Reservation : A National Drama
Last time I wrote about Hockey - our National Sport. This time, it's our National Drama or even a National Stupidity if you want to call it that. The Government prefers to call it - Reservation. What a wonderful word - reservation. Covers all manner of sins. I personally like the American word better - Affirmative Action. But it all boils down to the same thing. Reservation is what you need when you want to travel comfortably by train, or to ensure that you have a table allocated to you when you head over to a posh restaurant. If only our Parliamentarians could see it that way. Power struggles, warped ideas, vote bank politics, perennially low brain cell count and the daily dose of Champa Cola and Tandoori Aloo in the Parliament canteen seems to have muddled their tiny tiny minds.
Reservation started off as a great concept. Throughout the history of India, the lower castes had been discriminated against by the upper castes. Dr Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution was of a lower caste himself. There are many stories about how the tea boys in his office would refuse to serve him tea directly because that would make them 'impure'. It was a battle against this sorry state of affairs and a rigid and caste-ist mindset that our esteemed elected members had decided to fight with this new weapon called Reservation.
The idea was to provide the oppressed sections of society with a crutch to walk for a period of no greater than 10 years. It was deemed that 10 years was long enough for the oppressed sections of the society to pull themselves out of the hole into which they had been dumped in for the past thousands of years. Maybe 10 years was a bit too optimistic. Well, atleast our Parliamentarians seem to think so.
People from the lower castes were sub-divided into Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Castes, Other Backward Castes among a few other classifications and sub-classifications. A percentage of all jobs in the Government sector and seats in educational institutions were reserved for these people. The merit criteria was diluted to ensure that an entire generation of oppressed people would get a good education followed by a Government job (In those days, a Government job was the most sought after job in India). It was a noble thought and a wonderful idea. Socialism was in the air. India was a free nation. We had lovely songs in Bollywood movies :
छोडो कल कि बातें (Leave behind all past ills)
कल की बात पुरानी (Those things are now old)
नयी दौर में लिखेंगे (It's a new era and we will write)
मिल कर नयी कहानी (A new future for all of us)
हम हिंदुस्तानी ..... (Us Indians - all together)
(It's much better in Hindi - and it's on Youtube Click Here)
So yeah, 10 years went by in a flash and nothing much really happened to the sorry state of affairs। Some people had managed to 'uplift' themselves but most hadn't, so our Parliamentarians gave them another chance - another 10 years. Then it got extended again, and again, and again .....
Meanwhile, the quality of personnel entering the various Government agencies was going rapidly downhill. Since merit had been marginalised as a criteria for certain sections of society and they were assured promotions irrespective of their performance... most never performed or even bothered to. This also led to nepotism and corruption. Decisions vital for national growth were not being taken and even decisions pertaining to retaining the cutting edge of the Armed Forces weren't being taken. No one wanted to take responsibility for actions because no one could be held responsible under this new system. This lack of responsibility and refusal to take action meant that even our National Sport of Hockey went spiralling down the gutter. Reservations in the Class 4 sector jobs (menial labour) meant that cleanliness was held hostage from time to time as and when the people in these jobs felt threatened to perform their jobs properly !!
More importantly, this also led to the formation of caste based vote banks for the various political parties. The Congress party became the more liberal Hindu and Muslim party. BJP became the Upper Caste Hindu party, the BSP became the SC/ST/OBC party, the Muslim League remained as delusional as they were before partition - and so on. The CPI remained what it was. A party of cigarette smoking, forward thinking, bespectacled 'patriots' with loyalties to Russia and China whose children went to America.
The story became a bit funnier in Tamil Nadu (hey... honestly, I have nothing against Tamil Nadu, it's just that they seem to have more than their fair share of delusional ammas and ayyas in power with shoe and sari fetishes to boot) To achieve equality, they went one step further. The percentage of SC/ST/OBCs etc in TN is 79%. I had no idea how one of India's oldest and more progressive states could have most of its population in the lower strata of society, but hey, it turned out that voting politics ensured that any caste and its dog were promptly put in the list if they voted for the party forming the government. So we end up with a state with 79% reservation. Surely, common sense should prevail and they should simply give 21% reservation for the upper castes and make everything else open. [to make that suggestion is tantamount to committing political suicide there]
Presently, we have heaps of Government personnel, in the Civil Service, in the Fire Department, in the hospitals who are neither educated enough nor qualified enough to work in the post they have been allocated to. This would explain why scalpels and sponges get left behind in some of the patients who've had surgery at AIIMS or why the Government comes up with wonky ideas from time to time like reservation in the Armed Forces. It'll be quite funny when we tell the Pakistanis - Hey guys, next time we fight a war, be aware that when you fire at our troops, depending on what caste they're from, you've either got to fire 3 mtrs above their head, or give them a 15 minute head start. If they even look at you and are able to get their guns out, you've got to retire from the battle and not come back. They can also look at you and say - Statue - and you have to remain frozen in that position till someone from your side touches you and says - Safe !!
Or even better - let's have some reservation in Cricket. Each team must comprise of atleast 4 people from lower castes. When they bowl/bat, they automatically get double runs. They can get 'out' thrice before they have to walk back to the pavilion, and if they catch a ball after one bounce, the opposition batsmen has to be given out. If a reserved category bowler manages to throw a ball straight, the batsmen will be deemed 'out'. The Tamil Nadu team, obviously will have 8 members from the lower castes via the reservation policy. Let's see what the Ministers have to say when this proposal is put forward to them.
Arjun Singh took this one step further (backwards??). Not only did he want to increase the quota, he also wanted to dilute the brand name that the IITs and IIMs have slowly built up over the last 40 years, by asking them to accept reserved candidates. It's funny how, when our Parliamentarians need surgery or emergency medical treatment or even have their palaces built - they hire the top people in that field - none of whom are people who've gone through the 'reservation' system.
What beggars belief is reservation for Buddhist, Christian and Muslim lower caste people. These religions do not have the concept of a lower caste. The caste system is an exclusively Hindu feature. So, providing reservations on the basis of caste to non Hindus is just pure vote bank politics. And what's interesting is that no political party can dare to say anything against reservations for fear of losing the next elections.
A few months ago, this reservation drama went completely mental when, led by a retired Colonel from the Indian Army, the Gujjar community from Rajastan decided to wreck havoc if they were not included in the Scheduled Tribe category. This led to more chaos when members of the Meena community, an officially classified Scheduled Tribe went up in arms to block this decision. The reason - they did not want to share the ST pie with the Gujjars, and as far the Gujjar motivation - well, they were OBCs, and since the Jats became OBCs, their share of the OBC pie diminished. It looks like reservation is not having the required effect. Instead of upliftment, all it is doing is cause heartache and chaos.
After my degree, I appeared for the CET. I scored 161 points in the CET. A person from the 'reserved' castes scored 121. He got admission in the prestigious JB college in Mumbai, while I had to settle for PUMBA in Pune (PUMBA is a great institute, but JB is better). This person who scored 121 was not from a poor family either. So why should he have gotten admission? People from the lower castes are now being looked down upon by others in educational institutes simply because they got into prestigious colleges based on their caste as opposed to merit. Where is this taking us? Things like this happen every year. If we don't ask hard questions now, the next generation will suffer and our growth as a nation will remain a dream.
This joke has gone on long enough. Our Parliament now wants to force this system on the private sector. I wonder what Infosys will do when it is forced to hire 40% of it's staff who've taken 9 years to graduate from college and can barely understand how to switch on a computer - let alone write complex code in Cobol. Move to China? (well, atleast our Commies will be happy) At a time when we are facing an acute shortage of skilled people, the last thing we need to fuel our growth are idiots who've taken the short cut to climb the ladder and bigger blinkered idiots in the Parliament who are continuing to help demolish India with reservations.
The solution is not that difficult or obscure or unknown. On the contrary, the solution is plain and applied common sense, but no one wants to implement it because it does not provide any short term political gains. On the contrary, this solution will empower everyone in India which means that vote banks will break down and people will start asking uncomfortable questions. Political parties do not want an educated electorate. They prefer sheep.
The Solution:
Get rid of this reservation nonsense altogether. Identify people solely based on economic criteria and give them free education. Provide them with books, hostels, food - heck, even pay them a bit of money a month as sustenance. Keep this all the way up to the top levels in education. If they clear the JEE/CATs, give them admission in IITs/IIMs. However, no reservations for any form of employment skilled or unskilled. That has to be based on merit alone. When these people get employed, give them tax breaks. Breaks sufficient enough for them to be able to afford to send their kids to school with the Government paying part of their education. These free sops should end with the third generation to ensure availability of funds for everyone.
Establish institutions of learning in remote areas staffed with teachers from the backward communities most prominent in that area to ensure maximum acceptance. Put in a good mixture of knowledge. Teach everyone. Give benefits to industries who voluntarily take on people as apprentices, but ensure that they are not forced to absorb these students once their period with the company has finished. Give incentives to private companies to start vocational training institutes which will train people from the backward castes. Start these institutes, not in big cities or even small cities, but in villages where they will be more accessible to the youth from that area. Give financial aid to these graduates to establish small-scale industry in the same area.
A system like this will ensure the upliftment of the downtrodden on the basis of economic criteria rather than an evil system like caste which has no place in any modern society. If we are to be truly secular, this ridiculous process of categorisation by caste and community needs to be abolished. Further more, a system of checks needs to be in place to ensure that atleast 20% of graduates who've passed this system get absorbed into a new corps of teachers whose job it will be to pass on knowledge and teach students of the future without any consideration to caste and creed.
Money paid to these students, teachers and even schools should be directly to their nominated bank accounts and not in cash under any circumstances. Issue them with identity cards so that only they can access their bank accounts. India is a software superpower. It won't take much to build a computer system which can track students, payments, progress and then generate statics for accurate analysis. These statistics will be based on facts and reality and not on the basis of what Mayawati ate for breakfast that morning or which side of the bed Sonia Gandhi woke up on!!
Till the time we become truly secular and start thinking beyond immediate political gains, change isn't going to happen. Or then again, maybe it need not happen. Maybe it should continue and maybe we should pressure the Supreme Court to rule on reservation in the cricket team. If nothing, atleast it'll ensure that we'll win all games in the near future - until Australia decide to field a side with Aboriginals or the Kiwis with Maoris.
Till then, enjoy the wonderful game of Indian roulette. It's just as fun as the game of Russian roulette with the one bullet in a revolver - except this one is played a wee bit differently. When you are in desperate need of life-saving surgery, head over to the nearest Indian government hospital....
Last time I wrote about Hockey - our National Sport. This time, it's our National Drama or even a National Stupidity if you want to call it that. The Government prefers to call it - Reservation. What a wonderful word - reservation. Covers all manner of sins. I personally like the American word better - Affirmative Action. But it all boils down to the same thing. Reservation is what you need when you want to travel comfortably by train, or to ensure that you have a table allocated to you when you head over to a posh restaurant. If only our Parliamentarians could see it that way. Power struggles, warped ideas, vote bank politics, perennially low brain cell count and the daily dose of Champa Cola and Tandoori Aloo in the Parliament canteen seems to have muddled their tiny tiny minds.
Reservation started off as a great concept. Throughout the history of India, the lower castes had been discriminated against by the upper castes. Dr Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution was of a lower caste himself. There are many stories about how the tea boys in his office would refuse to serve him tea directly because that would make them 'impure'. It was a battle against this sorry state of affairs and a rigid and caste-ist mindset that our esteemed elected members had decided to fight with this new weapon called Reservation.
The idea was to provide the oppressed sections of society with a crutch to walk for a period of no greater than 10 years. It was deemed that 10 years was long enough for the oppressed sections of the society to pull themselves out of the hole into which they had been dumped in for the past thousands of years. Maybe 10 years was a bit too optimistic. Well, atleast our Parliamentarians seem to think so.
People from the lower castes were sub-divided into Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Castes, Other Backward Castes among a few other classifications and sub-classifications. A percentage of all jobs in the Government sector and seats in educational institutions were reserved for these people. The merit criteria was diluted to ensure that an entire generation of oppressed people would get a good education followed by a Government job (In those days, a Government job was the most sought after job in India). It was a noble thought and a wonderful idea. Socialism was in the air. India was a free nation. We had lovely songs in Bollywood movies :
छोडो कल कि बातें (Leave behind all past ills)
कल की बात पुरानी (Those things are now old)
नयी दौर में लिखेंगे (It's a new era and we will write)
मिल कर नयी कहानी (A new future for all of us)
हम हिंदुस्तानी ..... (Us Indians - all together)
(It's much better in Hindi - and it's on Youtube Click Here)
So yeah, 10 years went by in a flash and nothing much really happened to the sorry state of affairs। Some people had managed to 'uplift' themselves but most hadn't, so our Parliamentarians gave them another chance - another 10 years. Then it got extended again, and again, and again .....
Meanwhile, the quality of personnel entering the various Government agencies was going rapidly downhill. Since merit had been marginalised as a criteria for certain sections of society and they were assured promotions irrespective of their performance... most never performed or even bothered to. This also led to nepotism and corruption. Decisions vital for national growth were not being taken and even decisions pertaining to retaining the cutting edge of the Armed Forces weren't being taken. No one wanted to take responsibility for actions because no one could be held responsible under this new system. This lack of responsibility and refusal to take action meant that even our National Sport of Hockey went spiralling down the gutter. Reservations in the Class 4 sector jobs (menial labour) meant that cleanliness was held hostage from time to time as and when the people in these jobs felt threatened to perform their jobs properly !!
More importantly, this also led to the formation of caste based vote banks for the various political parties. The Congress party became the more liberal Hindu and Muslim party. BJP became the Upper Caste Hindu party, the BSP became the SC/ST/OBC party, the Muslim League remained as delusional as they were before partition - and so on. The CPI remained what it was. A party of cigarette smoking, forward thinking, bespectacled 'patriots' with loyalties to Russia and China whose children went to America.
The story became a bit funnier in Tamil Nadu (hey... honestly, I have nothing against Tamil Nadu, it's just that they seem to have more than their fair share of delusional ammas and ayyas in power with shoe and sari fetishes to boot) To achieve equality, they went one step further. The percentage of SC/ST/OBCs etc in TN is 79%. I had no idea how one of India's oldest and more progressive states could have most of its population in the lower strata of society, but hey, it turned out that voting politics ensured that any caste and its dog were promptly put in the list if they voted for the party forming the government. So we end up with a state with 79% reservation. Surely, common sense should prevail and they should simply give 21% reservation for the upper castes and make everything else open. [to make that suggestion is tantamount to committing political suicide there]
Presently, we have heaps of Government personnel, in the Civil Service, in the Fire Department, in the hospitals who are neither educated enough nor qualified enough to work in the post they have been allocated to. This would explain why scalpels and sponges get left behind in some of the patients who've had surgery at AIIMS or why the Government comes up with wonky ideas from time to time like reservation in the Armed Forces. It'll be quite funny when we tell the Pakistanis - Hey guys, next time we fight a war, be aware that when you fire at our troops, depending on what caste they're from, you've either got to fire 3 mtrs above their head, or give them a 15 minute head start. If they even look at you and are able to get their guns out, you've got to retire from the battle and not come back. They can also look at you and say - Statue - and you have to remain frozen in that position till someone from your side touches you and says - Safe !!
Or even better - let's have some reservation in Cricket. Each team must comprise of atleast 4 people from lower castes. When they bowl/bat, they automatically get double runs. They can get 'out' thrice before they have to walk back to the pavilion, and if they catch a ball after one bounce, the opposition batsmen has to be given out. If a reserved category bowler manages to throw a ball straight, the batsmen will be deemed 'out'. The Tamil Nadu team, obviously will have 8 members from the lower castes via the reservation policy. Let's see what the Ministers have to say when this proposal is put forward to them.
Arjun Singh took this one step further (backwards??). Not only did he want to increase the quota, he also wanted to dilute the brand name that the IITs and IIMs have slowly built up over the last 40 years, by asking them to accept reserved candidates. It's funny how, when our Parliamentarians need surgery or emergency medical treatment or even have their palaces built - they hire the top people in that field - none of whom are people who've gone through the 'reservation' system.
What beggars belief is reservation for Buddhist, Christian and Muslim lower caste people. These religions do not have the concept of a lower caste. The caste system is an exclusively Hindu feature. So, providing reservations on the basis of caste to non Hindus is just pure vote bank politics. And what's interesting is that no political party can dare to say anything against reservations for fear of losing the next elections.
A few months ago, this reservation drama went completely mental when, led by a retired Colonel from the Indian Army, the Gujjar community from Rajastan decided to wreck havoc if they were not included in the Scheduled Tribe category. This led to more chaos when members of the Meena community, an officially classified Scheduled Tribe went up in arms to block this decision. The reason - they did not want to share the ST pie with the Gujjars, and as far the Gujjar motivation - well, they were OBCs, and since the Jats became OBCs, their share of the OBC pie diminished. It looks like reservation is not having the required effect. Instead of upliftment, all it is doing is cause heartache and chaos.
After my degree, I appeared for the CET. I scored 161 points in the CET. A person from the 'reserved' castes scored 121. He got admission in the prestigious JB college in Mumbai, while I had to settle for PUMBA in Pune (PUMBA is a great institute, but JB is better). This person who scored 121 was not from a poor family either. So why should he have gotten admission? People from the lower castes are now being looked down upon by others in educational institutes simply because they got into prestigious colleges based on their caste as opposed to merit. Where is this taking us? Things like this happen every year. If we don't ask hard questions now, the next generation will suffer and our growth as a nation will remain a dream.
This joke has gone on long enough. Our Parliament now wants to force this system on the private sector. I wonder what Infosys will do when it is forced to hire 40% of it's staff who've taken 9 years to graduate from college and can barely understand how to switch on a computer - let alone write complex code in Cobol. Move to China? (well, atleast our Commies will be happy) At a time when we are facing an acute shortage of skilled people, the last thing we need to fuel our growth are idiots who've taken the short cut to climb the ladder and bigger blinkered idiots in the Parliament who are continuing to help demolish India with reservations.
The solution is not that difficult or obscure or unknown. On the contrary, the solution is plain and applied common sense, but no one wants to implement it because it does not provide any short term political gains. On the contrary, this solution will empower everyone in India which means that vote banks will break down and people will start asking uncomfortable questions. Political parties do not want an educated electorate. They prefer sheep.
The Solution:
Get rid of this reservation nonsense altogether. Identify people solely based on economic criteria and give them free education. Provide them with books, hostels, food - heck, even pay them a bit of money a month as sustenance. Keep this all the way up to the top levels in education. If they clear the JEE/CATs, give them admission in IITs/IIMs. However, no reservations for any form of employment skilled or unskilled. That has to be based on merit alone. When these people get employed, give them tax breaks. Breaks sufficient enough for them to be able to afford to send their kids to school with the Government paying part of their education. These free sops should end with the third generation to ensure availability of funds for everyone.
Establish institutions of learning in remote areas staffed with teachers from the backward communities most prominent in that area to ensure maximum acceptance. Put in a good mixture of knowledge. Teach everyone. Give benefits to industries who voluntarily take on people as apprentices, but ensure that they are not forced to absorb these students once their period with the company has finished. Give incentives to private companies to start vocational training institutes which will train people from the backward castes. Start these institutes, not in big cities or even small cities, but in villages where they will be more accessible to the youth from that area. Give financial aid to these graduates to establish small-scale industry in the same area.
A system like this will ensure the upliftment of the downtrodden on the basis of economic criteria rather than an evil system like caste which has no place in any modern society. If we are to be truly secular, this ridiculous process of categorisation by caste and community needs to be abolished. Further more, a system of checks needs to be in place to ensure that atleast 20% of graduates who've passed this system get absorbed into a new corps of teachers whose job it will be to pass on knowledge and teach students of the future without any consideration to caste and creed.
Money paid to these students, teachers and even schools should be directly to their nominated bank accounts and not in cash under any circumstances. Issue them with identity cards so that only they can access their bank accounts. India is a software superpower. It won't take much to build a computer system which can track students, payments, progress and then generate statics for accurate analysis. These statistics will be based on facts and reality and not on the basis of what Mayawati ate for breakfast that morning or which side of the bed Sonia Gandhi woke up on!!
Till the time we become truly secular and start thinking beyond immediate political gains, change isn't going to happen. Or then again, maybe it need not happen. Maybe it should continue and maybe we should pressure the Supreme Court to rule on reservation in the cricket team. If nothing, atleast it'll ensure that we'll win all games in the near future - until Australia decide to field a side with Aboriginals or the Kiwis with Maoris.
Till then, enjoy the wonderful game of Indian roulette. It's just as fun as the game of Russian roulette with the one bullet in a revolver - except this one is played a wee bit differently. When you are in desperate need of life-saving surgery, head over to the nearest Indian government hospital....
2 comments:
great thoughts Parikshit.
I am of the same opinion as yours.
and it is high time now, the reservations should be abolished.
all have their own battle to fight. we have hell lot of other problems than just reservations. the largest of all of them is population!!
let us hope if we can leave india in a better shape for our future generations
Hey Pari,
Good post, I liked it and have no hesitation in claiming to be on the same side of the river :-).
You hit the nail on the head when you wrote about reservation based on economic condition of an individual rather religion or caste.
Keep it up.
Harish Siddaiah
http://hmszone.blogspot.com/
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