<b>Paswan for quota in judicial, armed forces</b> By KUMAR UTTAM
New Delhi, Dec. 23: Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan has demanded reservation for minorities and dalits in judicial services and armed forces in the country. The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president, who had supported Prime Minister Manmohan Singhâs reported statement that "Muslims should have first claim on resources", went a step forward and sought funds under Plan schemes at the Centre and in states be earmarked for dalits, adivasis and minorities in proportion to their population.
Talking to this newspaper on Saturday, Mr Paswan said he was in favour of providing reservation benefits to minorities and dalits in judicial services and armed forces so that they could be at par with the other sections of society. The Union minister also gave the idea of "national-level competition" for the appointment of judges in the country. "Like the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS), there should be an Indian Judicial Service (IJS). Only those who clear the competitive examination should become judges. And then there should be reservation in it," he added.
Moreover, the international dalit-minority conference, being organised by the LJP chief between December 27 and 28 in New Delhi, is expected to take up a resolution on reservation in armed forces and judicial services. "The reservation issue will be discussed by the community leaders at the conference. We will also discuss possible moves against the backdrop of the findings of the Sachar Committee," he accepts.
Has Ram Vilas Paswan ever helped any dalit from his personal resources except asking government to help them through reservation? The charity starts at home.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Has Ram Vilas Paswan ever helped any dalit from his personal resources except asking government to help them through reservation? The charity starts at home. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> link
<b> Personal life</b>
Paswan spent early years in Shaharbanni village in Khargaria district of Bihar.
He is married to <b>Reena Sharma-Paswan </b>an upper-caste Punjabi from Amritsar, and they have a son and a daughter.
He has two daughters from his is first wife Raj Kumari.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, he did, first married to Dalit, divorced her and now married to Brahmin because she is "fair and lovely".
Wife is very much fashion conscious and Pawan is doing everything to make her happy and ofcourse one son and one daughter. Couple love to fly on charter plane.
Who are Dalit and their cause? Why to waste time on them is Paswan mantra? <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
After his second marriage he stopped cursing upper caste now his love for muslim, may be he is going for nikah, now he is 60. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Minorityism rules </b>
Pioneer.com
Arif Mohammad Khan
'My' problem is not necessarily a 'Muslim problem' and this is the core of the message for Uttar Pradesh
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is reported to have said at the International Conference of Dalits and minorities that "the plight of Muslims has been established by data provided in the Sachar Committee report which studied the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community in the country". He declared that it was "incumbent" upon any democratically elected Government to redress such imbalances and "eradicate such inequities". Needless to say, he reiterated his Government's "commitment" to fall in line.
I have no doubt about the responsibility of the Government as mandated by the Constitution to secure a social order in which justice, social, economic and political shall inform all the institutions of national life. The Constitution further charges the Government with the duty to minimise the inequities in income and eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities not only among individuals, but also within groups of people residing in different areas or engaged in different vocations.
It is undoubtedly the Prime Minister's duty as head of the Government to redress any and every imbalance and eradicate inequities wherever they exist. This is a sacred duty owed to the Constitution and to the citizens of this country. But I am flabbergasted that even this constitutional commitment has been reiterated in a context where instead of creating confidence and hope among the underclasses and poor citizens, it would only heighten community consciousness which, in turn, may be exploited by the practitioners of identity politics to herd communities into political groupings for a solution to their economic backwardness and other problems.
The Prime Minister needs no reminder about the disastrous consequences of a religious community being converted into a political grouping or the assumption that religious commonality necessarily leads to commonality of secular interests. I am not going to dispute the data collected by the Sachar Committee or the conclusions it has reached.
However, <b>my question is why the Prime Minister paints my backwardness as "Muslim backwardness"? Why can't he address my problem along with the problem of other Indian citizens who happen to fall in the same category of social, educational and other backwardness?</b>
Mr Singh has asserted that "the principle that explicit measures should be taken to protect the interest of minorities is an idea embedded in our political discourse and in our constitutional provisions". What he said is true as far as the political discourse of the so-called secular parties is concerned. But the findings of the Sachar Committee report have proved the futility of this discourse. Muslims are worst off in West Bengal, the State ruled by a party known for its explicit pro-Muslim discourse and secular protestations.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>I am tired of this special treatment because, far from helping me, it gives rise to resentment and alienation. I would rather be treated equally, entitled to same benefits and rights and ready to shoulder same duties as my other compatriots. In fact, the experience has amply demonstrated that special rights and inequality are the two sides of the same coin and I do not wish to labour under inequality in the guise of explicit measures.</span>
As far as the Constitution is concerned, it was envisaged as an instrument to further the ideals of equality, justice and freedom of conscience and expression. Communal electorates were abolished to give a strong message that common religious faith does not admit common secular interest. Besides, judicially enforceable fundamental rights were incorporated to secure equality and dignity to every single Indian citizen on the one hand, and safeguarding certain important minority rights like freedom of various denominations to manage their own affairs in matters of religion on the other.
It was hoped that that these safeguards would extend the principle of equality to all religions. In secular domains, the distinction between "minority" and "majority" was expected to vanish under the working of adult franchise. A homogeneous Indian nation was to have evolved, the basic unit of which would be the citizen and not the religious group.
The Constitution holds the right to development as an inalienable human right and charges the state with the responsibility to apply this principle in making laws and formulating its programmes and policies. India is a signatory to the UN Convention on Right to Development. Who can know better about its significance than a professional economist like Mr Manmohan Singh? If necessary steps are taken to translate this constitutional vision into reality, then every single citizen who is economically weak or deprived shall have first right over the resources and no one shall grudge it.
It often appears that although we adopted a vibrant Constitution to pave the way for building a modern India, we have not been able to give up our old habit of looking at every issue from a communal prism. If the Prime Minister feels that there are instances of discrimination on the basis of religion or caste, the right response is to identify the culprits and take strong action against them for violating the provisions of the Constitution.
Any other course of action will only institutionalise the discrimination and the remedy will prove to be worse than disease. Safeguarding freedom of religion, conservation of language, script or culture may require specific governmental intervention, but issues of economic and educational development are of common interest and must be tackled on a general plane.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, in his speech before the Ramgarh AICC session, said: "I repeat that nothing in India's political development has been as blatantly wrong as the assertion that Muslims constitute a political minority, and that they should be wary of their rights and interests in a democratic India. This one fundamental misconception has led to innumerable misunderstandings. Wrong arguments have been built upon false foundations."
We may decide to ignore Maulana but we cannot ignore the constitutional provisions. We cannot initiate measures that will heighten the sense of community identity and weaken our common Indian identity. The dangers inherent in this approach have been beautifully articulated by Allama Iqbal in one of his couplets: Ujada Hai Tameeze Millat o aaeen ne qomon ko/ Mere Ahle Watan ke Dil mein Kuchh Fikre Watan Bhi Hai. <b>(The consciousness of community and customs has destroyed many a nation. Do my countrymen feel any concern for the well being of the country.)</b>-- The writer is a BJP leader and former Minister
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Quota in India Inc. </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Is this the thin end of the wedge?
Shortly after the UPA Government dropped its proposal to draft a legislation making reservation in the private sector mandatory following a veritable tsunami of public criticism, comes the initiative by the <b>Department of Industrial Policy and Planning that calls for compulsory provision of details in regard to lists of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes employees in the private sector. If the DPP were to have its way, the auditing of a company's financial performance during a year would be considered incomplete if it fails to provide the precise number of SC/ST employees on its rolls.</b> It is obvious that what the Government failed to achieve by way of legislation, it is now disingenuously trying to attain through prescribing coercive rules that are against the very spirit of affirmative action: Something that India Inc has repeatedly emphasised its commitment to. Clearly, then, it is a Government that believes in headcounts at the drop of a hat, and the country's business leaders are well within their rights to oppose such a harebrained proposal. Indeed, there is no need of such an "initiative" when the corporate sector has agreed to make voluntary disclosure of such information. Affirmative action is not a process that is supposed to deliver overnight results; indeed, its success depends largely on calibrated moves and decisions that do not upset the existing corporate structures. The success of affirmative action also depends on enthusiastic support and participation by the corporate sector, which is bound to take a dim view of the issues in question if the Government continues to send out diktats that are more like those coming from a nanny state than the one that believes in liberalisation. Indeed, the DPP's attempt at control shows that the<b> Government continues to believe in playing the "big brother" - the erstwhile maai-baap sarkar that brought the nation to virtual penury in 1991.</b>
It is still not too late for the Government to reconsider its so-called initiative for the simple reason that draconian orders are bound to make India Inc recalcitrant towards change. Public-private partnership involves a high degree of trust. If the corporate sector is led to believe that the Government does not have faith in its ability or willingness or both to deliver on affirmative action - subscribing to which will make it a part of a historical process in which the Government itself has been a most spectacular failure (after all, the Constitution had mandated the end of reservation after the unprivileged sections of society had gained more than a toehold in the system) - then it is obvious that they are working at cross-purposes. Ideally, the Government should leave the responsibility to produce results at the doors of the National Council for Affirmative Action, which in turn can create the office of ombudsman to oversee the implementation of the programme. Government must consider giving incentives against success stories; and not threaten the use of the rod for failures.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
01-10-2007, 05:29 AM (This post was last modified: 01-10-2007, 05:31 AM by Bharatvarsh.)
Recently I was reading some blog called OBC voice which mentioned that while Kammas don't get reservation in AP (which we shouldn't) they are still included under the OBC banner in TN and Karnataka, can anyone tell me why this is, are these Kammas really backward?
A lot of these so called OBC castes shouldn't even be in there, Kammas along with Reddy's dominate AP so I can't believe that we have suddenly become backward in the 2 other states, in case of TN I think it was part of the overall effort at freeloading that made the gov't include my jati among OBC's, otherwise how the hell is it that 70-80% of TN's population is listed as this or that backward group.
If we are stuck with jati based reservation then as jatis get richer they need to scrapped off the list so that more deserving groups in need of the benefits get the actual benefits, I see no need for reservations at all for communities like the Yadav's or Kammas or Jats (although Jats are not included as OBC, the Jat Mahasabha did make an effort to get them included in there).
Bharatvarsh garu,
Congrats on becoming a Senior Member! When did that happen?
I suggest that you become utterly indifferent to the composition of the beneficiary castes, except for one issue: we should wish that <i>as many Hindu castes as possible should get reservation</i>. Reason: Reservation for Muslims and Christians is going to happen in the next decade.
So, it would actually be a good thing if Kammas, Reddys and other Hindu castes all fall under the reserved category. Who is harmed by this: assuming that the quota percentage number does not change, adding a few more castes to it does not hurt the newly assigned castes - it also does not affect those who do not have any reservation. Those who are affected are those who are the current beneficiary castes - but reservation is an unfair policy anyway, so those who end up having their privileges affected should not deserve much sympathy.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bharatvarsh garu,
Congrats on becoming a Senior Member! When did that happen?
I suggest that you become utterly indifferent to the composition of the beneficiary castes, except for one issue: we should wish that as many Hindu castes as possible should get reservation. Reason: Reservation for Muslims and Christians is going to happen in the next decade.
So, it would actually be a good thing if Kammas, Reddys and other Hindu castes all fall under the reserved category. Who is harmed by this: assuming that the quota percentage number does not change, adding a few more castes to it does not hurt the newly assigned castes - it also does not affect those who do not have any reservation. Those who are affected are those who are the current beneficiary castes - but reservation is an unfair policy anyway, so those who end up having their privileges affected should not deserve much sympathy. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Vishwasji I don't know when I became a senior member, I think it's been quite some time by now so I don't rem exactly.
Well this did indeed give me a new perspective, it is true that we are hearing more and more nonsense about reservations to xtians and Muslims these days, but assuming that this happens there can only be so much quota for reservation, what I want is jatis that are really at the bottom and in need to get the benefits, we know that the missionary bastards mostly target the illiterate and the poor, so if these people move up in life it really hurts the missionaries, if there are reservations then let's use them to our maximum benefit to advance dharma.
Speaking of reservation for Muslims here is something to chew on:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Manipur grants 4% quota for Muslims in govt jobs
A.N. Sattanathan was Chairman of the first Tamilnadu Backward Classes Commission. Today, his grandson is one of the most vocal proponent of reservations in media. Any guesses?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The ruling could affect over 250 legislations enacted by the Centre and various states, and put under the Schedule.
These include Central Coal Mines Act 1974, Additional Emoluments Act 1974, COFEPOSA Act 1974, Sick Textile Undertaking Act 1974, UP Imposition of Sealing on Land Holdings Act 1974, Orissa Land Reforms Act 1965 and ESMA.
The bench held that although the government was entitled to place laws in the Ninth Schedule, such legsislations if they violated the fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 15, 19, 20 and 21 of the Constitution are liable to be struck down by courts.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src='http://www.dom.com/img.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<b>Liberalisation will not remove caste prejudice</b>
<i>Nicholas B. Dirks, Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and History and Vice President Arts and Sciences of Columbia University, New York, was in Mumbai this month to enhance the profile of a university that counts Dr. B. R. Ambedkar as one of its distinguished alumni. Professor Dirks, whose work on caste in India under British rule is well respected, spoke toThe Hinduabout caste, politics and the scandals of empire.</i>
Nicholas B. Dirks: "If anything, caste prejudice got worse under colonial rule."
Your work on caste in India, particularly in your book "Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India," is relevant to the situation in present day India. What drew your attention to this issue?
My earliest book, The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom is a historical study of the princely state of Pudukottai in Tamil Nadu. I was interested in trying to understand how the institution of "kingship" operated in the Tamil country, what the relationship was between caste and the political system. In Pudukottai, the royal family came from the Kallar community. What this meant was that while under British rule, Kallars were mostly designated as `criminal,' in fact in Pudukottai they were not just not criminal but they were the royal community and had access and all sorts of recognition. They were also involved with very important political exchanges with everyone from some of the remnants of the Vijayanagara kingdom, the Nayakas of Madurai and Trichy, the Nawab of Arcot, and, ultimately, the British. And the reason that Pudukottai became a princely state was largely because it provided a great deal of logistical support and military support to the British in the late 18th century. So the records were terrific and it allowed to me to look at how the caste system operated before modern times and the way the political and social systems interacted.
My concern had been that many of the accounts of India, both under the British and afterwards, suggested that caste was a social system completely defined by ritual and religion. My argument was that there was actually a very strong set of political traditions that could be called upon.
I was also using some local historical accounts from the 18th century, collected by a Scotsman named Colin McKenzie. Many of these accounts are still available in the library of the University of Madras. The British would say there are no local histories, no tradition of historical writing. I actually worked on extensive historical accounts partly because I worked with Tamil pandits and painstakingly learned how to read Palmyra manuscripts.
After writing The Hollow Crown, I decided that actually the caste system had changed a great deal as a result of British colonial rule. And so Castes of Mind is a study that tries to track what happened between 1800 and 1947 but it leads up to many of the controversies around caste for reservation and comes up to 1991. My principal interest was in looking at the census, colonial gazetteers, colonial manuals, and basically the colonial sociology of caste and how that was used by different figures in the 20th century, the British, on the one side, and then Ambedkar, Periyar, Gandhi, and others.
The caste issue has once again come to the forefront with events like the Khairlanji massacre. What worries many people is that despite decades of efforts to alter mindsets, the prejudices remain entrenched and have become even more ferocious.
Partly what I wanted to suggest in my writing was that, if anything, caste prejudice got worse under colonial rule rather than better. And the reason I make that argument is that if you look at historical record, certain kinds of caste disputes became even more virulent in the 19th century under British rule. The extent to which these kinds of prejudices survive varies from place to place but it is obvious to anybody looking at contemporary politics of India that no amount of liberalisation is going to change the situation. Even affirmative action does not seem to be changing anything.
I also think that right now when you have such massive growth in the economy, that's what people are focussing on. We all know that the agriculture sector is not growing; we all know that the urban population still depends on cheap labour and that the social relations of caste are embedded in even the global success of the economy in India.
Your new book has a contemporary resonance even though it centres on the British Empire. You argue that scandal was constitutive of empire. That might well be said of the new "empires" in the world. Look at Enron...
Yes, and also Halliburton. My new book, The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain is on the late 18th century, the British conquest of India and the trial of Warren Hastings. It tells also of the death of the Nawab of Arcot. Many of the British servants of the East India Company managed to control South India by credit, basically by continuing to give loans to the Nawab at usurious rates of interest that he could never repay. But this provided them access to his court, access to his lands, right to collect revenue on his behalf, and also the legal right to use him to conduct warfare. There were political wars that the Nawab conducted basically to collect money for his creditors, most of whom were these British civil servants who would come to India, make a fortune in four or five years, and then go back to London and buy big estates and often buy themselves seats in Parliament.
When I was working on the book, I did not realise that a cousin of Edmund Burke, a man by the name of William Burke, was an agent in the 1760s for the Raja of Thanjavur. It turns out that William Burke made a good deal of money representing the Raja against the Nawab of Arcot because the two of them were locked in a kind of battle in the 1760s-1770s. William Burke invested his money as well as Edmund's in East India Company shares in the 1760s. Then in 1769 there was a huge crash of stock value in the London because of the crisis in India. That year there was a huge famine in Bengal, like the 1943 famine, when a third of the population perished. When the market crashed, William and Edmund lost all their money. And poor Edmund, who went on the to criticise the Company, had a good reason to complain. I didn't know all these stories until I did this research. The relationship between the stock market, and investment, war, imperialism, then as now, was fairly similar.
Are you in India to conduct some fresh research?
The reason we're in India now is not for my research. We've come here two years in a row. In 2004, I became Vice President Arts and Sciences at Columbia. We already have a very fine programme in South Asian studies. But we want to expand ties between India and Columbia that go back to when Ambedkar got his PhD. We want to make Columbia more visible and we are asking our alumni here to help. We are specially looking for fellowships to support students who could come from difficult financial backgrounds.
As far as faculty goes, we do not have many who can help us understand what's going on in India today. Every month the economy here changes. There are many vexing political questions. How does the political system maintain its health? What is the trade-off between what the markets require and the growing level of inequality? We're also trying to set up collaborative arrangements with Indian institutions. India is on everybody's agenda. But a lot of it is driven by business schools and executive MBA programmes. We would like to have closer ties but of a substantive kind.
<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> This is vote 'bank' politics at its best
SUGATA GHOSH
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2007 01:41:51 AM]
MUMBAI: Men in pinstripes may find themselves at the wrong end of minority politics. Soon, a banker writing a loan cheque will have to take into account the borrower's religious practice.
The government has asked the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) to consider earmarking a slice of total loan disbursement for members of minority communities. This will work out to as high as 6% of the total loans given by the banking sector.
In a letter dated January 9, the banking division under the ministry of finance has told IBA to examine the proposal to set aside 15% of priority sector lending in all categories for minority communities. IBA, in turn, has asked member banks to furnish details of loans to minoritiesâthe quantum of such credit compared to the total loan book. In the communication dated January 11, the association has also sought the views of bank managements on the proposal.
Banks in India are required to lend 40% of total disbursements to segments like farmers and small businessmen, who constitute, along with a few other categories, the priority sector. Even indirect farm credit and home loans below Rs 10 lakh are included in the priority sector. The latest proposal will entail giving 15% of the 40% priority sector loansâ6% of total loansâto borrowers from minority communities.
Senior bankers, taken aback by the proposal, said unlike in the UK and US, there are no reports of institutional lenders in India discriminating against minorities, and the borrower is not required to disclose his religion in the loan application.
Moreover, there is already a mechanism of disbursal to minority community members. At present, banks extend loans to borrowers referred to them by the respective state development commissioners for minorities. These loans also carry an element of government subsidy.
However, such loans are unlikely to constitute even 1% of total bank loans. âThere simply aren't enough applications from the minority commissioner's office. Giving loans outside this mechanism and identifying minority group borrowers with the right loan demand, risk appetite and repayment capability is not easy,â said the chairman of a PSU bank.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Communal loans </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
<b>Banks told to serve Muslims first </b>
Just in case you thought good sense shall prevail and the UPA Government will desist from embarking on the path of fragmenting India along communal identities in pursuit of what the Prime Minister has unabashedly described as its "Muslims first" policy, you must think again. After directing the apportioning of development funds along communal lines - for instance, 15 per cent of poverty alleviation funds must be set apart for minorities, never mind if there are not sufficient impoverished Muslims in a given area to merit this proportionate allocation - and decreeing that the seething underclass must wait on the sidelines while the 'grievances' of the least of all minorities are tended to,<b> the UPA Government has now asked banks to refashion their lending policy. In a missive to the Indian Banks Association, the Union Finance Ministry has expressed its desire that 15 per cent of priority sector lending in all categories must be set aside for minorities</b>. Under present rules, banks have to earmark 40 per cent of their total loan disbursement for farmers and small businesses, apart from housing loans and indirect farm credit less than Rs 10 lakh, which together form the priority sector.<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> If the UPA Government has its way, about which there should be no doubts, then 15 per cent of priority sector loans, or six per cent of all loans, will be disbursed only to those who do not profess Hinduism.</span> In brief, yet <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>another measure is being taken by the Congress-led dispensation to place Hindus at a disadvantage and attach premium to the non-Hindu religious label.</span> This despite the fact that there is as yet no evidence that banks have discriminated against Muslims in priority sector lending, and a separate financial corpus already exists to specifically fund entrepreneurs who belong to minority communities.
The issue is not about ensuring equal access to bank loans, as will be argued by propagandists of the UPA, their fellow-travellers and social do-gooders who survive on scraps of political and official patronage. It is about injecting the communal virus in the banking sector that has remained truly secular and beyond identity politics till now. It is also about a morally decrepit regime arbitrarily deciding how and where the money of depositors', the vast majority of whom are Hindus, will be used.<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> It is of a piece with the pernicious practice of siphoning temple donations by Hindu pilgrims for the upkeep of Muslim religious institutions, including Islamic theological schools.</span> It makes a mockery of basic laws that govern loans and take into account right loan demand, risk appetite and repayment capability. Once this practice is initiated - let there be no doubt that the Prime Minister shall ensure banks fall in line with this absurd and perverse policy - we can be sure of hearing treacly tales of how Muslims are being "harassed" by bank officials insisting they must repay their loans. We can also look forward to the clergy demanding that Muslims should be exempted from paying interest on their loans as this violates Quranic injunctions, and a craven Government giving in to "safeguard minority religious sentiments". The backdrop for separating Indian from Indian, for re-opening the wounds inflicted by Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his Muslim League, and for undoing the national integration that has taken place over the last six decades, is being slyly crafted by a cynical Government. To sleep through this would be suicidal for the nation.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Shilpa Shetty, who alleged that she was bullied and racially abused on the Big Brother show, would have been worthy of our support if she had quit the show. But she withdrew her allegation in 24 hours.
Do the millions of marginalised people who face untouchability in every walk of their lives in India have a choice?
Santosh Patnaik,
Bhopal
* * *
The Ministry of Tourism has invited Jade Goody to visit India. I strongly recommend that her itinerary include a visit to the Khairlanji village in Maharashtra.
The caste system in India is the world's numerically largest example of systematised discrimination, which perpetuates extreme poverty and unending terror on 160 million "untouchables."
Kenneth Alper,
New York <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Ministry of Tourism has invited Jade Goody to visit India. I strongly recommend that her itinerary include a visit to the Khairlanji village in Maharashtra.
Kenneth Alper,
New York<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, a visit to Kharilanji should be highly recommended to this little twerp from New York so that he can see that it doesn't take Indians 43 years to put guilty behind bars. Yep, a full 43 years to put a US cop who killed blacks behind bars <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
01-25-2007, 09:04 AM (This post was last modified: 01-25-2007, 09:13 AM by Bharatvarsh.)
Who can forget what happened Emmett Till, justice has never been served for his death and never will be and these people have the audacity to lecture us, hypocritical bastards.
It was also in this egalitarian paradise of USA that a black man was dragged to his death after being tied to a car in 1999 in Texas, they had some good old reenactment of the Southern tradition of lynching at his expense.
I have never met any people who are collectively as self righteous as the avg US citizen, not even the Brits are this self righteous despite being our rulers at one time, these people pontificate on every country in the world but can't even set their own goddamn house right, I am still waiting for the WMD to be found in Iraq.
01-25-2007, 09:44 AM (This post was last modified: 01-25-2007, 05:13 PM by Husky.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Ministry of Tourism has invited Jade Goody to visit India. I strongly recommend that her itinerary include a visit to the Khairlanji village in Maharashtra.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Why doesn't 'Jade Goody' visit LA first, to learn more about the infamous LA riots. Or better yet, to see America's christo-racism in action, she should go to Orange County, California - one of the KKK capitals of her nation. It's where the chief christoterrorist of the KKK is (the 'KKK Grand Dragon'). Recently watched a program on this. Scary people, them.
Look what I found, just googling on "Orange County" California KKK: http://www.adl.org/Learn/Events_2001/event...t.asp?Year=2002
<b>Archive of Extremist Events by State: 2002 </b> - compiled by the Anti-Defamation League
Huge list of all the <i>organised and planned</i> christo-racist and christo-derived racist events in the US in 2002. Just one of them:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Georgia: Aryan Unity Rally Sponsored by the Free Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Hiram, GA<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->KKK is a devoutly christian organisation.
Maybe Jade Goody should look through any events scheduled for 2007. She'll get to know the christo heritage of her own country better.
In the US they murder African-Americans who did all the hard work to make that nation what it is now: they did the building of the infrastructure (railways), practically all of the agriculture in the South. And then the KKK and other christoracists go on about how the African-Americans aren't contributin'. Well, what I learnt in history is that it's the good-christian Caucasian (Oryan) folks of America as sat on their behinds and beat the Africans within an inch of their lives to do all the work. If America is anything now, it's at least in large part due to the Africans who had been enslaved. When are they going to get compensated? Is that 3 billion dollar or so lawsuit against the US still in court?
At least India was built on all its people working to make the nation what it was. Then of course, the christo-racist Brits of the colonial era came and looted the nation (India: 'the Jewel in Britain's Crown') and that's why their country is now prosperous.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->perpetuates extreme poverty (of Harijans)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Britain robbed India blind and caused huge genocidal famines. Indians were not poor before, that includes the Harijan communities - until the christoracist colonisers and their pretty civilised ways came to India. Ignorant American christos like Kenneth Alper should learn silence is golden before they make bigger fools of themselves by writing (or talking). They're already the butt of most jokes in other English-speaking countries for their ignorance. And that Santosh Patnaik (crypto christian or paid psecular activist no doubt) can do the same.
'Them white Oryan dudes' should just shut up about who did what to whom and keep away from lecturing, because the truth doesn't look too pretty for them. Poverty is due to them stealing other nations blind or enslaving others. And the wealth of their countries are made from the blood, sweat and tears of other peoples (Africans, Indians) and from stealing the prosperity of other nations (like India, Africa's gold and diamond mines, and today's oil in Sudan). Racism is a christo thing, no need to point at the utterly uninvolved.
On another matter: Shilpa Shetty is lovely and all, but what was she thinking, if anything, to join some brainless show where everyone is probably dimwitted and ragging at others for no reason. (Unless there was some large prize of money for the contestants and she was planning on donating it to an Indian charity? If so, she should have stuck it out without crying, it would have been worth it in the long run.) Now her behaviour has got some Indian people in India as well as England to go on protests, even riots. I'd rather they had saved it for Modi when he was denied a Visa, rather than for Shilpa Shetty's unpleasant experience in whatever reality show that was.
Sad state of Indians today: only pull together for an, albeit weeping, actress (insulted in a show where probably a lot of people get insulted), but can't even express collective disdain for such a national humiliation as happened to Modi who was after all innocent of anything to do with the Godhra riots.
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party here on Monday took strong objection to an indication by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that areas where Muslims constitute around 25 per cent of the population would be separately identified and special efforts made for the development of these areas.
Party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said this was part of the pattern that had emerged in the United Progressive Alliance.
The Congress-run State Governments made efforts, so far futile, to give reservations to Muslims in educational institutions; it (the party) indicated that it wanted banks to lend to minorities on a priority basis; it talked about special package of financial resources being spent on Muslims; and now there is talk of identifying Muslim-dominated areas.
Mr. Javadekar reiterated the BJP line that the Congress was practising divisive politics.
A.N. Sattanathan was Chairman of the first Tamilnadu Backward Classes Commission. Today, his grandson is one of the most vocal proponent of reservations in media. Any guesses?
[right][snapback]62939[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Viren,
It's been 3 weeks. OK, we give up. What is the answer?
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> 
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> This is vote 'bank' politics at its best