RESERVATIONS WILL ADD TO EFFICIENCY, CREATIVITY: GOVT. SHOULD NOT BACKTRACK: IMPLEMENT PAST POLICIES: CARE FOR NEEDY STUDENTS
Press Note/ May 21, 2006
RESERVATIONS WILL ADD TO EFFICIENCY, CREATIVITY: GOVT. SHOULD NOT BACKTRACK: IMPLEMENT PAST POLICIES: CARE FOR NEEDY STUDENTS
By Medha Patkar, Sanjay M.G., P. Chennaiah, and Sanjay Sangvai. Source from Indiathinkersnet.
The People's Movements all over India demand that the Union government must implement the constitutional amendment to reserve the seats for the other backward communities without any delay and see that all the earlier policies, decisions assurances regarding the affirmative actions in favour of the backward castes are implemented fully.
We condemn the deliberate lethargy on part of governments regarding implementing already approved policies of Mandal Commision recommendations. Even now, thousands of seats in educational and professional arena are not filled - rather they are made 'open' for want of 'suitable candidates' from the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes or backward classes. We demand that all the unfilled seats must be filed with the due representation of the concerned classes.
With this we make a strong plea for strengthening the common school policy, common technical and higher education policy and equipping them with quality education, resources and due attention. The newly introduced elitist streak in the higher technical education should be abolished. There should be common public institutions imparting finest quality technical and professional education. The privatization and coprporatization of education and highly technical profession must stop. They are being educated and employed on the basis of public spending. So they must follow the wishes of the people of this country. Therefore there should also be reservations for the backward classes in private enterprises.
For Efficiency and Creativity
The policy of reservations for the deprived classes in the higher and technical education and professions is an opportunity to add to the quality, creativity and efficiency in the educational and professional fields. The reservations must be seen not as 'doling out' something for the 'deprived classes', but it is mark of adding to the experiences, creativity and knowledge bases of various aspects in our public life. Over 70 percent of the workforce in the country is not just manual laborers; they come with their own intelligence, imaginativeness, innovations and resourcefulness. It would make our productive processes and economy varied and richer. Just look at U.S. and other countries where all sections of populations are brought in the vortex of education, sports and other professions. We have to be proud of the fact that we would be much richer nation with the participation of such brains in our social-economic activities in such a large and varied scale.
From all these angles, it is high time that the private institutions, industries and service sector also must be made to accept the reservation policy. These industries will have to be made aware that they operate in India, and they will have to follow the Indian Constitution and law. If they threaten to go outside India, let them go and we shall see whether they get such subsidized water, land, cheap labour, pliant state elsewhere in the world. These industrialists are not making any favor for the people; rather they exploit the people and resources of this country. In this connection, we also disapprove and will oppose the policies of creating 'special economic zones' (SEZ), where no India laws would be applicable.
Though we quite understand the apprehensions in the minds of the students and professionals from the general categories regarding the narrowing space for competition, that alone cannot be reason for opposing the reservations for the hitherto backward communities. The Union and concerned state governments should initiate the steps as to help the poor and deprived students and professionals in the general category.
The unemployment and narrowing down the space for more employment and educational opportunities is not due to the reservations of seats, but due to the neo-liberal political economy that the ruling class in India has adopted in collusion with the global capital. Even without the reservations, the employment and education opportunities in various jobs in India are being eroded and thousands of people are thrown out of existing jobs. We demand that the Union and state governments must end the embargo on the jobs in the public sector and should start thinking of creating more jobs.
We appeal to the agitating students and professionals not to hold reservations responsible for their anxiety and to understand the deeper economic crisis we all have been thrown. We also expect the supporters of the reservations to reason with the agitating students and take them along, caring for their sensitivities and interests. The young student and professional community must not be pitted against each other, who otherwise are the harbinger of the future changes and struggle in this country. We have to strengthen a united struggle against the common adversary in form of national and multinational corporate and imperialist vested interests.
posted by PRO RESERVATION FRONT @ 10:54 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
The Independent Dalit Movement and the Challenge of
Savarna Cooptation
Yoginder Sikand
One of the greatest challenges before the contemporary
Dalit movement is the threat of cooptation by Savarna
Hindu forces. Historically, conquest and physical
subjugation of Dalit and Adivasi communities by
Savarna Hindus has gone along with a gradual process
of absorption of these communities into the caste
system, with these communities being relegated to the
bottom of the caste hierarchy as slaves or worse. This
historical process entailed a re-writing of the
history and myths of these communities in such a way
as to promote Savarna hegemony and Dalit and Adivasi
enslavement.
This process of refashioning of myths and histories of
these communities is underway today as well. Hindutva
as well as Gandhian organizations, often with state
backing, have been hard at work to Hinduise these
communities, which, in other words, means to further
entrench their marginalisation and the hegemony of the
Savarnas. At the same time, every effort is being
made to prevent the Dalits from mobilizing
autonomously for their rights independent of Savarna
tutelage and control. Independent Dalit activism is
seen as threatening Savarna privileges and hence as a
menacing threat, denounced routinely as 'divisive',
'casteist' and 'anti-national'.
A recently published booklet recently brought out by
the Gandhian Institute of Studies, Varanasi, clearly
indicates that on the question of the independent
Dalit struggle seemingly do-gooder Gandhians as well
Hindutva chauvinists think alike. Titled
'Manufacturing History Through Falsehood: Revisiting
the Dalit Movement in India', it quotes both Gandhi as
well as Hindutva ideologues to launch a bitter
diatribe against Dalit leaders and ideologues who
insist on the separate, independent mobilization of
Dalits against Savarna Hindu oppression.
The booklet's major purpose is to absolve the Savarnas
of their role in the oppression of the Dalits and
hence to steer the Dalits away from challenging
Savarna hegemony. It is not the Savarnas, the booklet
seems to suggest, that the Dalits should be mobilizing
against. Hence, it seeks to provide a defence of the
caste system, extolling its supposed virtues and
denouncing any critique of it. Not willing to
recognize the fundamental inequality and oppression on
which the caste or varna system is based, it insists,
'The details of the Varna system were always innovated
and up-to-dated (sic.) as per the need to (sic.) the
society, but Varna Vyavastha and Varna dharma has
(sic.) remained an integral part of Hindu dharma from
the earliest period till the present times'. It argues
that varna is based on qualities of a person and a
person can therefore shift from one varna to another,
completely ignoring the fact that this was probably
never true in the past and is most certainly not the
case today. Seeking to provide a pseudo-scientific
defence of the Varna system, it argues that the
Brahmins are 'undoubtedly most revered and privileged'
because they supposedly possess various noble virtues.
It quotes numerous Hindu religious texts to argue this
point. Significantly, there is not even a hint of
critique of Brahminical texts, from the Vedas down to
the Ramayana and after, for the harsh strictures they
contain against the Shudras and the Dalits.
The booklet recognizes the practice of untouchability,
but every effort is made to minimize its magnitude and
inhumanity. Thus, it claims that the proportion of
people actually treated as untouchables is miniscule,
arguing, without citing any proof, that in the early
twentieth century British administrators estimated
them to be a mere 3.5% of the total population of
India. Blaming the British for allegedly creating a
category of untouchables, it claims that by 'cleverly
ordain[ing] some special facilities for them', they
managed to get several more castes to define
themselves as untouchables, thus inflating their
numbers. Likewise, the Adivasis were allegedly
instigated by the British to declare themselves as
separate from the Hindus, and in this they were
allegedly enticed by offers of special facilities. It
is as if the British magically conjured up the Dalits
and Adivasis from nowhere, and that prior to this
there was absolutely no consciousness on the part of
these oppressed communities of the inhuman conditions
under which they had to live as a result of Savarna
domination. There is also in this argument a clear
attack on reservations and other forms of affirmative
action for Dalits and Adivasis, which are seen as
encroaching on the privileges of the Savarnas. Turning
to the present day, the booklet opposes the notion of
a separate Other Backward Classes category and
policies of affirmative action for these groups on
similar specious grounds. The inane argument it gives
in its defence is that 'It is impossible to divide the
highly spiritually-advanced, complex Bharatiya society
into such primitive groups and understand its
characteristics with such an immature approach'.
The booklet reluctantly recognizes the practice of
untouchability, but Savarna Hindus are sought to be
spared all responsibility for it. Instead, Muslims are
blamed for the practice, although, of course, this
goes quite against all historical evidence. Thus, the
booklet argues, 'Untouchability and excommunication
grew when Hindu society was facing very difficult
times', an indirect reference to the period of
Turkish, Afghan and Mughal rule. At the same time, it
is at pains to defend untouchability on
pseudo-scientific grounds. Thus, it argues,
"[U]ntouchability out of consideration for purity and
cleanliness had nothing to do with any kind of
hardness of heart but is the result of the
requirements of hygiene and cleanliness and also due
to psychological or religious views. The nearest and
dearest women relatives, such as one's own mother or
daughter or wife were to be 'untouchable' during their
monthly periods. The most affectionate friends were
untouchable during the mourning period". In this way,
the seriousness of the permanent untouchability of the
Dalits is sought to be dismissed, being equated with
the temporary ritual untouchabilty that some Savarnas
were subjected to by their fellow Savarnas on certain
occasions.
The booklet claims that 'The Smritis do not say that
the untouchables or antyajas cannot worship the Hindu
deities', but conveniently ignores the horrendous
strictures against the Dalits and Shudras contained in
the Smritis and other Hindu scriptures. It seeks to
argue that the Dalits have never been subjected to
oppression by the Savarnas, neither in the past nor in
the present. After whitewashing the history of crimes
committed by Savarnas against Dalits that are
sanctioned by the Brahminical religious tradition, the
booklet then shifts to the present-day, making the
same sort of specious claims. Thus, for instance, it
argues that 'When the Constitution of Independent
India was prepared, untouchability was declared a
crime and no Hindu opposed it'. The continued practice
of untouchabiluty all over India is ample testimony to
the ridiculousness of this claim. The booklet offers
the example of some Dalit leaders holding important
political posts and insists that this shows that
'mainstream Hindus, believing in the caste system,
have elected and honoured so-called untouchable
leaders in recent times'. There is no reference, of
course, to the fact that several of these leaders
continued to be derided even after the assumed
important positions of power, and that the ordinary
Savarna continue to deeply resent what is seen to be
their wrongful usurpation of positions that they
consider as meant for Savarnas alone.
Clearly, as the booklet suggests, as far as the issue
of independent mobilization of Dalits, Adivasis and
other similarly placed marginalized communities
against Savarna hegemony is concerned, there is little
to distinguish Gandhians from rabid Hindutvawadis.
Whatever their other differences, they are both
equally opposed to these oppressed communities seeking
to struggle for their rights on the basis of their own
identities, instead of subsuming them under a
Savarna-led Hindu umbrella.
Post a Comment
<< Home