Curious-err and Curious-err
The Indian government has a strange policy called reservations. What the hell it tries to achieve is something I have not been able to decipher. All the intellectuals around me tell me that reservation is all about equality and empowerment, etc., etc. It’s really amazing how people have concocted an entire debate over an issue that does not exist or at best should not exist.
A brief history of our reservation debate begins in the British era (I don’t mean that Hindus and Muslims lived in Eden before the British came). The British policy of divide and rule was the first and most overt expression of communalism in India. (Poor Aurangzeb’s discrimination against Hindus doesn’t exactly fall in the same category). The problem really began from the Indian Councils Act of 1909. The British wanted to simply divide the people along all possible communal and sectarian lines. The caste issue really came to the fore front when E.A. Gait of the census department wrote that “Census returns of Hindus are misleading as they include millions of people who are not really Hindu at all, who are denied ministrations of Brahmans, and are forbidden to enter the Hindu temples, and who in many cases, are regarded as so unclean that their touch or even their proximity, causes pollution.” The Hindus began organizing shuddhi (purification and conversion) and sangathan (consolidation) movement to counter the idea that Dalits were independent category. Hindu militancy’s drive to incorporate the ‘other brothers’ included Dalits, who became the object of their politics in 1920s. The incorporation however, simply meant that Dalits would be counted as Hindus in the census to bolster the Hindu majoritarian claim made by militants on the emergent nation and on the colonial state. Even Gandhi and his entire ‘Harijan’ campaign was part of this larger fold—the Hindus of India didn’t want to give up their claim of majority to the Muslims. Thus begins the long and winding tale of reservations in India.
In 1932, Gandhi went on a fast against award of separate constituency to Dalits and ended his fast when the promise of separate electorate to untouchables was annulled, and a combined electorate with some electoral constituencies reserved for untouchable candidates was proposed. Thus the blame put on Ambedkar for being the father of the reservationists, is somewhat misplaced. Originally, the system of reservations was supposed to be fore ten years. Then it went off the political scene, only to re-appear in the 1990s in the form of the Mandal Commission Report and the entire fracas over it. The rest is now well known. The recent addition to the debate has been the proposed reservations for the OBCs in the IITs and the IIMs.
My main problem with this entire debate about merit or equality is that the system itself is flawed, and therefore incapable of bringing a lasting solution. I’ll elaborate. The Indian Constitution does not guarantee the right to work, instead it guarantees the right to vote, the right to free speech, etc. In short, none of the economic rights are guaranteed. The right to free primary education till the age of 14 had to be read into the right to life. What I am trying to say is that a government/society, that cannot guarantee basic economic rights of a person, cannot bring about social parity. The government knows very well that the benefits of these reservations doesn’t accrue to the poor, rather to certain unscrupulous persons, who could do without it. The entire system of trying to achieve social parity by reserving IIT and IIM seats is ridiculous. People who don’t get enough to eat, people who cant even sign their own names (that the official level of literacy in Indian) are being given seats to the premier institutes of higher education in the country. It’s absolutely pathetic.
The level and degree of reservations in India is down right ridiculous. Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Physically Handicapped, Local Quotas (Look at places like Maharashtra and South India), Sports Quotas, Non-Resident Indians, Foreign Nationals, Mentally Handicapped (Oops! That one slipped out. But this one should be there as well), and many others. If the government decided to adopt a simpler but tougher stance, they could provide reservations in schools (especially primary ones), colleges and jobs, not on the basis of caste, tribe, etc, but on the basis of economic status. That’s a simpler stand, but infinitely more difficult to achieve. The framers of the constitution passed the buck to the later generations in the form of the Directive Principles of State Policy, but consecutive governments have adopted their policy of passing the parcel.
If this policy continues, then my friends we shall soon have a time when there will be reservations for the General Category. I can imagine an entrance exam to the IIT of the future—30% reservation for SCs, 25% for STs, 20% for OBCs, 15% for local quotas, 5% for NRIs and Foreign Nationals, 2% for Physically Handicapped, 1.5% for sports quota, and a royal 0.5% reservation for the General Category. The future is bright. I think I’ve finally managed to understand the India Shining Campaign. So, my friends, are you ready to fight for the General Category Reservations? See you there in another 15 years.
Jago India Jago.
The Indian government has a strange policy called reservations. What the hell it tries to achieve is something I have not been able to decipher. All the intellectuals around me tell me that reservation is all about equality and empowerment, etc., etc. It’s really amazing how people have concocted an entire debate over an issue that does not exist or at best should not exist.
A brief history of our reservation debate begins in the British era (I don’t mean that Hindus and Muslims lived in Eden before the British came). The British policy of divide and rule was the first and most overt expression of communalism in India. (Poor Aurangzeb’s discrimination against Hindus doesn’t exactly fall in the same category). The problem really began from the Indian Councils Act of 1909. The British wanted to simply divide the people along all possible communal and sectarian lines. The caste issue really came to the fore front when E.A. Gait of the census department wrote that “Census returns of Hindus are misleading as they include millions of people who are not really Hindu at all, who are denied ministrations of Brahmans, and are forbidden to enter the Hindu temples, and who in many cases, are regarded as so unclean that their touch or even their proximity, causes pollution.” The Hindus began organizing shuddhi (purification and conversion) and sangathan (consolidation) movement to counter the idea that Dalits were independent category. Hindu militancy’s drive to incorporate the ‘other brothers’ included Dalits, who became the object of their politics in 1920s. The incorporation however, simply meant that Dalits would be counted as Hindus in the census to bolster the Hindu majoritarian claim made by militants on the emergent nation and on the colonial state. Even Gandhi and his entire ‘Harijan’ campaign was part of this larger fold—the Hindus of India didn’t want to give up their claim of majority to the Muslims. Thus begins the long and winding tale of reservations in India.
In 1932, Gandhi went on a fast against award of separate constituency to Dalits and ended his fast when the promise of separate electorate to untouchables was annulled, and a combined electorate with some electoral constituencies reserved for untouchable candidates was proposed. Thus the blame put on Ambedkar for being the father of the reservationists, is somewhat misplaced. Originally, the system of reservations was supposed to be fore ten years. Then it went off the political scene, only to re-appear in the 1990s in the form of the Mandal Commission Report and the entire fracas over it. The rest is now well known. The recent addition to the debate has been the proposed reservations for the OBCs in the IITs and the IIMs.
My main problem with this entire debate about merit or equality is that the system itself is flawed, and therefore incapable of bringing a lasting solution. I’ll elaborate. The Indian Constitution does not guarantee the right to work, instead it guarantees the right to vote, the right to free speech, etc. In short, none of the economic rights are guaranteed. The right to free primary education till the age of 14 had to be read into the right to life. What I am trying to say is that a government/society, that cannot guarantee basic economic rights of a person, cannot bring about social parity. The government knows very well that the benefits of these reservations doesn’t accrue to the poor, rather to certain unscrupulous persons, who could do without it. The entire system of trying to achieve social parity by reserving IIT and IIM seats is ridiculous. People who don’t get enough to eat, people who cant even sign their own names (that the official level of literacy in Indian) are being given seats to the premier institutes of higher education in the country. It’s absolutely pathetic.
The level and degree of reservations in India is down right ridiculous. Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Physically Handicapped, Local Quotas (Look at places like Maharashtra and South India), Sports Quotas, Non-Resident Indians, Foreign Nationals, Mentally Handicapped (Oops! That one slipped out. But this one should be there as well), and many others. If the government decided to adopt a simpler but tougher stance, they could provide reservations in schools (especially primary ones), colleges and jobs, not on the basis of caste, tribe, etc, but on the basis of economic status. That’s a simpler stand, but infinitely more difficult to achieve. The framers of the constitution passed the buck to the later generations in the form of the Directive Principles of State Policy, but consecutive governments have adopted their policy of passing the parcel.
If this policy continues, then my friends we shall soon have a time when there will be reservations for the General Category. I can imagine an entrance exam to the IIT of the future—30% reservation for SCs, 25% for STs, 20% for OBCs, 15% for local quotas, 5% for NRIs and Foreign Nationals, 2% for Physically Handicapped, 1.5% for sports quota, and a royal 0.5% reservation for the General Category. The future is bright. I think I’ve finally managed to understand the India Shining Campaign. So, my friends, are you ready to fight for the General Category Reservations? See you there in another 15 years.
Jago India Jago.
posted by poli at 12:43 AM
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