I was consciously staying away from the reservation debate at least on this blog. In case you haven’t noticed yet, this blog is strictly a personal one dealing with my experiences in life and how I learn from them. The reservations mess that the Indian Government has brought onto itself and my take on it probably doesn’t quite fit in the scheme of things here.
But today I seem to have found a way to fit this thing in this blog. Some specific news items- one is of the Muslim groups demanding their fair share representation in the number of seats, the second one is of Meira Kumar giving details of proposed increased quotas for SC to reflect the increase of their population percentage. I also came to know the people of Buddhist religion are officially recognised as SC. It is also widely known that one can easily obtain false caste certificates if you oil the right hands. Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan is now proposing earmarking as much as 22.5% of the annual budget for Scheduled Castes. Wow! The sheer intelligence of our leaders amazes me. Anyways I do not wish to rant here about the twisted logic of this proposal.
The point I wish to make here is that given my own feelings for all things religious, I can easily convert to a more comfortable religion. So how is the govt going to stop me from getting reservation? Also for people who probably are more particular about being Hindu, they could easily obtain false (oops the certificates are actually genuine in the sense that they are duly signed by the actual issuing authority, so the govt cannot possibly call them as false) caste certificates. So if we leave aside the so called noble intentions of the govt and purely look the impact or try to know about the actual population benefiting by the move, we’ll see that they constitute those who actually are traditionally from so called backward castes, those who convert to Muslim or Buddhism and those who conveniently obtain false caste certificates from touts attached to various corrupt offices. The govt is conveniently forgetting about the huge number of poor people from all castes who are struggling for food and probably don’t even think about education. After all what possible vote bank could they represent?
Given that this reservation policy has almost unanimous support among the politicians, (who would want to dare challenge the united voting might of the backward castes?) there is no way this bill can be stopped. So it is now time for me to take a stand. What am I going to do once this bill is passed? Am I going to get fed up of all this, quit and emigrate to another country that is not governed by the age old divide and rule policy? Am I going to stay back and face the rigours of increasingly reducing portion of seats and jobs that will be left for me and my children to compete for? Am I going to stand up for my principles and not get a false caste certificate? Am I going to stand up for whatever feeble religious beliefs I have and not convert? Only time will tell. But time too is running out. Sooner or later the loophole of changing religion and the one of false caste certificates ought to be discovered. Some fix will definitely follow. Maybe I need to act fast. Hmm lets see…..
3 comments:
Nice Post - A little different view on the reservation issue.
I now really dont feel like writing anything on this reservation debate.
To people like us, whole India seem to be against reservation. But the decision makers do not give a damn to our views. Imagine, not a single party is supporting us
(I remember reading just one vote against reservation in Lok Sabha and two in Rajya Sabha - something like that - cant recall exact details)
They have no points to prove they are right in doing that, and they do not care to prepare those points (they will find some if they try), but they do not even feel that they are answerable to such a big group (remember Karan Thapar - Arjun Singh Interview)
The blogs, articles, strikes, rallies definitely create awareness and draw attention, but something bigger is to be done
And as you said, we need to act fast.
Tired of it man. The democracy where the minority have a majority say, the politicians who are proving that there is no bottom in going low for votes, the people who do not vote.....
Am tired of them all. No more voices, no more opinions.... just silent death... death of principles and fairness.
#shilpi
Apparently though we might feel that the whole India is against reservation, its actually not true. India being a democracy, the politicians do have solid reasoning behind going for reservations. Alas the reasoning is inherently selfish and does not consider anyones well beingother than their own.
#jammy
Well said! But dont give up hope so soon. I know the situation seems hopeless, but there are always options.
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