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
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
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