06-24-2006, 06:22 PM
Caste and creed replace necessities?
TAVLEEN SINGH,Thursday, June 15, 2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bihar and UP have become increasingly backward in development terms <b>but voters here appear to believe that caste and creed are more important than drinking water and electricity</b>
By a happy coincidence I went to have coffee with Arun Shourie in his elegant Delhi home the day his new book came out. It is called Falling Over Backwards: an essay against reservations and against judicial populism and it could not have come out at a more propitious time. Had he anticipated Arjun Singhs 27% quota, I asked between sips of freshly brewed coffee, and he said he had seen the writing on the wall on account of being a Rajya Sabha MP and because of his familiarity with the mood of the political class. <b>He sensed the advent of other backward casteism even before the Supreme Court judgement last year that forbade caste quotas in private schools and colleges.</b>
It was a result of this judgement that the government went ahead with the 93rd amendment to the constitution that make caste quotas a constitutional requirement. <b>It was under the shelter of this amendment that Arjun Singh came out with his OBC quota.</b>
In Delhis political circles they say the Human Resource Development Ministers sudden concern for other backward castes was a consequence of rumours that he was about to be kicked upstairs into some governorship. <b>Now, of course, he cannot be moved because neither Sonia Gandhi nor the Prime Minister can risk being seen by OBC voters as anti-backward castes</b>. Not after the abysmal performance of the Congress Party in the recent assembly elections in Bihar and not with elections in Uttar Pradesh looming early next year. These two states have been the bastions of OBC leaders like Laloo Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav for nearly two decades. They have become increasingly backward in development terms but voters here appear to believe that caste and creed are more important than drinking water and electricity.
Besides, its not as if either of our two largest political parties have offered them a choice between caste and development. Quite the opposite. Both Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party have competed for the caste vote despite evidence that this is a game that casteist leaders like Laloo, Mulayam and Mayawati will always play better.
Nehru opposed reservations too Arun Shouries book begins with Jawaharlal Nehrus letter to chief ministers dated June 27, 1961 in which he opposes reservations for scheduled castes and tribes in the strongest terms. It is too long a letter to quote here but let me give you a paragraph, They deserve help but, even so I dislike any kind of reservation, more particularly in Services. <b>I react strongly against anything which leads to inefficiency and second-rate standards. I want my country to be a first class country in everything.</b> The moment we encourage the second-rate we are lost. Ah, if Panditji could see what his grand daughter-in- laws government is seeking to impose upon us by way of reservations for those castes whose backwardness is itself uncertain.
In his new book, Shourie provides the most compelling arguments against reservations pointing out that the very basis on which OBC quotas are being provided is flawed. The last caste census done in India was in 1931 in which census officers from across the country reported that caste lines were becoming blurred on account of economic and technological developments.
Arun reminds us that today, By contrast, journalists and pollsters declaim with such confidence, Our Exit Poll shows that Kurmis have deserted Congress and are flocking toâ¦. Not just politicians, even judges talk as if India is what it was, in fact what some text collated over 700 years says it should have been twenty-five hundred years ago.
<b>In the many years I have known Arun as an editor and a friend the thing I have admired most about him is his ability to immerse himself totally in researching an issue and writing about it only when he knows everything there is to know about the subject. He has done exactly this with reservations. </b>
So, how backward are the OBCs?
He damns the Mandal Commission in its own words by pointing out that the commission itself was worried about the reliability of the information it was getting. Listen to this. In the end it may be emphasised that this survey has no pretensions to being a piece of academic research. It has been conducted by the administrative machinery of the government and used as a rough and ready tool for evolving a set of simple criteria for identifying social and educational backwardness. On this uncertain premise is based the decision to provide 27% quotas for those of backward caste, although we are not absolutely sure who these castes are and whether they remain educationally backward.
It is not just government policies that emerge from the book as being seriously flawed, it is also the judgements of many eminent judges. Based on a meticulous reading of pronouncements gathered from many courts and many cases Arun draws a worrying portrait of wooly-headed judges holding forth on history and caste without understanding either. In many cases it is because of judicial activism that governments have gone ahead with social justice schemes that are often meaningless and retrograde.
I am running out of my allotted space so cannot go into details here but I urge anyone even slightly interested in caste quotas and social justice, to go out and buy Arun Shouries new book. <b>I would urge policymakers to read it as well but know they will not because it is not social justice or education that motivates them, but votes. </b>
If this means betraying the legacy of Congress icons like Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi so be it.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
TAVLEEN SINGH,Thursday, June 15, 2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bihar and UP have become increasingly backward in development terms <b>but voters here appear to believe that caste and creed are more important than drinking water and electricity</b>
By a happy coincidence I went to have coffee with Arun Shourie in his elegant Delhi home the day his new book came out. It is called Falling Over Backwards: an essay against reservations and against judicial populism and it could not have come out at a more propitious time. Had he anticipated Arjun Singhs 27% quota, I asked between sips of freshly brewed coffee, and he said he had seen the writing on the wall on account of being a Rajya Sabha MP and because of his familiarity with the mood of the political class. <b>He sensed the advent of other backward casteism even before the Supreme Court judgement last year that forbade caste quotas in private schools and colleges.</b>
It was a result of this judgement that the government went ahead with the 93rd amendment to the constitution that make caste quotas a constitutional requirement. <b>It was under the shelter of this amendment that Arjun Singh came out with his OBC quota.</b>
In Delhis political circles they say the Human Resource Development Ministers sudden concern for other backward castes was a consequence of rumours that he was about to be kicked upstairs into some governorship. <b>Now, of course, he cannot be moved because neither Sonia Gandhi nor the Prime Minister can risk being seen by OBC voters as anti-backward castes</b>. Not after the abysmal performance of the Congress Party in the recent assembly elections in Bihar and not with elections in Uttar Pradesh looming early next year. These two states have been the bastions of OBC leaders like Laloo Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav for nearly two decades. They have become increasingly backward in development terms but voters here appear to believe that caste and creed are more important than drinking water and electricity.
Besides, its not as if either of our two largest political parties have offered them a choice between caste and development. Quite the opposite. Both Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party have competed for the caste vote despite evidence that this is a game that casteist leaders like Laloo, Mulayam and Mayawati will always play better.
Nehru opposed reservations too Arun Shouries book begins with Jawaharlal Nehrus letter to chief ministers dated June 27, 1961 in which he opposes reservations for scheduled castes and tribes in the strongest terms. It is too long a letter to quote here but let me give you a paragraph, They deserve help but, even so I dislike any kind of reservation, more particularly in Services. <b>I react strongly against anything which leads to inefficiency and second-rate standards. I want my country to be a first class country in everything.</b> The moment we encourage the second-rate we are lost. Ah, if Panditji could see what his grand daughter-in- laws government is seeking to impose upon us by way of reservations for those castes whose backwardness is itself uncertain.
In his new book, Shourie provides the most compelling arguments against reservations pointing out that the very basis on which OBC quotas are being provided is flawed. The last caste census done in India was in 1931 in which census officers from across the country reported that caste lines were becoming blurred on account of economic and technological developments.
Arun reminds us that today, By contrast, journalists and pollsters declaim with such confidence, Our Exit Poll shows that Kurmis have deserted Congress and are flocking toâ¦. Not just politicians, even judges talk as if India is what it was, in fact what some text collated over 700 years says it should have been twenty-five hundred years ago.
<b>In the many years I have known Arun as an editor and a friend the thing I have admired most about him is his ability to immerse himself totally in researching an issue and writing about it only when he knows everything there is to know about the subject. He has done exactly this with reservations. </b>
So, how backward are the OBCs?
He damns the Mandal Commission in its own words by pointing out that the commission itself was worried about the reliability of the information it was getting. Listen to this. In the end it may be emphasised that this survey has no pretensions to being a piece of academic research. It has been conducted by the administrative machinery of the government and used as a rough and ready tool for evolving a set of simple criteria for identifying social and educational backwardness. On this uncertain premise is based the decision to provide 27% quotas for those of backward caste, although we are not absolutely sure who these castes are and whether they remain educationally backward.
It is not just government policies that emerge from the book as being seriously flawed, it is also the judgements of many eminent judges. Based on a meticulous reading of pronouncements gathered from many courts and many cases Arun draws a worrying portrait of wooly-headed judges holding forth on history and caste without understanding either. In many cases it is because of judicial activism that governments have gone ahead with social justice schemes that are often meaningless and retrograde.
I am running out of my allotted space so cannot go into details here but I urge anyone even slightly interested in caste quotas and social justice, to go out and buy Arun Shouries new book. <b>I would urge policymakers to read it as well but know they will not because it is not social justice or education that motivates them, but votes. </b>
If this means betraying the legacy of Congress icons like Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi so be it.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->