring" to prevent her from becoming the country's prime minister. Talking to media soon after the UPA won the trust vote in the Lok Sabha, the Uttar Pradesh CM said, "UPA's victory is not due to their policies but a well thought-out political conspiracy by both the NDA and the UPA to check the BSP and prevent the daughter of a Dalit from becoming the prime minister of the country."
Mayawati claimed that in the last week, her party has emerged as the fulcrum of national politics. "The Left also sees merit and finds that when BSP has given such good governance in the largest state of the country, it can be tried at the national level," she added. "What BSP hoped to achieve in the next 6-7 years, it has managed to do in 6-7 days," she said, referring to the UNPA and her new positioning in national politics.

These are the kind of politics that are abhorrent, that drive wedges in an already divided country. So far the BSP, for all the money-making practices of its leader, has been accepted as a platform that shows oppressed Dalits that they can also lead and have power; however, when somebody starts indulging in such negative politics, it has a major effect on their credibility.

Labels: BJP, Caste, Congress, Left, Mayawati, Morality, Politics

Probably a major under-statement, given the events so far over the 2 separate agitations that has taken place in 2007, and 2008. Crores worth of public property has been destroyed, the railways has lost massively both because of destruction of railways lines and equipment and due to large scale cancellation of trains. Tourism in the region will take a knock (especially with the bombs of just a few weeks back in Jaipur) with advisories already having been issued and coverage of these protests in the international media; and normal people have been put to massive hardships. But, this is not the end. As long as the politics of reservation will keep on getting patronized by various Governments, they will face such kind of issues. For example, who would have believed that the North East could see such a problem:

SHILLONG: As protests of the Gujjars, who are demanding ST status, spread to fresh areas, the community living in the North-East will also take up the cudgels and launch an agitation in support of the cause.
Representatives of the community from the entire region met in Guwahati on Friday to chalk out a programme to join the protests.

There is no good solution. If the Government bows down to these demands and grants them the ST status (it makes no logic to give the Gujjar community an ST tag, the only reason is that the Jats have been granted OBC, and hence the Gujjar community sees the ST as a way to get more benefit of reservations, and hence these pressure tactics of violence). If they do get such benefits, then other communities will also want to avail of similar benefits, and this is a very slippery slope to go down. Already, both the Central and Rajasthan government have come under fire for letting the agitations causing so much disturbance.
The courts also know this, and from time to time, they have asked the Governments about whether there is plan to take empowered communities out of the net so that only the truly backward get such benefits, but any political party will find it suicidal to remove reservations for any benefit. And yet, parties continue on this policy, well knowing that any benefit is only transient, and other parties will also try to garner the same benefit. As an example of Governments trying to provide reservations even when courts have ruled against this, here is an example of the Tamil Nadu Government providing reservations on the basis of religion:

The Tamil Nadu government on Friday issued orders to "ensure" that Muslims and Christians got 3.5% reservation each in government services to overcome some 'practical problems' faced by the two communities in availing the benefit.

The Andhra Pradesh Government attempts in this regard have been periodically rejected by courts, yet here is another State Government trying the same.

Labels: BJP, Caste, Congress, Empowerment, Law, Minority, Muslim, Parliament, Politics, Railways, Reservations, Responsibility, Security

Today, the 29th of May, 2008, was a day that a lot of people would have had a lot of worries about. Delhi and the whole NCR region has seen the effect of the Gujjar agitation when it last took place in 2007, and at that time, the lathi wielding and stone throwing members of the mob forced the major intersections of South and East Delhi to come to a standstill - traffic at major points such as the Noida Link road, Badarpur, Loni, etc was totally jammed, and demonstrators did pretty much what they liked. At that time, what was depicted in the media was that the police were essentially not taking any action and letting them burn buses and other public property.
Keeping this in mind, there was a lot of worry and concern about what the day would turn out like. The whole of Delhi and NCR region sees a lot of cross traffic with people moving on a daily basis from Delhi and other regions such as Faridabad / Gurgaon going to offices in Noida on a regular basis, and similar movement. For such people, the news of this Gujjar called bandh was a time for decision. Would you want to try this movement on this particular day and risk getting caught in violence, or stuck in a non-moving traffic jam for long periods of time. As a result, there were a large number of companies that actually declared a holiday today. Even where I worked, most people from places that were more than 10 Km away did not come, in many cases because their family persuaded them not to go.
The Government knows that this kind of demonstration will happen, and the long jams, violence and other such situations that afflict the regular commuters (as well as people who earn their living on a daily basis) are a reflection of the failure of Governance. Sample these reports from an article on Delhi shutting down:

Gujjars on Thursday had blocked road and rail traffic in the Capital and adjoining areas as part of their 'NCR rasta roko' agitation even as over 35,000 policemen fanned out across the National Capital Region to prevent any untoward incident. Earlier, all main highways leading to the Capital were blocked. There were also reports of stone pelting and effigies burning. At places the agitators broke windshields of cars and buses.
Protesters turned away vehicles from Noida and Gurgaon, home to scores of outsourcing and computer software firms. Many offices were also closed. Security personnel were deployed in strength in Gujjar strongholds like Mehrauli, Ghazipur, Patparganj, Badarpur, Khanpur, Ayanagar, Chilla village and Rampur, anticipating a strong showing by the community during the agitation.

But as reports by the media during the course of the day indicate, traffic was blocked for many hours and opened only around noon. During this time, people had to take side roads, or wait in long jams. And there is no point talking about the many hours lost, or the roadside vendors or people who are dependent on getting to their places of work for their daily earnings (who would travel by public transport, something that was directly attacked). This is something that the Government is directly responsible for, but one believes that the Government was just ensuring that the violence and disturbance does not cross a particular level. The other reaction by the Government was to cancel a number of trains running near Jaipur, Agra, and to the NCR region.

Labels: Caste, Community, Congress, Governance, Law, Police, Politics, Protest, Security, Transport

In a move that indicates that the Government has apparently not done its homework on getting its allies on board on the move to introduce the Women's Reservation Bill, the Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) (whose head Laloo Prasad Yadav and other leaders are part of the Government) has opposed the move by the Government and accused it of taking the action without consulting its allies. The Mandal parties want the women's quota to have sub-quotas for OBC's and Muslims, something that the other parties and many sections of the Congress support base will oppose:

The Rashtriya Janata Dal on Wednesday upped its opposition to the women's reservation Bill threatening to withdraw support to the UPA government if the legislation was not amended to provide sub-quotas for OBCs and Muslims within the generic gender quota in legislatures.
In a development which undercut the PM's effort to dispel the perception of a split in the UPA over the women's quota, the RJD accused the Congress leadership of rushing through the Bill without hammering out a consensus. RJD's aggressive posture was yet another instance of how OBC resentment over the "present form" of women's quota had strained ties between allies. Early on, RJD leadership fielded party MP Devendra Yadav to warn the Congress leadership not to mistake its protest to be just pyrotechnics. Yadav said his party would go to any extent to thwart the passage of the already-delayed legislation.

This reaction was somewhat expected, but there are unexpected movements also happening. First, the RJD is a part of the ruling coalition and is part of the Government, so the fact that it is complaining about the introduction of the legislation means that discussions about this long-delayed bill really did not move to a conclusion.
In addition, there seems to be a sudden amount of tension between the natural allies of SP and the CPM, given that they are on opposite sides of the Bill. Reservation in legislature on the basis of caste and religion are very touchy subjects and will be the first thing to be opposed in court as being unconstitutional.

Labels: Caste, Congress, Election, Law, Left, Parliament, Politics, Reservations, Women

In a major blow to the Congress hopes of securing a vacation of the stay order on the reservation for OBC's in educational institutions, the Court has refused to vacate the stay. This is a continuing drama, given that a few months back, when the Supreme Court had heard this case, it had make its objections clear. There were 2 fundamental grounds for objections as laid down by the court:
1. There is no data to back up the decision to use a 27% reservation. It seems more like that the Government did not want to cross the 50% limit set in the Indira Sawhney case, and hence it used the difference between 50% and current reservation levels of 22.5%. One can be pretty confident that this was the reasoning used by the Congress. The last caste based census was conducted by the British in 1931, which was 75 years ago, and there is no guarantee that data from that was collected accurately; in addition, to use such data for current purposes would be useless because of the time gap.
2. In addition, the Government refused to set aside reservation for the creamy layer. The Court have made it clear from the beginning that they do not approve of the rich, upper sections of the reserved classes availing of quota, since they have equal opportunity as anybody else. This is something that the Government finally conceded to after so many months of refusal; primarily in order to try and get the court to remove the stay. However, it is difficult to remove the creamy layer as all the politicians will automatically get excluded and this would not be something that they would agree to.
The reservation game has been a pet project of Arjun Singh (the same one accused of harassing his daughter-in-law for dowry) in order to try and bring about a place for himself in the party. However, this does not seem to have worked, and has instead landed the Congress in a soup. Predictably, for any electoral benefits, there are a whole host of caste-based parties waiting to claim the benefits; the Congress, because it tries to preserve its pan-society appeal, will not try to win votes on the basis of this reservation to avoid pushing the forward castes against it. It's stuck both ways.
Recently, in the Gujjar agitation, we saw how a society, attracted by the promise of reserved jobs, will try to declare itself as a backward caste, and at the same time, a caste already claiming the benefits (the Meenas) will do what they can to try and prevent their share of the pie from reducing. Instead of trying to get away from caste based politics and development, we are doing the opposite.

Labels: Caste, Congress, Court, Development, Discrimination, Education, Governance, Politics, Reservations

The Government is really going the whole hog in terms of providing reservations, including in areas not mandated by the constitution. In a petition before the Supreme Court, it has hauled up the Government for mandating reservation in catering contracts allocated by Indian Railways. If you don't really believe this, read this reference:

The Centre’s policy of providing reservation to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and minorities in commercial contracts has come under Supreme Court scanner. The apex court has asked the Centre to explain why preferential treatment was being accorded to such groups in awarding catering tenders of the Indian Railways. The court also directed continuation of its interim order. It had restrained the railway authorities from finalising the tenders.
“Article 16 provides for reservation in public employment. Article 15 (5) deals with policy of reservation in education. Similarly, the state is empowered to come up with special provision for the advancement for SCs, STs and OBCs,” the SC noted. “But does awarding of commercial contracts fall within any of the above-mentioned articles?” it asked. “Under which constitutional provision, you (Centre) are giving preferential treatment to minorities in commercial matters?” the court sought to know from the country’s top law official.

These are a series of cases in which the Government's political impulses are being challenged by the top court of the country. If this case continues, doubtless there will be more politicians who will come in and either ask the court to stay off, or ask the court to stay away from operational matters. So a little background in civics. The legislature (parliament) makes laws, the executive (government) is involved in operational details and essentially running the country as per these laws, and the courts (with the Supreme Court at the head) is the decision maker in terms of whether these policies and laws meet the test of being indeed lawful. These tests are done on the basis of using the constitution as a benchmark, as the basis for decisions. So, it is absolutely not necessary that just because the government makes a policy or parliament makes a law, it is absolute. Only a just law is a correct law, and like most countries governed by the constitution, we have the courts as the final decision making body (we need to have a final decision making body).
Now, in this case, the government set out a policy where it decided that a portion of the contracts should be decided on the basis of the caste of the groups applying for catering. In commercial contracts, that too put out by the government, there needs to be absolute clarity, with all entities involved being sure that they have an equal chance as per their abilities, and the current reservation policy is a clear violation of the honesty required in such contracts.
Secondly, from time to time, the courts have always held that reservations, even where held valid, should be held valid only when the creamy layer have been excluded. The creamy layer is the section of people in the caste who are of a significant socio-economic status (such as with quality of education, income, etc) that they don't need reservation to uplift them. Does anybody have any doubt that people applying for railways catering contracts don't already have the required social class and money with them that they don't need any special permission.
My guess is that in this case as well, the government will have no clear reason or statute of law that it can quote for having this policy, and eventually the policy will be declared illegal, along with some more stinging remarks at the political reasons behind such a policy. This policy, especially for something like the railways that is more prominent in smaller states and semi-urban areas, was meant more to be advertised as a political measure, notwithstanding the fact that it was actually discriminatory.

Labels: Caste, Congress, Court, Discrimination, Governance, India, Law, Minority, Politics, Reform, Reservations

The Congress government is again going to make efforts to get the Supreme Court to remove its stay on the controversial issue of reservations in educational institutions for OBC's.

The Centre has sought vacating the March 29 order. The Centre said, it was approaching with the application for vacation of interim order of March 29 as certain facts and circumstances were discovered subsequently.
It submitted that in case the stay continues to be operative, a large number of candidates selected against the seats reserved for the OBCs would not be available to get admission and would lose precious one year.

The Government still has not answered the 2 main questions about where the data for the reservations that it has put in place is coming from. The last caste census was done in 1931, and the Government is hesitant to admit in court that it will use results from a census done in 1931 (76 years back), that too, done under the British India supervision and with doubtful accuracy, to form the basis for a sweeping educational reservation policy. The fact remains that the Congress has no basis except for political reasons to make these reservations. The figure was decided so that the total number can add upto less than 50%, the threshold that the court has used in the past as the total permissible limit. Crass intra-Congress politics decided the basis for this reservation, and the Congress will continue to pay for it. If it really cared for getting a good education to all, it would provide accountability in terms of getting a good educational system with facilities (not ramshackle buildings) and teachers who are present (rather than a large number of absentee teachers in rural areas); but these things do not pay politically.
The Government still has not answered the other question as well about trying to explain away as to why creamy layers have not been removed from those trying to get the benefit of reservation. The creamy layer, consisting of the privileged caste members tend to have a leg-up in terms of facilities, and corner most of the benefits anyway. So, if educational reservations for OBC's were available with the creamy layer intact, you would tend to find that people in cities, indistinguishable from anybody else (except that they have a caste certificate) will take most of the seats, leaving the poor OBC exactly as they were. Of course, most politicians belong in the creamy layer, so it is impossible to think that they will try and support the exclusion of the creamy layer.

Labels: Caste, Community, Congress, Court, Development, Empowerment, Governance, India, Law, Politics, Reservations

The private sector in India is one of the least caste or religious conscious sectors. The private sector, at least bigger businesses and not lala companies, are in the business of making money and want the best of talent and could not care less if the first appelation is Mr. or Ms., cannot care less if the last name is a Gupta or a Ahmed or a Yadav or a Das or any other name. I have first hand experience in that, having been on the interviewing and selection board for candidates, and I have never heard any discussion about the sex or religion or caste of employees. Now there can be many naysayers who complain that smaller companies are more discriminatory, or that the number of applicants is itself skewed in terms of ratios of these different castes such that equally qualified SC/ST candidates are harder to find.
These are all spurious reasons. Businesses are in it to make money, and for that, they need the best of talent. In addition, with anti-discriminatory laws so harsh, it does not seem possible that companies can have policies percolating down to the rank and file that promote discrimination. Now, I am sure that it is true that there are lesser candidates of SC/ST who apply, but that is a failure of the education system. We have had reservation of 22.5% for SC/ST candidates since after independence, and we should be generating enough candidates to make their percentage. The main problem is that the Government has not effectively tackled the discrimination that happens in our rural areas where such discrimination against SC/ST in terms of facilities do happen. I have seen numerous villages where SC's are on the outside, and to change things requires more education and strict application of non-discriminatory policies; which is something that the Government in most states as well as the central Government have failed to do. However, it is not a solution to insist on reservation in non-public companies as the minister Ram Vilas Paswan and earlier Meira Kumar were insisting on:

A day after industry leaders conveyed their opposition to job reservation to the PMO, union minister Ram Vilas Paswan said nothing short of a legislation would guarantee work for SCs/STs in the private sector. Saying India was firmly on the road of globalisation, he suggested that the private sector should begin by recruiting SCs/STs in class III and IV category jobs besides imparting training to class I and II employees.
His reaction came a day after the industry chambers led by their respective presidents and former presidents met Principal Secretary to Prime Minister T K A Nair opposed any legislation on job quota in the private sector.

Industry has a social commitment, but this social commitment falls in the nature of enriching its surroundings, its employees, the neighboring environment, the shareholders, and in general, increasing the wealth of the nation. A key way to do that is to marshal its resources in the best possible way. Forcing reservation on the industry, with its attendant problems regarding reservations in promotions (a merit-based system currently), backlogs causing increasing pressure due to need to fill backlogs tends to cause an incredible amount of pressure.
Whenever there is a discussion around reservation, it always falls to the following argument, 'what is the problem in reserving jobs for SC/ST's since they are equally qualified'? This is a circular argument, since if they are equally qualified, then why would they need reservation, and if they are not qualified in sufficient percentage, then industry should not be forced to take them. As always, the Government really has no answers as to why they cannot take the required long term measures that will really benefit SC/ST's and OBC's: namely, crack down on the educational system so that they get equal and great education, and ensure that any form of discrimination is investigated and punished if found true.
Instead, there is going to be a greater push for reservation in private sector, something that the courts will surely overturn if it is passed by parliament.

Labels: Caste, Congress, Court, Development, Discrimination, Empowerment, Governance, India, Minority, Parliament, Politics, Reform, Reservations

The Congress just does not learn. With Mayawati starting to show her true colors, with a transparent land grab that had to be stayed by the court, the Congress is on her side. They need to have as many people as possible on their side for the Presidential poll, and hence this tactic of supporting her. But it seems like doing political suicide. Mayawati seeks the support of Dalits, Muslims, and Brahmins; this was the original voting base of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and other states. Hence for the Congress to support Mayawati means that they have cut off their own voting base and any hopes of revival in UP. In addition, the BSP is liable to take this same vote bank to other states such as Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, and so on, eating away at the Congress vote base everywhere.

Lust for patronage threatens Congress’s revival in UP, with its leaders bending over backwards to appease BSP supremo Mayawati, even as it appeared that the Dalit czarina was milking Sonia Gandhi’s dependence on her. When Congress could have easily watched Mayawati’s tightrope walk from a corner, the voluntary help extended by UPOA has alerted the central leadership, which, however, wants to keep mum till presidential polls.
Congress failed to emerge as a serious rival to SP despite its untiring efforts. BJP also came a cropper for the same reason, leaving the field open to a highly motivated Mayawati to stamp herself as the sole challenger. Congress insiders attributed the party’s failure to pull itself back on the rails in UP, despite Rahul Gandhi leading the charge, on its state leadership’s failure to project itself as an opposition party.

Same issue. The politics of patronage are so strong in states like UP that people will do whatever is required to keep on enjoying the fruits of power, political morals be damned. Of course, this simply means that the long term plan of a Congress revival in the state is all the more difficult.
And of course, any hopes of a changed Mayawati coming to power this time are gone. Already there are numerous stories of transfers, naked requests for money, and now this. Notwithstanding the fact that Uttar Pradesh does not really excellent sports facilities, Mayawati, in a middle of the night operation ordered the emptying of the stadium in Lucknow and its inclusion in the Ambedkar Park, sports couldn't matter more. And the reasons for doing this, some flimsy reasons. And except for the media and parties like the BJP, other parties would not utter a word. The left were conspicuous by their silence. It was only the high court that came to the rescue of the stadium and budding sportsmen by staying the operation of the Mayawati Government. My fear is that the next 5 years will see many more such land-grabs and other outrageous happenings committed by Mayawati.

Labels: Caste, Community, Congress, Corruption, Court, Development, Empowerment, Governance, India, Law, Morality, Politics, Welfare

The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh is at it again. After being rebuffed by the courts earlier in an attempt to implement a separate reservation quota for Muslims, they are trying again. The constitution is clear, reservations were only considered due to the centuries of discrimination against the Scheduled Castes and Tribes resulting in their being very repressed, and reservation could be one of the measures to bring them up. Because no one wants to be seen as removing reservation, it is likely to be with us for a very long time.
However, what causes a problem is when the reservations are seen as a pure political tool, and this is what the Congress is guilty of. The reservations for OBC's were also first implemented by V P Singh as a move to checkmate his ambitious deputy Devi Lal, and have been sought to be extended in the education area by Arjun Singh as a measure by the wily thakur to get a support base for himself. However, the Congress, being a broad based party has always suffered from not being able to fully tom-tom its reservation agenda due to fear of alienating other castes (as seen freshly in the Gujjar-Meena issue). In this case as well, the Congress will end up with egg on its face.

The Andhra Pradesh government’s decision to promulgate an ordinance on 4% Muslim quota, despite it having been struck down twice, is seen as part of Congress strategy to gamble on a clutch of double-edged issues to consolidate its support base for bigger battles ahead.
The Congress leadership is anticipating judicial intervention even though the state has repackaged religious reservation on Mandal lines, as passed by the AP cabinet on Wednesday. The insistence on Muslim quota, despite serious apprehensions, may confound observers but a senior AP leader said it was meant to prove its commitment to the community’s welfare. Having won the points with Muslims with three attempts, the state is unlikely to push it further in case of a fresh judicial roadblock.

This is pure politics , and nothing else. In order to show the Muslim community that the Congress is the one that is concerned about their welfare, the political party will try to do something that they know is not going to succeed. But as usual, these are short-term measures.
In order to get actual development of the Muslim community, the Government (Congress in this case) needs to take actual measures that result in development, such as providing good education, helping the artisans who are affected by rapid industrialization, providing good role models, and so on. The basic problem with reservations is that it provides a good handle to the political community to claim that they are working for the benefit of disadvantaged communities without having to do any actual work.
In addition, this move to separate the Muslim community based on reservation benefit available or not is deplorable. Hinduism has tolerated in the past severe discrimination among its adherents on the basis of caste, but Islam has severe strictures against any discrimination among its adherents, and the state should not try and implement some. It is time that the Muslim community saw through such pretenses and favor people who actually work for their benefit.
But the Congress will continue on this line, it needs to line up support for the AP next elections in 2009, and with its relations with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti on a nadir, it needs more measures; apparently just working for people and improving their lot is not enough.

Labels: Caste, Community, Congress, Development, Discrimination, Election, Governance, India, Minority, Muslim, Politics, Reform, Reservations, Welfare

This entire issue of the Gujjar protest to get Scheduled Tribe status now looks to blow away for a few months, till the time that the committee setup to look into the issue. But one thing is clear, that no one from the political arena anticipated that things will take such a turn. As the position currently stands, it is a lose-lose situation for politicians, and they realize that the reservation flame can burn all of them. Otherwise, if a fire was burning in a BJP ruled state, where elections are due in a short while, and there is some amount of internal dissension, would the Congress be mostly silent ?
I was listening to the news and reading the papers everyday, and the most important news was the one missing. The Congress President, spokesperson, and sundry other people from the Congress and the other non-BJP parties, none of them made the usual noises about the BJP not fulfilling an electoral promise, about the government not keeping violence in control, about dismissing the Government for an apparent collapse. Instead, when Sachin Pilot raised his voice once, that was the last time he raised his voice; and you had the Prime Minister down trying to keep things in control. At the same time, violence was tolerated so that a community does not get aggrieved against the political party.
And that brings us to our prime topic. The issue of reservation and politics in India has spun out of control. Reservations were seen as a way to get people who are down-trodden and crushed by other parts of society a leg-up. I can't disagree with that. However, over time, it has got so political that the original purpose is getting lost. Would somebody be willing to believe that a rural community, usually very proud of itself, would say that it wants to be classified as a Scheduled Tribe, the lowest in the ladder. Anybody looking at the situation from an honest angle would not classify the Gurjjar community as a ST community.
But reservations are now the best way to get government jobs; in the administration, in the police, and other groups that make a difference to society, especially so in a rural area. It is not anymore about social uplifting, the single point agenda being to get a better share of government jobs. And there is ample precedent in this case. The prime users of the ST label in Rajasthan is the Meena community, and they corner most of the offices reserved for ST's. The Gujjar community got added to the OBC list after an agitation some time back, but are now losing out to the Jats who they see as better in terms of economic and developmental models, and hence more likely to corner a share of the reservations. So, add the Gujjars to the ST list as they are demanding? Not so fast, if the Gujjars get added, the Meena community will start to feel that their domination of the ST seats is under threar, and that is not something that is going to be tolerated. Hence, the Meena community gathered as a large group, numbering more than 50,000 (as per the papers), gathered a huge quantity of weapons, and set out to have a peaceful non-violent discussion with the Gujjar villages. Only the army and police prevented these 2 extremely peace loving groups from meeting and creating a river of blood.
What is a poor, well intentioned politician likely to do ? Set up a committee and push the decision out. Taking a decision (either yes or no) would have large repercussions in terms of voter base, and with both the Meena and Gujjar community on the warpath, it would only have been a lose-lose decision.
This is something that is to be expected. Reservations, without any good targeting of the people needing this kind of help, will be seen as an entitlement, and something to be defended. What will happen now ? Politicians, especially of the Congress variety are starting to see that the reservation bandwagon that they are championing is not giving them any benefits. Political benefits are cornered by the specific caste focused parties, urban voters start punishing them, and the courts ask hard questions for which they have no answers. In addition, their supporting parties raise hell with them about not getting the reservations implemented.
One would like to say at this point that politicians deserve this, but this is bigger. It affects our country. These sort of agitations deepen caste divisions, create economic misery, ruin portions of the economy such as tourism, and affect the aam admi (daily wage earners). We need to bring people not getting the benefits of growth into a life of improvement, but not through short term measures. Targeted benefits to people in terms of more education, more facilities, and even reservation (but focused, else the creamy layer will skim it all away). Does one really believe that politicians will listen ?

Labels: BJP, Caste, Community, Court, Development, Discrimination, Election, Governance, India, Minority, Police, Protest, Reservations

So the results of the Uttar Pradesh election is out, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has made a stunner of a win. Mayawati has moved towards the half-way mark of 202 on its own, and with the Congress having declared outside support for the BSP, it is all set to form a stable Government on its own. In addition, with the way that political elements in Uttar Pradesh type of politics are, one can count on independents to swing the way of power, and provide more support to Mayawati. Further, splits in established parties to increase the strength is not ruled out.
For elections in states such as Uttar Pradesh, what really counts is the caste mathematics of the voting. The Congress used to have a combination of Muslims, Dalits, and forward castes when it used to win elections after elections. HOwever, over a short period of time, caste politics broke the party's winning ways, and reduced it to an also an after-ran. Now, in this election, the BSP has managed to stitch together a coalition of the Dalits plus a section of the forward castes (primarily Brahmins). This sort of voting on caste lines is not exactly something that we should be happy about, given that it tends to deepen the divisions of caste. But as a pure electoral gambit, her strategy of wooing Brahmins has really paid off; she always had the support of the Dalits, but with more Brahmins voting for her, she is now the next chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
What went wrong for Mulayam Singh Yadav ? It would be hard to say that it was just people getting tired of his administration - it was a general layer of dissatisfaction with the level of law and order in the state, and his inability (or maybe not even attempting to do much) about preventing local strongmen from taking over entire districts. Further, he did not exactly set the state on fire through development; the state's power situation was a mess, water is not exactly something that people are assured of at all times; and lots of earlier bright cities in the state are in a state of decay (with the exception of Noida). Further, he has the reputation of having a hand in every deal that happens - people talk about all these all the time, and a lot of them have been proved almost correct if you evaluate the various controversies that happen in the state over a period of time.
What can this state expect next ? One can be sure that the money making routine will continue in the sense of a large overhaul of the babudom and police services so that pliant people can be brought in. One really does not expect too much to happen otherwise, the only difference being that not too many expect Mayawati to not be corrupt, but she is the unquestioned leader in the party, and does not suffer even a second line in the party heirarchy. One can hope that she has learned from last time, and tries to make this most populus state of the country into an Uttam Pradesh, but with out current cynical level of belief in politicians, you will not find people who really believe that.
It is the unintended measures that could help. In her fight against Mulayam Singh Yadav, she could end up breaking his network of local goondas and make things safer for people, especially because her constituency of the dalits are the ones who are most affected by local bahubalis. One example is Raja Bhaiiya, who must be literally shaking in his boots.
Losers - the BJP and the Congress. The BJP has been stopped in its revival, and is more dependent on the elections in other states now to bring back the feel-good spirit. And the Congress, they lost their vote bank to the 3 other parties, and all the promised Rahul effect went for a toss (although they can still claim that he is building a party for the future). Now they can offer outside support to the BSP without being actually needed by the BSP.

Labels: BJP, Caste, Corruption, Development, Election, Electricity, Governance, India, Muslim, Responsibility

Staying in cities, we sometimes feel that caste is a thing of the past. We (including me) criticize politicians for perpetuating caste issues, and feel that after so many years of independence, and with rapid economic development, we should leave older era issues of caste behind. However, I saw a news item, and was not sure how many political blogs in India covered this. I didn't see any, so wanted to make sure that people read this.
Don't get me wrong, I want this caste based division to go away as rapidly as possible. Separation of people into different sections based on their birth (and not their abilities) sickens me, and makes me wonder about the people who believe in this.
Read some extracts of this news item.

The ZP school runs classes from first to seventh standard and has 210 students, including 20 Dalit students. Last month, Tilottama Tembhurkar, headmistress of the school, who belongs to a ‘lower’ caste, was transferred but not relieved of her charge. However, teachers from the upper caste believed that Tembhurkar’s presence was inauspicious for the school.
In the last week of March, Tembhurkar handed over charge to senior teacher Sharad Kaitade (an upper caste). In early April, when he formally took over as the school headmaster, Kaitade allegedly performed a puja in the school and asked a lady teacher Madhavi Raut to sprinkle gomutra inside the classes and school premises.
Raut promptly went around the school premises and classes sprinkling cow urine—while the students were appearing for their annual exam. She entered the class where Dalit students were also solving the question paper.
Raut allegedly asked the Dalit students to get up and sprinkled ‘gomutra’ on them, saying it would “purify’’ them.

Reading about this incident, I could not believe it. Such incidents have negative impact on both sections, with an impact on the students against whom this was perpetuated. It is utterly humiliating for them, and is not expected in a temple of learning.
For students to whom this was not targeted, it has an impact in terms of them getting a reinforcement of caste feelings, something that they would be hearing at home; and to hear it at school from a teacher would only give it more sanctity.
The biggest issue in all this is that it was done by a teacher. The incident is reprehensible done by anybody, but to be done by a teacher who first perpetuates the belief that cow urine is a purifier, and then the fact that pruification needed to be done, is extremely shameful. How can we hold up our heads if we keep on doing incidents like these ?
India has specific laws against doing things like this, and we need to make sure that such laws are implemented so that examples are made and people realize that caste based discrimination is just not possible. That will result in true empowerment. What do people think should be done in a situation like this?

Labels: Caste, Community, Discrimination, Empowerment, Governance, India, Law, Racism

Well, the Congress Government seems to be firm in going ahead with the 27% OBC quota implementation, and is planning to file a review in the Supreme Court so as to get the court to lift its stay. The stay came as a shock to the Government and sundry political parties in the Indian political environment. On the issue of quota, no party would like to be seen as not fully supporting the quota, irrespective of the merits of the case.
Of the 2 reasons that the court gave while staying the case, the Government is essentially telling that the court that its reasoning is wrong, that there are different reasons which the court has not taken into consideration.
On the issue of the Government using the 1931 census, the Government denies that the census is the basis of deciding the reservation figure. Instead a combination of the 1931 census, state level calculation, criteria used by the Mandal Commission, etc is the logic that is used for deciding the OBC percentage of the population. This is all illogical. The truth is that in this big country, there is no sure way of knowing the OBC quota unless it is determined. The last survey happened in 1931, and after independence, the leaders of the Congress at that time, being more enlightened, decided that there will be no more caste based census. Now the Congress is debating how to do this. Initially the spokesperson claimed that the Congress will not do such a survey. This however may have provoked much opposition from other parties, and so, the next day, the Congress spokesperson refused to flatly deny that such a survey would not be contacted. This is how it stands today.
About the creamy layer, the Government refuses to back down. It now expounds a logic that does not seem to make sense. What it says is, that while a job involves earning money and hence reservation is not necessary, education is expensive and it makes sense to provide reservation for OBC's, else the quota will go empty, since poorer OBC's will not be able to take advantage. This is crass political behaviour. If creamy layer OBC's have the money and expertise, why do they need reservations ? It somehow does not make sense.
Overall, one gets the feeling that the Government is not really prepared for the hard questions asked by the court, and is stuck between a hard rock and another hard rock. On one side are the various parties that will keep on needling the Government and on the other side is the court that refuses to take the Government side. In addition, this advocacy of the reservations agenda is sowing reverse political seeds for the Congress. It is getting punished by the upper castes and is surely not getting any benefits. Furthermore, the fact that we are starting to re-talk about all this casteist politics is the direct byproduct of the dirty politics of the Congress.

Labels: Caste, Court, Development, Discrimination, Empowerment, Governance, India, Law, Minority

The long awaited judgement in the case about reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBC's) has finally come, and it is not totally unexpected, but the case is not yet over. The Supreme Court had asked the Government during the case discussion about the basis of the data for deciding on 27% reservation, and that currently forms the basis for the judgement.
In layman terms, what does the judgement say ? The judgement stays the implementation of the OBC quota in education primarily due to two reasons:
1. There does not seem to be any basis for the Government to declare that 27% is the need for reservation for OBC's. Reading from earlier discussions, it seems like that the Government took the total quota available (50%), reduced the current SC/ST quota (22.5%) and came up with the figure of 27%. In addition, the only basis for the data right now is the census from 1931 (that is, a census carried out when the British ruled India (76 years ago)). Such old data cannot form the basis of any reservation percentage.
2. The Government, inspite of previous indications from the courts, has not implemented the concept of creamy layer while doing these reservations. What does this mean ? It means that these reservations should really be used only for the needy, and people who are already economically well-off should not receive the benefit of these reservations. For example, if a Member of Parliament's child was to receive these benefits, it is making a mockery of these reservations, and depriving the truly needy of the benefit of reservation.
These are both valid arguments. Reservations, are a very touchy subject. They promise a lot to one set of people and remove the same benefits from other people. One expects the Government, and indeed the whole political system to be much more careful when making such radical decisions.
However, the past movement on this area of reservations in the educational system for OBC's seemed like a highly rushed through case. There was an enabling law passed to care of a court judgement that prohibited reservations in non-Government aided institutions, and then one day Arjun Singh talked about using this law to introduce reservations for OBC's in education. Once he did this, there was no turning back. Parties that appeal to the OBC vote jumped on this bandwagon, and the implied political pressure on the Congress and the BJP promised that there would be a bill introduced quickly, and no political party in India would dare to oppose such a bill.
Now onto the political impact. The Congress will not get any credit for these reservations, since there a number of caste based parties that will credit themselves for this achievement. The Congress is only likely to move further away from the middle class.
What does the Government do now ? It cannot put this law into a Ninth Schedule that the court cannot touch, since surprise, surprise, the Supreme Court constitution Bench made all the laws in the Ninth Schedule subject to judicial review. For the current, the Congress will be forced to wring its hands in despair since all the parties will subject it to tremendous pressure to make sure that the law passes, and yet it cannot do anything for the present. Maybe this is a lesson for the Congress political managers that they should not try to be extra smart, since in the long run, any such measure tends to come back and bite them.

Labels: Caste, Court, Development, Discrimination, Governance, India, Parliament, Welfare

There is a lot of controversy because of the apparent racism being shown towards Shilpa Shetty in the 'Big Brother' reality show in UK. This has touched off a massive 'nerve point' with people calling the British as racist, the police starting an investigation, more than 10,000 letters being written.
One sample article on controversy from the Express.

Police are investigating threats against Celebrity Big Brother housemates after an outburst of public concern over alleged racist bullying of Bollywood siren Shilpa Shetty on the British show.
Almost 10,000 viewers have complained about the treatment of Shetty, 31, who has been called a "dog" since the reality television series started barely two weeks ago.
The controversy made headlines in British and Indian newspapers on Wednesday and has even spilled on to the floor of the House of Commons, Britain's lower chamber of Parliament.

There is bound to be wide-spread indignation spread among people here in India against the racism being directed towards Shilpa Shetty. Now is as a good time as any to take a look inward, and see how many glass houses we live in. Indians tend to believe that racism is something that happens outside India, and we are a fairly tolerant race. The more I think about this, the more I think that this is a very flawed argument. The evidence for this is immense.
The very concept of lower castes and scheduled castes is nothing but an extreme version of racism. And this has not gone away, I see it in the attitudes of everyday people in the city. If discussion tends to go towards people who can be identified as belonging to a 'lower' caste, the kind of language I hear makes my ear cringe. Words and expletives are freely thrown.
From ages, the concept of beauty is very intricately linked to fairness. A girl is not beautiful unless she is fair, and even a guy needs to be not dark to be good-looking. Thus you have a variety of medications / creams geared towards making the skin more fair. And nobody sees anything wrong in that.
If we take the example of Delhi, an Indian citizen from the north-east faces an incredible amount of discrimination. People use all kinds of names, they are accused of low morality, low intelligence, and god alone knows what else. And if you have an exchange student from one of the African countries, the amount of public ridicule and stares a person like that faces can embarrass anybody even standing near such an exchange student.
What about our foreign-traveled citizens who have been to places such as the US/ UK/ Europe, etc ? In speaking to some of them, racial expressions directed towards people of either the African-American community or the Hispanic community can be very shocking.
There is a mass condemnation, and sweeping descriptions made of their weaknesses and inabilities. This can be very shocking the first time you hear of such a thing. Then you realize that the person who is making the statements does not even feel that he/she is doing anything wrong. This actually shocked me the first time when it happened, and it got me thinking of the amount of inherent racism within Indian society.
And I don't think that until people realize that they are wrong, this will get corrected easily.

Labels: Caste, Discrimination, India, Racism

From time to time, I wonder about this thing called the caste system, and wonder whether this is something that really exists even now. It seems a bit difficult to believe that in this time and age when people discriminate against other people based on the basis of their birth or what their forefathers did ages ago.

And then we have incidents such as this - the one about having to purify a temple in Orissa because some lower castes / dalits made the temple impure by entering it. Such an incident reminds me of the prevalence of untouchability in villages and how efforts to remove it have not yet suceeded. It is an imperative that we effectively ensure that these outdated and wrong concepts are eradicated. In this day and age, it is a shame that these sort of incidents happen and for every such incident that gets published, one wonders how many such incidents are there that remain hidden.

Here's an extract about what happened.

Priests performed late night purification rituals at an Orissa temple and opened it three days after its closure by upper castes protesting the entry of Dalits, reports said on Sunday. The Dalits had on Thursday entered the temple dedicated to Lord Jagannath, defying an age-old ban on their entry by upper castes. They also performed rituals under police protection following last week's high court ruling that allowed them to do so.

And there is no justification for such a happening. The lower castes (I do not believe in the usage of this term and hence do not want to refer to it without marking it) have wanted to pray at the temple of Lord Jagannath for ages, and finding that their entry was getting blocked, followed the proper method. They filed a case, and the Orissa High Court rightly ruled that any Hindu irrespective of his caste should be able to enter the temple. With police protection, they were allowed to do so.

But once they did this, all hell broke loose. The other higher castes deemed that the temple had become impure and did a dharna and finally got the temple purified. Seems very strange to me, a view of the God should be allowed to all. One wonders what other discrimination the lower castes have to face in their daily lives, but it does not make me happy.

In the midst of all this, the administration does not seem to have done much to retrieve the situation. What they should have done is to have made sure that a ritual such as purification should not have been allowed (it is after all against the spirit of the high court order).

What should now happen is that the lower castes should enter the temple every day as full citizens, and the Government should ensure that no hindrance is there. In addition, every person who acted in a way prejudicial to the high court order should be prosecuted. There can be no other way.

Labels: Caste, Discrimination, Governance, India, Law