Mr Fali Nariman... renowned law expert, said: Indian Taxation system is a National Disgrace, because it serves primarily tax-consultants, accountants - and not the common man.
Every common man should be able to file taxes himself, but this is not possible because Taxation System like Law, like Police, like Bureaucracy has been made very complicated.
Not very different from the days when only Brahmins could understand Sacred Text, others had to sit at their feet to understand what was written in them, since it was all in esoteric languages, and not for the common man.
Finance Ministers of the past are THUGS - who dont see the need to make it amenable to the common man.
Her caste equation did not work. She is banging her men, suspending and dismissing and soooooooo oooooon. Laloo and Paswan who (the latter) used to bring highest winning margin in the country had to eat humble pie and their caste politics made upside down: a blot in the blue.
Re: Mayawati is very angry...
by Avinash on May 20, 2009 12:13 PM
Actually she was much better if she would have not fought for the muslim votes. Believe me whatever she may do to bang her head the muslims will vote for SP/Congress. Hence the best thing for her was to do what she did best last elections. Let the Congress/SP fight for the muslim votes & consolidate on here Dalit/Hindu votes which would have easily given her 50 seats believe me. But she thinks everybody will vote for her.
If she joins hands with BJP instead of congress/SP, she is much better of in UP believe me & she will be CM for the next 15 years.
Re: Dalits and Brahmins should marry each other
by Bhagwandas Maurya on May 20, 2009 12:10 PM
India is not China. You cannot have forced marriages. Caste and religion should be treated as individual preferences, and no special privileges be given to people of any social group for reasons other than economic.
Re: Dalits and Brahmins should marry each other
by New York on May 20, 2009 07:10 PM
Casteism and Reservations will prevail in India **till** 85% of all registered marriages are inter-caste.
Re: Re: Dalits and Brahmins should marry each other
by jet on May 20, 2009 10:41 PM
we have seen inter caste marriages in people who have higher education and doing jobs. if more and more people study and get good jobs then there will be more inter-caste marriages
Re: Re: Dalits and Brahmins should marry each other
by Siachen on May 20, 2009 12:23 PM
I have been a standing testimony to such a marriage which despite the all-out pains the guy took to sustain the marriage, it did not work and had to break after five long years, which was indeed very painful. His spouse always stood by her sibbligs and parents who were totally lopsided to their given way of doing things. They come enmass and forcefully stay with him for weeks together and take away the girl with them for an indefinite period, nothing doing even if her children were school going and the husband working in private sector. Now he has taken a vow never ever think on marrying a girl from any other community or Caste as they have deep rooted phylosophy of sustaning their culture and etiquette, which might not go well today's day to day, given the educatiion of children in better way,eating habits and nature of foods; their upbringing and to be in a congenial rapport with the neighbours and society, etc.A square peg does never fit to round role. This is without any bias or favouritism to anyone whosoever.
But in this election,castes,and even religions,seem have not played a major role if we go by the result of Bihar,UP,Rajastan,Orissa,WB,Delhi,Karnataka,etc. I do agree with the contention of Prof.Ashish Nandy that caste has a major role in mobilising people politically. In Bihar, voters, irrespective of caste,religions and even economic background,overwelmingly voted to JD(U)-BJP combined. Why, so? They were longing for a good administration and corruption free development environment for long and they get the same under Mr. Nitish Kumar. So they voted him and his ally. Similarly, voters are frustrated with their latest caste based experiment under newly elected Mayabati after long suffering under another caste based ruler, Mulayam in UP. So, their longing for good administration and development has been dashed. They have started loosing confidence on caste based regional outfits. The increase of vote percentage of national parties like Congress and BJP is the result of this change of trust. In Orissa too, voters have voted overwelmingly to BJD irrespective of any above consideration. So also, in Karanataka where attempts were made by some so-called secular parties to polarise the voting on secular and communal devide. This is definitely a good development and a good sign for the democracy in India. You columnists and opinion leaders should work on this latest development and help promote this for promotion of healthy democracy. People need good administration and that is all.
Agree with Ashish Nandy that caste does play a role in politics. In fact, in India, parties claim to be most secular, not discriminating based on caste and religion but elections are always fought on the basis of caste. The advantage of doing caste politics are very short term. Yes, it would help the parties win the seats which is a short term gain. But, there are 2 basic problems associated with it. First, when the person from certain caste gets elected because he gets votes from the constituency where majority people from his caste reside, the elected leader may just ignore that constituency completely or may do minimal work assuming that people from his caste is going to vote for him again. In that case, that community doesn't grow at all. Second is opposite of that. The same leader may just work and promote the people of his caste only and leave other castes in that constituency behind. Just like what Lalu Yadav did making reservation and giving jobs to Yadavs only. Actually, this caste & religion politics needs to be removed as soon as possible because people will just vote for the person from their caste regardless of whether person has any good qualities or not. A person who is well-qualified with good leadership skills should be allowed to fight instead of illiterate people who have strong influence on that caste. That will increase aspiration of people from that community also & the leader also has to work for that constituency in order to get reelected.
Agree with Ashish Nandy that caste does play a role in politics. In fact, in India, parties claim to be most secular, not discriminating based on caste and religion but elections are always fought on the basis of caste. The advantage of doing caste politics are very short term. Yes, it would help the parties win the seats which is a short term gain. But, there are 2 basic problems associated with it. First, when the person from certain caste gets elected because he gets votes from the constituency where majority people from his caste reside, the elected leader may just ignore that constituency completely or may do minimal work assuming that people from his caste is going to vote for him again. In that case, that community doesn't grow at all. Second is opposite of that. The same leader may just work and promote the people of his caste only and leave other castes in that constituency behind. Just like what Lalu Yadav did making reservation and giving jobs to Yadavs only. Actually, this caste & religion politics needs to be removed as soon as possible because people will just vote for the person from their caste regardless of whether person has any good qualities or not. A person who is well-qualified with good leadership skills should be allowed to fight instead of illiterate people who have strong influence on that caste. That will increase aspiration of people from that community also & the leader also has to work for that constituency in order to get reelected.
Re: Need to make Caste obsolete slowly
by Parth Mehta on May 20, 2009 11:33 AM
This is a difficult problem to address though because people from these different castes need to be educated about how caste and religious politics can be harmful in long run. Education and awareness are the key factors otherwise these people will just keep voting blindly for the person just based on the caste and will never be able to come up until the leader himself is an honest man and really wants to work for people and work for inclusive growth.
Re: Truth
by Bhagwandas Maurya on May 20, 2009 12:15 PM
By referring to inter-caste marriages, you are still recognising the existence of caste. Casteism has protection in the constitution of India. So, the constitution has to be amended as the first step to get rid of this social malice.
Re: Truth
by Atul Trivedi on May 20, 2009 03:51 PM
Who says marriages are caste based? Marriages are economic based. Will a person of so called lower caste with degree from Harvard marry an illiterate poor person from Higher Caste? The castes prevailed in marriages till the castes represented a socio-economic-liguistic homogenous group. Where ever it is broken marriages have moved out.
