One of my teachers in school said once "In this country, if you have to secure a good job or seat , just being intelligent wouldn't be enough". Maybe true, with the extent of reservations being at 49%, it is not enough to be intelligent, you have to be twice as intelligent; a widely known fact to thousands of students and graduates in the country. The great thinkers of the country want to
remove all social inequalities in the country, because of the prevalent caste system, on the basis of which division of labor existed. The truth is, societies change, regardless of what the government does or does not do. I can't say what lies in the entire country, but i can very honestly recount the story of my village.
My grandfather's village, is a small one with a typical population of around 1500-2000. In my childhood, it was the perfect reason why the government claims reservations were made. It was divided into exactly 3 regions. The first region, on he highest land, consisting of the upper castes, consisting of priests, and the political persons of the village. If you even walk into the area, a
lot of questions as to whose family you belong, and your surname. The next region consisted of the middle class farmers, with small tracts of land. A lot of them employ a number of landless labourers in the third and most backward part of the village, with almost zero educated people and highly prone to health problems. The three parts of the village are highly distinguishable with plastered brick houses, limestone houses and thathced huts respectively. But all that has changed. In my recent visits to the village, I've been noticing a remarkable change in the divisions of the village. The entire upper caste region of the village, is no longer inhabited by a majority of the people, thanks to globalization. Most of their children who have settled in the cities are keen to take away their parents and to sell off their properties in the village.Meanwhile the conditions of the middle class farm have furhter been aggravted, especially because of decrease in incentives of the government towards farming. But, the most backward parts of the village have undergone a remarkable transformation. A majority of the people have taken up various forms of rented farming, in the fields of the more affluent , who stopped cultivating any more. Various businesses are being set up by the inhabitants of this section, including the wide spread use of commercial transport means. Some of these people doing small businesses have started a small assosciation and started to give out loans to the needy. Landless labourers have
decreased in number and those still existing enjoy high wages owing to the decrease in number of workers in the fields. It is even amusing to find out that some people make advanced bookings for labourers during harvest, but underlying these is a much more serious problem of migrations by the labourers. With various missionariees spread out in the village, and large scale religious conversions, without regard to caste, has further brought down the levels of caste distinctions in the village. The government undertaking of construction of pucca houses for everyone has reduced the distinctions in the anatomy of the village.Today, the political heads of the vilage are scattered throughout the village and comes from the more affluent people , regardless of their
caste or section in the village. Realization of importance of education is being observed by everyone, as they see the people residing in cities( of the upper castes) coming to village occassionally. However, basic health and sanitation has and had always been a major problem, although consciousness in people has increased, mostly due to people's assosciation with media.
Considering all the recent developments,which may or may not be uniform throughout the country, two points are worth mentioning.
There is much more difference in the standards of living between rural people and urban people than those of people within the village. Secondly, if we observe, only the implementation of government policies have made a change in the people's lives than the policies of the government itself. Honestly, i don't see a lot number of people benefitted from reservations that have existed for over 50 years, as most of the people in the backward section of the village are not educated beyond seconadry education. And,rather than drawing up new lines of distinction accomodating present social differences , sticking to the same policy of OBC's , SC's and ST's and what more, increasing the percentage of reservations, is beyond doubt, beneficial only for the greed of politicians. If government focussed more on increasing education, health infrastructure, than being idealistic and holding a section of people as backward forever , the picture of the village i've provided would have been quite different. Besides, social differences continue to exist, however advanced a society maybe, only difference being , now they will be based on economic differences and the area where they live, a much more serious problem than the earlier differences. There is no easy solution to this, and all we can do is to hope that the government acknowledges the changes in society at least now and strives to do better to the rural people. But isn't it expecting too much from the present politicians??
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Magician Vs Dictator
Yesterday night was one of the rare moments that would really bring pride to an Indian. As i switched on the television and watched Sandeep Singh score a wonderful goal against the Pakistani team, I was surprised by how much i liked the game and could not help wonder why millions of Indians discard hockey as not being interesting when compared to cricket. Indian Hockey Federation is virtually bankrupt when compared to the BCCI except for some occassional funds from the government though being the national game of India. I suddenly recollected a story my physical trainer in school always used to tell , he being a retired a hockey coach and playing in the nationals many a time.
The story is about a hockey wizard called 'Dhyan Chand Singh'. Many of the current youth might not know his name, but he is the best player in the history of hockey not just in India, but elsewhere in the world, comparable to Pele in football and Sachin in cricket. He was the captain of the Indian Hockey Team for 3 olympics in a row, 1928 amsterdam, 1932 los angeles, 1936 berlin.
In the 1932 los angeles final match against the US, india scored a 24-1 , a world record unbeaten to date. In the 1936 , berlin match held against the Nazi Germany, attended by the Fuhrer himself. Hitler was so confident about the superiority of his country, he thought the game would definitely would be won by the Germans and so he wanted to give away the medals himself. Besides, the Indians suffered a decisive loss in a practice match against Germans earlier. But the wizard came out of the blue once again and defated Germany 8 - 1 , the only goal conceded by the Indian team in the entire tournament. Hitler left without giving away the medals. Indian players were terrified, when the following day, Hitler sent word for Dhyan Chand. The Hitler asked him to which county he belongs and what he does in his country. Dhyan Chand told him he is a major with the British Indian Army under the colonial rule. Hitler, asked him to come away to his country where he would be made a general. But the great wizard politely refused stating that his family s rooted in India. Hitler bade him away. The master came back to India and played a few more years, retired and became a member of the IHF. He witnessed the slow downfall of the legacy he left with Indian Hockey and died in the late 1970's. In his memory, the Indian government declared August 29 as National Sports Day and gives away Rajeev KhelRatna and Arjuna, Drona awards on the day.
It is hard to imagine a vibrant period of hockey at that time , especially when India was under the British. The people played not for money or for grand auctions or advertisements for hair oils and shampoos, but for India. It was said, the hockey players before the match of Berlin had sung the vandemataram in their dressing room to the then congress flag. Equally fascinating is the offer turned down by Dhyan Chand , which hapens to come from the most influential person at the time. Today, people who have almost done nothing in their field( no offence to fans, but i ridicule sania mirza's padma shri),, the great man only got a padma bhushan for his services both on the field and at the border, while he deserves nothing less than a bharat ratna.It suddenly strikes me why the constitution makers made hockey as our national game, when Indian hockey has a great hisory. But, due to the combined efforts of the govt and lack of interest by people it is reduced to advertisements by the more popular cricketers and film stars to watch the current world cup being held in New Delhi. What a disgrace to the national game?
Core 2 Duo Parliament
February ending is arguably the time when the heads of every Indian turn towards the prime institution of the country, one behind whose walls the budget is made. I also being one of those ordinary Indians, happened to view one of those sessions.
When I switched on , the budget session in parliament is just over and the channel started to show the footage of the state assembly session of earlier that day.I followed for some time and noticed some funny and rather serious flaws in the way our parliament/assembly works.
No body seems to be interested to listen to what others have to say, regardless of whether they want to speak or not. I always thought of our democratic process as a highly efficient method to bring out the injustice in government's policies, if any, but the majority of the legislators seem to be very passive. Of the half - an - hour , the only discussion that went on , is whether it is appropriate to talk on the particular topic they are debating about and who should talk first. Seems absurd, but in that half- an -hour only 3 persons made any meaningful conversation,, and some others went on shouting. Of course,what could anyone expect if some 250+ highly competitive people are kept in one hall and discuss about the problems of the state which could be hundreds in number in about 8 hrs every day?. Even if every one takes 10 mins to talk, not even 50 people would get a chance to speak. Even in the group discussions i attended so far in college, my instructor allows only 10 people and suggest anything beyond that would lead to utter chaos, not only for him to track score but also for anyone to make any sense out of it, as dividing time would be a very difficult problem. And especially how could any meaningful discussion go on if the people present are those who had done everything to come to power and would do anything to make their point including shouting or even use physical power??.
After watching this confusion and fuss that prevailed, I wondered if any good decision really comes into practice. If more than half of the people are disinterested and uneducated people vary from 10 - 20 % of the people what role could they play in deciding to support or make a point except blindly following the others of their own party? Do we really need all the disinterested members to take part in each and every discussion in the assembly of which they have absolutely no idea and which is a mere waste of time? The speaker says he would allot time for everyone and tries to pacify shouting people, but how can he divide a limited time among so many and when most members don't want to speak?
I've happened to come across of something called a delegated legislation in the British Parliament and thought why could we not have the same process. There, the minister in charge is given special powers to make laws on not very high priority matters in his portfolio. Thereafter, the parliament sits and reviews the decisions made by him amending them if necessary. Why could not we have a similar system where people can be divided into different functional areas like education, infrastructure etc. and each one would review the task at hand and come to a decision which can be reviewed by the entire parliament in an entire sitting? In the entire sitting if only a system of voting is set up and if any other member has something to say he is to be allotted a slot in a special session. Through this method, each of the legislators can actively participate in the legislative process. Besides it would avoid the hasty decision making of the current method as evident from our budget session when our finance minister simply reads through the entire document, obviously a brain child of some official in the ministry. Each of those mini assemblies comprises both the ruling and opposition party members and if members are continuously shuffled, there would be uniformity in participation of members in decision- making.Though, problems of representation would occur in a particular decision, the second phase of being accepted by everyone would take care of this. Besides, more bills can be introduced by private members as they at least tend to be heard in the mini assemblies of which they would be part of. This system of dividing up opposition in functional lines is already present in the US where for every cabinet minister there is a shadow cabinet who is particularly concerned about the portfolio his counterpart is assigned to.
Evidently, mine is a very stupid solution, inspired by a multi-processor paradigm in computers, but I definitely think the current system is flawed and to follow the same system of about 50 years, in this tech era when problems have become magnified hundred fold. If the more intelligent section of the country work, there could definitely be a feasible solution that could help our parliament into a more responsible law- making body. Of course, this also has to be coupled with an increased % of educated, highly competent and responsible people in the assembly, of which I'm sure is not very far away.
When I switched on , the budget session in parliament is just over and the channel started to show the footage of the state assembly session of earlier that day.I followed for some time and noticed some funny and rather serious flaws in the way our parliament/assembly works.
No body seems to be interested to listen to what others have to say, regardless of whether they want to speak or not. I always thought of our democratic process as a highly efficient method to bring out the injustice in government's policies, if any, but the majority of the legislators seem to be very passive. Of the half - an - hour , the only discussion that went on , is whether it is appropriate to talk on the particular topic they are debating about and who should talk first. Seems absurd, but in that half- an -hour only 3 persons made any meaningful conversation,, and some others went on shouting. Of course,what could anyone expect if some 250+ highly competitive people are kept in one hall and discuss about the problems of the state which could be hundreds in number in about 8 hrs every day?. Even if every one takes 10 mins to talk, not even 50 people would get a chance to speak. Even in the group discussions i attended so far in college, my instructor allows only 10 people and suggest anything beyond that would lead to utter chaos, not only for him to track score but also for anyone to make any sense out of it, as dividing time would be a very difficult problem. And especially how could any meaningful discussion go on if the people present are those who had done everything to come to power and would do anything to make their point including shouting or even use physical power??.
After watching this confusion and fuss that prevailed, I wondered if any good decision really comes into practice. If more than half of the people are disinterested and uneducated people vary from 10 - 20 % of the people what role could they play in deciding to support or make a point except blindly following the others of their own party? Do we really need all the disinterested members to take part in each and every discussion in the assembly of which they have absolutely no idea and which is a mere waste of time? The speaker says he would allot time for everyone and tries to pacify shouting people, but how can he divide a limited time among so many and when most members don't want to speak?
I've happened to come across of something called a delegated legislation in the British Parliament and thought why could we not have the same process. There, the minister in charge is given special powers to make laws on not very high priority matters in his portfolio. Thereafter, the parliament sits and reviews the decisions made by him amending them if necessary. Why could not we have a similar system where people can be divided into different functional areas like education, infrastructure etc. and each one would review the task at hand and come to a decision which can be reviewed by the entire parliament in an entire sitting? In the entire sitting if only a system of voting is set up and if any other member has something to say he is to be allotted a slot in a special session. Through this method, each of the legislators can actively participate in the legislative process. Besides it would avoid the hasty decision making of the current method as evident from our budget session when our finance minister simply reads through the entire document, obviously a brain child of some official in the ministry. Each of those mini assemblies comprises both the ruling and opposition party members and if members are continuously shuffled, there would be uniformity in participation of members in decision- making.Though, problems of representation would occur in a particular decision, the second phase of being accepted by everyone would take care of this. Besides, more bills can be introduced by private members as they at least tend to be heard in the mini assemblies of which they would be part of. This system of dividing up opposition in functional lines is already present in the US where for every cabinet minister there is a shadow cabinet who is particularly concerned about the portfolio his counterpart is assigned to.
Evidently, mine is a very stupid solution, inspired by a multi-processor paradigm in computers, but I definitely think the current system is flawed and to follow the same system of about 50 years, in this tech era when problems have become magnified hundred fold. If the more intelligent section of the country work, there could definitely be a feasible solution that could help our parliament into a more responsible law- making body. Of course, this also has to be coupled with an increased % of educated, highly competent and responsible people in the assembly, of which I'm sure is not very far away.
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