If you look at the comments that you have made, you have no understanding of what it takes a nation to become a developed nation. What you site as unholy and inhuman practises is in general scrapped and people do realise that it is incorrect. Our major issue is lack of information and knowledge, get people educated and the merit will come, get them the money and they will improve and start thinking out of the box. If today SC/ST's are not moving up despite the Mandal commission's recommendations, who is to be blamed, it is the SC/ST's who are to be blamed. You can take the horse to the pond you can't make it drink. Think about your ideas, it is not a bad world afterall and the private sector doesnot and I will repeat doesnot work on word of mouth or only contacts, it's your merit that gets you the word of mouth or creates and improves your contact. Be competitive and keep cribbing about more facilities without working for it. Cheers!!!!
dear Mr Bidwai The cascasing inequalities are against the so called Upper castes too. Why do you slecetively choose to ignore that? Is reservation the easiest way out for all such issues. Reservation is a slow and sure poison which kills creativity and creates a group of laggards who get jobs without working for it!
The affirmative action of countries like US can never be compared with regressive policies like reservation in India. The need of the hour is to ensure that equality in education,Vocational training is ensure for the dalits,SC and the ST.
It is convoluted arguments like this one that threatens the social fibre of our already polarised society. I have come across many instances in which the 'Reserved' sections have behaved in a irresponsible and incompetent manner either in Educational institutions or in Govt jobs they hold.
So Mr Praful Bidwai please dont write articles of 'appeasement'. It makes you no different from the Laloos and Ram Vilas Paswans of India. A sense of fariness is perhaps the only thing which needs 'Affirmative action' here
RE:Cascading Inequalities
by vijay on Aug 21, 2004 02:53 PM
Mr Ravi, Even the beneficiaries of reservation can quote several instances of irresponsible behaviour from the `upper castes`. Going by ur response it seems all the bad things could be attributed to the `backwards` only and the `forwards` could do no wrong. Please try and find out the castes of the scamsters likes harshad mehtas, ketan parekhs, bhansalis, narashima raos, sukharams, sethia brothers, the directors of pvt sector cos who remain healthy but get their cos declared sick, the bureaucrats who gobble 85% of the development funds sanctioned for various social upliftment schemes, the engineers responsible for faulty constructions, the doctors from pvt speciality hospitals who mess-up the operations, u will have a different picture of the indian `meritocracy`. As long as merit is being attched to caste we will have laggards in all section of the society. It is unjustifiable to, devoid of uniformity, compare the merit of the haves with the have nots, the majority of the latter not incidentally but deliberately are from the `backward` castes. Whether reservations have helped the needy or not is for the beneficiaries to decide, and not for the biased anti-reservation camp. rgds
I am shocked to read the statistics of TOI. Those who are managing the mass comuumication media must not be polarised by political, religious, caste or ethnical values. The thoughts of the author has real value.
It is true that the dalits have been descriminated and haressed down the centuries, but then will giving reservations to them actually serve the porpose to get them to the level that we talk about? It would be very wrong to say that they don't have the brains or the ability to compete with the rest of the population. It is like giving an injured a invalid chair instead of helping him to stand on his own feet. They do need help and they should be given that but then reservations is not the way to go about. We have many so called upper castes people who can't be worse of, whether it is in regards to resources or brains. So rather than judging a person by his caste or religion we should rather be looking at his background. We will surely find that it is not that the religion that matters for the backwardness it is actually the background that he comes from. As for the Muslims getting a reservation is concerned it is like the Brahmin community asking for reservation as they are a minority when they compare themselves with the rest of India. We will always be a minority if we compare a caste or religion with the rest of India. This simply does not mean that one should get reservations.
RE:Reservations
by vijay on Aug 21, 2004 03:51 PM
Dear Amitabh, here is the stats of Brahmin minority holding majority share in key positions.(list is not exhaustive)
Governors 50% Judges of supreme court 56% Chief secretaries of states 54% Judges in High-court 50% Ambassadors to other countries 41.5% Chancellors-VCs of Universities 51% CEOs of Corporations 42%
Brahmins are only 5% of our population and this qualifies them to be called minorities but their reservations in disguise of merit(varnashram) in the positions of power as shown above will put even the die-hard reservationist to shame. As regards reservations for muslims are concerned they are meant for the backward castes amongst the muslims (thanks to the `influence` of hinduism even indian muslims/sikhs/christians/jains etc., practice casteism )and are made to carry the stigma of castes even in the adopted religion and are also as indegent as their counterpart in any other religion including hinduism. Reservation will remain till we cannot provide a workable and acceptable alternative, for, the wounds of 5000 years of varnashram (reservation) are very very deep indeed. rgds
I fully agree that cast system still privails in India but as i have experienced it .. not surely in cities where most of the industries are present.So definitely reserving for Private sector wont do any good to the "Dalits" who are being harresed in deep villages. Well that can be handled by improving the education levels and income in villages.. that becomes an totally diffrent matter to discuss.
As of talking about favourism in Private sector, it should be very unwise to think that most of the recruitments in private secotr or biased and not merit based. Infact the public sector and government office inneffiency can be accounted entirely for reserved seats!
The way private sector is progressing I dont think it can without having meriterous people shouldering the responsibilities. With Reservations what you are doing is killing competiotion and without competetion one can barely think of Sustained Quality or Service.
I sincerely think this is a rubbish article with single minded and biased though (or does he realy think ???)! Harshal Kulkarn
All the incidents which you quoted will only happen in uneducated, rural senario where such casteism persists. In modern cities, where labour on the basis of merit and performance is required, nobody counts the caste of the person.
Take IT sector for instance. Only merit is counted. Nobody will ask your caste or religion.
Can anybody pls answer my questions?
1.Why do I have to register my birth along with "religion/caste"? 2.Why do I have to quote religion/caste during my school enrolment? 3.Why does caste/religion appear in the Leaving/Transfer Certificates of academics?
If we have to do away with castes/religions, we must not have to ask for it nor quote it anywhere. Not for demographic purpose also. Those who ask for it should be punished, including government/private organisations. Those who discriminate or harrass the so called lower castes should be punished by law. Common Civil code is another solution. But for known reasons, we only want to discuss things since more than 55 years.
How easily we give an analogy with US companies for the sake of our arguments at our convenience.Praful Bidwai has done the same.He seems to have forgotten the business environment in US, which is very different from India.Why dont you argue for a capitalist society like US for India with little government control? Taking US example only, why dont restrict reservation to 20%?50 % reservation is an injustice and you are just replacing one injustice with another.
The article is good. It refers to lots of sources. Decent sources. True that there are cascading effects of Indian social system, from birth to all aspects of a person's life. However, the counter to the argument put forward by the writer is just one. "Can one wrong can be undone by another wrong? What is happening is no doubt wrong but whatever is proposed is right? What is the idea of ultimate social state? Is not it that there should not be any difference on the basis of birth, be it caste, creed, race, religion, geography or any other demographic criterion? Is not the idea that there should not be any privilege than one earned through intellectual capability? In this background the article seems to be just another reactive piece written very superficially. No offence meant. I know that the writer is a renowned scholar, still....
RE:Another thought
by Sandy on May 28, 2005 05:00 PM
HI , This is an Infoscion replying to the message written by an intelligent guy. If you talk in term of Stats, which everyone approves more of, this year, Infy received 1500000 applications for job. (Its 5 zeros). 47000 could clear the written exams. And after interview my company hired 12000 odd people. They work solely on merit basis and not on these mean things like caste etc. Definitely anybody who has competency in him can come forward and compete to secure a job. Why don't you come and try your merit? People like these are sick. Just wan to blame others and shield themselves from their own responsibilities and their low merit. Shame on guys like you who point fingers on others but do nothing yourselves.
