12-09-2006, 03:28 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Sour cream </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Manmohan's final quota betrayal
In rejecting the recommendation of a parliamentary standing committee to introduce a "creamy layer" clause to the Bill seeking to provide a 27 per cent OBC quota in Government-aided institutions of higher learning, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has signalled his final and unmitigated surrender to political blackmail. When Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh mooted OBC reservations in the IITs and IIMs, the crafty Minister's attempt was clearly to embarrass the Prime Minister and pre-empt the report of the Knowledge Commission that Mr Manmohan Singh had handpicked. At that point the Prime Minister - and the Congress - promised the country that they would not reject the imperatives of merit and not constrict opportunities for general category students. They promised to augment capacity so that, in numbers at least, the seats lost to quotas were made up for and affirmed that there would be no blind application of the caste provision. <b>Indeed, the Veerappa Moily Oversight Committee was set up for the purpose of fixing modalities. A key issue in this entire period was rationalisation of the list of OBCs, and removal of wealthy, long-empowered communities - such as the Yadavs, for instance - from an affirmative action programme aimed at helping the truly indigent among the OBCs become management graduates and engineers.</b> In coming up with an "all OBCs are equal" Bill, the Government has betrayed India, the Congress has betrayed its constituency, and Prime Minister Singh has betrayed his conscience. Failure to stand up to the OBC chieftains - from Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav to the Ramadoss father-and-son firm - in the UPA has meant the Congress has sacrificed the larger interest. Like Mr VP Singh in 1990, it is seeking to pander to upper OBCs in, primarily, northern India but is not going to win their vote - the middle peasantry walked out on the Congress in 1967 when Charan Singh quit the party.
Well-meaning but simplistic liberals often confuse the reservation provision for Dalits in 1951 with the Mandal binge of 1990, as extended by Mr Manmohan Singh and Mr Arjun Singh in 2006. Dalits were genuinely the wretched of the earth, and deserved state support in post-Independence India. The OBCs/Backwards - at least groups like the Jats and Kurmis and Kunbis/Marathas - are beneficiaries of the Green Revolution and of free India's economic development. Entire communities have been economically and politically empowered. They don't deserve easy access to higher education; at least successive generations of the same family don't. About the only way Mr Manmohan Singh can atone is by ensuring that ordinary Indians - those who can't parade a "politically correct" caste tag or just don't want to - don't suffer due to his inaction. The proposal to open up higher education to private and foreign investment should be pushed through, irrespective of what the intellectual luddite who runs the HRD Ministry says. India has given Mr Manmohan Singh a lot. It deserves some reciprocity.
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
Manmohan's final quota betrayal
In rejecting the recommendation of a parliamentary standing committee to introduce a "creamy layer" clause to the Bill seeking to provide a 27 per cent OBC quota in Government-aided institutions of higher learning, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has signalled his final and unmitigated surrender to political blackmail. When Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh mooted OBC reservations in the IITs and IIMs, the crafty Minister's attempt was clearly to embarrass the Prime Minister and pre-empt the report of the Knowledge Commission that Mr Manmohan Singh had handpicked. At that point the Prime Minister - and the Congress - promised the country that they would not reject the imperatives of merit and not constrict opportunities for general category students. They promised to augment capacity so that, in numbers at least, the seats lost to quotas were made up for and affirmed that there would be no blind application of the caste provision. <b>Indeed, the Veerappa Moily Oversight Committee was set up for the purpose of fixing modalities. A key issue in this entire period was rationalisation of the list of OBCs, and removal of wealthy, long-empowered communities - such as the Yadavs, for instance - from an affirmative action programme aimed at helping the truly indigent among the OBCs become management graduates and engineers.</b> In coming up with an "all OBCs are equal" Bill, the Government has betrayed India, the Congress has betrayed its constituency, and Prime Minister Singh has betrayed his conscience. Failure to stand up to the OBC chieftains - from Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav to the Ramadoss father-and-son firm - in the UPA has meant the Congress has sacrificed the larger interest. Like Mr VP Singh in 1990, it is seeking to pander to upper OBCs in, primarily, northern India but is not going to win their vote - the middle peasantry walked out on the Congress in 1967 when Charan Singh quit the party.
Well-meaning but simplistic liberals often confuse the reservation provision for Dalits in 1951 with the Mandal binge of 1990, as extended by Mr Manmohan Singh and Mr Arjun Singh in 2006. Dalits were genuinely the wretched of the earth, and deserved state support in post-Independence India. The OBCs/Backwards - at least groups like the Jats and Kurmis and Kunbis/Marathas - are beneficiaries of the Green Revolution and of free India's economic development. Entire communities have been economically and politically empowered. They don't deserve easy access to higher education; at least successive generations of the same family don't. About the only way Mr Manmohan Singh can atone is by ensuring that ordinary Indians - those who can't parade a "politically correct" caste tag or just don't want to - don't suffer due to his inaction. The proposal to open up higher education to private and foreign investment should be pushed through, irrespective of what the intellectual luddite who runs the HRD Ministry says. India has given Mr Manmohan Singh a lot. It deserves some reciprocity.
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