Why Reservation……..

Well, I know I am being contradictory. But try as I might I can’t find an alternative route to reservation. If you could tell me one I would be obliged. The SC/ST/OBC quotas are inciting what seems to be everyone’s ire. It is worth it (in hard cash) to be able to come up with a pragmatic solution.

Yes, there should ideally be no quotas given to a section of society that is not marginal, if political vote banks are anything to go by. Why then are they being given such preferential treatment and why are they allowed into hallowed halls of tertiary education when they obviously cannot compete at par with the merit students. Is this where we are leading our country to? These and such are the questions posed by many anguished educated (and incidentally mostly “higher caste”) citizens of our country. Don’t arrive at wrong conclusions, they are not against the upliftment of the oppressed sections. It is just that they feel that in this day and age the oppressed sections are the economically backward classes (EBCs – to which again, incidentally, quite a few “higher caste” people do belong). That many of the SC/ST/OBCs belong to this more acceptable basis for reservation is of course also incidental. Right?

I look at both points of views, the pros and cons of reservation for OBCs and SCs and STs and EBCs and wonder where we are heading. The reservation bill for women too caused angst among so many including some feminist groups. Why is reservation a new word no longer fit to be mentioned in a truly civilized society?

Do we think that in the land where encounter killings are not just sanctioned but encouraged by governments for the pettiest of reasons deeply rooted in prejudice we are all civilized? Do we think that in the land where despite so many feminist groups, so many pro women laws we still have millions of cases of atrocities against women we are all civilized? Do we think that in a land that is peopled by deeply religious believers of children being the blessings of God , where we worship Goddesses as the Almighty, but where we still have multitude cases of child labor, of female infanticide we are civilized? Do we think that in the land that hails the Mahatma as the Father of the Nation and that proudly touts its copyrighted version of Ahimsa, yet where a Dalit would be killed for daring to drill his own well in a village, where we should be as ashamed of present day socio-political Gujarat as we hope to shame Pakistan or the USA for their atrocities, we are civilized? Please somebody explain the Indian concept of civilization to me.

Women came into power by being promoted to positions of rank by sympathetic people who believed in equality. So many women protest that this kind of reservation is merely a symbolic gesture empty of meaning. It is like doing Lakshmi Pooja and worshipping the women of the family for one day and going back to exploiting them the rest of the year. I doubt if the majority of the people following this custom are even aware of the hypocrisy they practice. They are not even aware of their practices as being condemned as exploitative. The historical-cultural- psychological burden carried by the women as they try to march toward equality has been documented so many times. Do we think that any oppressed section of society suffers less?

‘The worst enemy of a woman is another woman.’ It is a saying that I have heard so many times. I will not get into the debate of the whys and wherefores. I will extend this argument. I do strongly believe that the worst enemy of any oppressed section is another party with that same section, i.e., the worst enemy of an SC/ST/OBC is another SC/ST/OBC. The worst enemy of an Indian is another Indian. The worst enemy of oneself is also oneself. Sounds familiar? Of course it is what most religious and spiritual texts preach. If you want science to give its stamp of approval to this doctrine then psychology and even biology with its genetic explanations of why we suffer from various illnesses will attest to it.

So what is the solution? What do we do? Is there no end to this ongoing debate? Are the “higher castes” of today to be persecuted for the ills of their ancestors? Do we punish present day Germans for the atrocities that their forefathers committed? Do we punish men en masse for the crimes that have been committed against women? Is reservation for the “oppressed” sections of society a punishment for the “unoppressed” but formerly oppressive sections?

I wonder, were women always as savvy as they are today? Were they able to handle the pressures of working outside as they are today? Were they as respected to take sensible decisions as they are today? Were they deemed as capable of being engineers or doctors or lawyers or even teachers as they are today? Did they not fight persecution, prejudice? Did they not make mistakes? Did they not stumble and even give up in some cases? Did they not eliminate their ‘femininity’ in some cases to be accepted? Were they not reviled? Here too, were not the economically privileged better off in acquiring more privileges? And did not the social revolution slowly but surely come about? Was it not, at least in India, Indira Gandhi as our Prime Minister who did more to convince the downtrodden of the value of women as a working segment than any other feminist group? Was Indira Gandhi not a symbol initially? Was it not later that she came into her own?

Every case in history, every success story, talks of oppression faced by heroes and heroines. They were challenged, castigated, suppressed and/or victimized as they struggled to march to the beat of their own drummer. We hear of them today and salute them, be they Bill Gates or Abdul Kalam or Einstein or Dalai Lama or Medha Patkar or Taslima Nasrin. Why then do we persist in seeing the failures within our system? Surely for every success story we hear of, the public figures, there are many more who started their journey but gave up? If we truly salute the spirit and not merely the success then shouldn’t we also applaud briefly the failures for daring to try? If we should, then why are we so against the people who will try to rise through an avenue they are trying to create? Why are we so against reservation?

Are we against reservation per se or against politicians using these policies for their own nefarious purposes? Is that what we are afraid of? Then why not decry as loudly and for as long the political decisions that are affecting the security and economy of the country (the sanctioned riots/encounters/ bandhs) or the education system of the country (other than reservation, we do have issues like improvement of facilities, payscale for teachers etc.) and so on? Why do we agitate about select issues when each of us is bound to all issues? I see no 'morchas', no protests, no wide scale demonstrations for environmental protection. In spite of the fact that the global warming will cause us all to suffer even more within the next decade we are not agitating. When there is such a hue and cry due to power shortages I see no mass campaigns for alternative solutions. I see no one promoting solar energy as a source for locally harvesting power to facilitate our mechanical lives. We deem in these cases that it is a political decision that must have the final avowal.

Ultimately, then, we are apathetic to our surroundings. We are concerned about earning power to which tertiary education at prestigious institutions is linked. We are not concerned with how we live but our status. We talk of the quality of life but I see very few campaigners for this facet. I have no recourse but to opine that the reservation for oppressed sections might be even more stringently opposed to than the reservation for women because we see the money going to other sections of the community. After all, if the women earn it is still the same community that they are contributing to. In short, they are still the community’s property. I wonder if this is not another cause for a protest march.

I wonder if we will ever face ground realities instead of being ensconced behind a computer. Because like it or not the ones behind a computer are fewer in number to the ones with no water, no money, no opportunity and yet the minority rules. Now isn’t that just like India? When will our situation improve? I think only if we are able to stake a majority government. When we give voice to those who listen to us. Till then Jiyo segmentation. Jiyo mere symbolic reservations. Jiyo agitations. Jiyo pessimism. Jiyo depression.

If we, “the educated”, “the civilized”, “the sensible”, “the true visionaries of the nation”, are truly so many in numbers and are united in our goals I wonder why we manage to elect a diverse range of politicians to represent us at the highest echelon of our realm. Are we then the majority? Or are we then not as united as we like to proclaim? Are we our own worst enemy?

As for the reservation issue, you didn’t truly think I had any answers, did you? ;)


- Written on 7th May 2007.