Molten lead in my shudra ears -or- The Scavenger's Drum 2

I now return to the points of contention raised by the students fighting for 'equality' I referred to in the post - 'The Scavenger's Drum'. These points have now metamorphosed into a 'Charter of Demands' - a new age Magna Carta, if you go by the reverence with which the media is so painstakingly trying to drape this whole drama.You might assume that they have 'come down' a lot, that they have 'modified their earlier rigid stance', that they are being very 'reasonable' etc., and it's the government which is being 'adamant', and is 'showing no sign of trying to listen to them even 14..15..16 days after the strike began'. Your assumption is wrong on both counts : the charter is actually no different from the earlier points - only their phrasing has been changed, and the government isn't being adamant - it has already conceded considerable ground by making it clear that the seats would be increased to ensure no 'meritorious' general category student would be deprived of his chance of admission. And after several days of repeated posturing before the camera that the quota decision is 'irrevocable', the government is slowly revealing what it actually has in mind, what kind of hectic parleying is going on in the corridors of power.. to protect the 'gurukuls' of modern India from pollution. To ensure that upper caste students wouldn't have to face the compounded ignominy of not just sharing the same classroooms and hostels as the shudras but also actually having to give up some of their places to the unclean. Witness how politicians on either end of the ideological spectrum share so very identical concerns : 'merit' should not be compromised, the 'poor' among the upper castes also need reservations, 'the creamy layer' should be skimmed off. I don't remember either the Sangh cohorts or the communists ever having pleaded or argued for, or even raised the issue of implementation of that untouched part of the Mandal Commission recommendations (which mandated reservations for the OBCs in Central Government-run educational institutions) in the last thirteen years since the first part was implemented. Another vital component of this very sophisticated mechanism of dilution and derailment is/will be the involvement of twice-born-but-never-retired-and-much-lionised legal minds - which had actually begun the day this strike was announced but is coming out into the open only now.

Those who had witnessed the Act 1 of this Mandal drama in the early nineties must be feeling a sense of deja vu. Would this also take another three years to go through? Or would this also be implemented only in part and the OBCs would have to wait for another thirteen years, and another school-going generation, for the government to come around to the unfinished part?

The second point raised by the striking medicos outlined in my post 'The Scavenger's Drum' was this:
'...Two, when asked what if the seats were increased to accommodate students from the general category..he tried to explain to the reporter that given the infrastructure and the 'unsustainability' of the proposal (of the increase) he wasn't in favour of any increase,...'

What does that mean? It means that the medicos think a) that the existing infrastructure and faculty and staff can't support an increase in the number of seats and b) an increase in infrastructure, faculty etc., has been long overdue and as it hasn't been done until now there's no reason to believe the government will do it in the very short period it has before the quota is implemented. And I agree with the medicos. Just look at what happened to the promise of raising state spending on education to 6% of the Gross Domestic Product, an idea first mooted by the Kothari Commission in 1964 and endorsed by the National Educational policies in 1968 and 1986 and 1992. Over the last forty years, the Centre and the States, together, have been 'struggling' to raise spending to at least half the figure recommended. So don't you find the idea of increasing seats 'unsustainable'?

So if I agree with the medicos, what is this post all about?

It's about exploring a mindset that perceives reality in stark white and grey tones. Which looks at the world and sees : us and the unimportant. An attitude which says : heads I win, tails you lose. That will shirk off responsibility with the same ease as it would demand accountability from others.

'And you know the estimated cost of increasing facilities to accomodate quota candidates is put at Rs 8,000 crore,...' That was an anonymous commenter fighting for 'equality'. In his view, the increase is not due to the fact that the government wants to ensure the general category seats are not reduced - but due to the burden of implementing the quota. This about sums up the attitude I am talking about. An attitude which is emblazoned across the ultra clean T shirts pulled over their unburdened chests : not our problem.

This also comes across when they tell the OBCs : 'shouldn't you be fighting for an improvement in school education instead..?' Not our problem, you're told again. For the last forty years, the government had been promising the people and itself, that it'd start moving towards the goal that Kothari had set for it, next year. Every year. Consider this and this : in 2004-5, the centre and the state governments spent around 80,000 crores on education. Increasing this allocation to 6% of the GDP would have meant an additional expenditure of around 100,000 crores. More than three-fourths of this sum would have to come from the states. From states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu which work towards numbers more than overall quality, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh which believe in Vedic mathematics and Saraswati vandana more than basic arithmetic and sciences and Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh which don't seem to believe in education. And there are other states like Jharkhand, Orissa etc., which don't seem to have heard of education at all. The overall governmental spending on education hasn't moved anywhere near the goal of 6% of GDP in the last forty years. And going by the pace with which it has been moving in the last forty years, it would probably take another forty years to reach that goal and the elusive target of quality education for all sections of society.

So the 'pragmatic' people leading this fight for 'equality' who do not believe that an investment of 6000-8000 crores investment in the short run to accomodate an increase in seats is a 'sustainable' idea, given the record of the government in this regard, want the lower castes to believe in the 'sustainable' idea that an effort which would require several times more serious societal and political will and resources (more than a 100,000 crores and increments, every year ) would ensure a fair share for them in higher education? In effect, they're asking the lower castes to wait for another forty years (and hope and pray that it will be only forty years). Or until 2046-47 A.D., when India would be 'celebrating' a hundred years of independence.

But the central government has made it clear through several announcements and spokesmen that it does plan to make the investment required to increase the infrastructure in the centrally-run institutions and in the shortest possible time. The Oversight Committee it has set up would work out the details of expanding infrastructure, among other things, and submit a report in the next two months. But the striking students still object to reservations on the basis of caste in the prestigious institutions now being 'invaded'. Why? Is it an atavistic response to the sacrilegious idea of children of lesser gods daring to think of 'higher learning'? A throwback to the times when the prescription that molten lead should be poured into the ears of the shudras who even overheard a recitation of the Vedas by accident, was practised? Definitely a problem, they seem to think.

But the students are not entirely to blame, as it is now becoming clear. If you pull your eyes away and back from the cameras focused on the squatters on AIIMS grounds, you'll notice a wide phalanx of eggheads, as formidable as the Kuru patriarchs and heroes, providing all the logic, support and solace needed for this 'strike'. Experts from fields which the students would have considered 'pseudo-sciences' or at best 'lesser sciences' until yesterday. Anthropologists, economists, sociologists, jurists. Apart from businessmen, professors, lawyers. All with strong credentials and stronger surnames. And they all tell you : reservations are an 'easy' (chalu?), short term 'eyewash' of a solution while strengthening the schools is the 'real', long term solution to the 'problem'. Who can disagree with such wise men? Specially since they represent the 'intellectual cream' of our middle class? A middle class composed almost entirely of one section of our society - a middle class created, funded and supported almost entirely by a large government and a larger public sector through most of this country's post-independence history. A middle class which still 'owns', in a way, Yojana Bhawan, North Block, South Block and all other blocks to development. So why weren't adequate efforts made in 1955 when Kaka Kalelkar pointed to the warning signs, or in 1980 when Mandal submitted his report, by this middle class and its representatives who constituted, and still do, the overwhelming majority of the top, middle and lower rungs of this country's bureaucracy, the top and middle of the leadership of all 'national' political parties (including the naxalite groups), the parliament, the academia, the media, the organised industry.... to actually strengthen the schools in this country so that the lower castes wouldn't require reservations in higher education? There is a Hindi expression, which modified, would best describe this new age double-speak : ulta kotwal lock-up mein marnewale qaidi ko daante..! The only reasonable explanation for this hypocrisy is this : it was not their problem. Their kids didn't/don't go to those schools, so it wasn't their problem.

Every agitation, protest movement organised by the lower castes in this country since independence and several yugs before that carries an implicit appeal : we want education.

The Shudras are aware of both the options : the short term prescription and the long term plan. But they have also come to understand that the long term plan wouldn't work if the short term prescription is not enforced.

[Note: To those still reading this blog, I've decided not to delete any comments for now. Including spammers selling mouth-wash. So would some serial abusers reserve some space for others who would like to contribute their own share? And to plain old-fashioned commenters? ]