SACW | 1 June 2006 | Women's rights in Sri Lanka Nepal; India: Affirmative Action Politics
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Wed May 31 20:02:19 CDT 2006
South Asia Citizens Wire | 1 June, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2255
[Notice: Please note, SACW posts are being interrupted, starting June
2; Posts are expected to resume from June 10 onwards ]
[1] Sri Lanka: Curtailing choice in the guise of preserving culture
( Ambika Satkunanathan)
[2] Nepal : Revolution Reaches Out to Women (Marty Logan)
[3] The Politics of Affirmative Action in India:
- OBC Quotas: To Defend Or Not? (Achin Vanaik)
- The anti-quota stir is misguided (Praful Bidwai)
- Why is India's middle class so hostile to the empowerment of
the poor? (Vinod Mehta)
[4] India: BJP targets Left leader - Petition
___
[1]
Daily MIrror
May 22, 2006
CURTAILING CHOICE IN THE GUISE OF PRESERVING CULTURE
By Ambika Satkunanathan
"A lifestyle marked by the purchase and adornment of fancy clothes,
jewellery and make up, along with a shift toward "provocative" and
"unrespectable" behaviour leading to unwholesome sexual liaisons,
unwanted pregnancies, and unsanitary abortions was posited as having
become the norm among these women'.
Does the above quote sound familiar? You would not be mistaken in
thinking these lines are from one of the leaflets circulated in the
Eastern province a few weeks ago accusing women of several
"transgressions" and calling upon them to stop working in NGOs and
INGOs. The above quote however is from a paper by Malathi de Alwis
and describes public perception of women in the Free Trade Zone in
the late 1980s, when public concern about the exploitation of women
FTZ workers turned to censure and moral policing of women. The use of
culture to control women and their sexuality, and the use of threat
of violence to restrict the autonomy of women remains unchanged,
though the modes and methods of doing so have somewhat changed. For
example, the human rights discourse/language has been appropriated by
non-progressive/right wing groups, which under the guise of
protecting and promoting the rights of women (in this case concern
about the issue of violence against women) seek to control women's
sexuality, reproductive capacity, financial autonomy and even freedom
of movement. Hence, sexuality is the site of control of women's
autonomy, movements, financial freedom etc.
According to a report in the Tamil language newspaper Virakesari on
2 April 2006, TNA MP Mr. Ariyanethiran in a speech at a seminar in
Thirukkovil stated that he had evidence of 'sexual misconduct' of
women NGO workers in the East and of numerous abortions that were
taking place as a result of such misconduct. The seminar which was on
'Women & Culture' was chaired by Ram, the LTTE District Commander for
Ampara. In the days following this speech, anonymous leaflets which
accused women of contributing to cultural degradation by culturally
inappropriate behaviour were circulated in the Eastern province.
The leaflets also stated that women were being sexually abused,
exploited and forced to appear in pornography. The conflation of the
two issues, i.e. culturally appropriate behaviour of women with the
issue of violence against women, is designed to confuse the issue at
hand. The intention is to reinforce long held gender biased views
about violence against women, i.e. create the impression that the
violence women experience is due to their culturally inappropriate
behaviour, and thereby impose restrictions upon women. Such
conflation also results in blaming/punishing the victim, as women
will be censured and punished for both transgressing cultural mores,
and in the opinion of a large section of the populace, for causing or
at the very least contributing to such violence through their
inappropriate behaviour.
The result of the MP's speech and the leaflets has been moral
policing and censure of women by the community, with women being
harassed in public places, in some instances by members of the armed
forces at checkpoints. There have also been cases of groups of men
visiting the homes of women and threatening them not to go to work.
In a space that is already consumed by fear, where violence is
escalating on a daily basis, this event created a fear psychosis
amongst women in the East who are afraid to go to work, and sometimes
even be seen in public spaces.
>
Violence against women is a serious issue and if there are cases of
women being sexually abused and exploited by their colleagues or
superior officers in NGOs and INGOs the focus should be on providing
redress to these women and ensuring the perpetrators are held
accountable for their crimes. Violence against women should not be
used as an excuse to engage in moral policing of women and impose
restrictions upon women. The aim should be to empower women and treat
them as individuals with agency not protect them as one would
children. For example, the language used in the pamphlets is
protectionist and refers to grown women as children, with women
viewed as those who should always be subject to control lest they 'go
astray'.
The pamphlets ask parents of women working in NGOs and INGOs to
prevent their "children" particularly "female children" from
frequenting places where cultural degradation takes place. The code
of conduct formulated at a meeting of NGO representatives and TNA MPs
on April 18 (reported in Virakesari on 20 April 2006) continues to
focus on culturally appropriate behaviour of women and asks the
parents of women who work for NGOs to be vigilant about the behaviour
of their "children". They further, state that women should not work
after 5 p.m. and should not attend meetings outside their home base.
Though the allegations in the leaflets state that women are being
sexually abused and exploited, it is women who are being subject to
further discrimination through the imposition of rules which restrict
their freedom of movement, freedom to work and financial
independence. It was also decided at this meeting that programmes to
prevent cultural decadence should be conducted in every NGO. When we
speak of culture whose culture are we talking about? It is important
to keep in mind that the notion "culture" will be shaped by the
positionality of the speaker. There is no pure static notion of
culture.
It is fear of female sexuality that leads to the imposition of
stricter controls which seek to control a woman's reproductive
capacity, which is key to the survival of the group/community.
Further, as women are viewed as repositories of culture, honour of
community etc, it becomes doubly important to control their
sexuality. At the same time it cannot be denied that historically
women too have appropriated culture to battle hegemonic forces, such
as colonialism, which has resulted in contradictory gender roles for
women.
As economic progress provides more opportunities to women to come
out of the private sphere the fears of the community that women will
be tainted by outside forces increase, and stricter codes of
behaviour in the name of culture are imposed. Hence, as opportunities
for women increase outside the household so do attempts to impose
greater control upon their sexuality and reproductive capacity.
Although identities and gender roles have changed during the conflict
it appears the new markers are also restrictive and attempt to
control/deny the autonomy women have gained. Furthermore, we must
also recognise that women's survival strategies operate even within
exploitative circumstances. To use Rajasingham's term, we must
recognise the 'ambivalent empowerment' that women experience. If we
ignore women's survival strategies, we will force them into an even
more exploitative reality.
As globalization brings about change at an unprecedented pace,
communities struggling to deal with the rapid metamorphosis taking
place seek refuge in culture in their struggle to retain the
familiar. Further in the current context, conflict and then the
tsunami have also eroded existing hierarchies and provided
opportunities to hitherto marginalised groups, such as women. The
dislodging of privileged groups from their positions of power and
change in status quo could also be reasons why groups seek refuge in
culture to maintain the 'purity' of their community.
If women are being sexually abused and exploited we need to ask why
women are reluctant to report the crime. It is because social
attitudes too contribute to the discrimination of women. When a woman
is raped, abused or beaten she thinks not once but many times before
lodging a complaint at the police station. This is due to many
factors: one factor is shame and stigmatisation by society, which in
many cases results in the family discouraging the woman from lodging
a complaint. Laws delays and lack of sensitivity of the law
enforcement sector and members of the legal profession are other
reasons women do not report violence.
We must keep in mind that legal reform alone will not suffice to
ensure that women have the power to make choices about their lives
and have the freedom to carry them through. Changing the law will not
change the status of women in the eyes of the community which might
feel targeted and therefore take social measures to ensure the
continuation of their cultural traditions to the detriment of women.
In the current state of affairs where are the key players in
positions of power placed? The key players, the State, the LTTE and
INGOs, who claim to be committed to the promotion and protection of
the rights of women and do not shy away from rhetoric supporting the
empowerment of women, have been largely silent on this issue. No
statements were made by the Ministry of Women's Affairs or any other
state institution. Where the LTTE is concerned other than Batticaloa
political leader Daya Mohan's statement at a meeting of NGOs
(reported in Virakesari on 20-4-2006) that they had evidence of
sexual abuse of women and warning of serious consequences if such
abuse was not stopped, no other statement has been made. Though the
INGOs, which fund many gender programmes and claim to be dedicated to
the empowerment of women, have issued a statement they need to be
more active in creating a secure space for their female workers.
Through their silence and inaction all key actors are complicit as
silent partners in this attempt to curtail women's freedom of choice,
agency and right to work.
(The writer is a Researcher at the International Centre for Ethnic
Studies, Colombo)
_____
[2]
Inter Press Service
May 31, 2006
NEPAL:
REVOLUTION REACHES OUT TO WOMEN
Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, May 31 (IPS) - The revolution continues in Nepal. But more
than a month after the people chased the king from power, sober
second thought has taken its place on streets that once thronged with
marching, chanting citizens.
On Tuesday, the restored House of Representatives ended one of myriad
practices in the former Hindu kingdom that discriminated against
women, declaring that a child's citizenship can be registered in the
name of the mother or the father. Formerly the mother's name could
not be used, a practice that discriminated against many women,
including rape victims and single mothers.
The proposal, passed unanimously, also pledges to reserve 33 percent
of places in the civil service for women and to target all other laws
-- women's rights activists have counted 139 of them -- that treat
women as lesser than men.
Activists and other women reacted happily but cautiously on
Wednesday. "It is a very good thing for women who have been facing
discrimination for 237 years (considered the birth year of modern
Nepal). But we still have to see how this will be implemented," Lucky
Sherpa, spokeswoman of the Nepali Federation of Indigenous
Nationalities (NEFIN), told IPS.
Others preferred to focus on the bright side. "It's a good start.
Women have to be educated first" before they can expect 50 percent of
places (a demand heard from many quarters since Tuesday's
announcement), said Nepali language teacher Bhagwati Nepal. "I
remember when it was five percent and (at the time) that was also a
good start."
Tuesday's resolution stated that currently women hold only five
percent of places in the bureaucracy.
King Gyanendra reigned for more than a year with a handpicked council
of ministers before a peaceful people's revolution forced him to
return power to the dissolved House of Representatives on Apr. 24.
The previous democratic government had promised to keep 20 percent of
civil service positions for women but the policy was never adopted as
law.
The House proposal was passed nearly two weeks after a proclamation,
dubbed 'Nepal's Magna Carta', transformed the world's only Hindu
kingdom into a secular state.
This small South Asian nation sandwiched between giants India and
China is a multicultural marvel, officially recognising 59 indigenous
or ethnic groups, not counting the various caste groups established
by Hindu tradition. Many indigenous people have long lobbied for a
secular state that would respect their religions, languages and other
cultural rights.
Those people are also arguing that 50 percent of seats in a planned
constituent assembly, and any future elected state bodies, be set
aside for women, said Sherpa. "The 33 percent (in the House proposal
on women) will benefit only the so-called high-caste women, who
already have political party affiliations. It doesn't address
indigenous and other women who have been marginalised for years."
The constituent assembly is supposed to draft a new constitution that
should decide the fate of the hereditary monarchy. King Gyanendra
alienated many Nepalis after he assumed the throne in 2001 following
the "palace massacre" of his brother King Birendra and other family
members. Today, calls for a republic ring out at public gatherings
across the country.
The king made no public statement on Tuesday's proposal and has
rarely been seen in public since he relinquished power.
Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare Urmila Aryal told
state-run Radio Nepal on Tuesday that the government would act
swiftly to implement the letter and spirit of the approved
resolution. "The government now has the duty to adopt laws to
guarantee at least 33 percent women participation in state
mechanisms, distribution citizenships by the name of mothers and curb
domestic violence."
One problem it faces is that the constitution itself promises
equality but explicitly contradicts it on citizenship. Some legal
experts say the supreme law will have to be amended first but since
the revolution, many people in civil society and the legal community
have argued that the constitution has been supplanted by the new
'people's government'.
Some activists have pointed out that the new government's deeds do
not accord with Tuesday's pledge. For instance, Aryal, a junior
minister, is the only woman in the cabinet. Also, neither the
government nor the Maoist rebels named a woman to their teams that
this week launched preliminary peace talks.
In recent years, Nepal's Supreme Court has passed many laws aimed at
ending women's discrimination. Among them, abortion was made legal
and the now uncommon practice of forcing women to live in huts
outside the family home during menstruation was outlawed..
But such laws made little difference in the villages that house more
than two-thirds of the population, activist Durga Sob told IPS in an
interview, last year. ''For the activists these decisions are good --
they'll be able to claim their rights. But those who are backward or
living in remote areas will not benefit.''
Lack of information is a big problem added the president of the
Feminist Dalit Organisation (FEDO) based in Kathmandu. Dalits are
also known as 'untouchables' or 'lower castes' in Hindu tradition.
Added Sob: ''Dalit women (20 percent of all Nepal's women) are
uneducated, illiterate and unaware, as well as discriminated against.
It's difficult to deliver information about these decisions and
women's rights to the community level.''
The FEDO president was not available for an interview Wednesday. But
Meera Dhungana of the Forum for Women, Law and Development, a group
that actively fights for women's rights, told 'The Kathmandu Post'
that the resolution was at least a first step: "The state has now
acknowledged women as its own citizens." (END/2006)
_____
[3] The Politics of Affirmative Action in India
o o o
The Telegraph (?/?/ 2006)
OBC QUOTAS: TO DEFEND OR NOT?
By Achin Vanaik
What should be the response to Arjun Singh's proposal for 27% OBC
quotas in higher education by those who are deeply committed to
promoting greater social equality through and beyond measures of
affirmative action? One says 'beyond' because affirmative action in
jobs and tertiary education while politically necessary and
practically helpful is not the main pathway to the construction of a
more egalitarian society. For that, far more foundational changes are
required such as major redistribution of income and wealth generating
assets like land, structural reorganization of the public primary and
secondary education system to ensure quality education to all
independent of social background, employment-generating economic
policies, and so on.
But this does not mean that affirmative action, though basically a
supplement to these far more fundamental measures is not important.
It widens the caste composition of the middle classes and elites
which is a good thing. Even more significantly it is a constant
symbolic reminder that we have gone nowhere far or deep enough in
creating a more egalitarian society. Its persistence is a standing
affront (which also is a good thing) to rightwing conservatives who
argue that the pursuit of equality has gone too far. Though lip
service might be paid to the principle of affirmative action, such
conservatives are for the weakening or even rapid abandonment of the
principle of affirmative action in the name of efficiency
(excellence) and liberty.
There are then two levels at which one must engage with this issue of
OBC reservations in higher education. There are the specific pros and
cons of the proposal, the motives behind it, the effects it is likely
to have, possible superior alternative forms of affirmative action.
And then there is the more fundamental level of strongly resisting
the more or less systematic attack waged by powerful sections of the
Indian elite against the sustained pursuit of social equality but
disguising itself behind the tirade against Arjun Singh's proposal.
In this regard it is extraordinary that there are some who see no
contradiction between claiming that they do endorse the principle of
affirmative action (though not further reservations) to promote
equality and their espousal of an Indian economic agenda clearly
neoliberal in its overall thrust. Neoliberalism creates ever greater
inequalities of income, wealth and power justified in the name of
higher growth rates and 'prosperity for all'. It operates with a
conception of efficiency-excellence that effectively ignores the
prior extremely skewed social distribution of financial-material and
cultural capital. In all societies the three most crucial
determinants of one's social position, status and prospects are (in
that order) inheritance, luck of birth, and then lagging way behind,
merit; where merit must never be measured or assessed by the end
point reached, i.e., how far up one has traveled economically,
professionally or academically, but by the distance travelled between
one's starting and end points.
When neoliberals oppose egalitarian measures in the name of
'defending liberty' what they have in mind is 'freedom of choice' of
the individual. But the rights elevated here as being primary are
those of the individual as consumer, not as citizen or producer and
is to be exercised through the 'neutral' market. It is a 'freedom'
whose content is thus inextricably linked to wealth which gives one
the capacity to exercise greatest choice in the marketplace. Not
surprisingly, neoliberals are among the strongest advocates of the
steady privatization, commodification and monetization of education
and healthcare services. Since this very Congress-led government,
like its predecessor, is deeply committed to neoliberalism, the
current proposal of OBC reservations can quite justifiably be seen as
a pre-election and political gimmick, a way of establishing false
egalitarian credentials on the cheap, and as a way of pushing more
upper caste and better-off students into the private tertiary
education sector that is anyway being assiduously promoted by various
policies and practices. With some exceptions, entry into private
colleges and institutions is not primarily a function of excellence
but of money. Even enrolment to public 'centres of excellence' such
as IITs/IIMs and the best government engineering and medical colleges
is now overwhelming filled up by candidates who have taken expensive
pre-exam courses in specialized training institutes that have cracked
the entrance examination system of enrolment.
There is an issue of quotas restricting 'merit-based' competitive
access to good public institutions. But with an ever expanding
private education sector, it is not an argument that can be given
anywhere near as much weight as claimed for it. Once it is clear
where one stands - against neoliberalism; for foundational changes in
the redistribution of income, wealth, power and life chances; for the
investment of greater resources in, and more egalitarian
restructuring of, the public primary, secondary (e.g., neighbourhood
schooling) and tertiary education systems; for unequivocal defence of
the principle of affirmative action - then there is certainly a
strong case to be made for alternative, more sophisticated forms of
affirmative action than OBC quotas. Mandal I was vital because the
stakes then were so much higher. It is often forgotten that at the
time influential voices were clamouring for an end to reservations
for SCs and STs. Mandal I diverted upper caste attention away from
this to the OBCs effectively protecting affirmative action programmes
for SCs/STs. Furthermore, it inaugurated the 'politics of
recognition' for other lower castes, highlighting especially in North
India, the moral unacceptability of all-pervasive caste
discrimination.
Fifteen years later we now have to think more perceptively about how
to use a variety of means to make constant and cumulative progress in
deepening and widening social and economic equality. Quota
reservations are the bluntest of instruments unable to cope with the
considerable variations in power, wealth and suffering within the
OBCs themselves and responsible for reproducing a creamy layer rather
than for substantially expanding it. That most political parties
today would not dare to oppose such quotas is testimony to the
political resonance that lower caste resurgence now has in Indian
politics. But these parties, including those that most strongly
identify with OBCs, Dalits, Adivasis, have done little or nothing to
promote the more foundational changes required. In that respect the
'politics of recognition' has not led to, or promoted, or even
seriously joined with, a 'politics of redistribution'. This is the
crucial strategic need of our times and utterly incompatible with the
ideology or policies inspired by neoliberalism. As for affirmative
action, we must move towards devising a range of more sophisticated
and subtler forms of affirmative action that can be sufficiently
sensitive to the complex specificities of the social, economic and
educational terrains to which they are to be applied.
o o o
Rediff.com
May 30, 2006
THE ANTI-QUOTA STIR IS MISGUIDED
Praful Bidwai
As students from some of India's most privileged educational
institutions continue their protests against reservations for
socially disadvantaged OBCs (Other Backward Classes), it becomes
clear that the agitation has not been a spontaneous, but a highly
organised and orchestrated phenomenon.
At least three groups of people have played a role in sustaining it:
upper caste-dominated professional guilds like the Indian Medical
Association; captains of industry and owners of private colleges, who
stridently oppose any extension of Dalit-Adivasi (Scheduled
Castes-Scheduled Tribes) reservations; and Bhartiya Janata Party
politicians.
How far will the student protest go
Weighty evidence for this comes both from the participation in the
agitation by executives of Information Technology companies, and from
the disclosure that 'event management' specialists -- who charge
hefty fees -- were hired to foment protests in Mumbai. Evidently,
many tycoons decided to kill the very idea of affirmative action in
educational institutions -- so it can't be extended to the private
sector, as the government proposes to do.
Those who run private capitation-fee colleges also have a huge stake,
running into thousands of millions of rupees, in opposing affirmative
action. A year's delay in implementing quotas means that private
institutions, with an intake of over 534,000 students, could make
landfall profits of the order of Rs 10 billion (Rs 1,000 crores) to
Rs 25 billion (Rs 2,500 crores) by selling seats which would have
gone to OBCs.
+
Regrettably, even the National Knowledge Commission played a partisan
role in the whole business. First, off its own bat, it opposed OBC
reservations and publicised its opposition through its majority (6:2)
report. Then, two members decided to quit, adding more grist to the
anti-affirmative action mill. They couldn't have been unaware that
their action would raise the pitch of the crusade against affirmative
action in favour of disadvantaged groups per se.
'We can't build the nation with 19th century mindset'
The agitation put at stake not just the fate of Human Resources
Development Minister Arjun Singh's limited proposal to introduce 27
per cent reservation for OBCs in all central universities and
institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology and of
Management. It attacked the fundamental principle of affirmative
action itself. This would have jeopardised the hard-earned gains of
India's social reform movement.
Had the agitation succeeded, India would have turned its back on the
imperative of correcting the distortions and inequalities caused by
unbalanced growth over the past decade or more of neoliberal or 'free
market' policies.
The inspiration behind the anti-affirmative action agitation had
nothing to do with promoting the public interest or any universal
collective or national objectives. Rather, it was driven by a highly
individualistic urge to defend and extend privilege against the
common good. The bulk of the agitating students are children of the
new middle class which burgeoned under the inequality-enhancing,
skewed and dualistic economic policies launched in 1991.
Many of them don't see the unprecedented prosperity and rising
incomes of a small minority -- namely, themselves -- as the result of
certain larger economic processes and forces, such as higher rates of
savings, the Indian state's elitist macroeconomic and taxation
policies, or globalisation, which has given rise to new technologies
and divisions of labour, thus creating new opportunities in IT and
related services.
Even less are they aware that their own prosperity is the obverse of,
and rooted in, the squalor of the majority and the further squeezing
of India's most backward regions and the fragile economies of the
labouring poor. Rather, they attribute it to their own 'talent',
'merit' and individual initiative. They oppose affirmative action
because they want to perpetuate the status quo and grab the
opportunities it offers -- to the exclusion of the vast majority.
The death of meritocracy
Supporters of the anti-affirmative action agitation take refuge
behind many specious (or half-valid) arguments and dubious data: for
instance, that affirmative action will kill or devalue 'merit'; that
Other Backward Classes and even Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes, are already fairly well-represented in many professions,
according to a 1999 National Sample Survey Organisation estimate; and
that in any case, the benefits of educational quotas in institutions
will inevitably be cornered by the 'creamy layer' of the OBCs, which
is already politically privileged or affluent.
The 'merit' argument is bogus, in fact disingenuous, especially in a
society based on inheritance of private property, and privilege
related to birth, which largely determine one's social position.
Property inheritance means that the affluent are at a vastly
different, higher starting point from the disadvantaged. Merit makes
sense only when it measures the distance between the starting point
and the end point. Most upper-caste people enjoy unfair advantage
over OBCs or lower castes primarily because of their disparate
starting points. Merit is only one, usually small, component of their
overall achievement.
Merit is not easy to measure, quantify or compare. A single
'objective test' is a disputable measure. One's score in it often
depends upon familiarity with the type of questions asked, time
management and speed, rather than comprehension. Merit can only have
a limited place in a public-oriented policy of admission and
recruitment. In a large country like India, other criteria are
equally relevant: for instance, gender, ethnic and regional balance,
and diversity.
'What more do the upper castes want?'
The fundamental point is that a person born in a highly educated
savarna family will have a totally different universe of knowledge,
social contacts and elite acceptability -- and wholly different
access to information about the availability of study courses,
colleges and private tutorial institutions, career options,
professional advice, etc. S/he can always call 'Uncle' so-and-so in
the civil service, judiciary or the medical profession to get useful
tips.
Typically, such advantage outweighs even (small) differences of
wealth and income. Past discrimination continues to produce
inequality of opportunity even when there is no discrimination or
exclusion at present. The critical issue is how to level the playing
field so as to give genuinely equal opportunity to the disadvantaged.
Affirmative action is the best, if not only, solution to this
problem. It can take many forms, including voluntary targets set by
institutions and companies for recruitment of disadvantaged groups,
special counselling and training, non-quantitative diversity
promotion programmes, etc. Reservations, admittedly, are a rather
blunt instrument with which to crack the problem. A case can be made
out that in India we have used reservations as the sole form of
affirmative action. But this should not be used to make the best the
enemy of the good.
As for the 'factual' argument cited by many affirmative action
opponents, namely that OBCs have nearly the same level of
representation as their population share in numerous professions,
including in private sector jobs, the evidence from the NSSO is
dubious. The NSSO is simply not equipped to identify hundreds of
local caste groups accurately.
Caste identification is the job of highly specialised
anthropologists, sociologists and historians familiar with caste
configurations which vary from district to district. Neither
self-ascription nor crude state government caste lists can be a
substitute for this.
The NSSO data seems be of very poor integrity. This should be obvious
from the fact that it estimates the SC/ST population at 28.5 per cent
of the country's total -- when the highest credible estimate is 23
per cent.
A lot of rage, a little Rang De
The 'creamy layer' argument is certainly valid. Social and
educational backwardness is a changing phenomenon. There is upward
mobility among the OBCs. But it doesn't follow that their upper
layers will automatically corner quotas. They can and should be
excluded from doing so along some of the criteria specified by the
Supreme Court in the Mandal judgment. After all, only half of India's
OBCs (52 per cent of the total population) can get accommodated under
the 27 percent quota. It is imperative to ensure that this is the
lower half, not the upwardly mobile, relatively privileged layer.
It would be ideal in the long term if different institutions and
governments could devise varying affirmative action formulae based
upon a number of different criteria besides caste -- including
gender, economic status of family, quality of schooling received by
parents, backwardness of region of origin, etc. Delhi's Jawaharlal
Nehru University has a decade-old admissions policy which gives extra
points to OBCs, women and regional backwardness over and above a
candidate's entrance examination score. This has significantly raised
JNU's OBC intake.
Some social scientists, including JNU's Purshottam Aggarwal, and
Delhi University's Satish Deshpande, with Yogendra Yadav, have
proposed affirmative action formulae assigning different weights to
these factors. Despite their drawbacks -- controversially opening up
the SC/SC quota, or providing an inadequate boost to OBCs -- these
proposals should be seriously debated at length. However, the topmost
priority last fortnight was to beat back the challenge posed by the
anti-quota agitation, which opposed the very principle of affirmative
action.
The United Progressive Alliance government did well to uphold the
principle and stick to the 27 per cent OBC quota. Wisely, it didn't
resort to the undesirable device of phased implementation. But it
will have to increase the total number of seats in central
educational institutions by 54 per cent within a year, at an
estimated expense of Rs 80 billion (Rs 8,000 crores). This is a
formidable, but worthwhile, task. One can only hope that the upper
castes accept reservations in the spirit of justice and of creating a
caring-and-sharing society.
o o o
Outlook Magazine | June 05, 2006
EYES, EARS AND MINDS CLOSED
WHY IS INDIA'S MIDDLE CLASS SO HOSTILE TO THE EMPOWERMENT OF THE POOR?
Vinod Mehta
This column is not being written to defend Arjun Singh, nor the new
quota regime, nor any formula/mechanism to implement reservations.
That debate has been so polarised and distorted that any intervention
which does not take one or the other side is destined to fall on deaf
ears. No. My purpose is to point out that the passion-charged street
power and the virulent rhetoric against reservations should be seen
as part of a larger, disturbing pattern. India's smug, selfish,
self-centred, satiated middle class, fattened on the fruits of the
booming economy, is positively hostile to any policy which sets out
to empower the poor. Over 900 million of our citizens live on less
than Rs 90 a day. Of this, 300 million live on less than Rs 45 a day.
Meanwhile, 200 million privileged have decided that these citizens
must remain roughly where they are-or wait till the enormous wealth
the rich, the ultra rich and the nouveau rich are accumulating
trickles down. This is an obscenity. No fancy economic formulation
can hide this appalling reality of India 2006.
Take the employment guarantee scheme or selling cheap grain to BPL
card-holders or the Right to Information Act (which allows the
marginalised to check corruption in moneys spent in their name) or
increasing subsidies for essential commodities used by the aam aadmi.
You need to jog your memory only lightly to recollect the outrage of
the haves at these schemes. They said India would be ruined, the
finances of the nation would collapse if "utopian" proposals were
implemented. The poor are poor because they are lazy, worthless,
unenterprising, incapable of availing existing opportunities. Of
course, I caricature the argument and the mentality. But only
slightly.
One understands India is an economic superpower challenging China, it
is experiencing unprecedented growth rates, its middle class can buy
Danish bacon and Spanish olives at the neighbourhood store.
Conspicuous consumption reigns. But nine hundred million people must
wait for market forces to somehow touch their lives. Sheer
callousness apart, these 900 million people have something called the
vote. And they use it extremely craftily. In 2004, they threw out a
government which considered itself invincible. Forget the ethics,
forget conscience, any political party which panders to the
prejudices of India's fickle middle class is committing electoral
suicide.
Remember, the poor will not go away. You cannot tuck them away in
Kalahandi or Bastar. They will haunt India's affluent in Mumbai,
Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai at traffic lights, in unregulated slums,
in shopping malls, outside five-star hotels. They will join Maoists
and threaten the Indian state while slitting the throats of rich
farmers. The 'Red Corridor' is an ominous development. Any moderately
sane middle-class person must ask himself why the wretched of the
earth increasingly decide to take up arms against a vastly
better-armed and organised force in a war they know they are bound to
lose. Better to die fighting than to die of hunger.
Doubtless, there are many infirmities in the proposal to allot 27 per
cent seats to OBCs. The percentage may be too high, some wrong people
may avail of the benefit, a few genuinely deserving might be unfairly
penalised, implementation could throw up anomalies. It will not be
painless. But you have to live in a state of permanent denial, you
have to keep your eyes, ears and mind closed to avoid the fact that
poverty and extreme poverty in India are closely linked to caste,
closely linked to historical discrimination.
Let us take the crux of the reservation rejectionist's thesis. We're
told that quotas and academic excellence are fundamentally
incompatible. You can't have both.Added to the above is the rider
that corporate India's "global competitive edge" will vanish. In
other words, there is the firm assumption that affirmative action
(AA), which in India takes the form of quotas (voluntary or
mandatory), will produce second-class students.
In the hysteria generated, with assistance from a conflict-hungry
media, this assumption has become gospel truth with the honourable
but publicity-smart members of the Knowledge Commission lending their
weight to the flawed thesis. In Harvard, Princeton and Yale,
institutions at whose altar the rejectionists worship, the experience
of AA has been hugely positive with no dilution of academic standards
(see Outlook cover story Two Faces of Reservation, May 29).
Consider the story of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and
Kerala where mandatory quotas ranging from 69.5 per cent to 49.5 per
cent have been in place since decades without social turbulence. Are
we to assume that engineers, doctors, mbas from these southern states
are substandard?
If notions of compassion and equity are alien to the rejectionists,
perhaps the spectre of Maoists rampaging through pockets of urban
India might help focus minds on the grotesquely unjust society
superpower India is spawning. It could be the fire next time!
____
[4]
Dear Friends,
Dipankar Bhattacharya, the General Secretary of the CPI(ML), has been
charged with attempted murder for leading a march to the State
Assembly protesting against mass killings by the BJP-led government
of Jharkhand state (see below for details).
While arrests and frame-ups of progressive activists are everyday
occurrences in India, this charge of attempted murder against the
General Secretary of a recognised political party leading a political
protest is probably unprecedented in the annals of Indian politics.
It represents a new and sinister offensive by the forces of Hindutva
fascism against the very right to protest, and an attempt to close
down any space for political opposition.
We urge you to sign the petition to the President of India demanding
an immediate withdrawal of these completely fabricated charges
against Dipankar Bhattacharya and four others arrested with him.
Please sign the petition by clicking on
http://www.petitiononline.com/Dipankar/petition.html
South Asia Solidarity Group
Why is the CPI(ML) on the BJP Hit List?
The State of Jharkhand had been formed in November 2000, and a shaky
new BJP Government with a wafer-thin majority, headed by Babulal
Marandi, had been installed. Right from the start the Marandi
Government behaved like a Government under siege, living in fear of
its own people, rather than like a popular elected Government
celebrating the culmination of long people's struggle for a new
State. The new Government took oath behind closed doors in a
high-security auditorium, far from the public gaze, citing the threat
of a Naxalite attack. The then Home Minister Advani had advised the
Marandi Government that its primary task must be to break the
backbone of Naxalism. On the ground, naturally, this translated to a
war on the rural and tribal poor, minorities as well as on popular
leaders of the ML movement.
On November 30, 30,000 people marched in the CPI(ML)'s Nav Nirman
Rally in Ranchi, setting a radical agenda for the new Jharkhand. At
that Rally, Comrade Dipankar gave a call for a state-wide bandh on
December 6 (the day of the demolition of the Babri Masjid), to
protest against the appointment of Prabhat Kumar (the man who was
Chief Secretary in UP during the Babri Demolition) as Governor. The
bandh call, supported by most of the opposition forces in Jharkhand,
evoked a tremendous response, with youth on the streets defying RSS
goons to support the bandh.
The first 100 days of BJP rule were marked by a series of police
firings, revealing the new Government's hatred and fear of the
State's considerable Christian, Muslim and Adivasi population. The
CPI(ML) was at the forefront of protest at every incident.
Doranda Firing
On 28 December 2000, barely a month after the first Jharkhand
Government took oath, four Muslim youth, who were part of a crowd
protesting against the killing of a 5 year-old girl run over by a BMP
vehicle, were gunned down in Doranda on the day of Id - right in the
middle of Ranchi town. Following this daylight murder by the police,
thousands came out on the streets in protest. The police promptly
communalised the situation, allowing the RSS to hold provocative
processions while imposing curfew in Muslim localities. The CRPF-RAF
went on a rampage, arresting and harassing Muslim youth all night. It
was the CPI(ML) which again called for a bandh against this communal
witch hunt by the police (as well as against the Tapkara firing) -
and most opposition forces responded. The Marandi Government peddled
the stale rumour of a lungi-clad 'ISI agent' instigating trouble at
Doranda.
Kurpania Rape and Police Cover-Up and Crackdown
A nun who taught in a girls' school in the Kurpania area of Bokaro,
was brutally gang raped. Repeated attacks on churches and
missionaries in Jharkhand by the Sangh Parivar had marked Christians
as easy game. The rape, coming on the heels of such attacks, sparked
off several protests. Adivasi students protesting in the capital of
Ranchi were lathicharged by the police. The police also conspired to
deny the rape by doctoring the medical report, even though the main
accused had confessed to the rape.
Murder of Dhobi Termed 'Encounter' with Extremist
A poor dhobi, Jayram Rajak, was killed in broad daylight by police in
Bokaro Steel City on 22 January 2001, on the flimsy excuse that he
had been drunk and creating a nuisance in the neighbourhood. The
police tried to get rid of the body without a postmortem, but was
foiled by workers led by CPI(ML), who put up a determined protest.
Initially, the police spread the story that an extremist had been
killed, but the district administration was eventually forced to
suspend the three police officers guilty of the crime and file
criminal cases against them.
Adivasis Resisting Displacement Gunned Down at Tapkara
Tapkara in the Torpe Block of Ranchi district had been a major centre
of the 20-year-old struggle of Adivasis against the Koel Karo dam
which threatened to displace thousands of Adivasi homes and entire
villages. The Marandi Government had announced that they would revive
the work on the Koel Karo project, which had been stalled due to the
Adivasi movement. This sparked off a fresh wave of protest, and
tribals at Topkara erected barricades on the Tapkara-Torpa Road to
block the movement of project officials, demanding scrapping of the
Koel Karo hydro-electric project. The CRPF-RAF, in an attempt to
break the barricades, manhandled adivasi activists. In protest,
Adivasi activists gheraoed the Tapkara O.P. on January 2, 2001. The
police firing that followed was like a blueprint for the Kalinganagar
firing almost exactly 5 years later. Here, too, police resorted to
an unprovoked firing, killing 8 adivasis and injuring many. The
CPI(ML) called for a bandh in protest, supported by other opposition
parties.
Other incidents leading upto the Assembly Gherao included the
massacre of 7 dalits in Semri-banjari village in Garhwa district in a
fake encounter by the police, and massive booth capturing by the
CRPF-RAF and Sangh Parivar in the Ramgarh by-election contested by
Babulal Marandi. This blatant attack on democracy was met by a
spirited blockade of two national highways by CPI, CPI(ML) and the
JMM, as well as a Jharkhand bandh on 21 February.
The Crackdown on the Assembly Gherao
The Jharkhand Assembly was in its very first budget session when the
CPI(ML) called the Assembly Gherao to confront the Government with
the demand for action against those responsible for various acts of
police firing; for immediate scrapping of the Koel Karo project and
steps to safeguard adivasis from land alienation. On 1 March 2001,
3000 people led by Dipankar Bhattacharya marched from Hatia Station
towards the Assembly. At the barricade at Birsa Chowk, police
launched an unprovoked and ferocious assault on the marchers, with
tear gas shells, rubber bullets and lathis. Several activists were
left badly injured. 40 activists were arrested including Dipankar
Bhattacharya and detained without their whereabouts being made
public. Before the event at Birsa Chowk, 100 activists managed to
reach the entrance of the Assembly and shout slogans. They too were
severely lathicharged and arrested. Meanwhile, inside the House,
Mahendra Singh led other Opposition MLAs to shout slogans in the well
of the House in support of the Gherao outside. When these MLAs rushed
to Birsa Chowk, even they were lathicharged, with Mahendra Singh
being specially targeted.
The CPI(ML) Assembly Gherao became the focal point for a massive
Opposition upsurge - it made sure that police repression was
centralto the agenda throughout the Assembly Session. As long as
Dipankar Bhattacharya and others remained in jail, protestors
thronged to a dharna at Albert Ekka Chowk. Activists, civil
libertarians and journalists including Medha Patkar, Prabhash Joshi
and former Chief Justice of Bombay HC, S M Daud, participated in the
dharna and visited the activists in jail. Eventually, with the
Marandi Government under huge pressure, bail orders were issued for
Dipankar Bhattacharya and other comrades. The massive democratic
movement sparked off by the crackdown and the arrests culminated in a
'Save Democracy, Save Jharkhand' March in Ranchi on March 14, in
which 10,000 people participated despite Section 144 being clamped in
the city and tremendous police obstruction and intimidation.
The BJP Government in Jharkhand targeted and assassinated Mahendra
Singh - the most consistent democratic voice inside the Jharkhand
Assembly. Their latest attempt to frame the topmost leadership of the
CPI(ML) is yet another display of their commitment to a repressive
police force and fear of the growing movement of the poor and Adivasi
people of the State.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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