The OBC creamy layer concept in Kerala has been seemingly a cause for communal conflicts and political lethargy.
Supreme Court’s April 10 lifting of its last year’s stay on 27 percent quota for other Backward Castes (OBCs) in India’s higher educational institutions, the IITs, IIMSs, and AIIMSs excluding its creamy layer that has been applauded by many as revolutionary is deliberately keeping the majority away from reaping the benefit of India’s much applauded economic growth.
At this juncture I would like to look into the history of the creamy layer concept in Kerala to know what really happened there.
History of the creamy layer concept in Kerala.
Ever since the Indira Shawney I ruled to identify and exclude the OBC creamy layer from the government employments in 1992, the governments of Kerala had only maintained a denial attitude to the issues it entailed. Outcome: a section of the OBC in Kerala are still lurking under poverty and underdevelopment and the rest are at limbo about their competence with the developed.
The denial continued until the Supreme Court condemned the Chief Secretary to the State of Kerala as guilty of contempt of court on 10.7.1995
The State then appointed a commission to identify the creamy layer among the OBC. But in three weeks’ time it apparently wounded up the commission and passed the Kerala State Backward Classes Act on 2.9.1995 with retrospective effect from 1992. Subsequently it reported to the Supreme Court that it failed to identify the OBC 'creamy layer' without conducting any study on the matter.
The NSS a ‘forward’ caste group in Kerala wasted no time to implicate the act. It filed before the SC that the Act was in violation of the constitution: article 14 and 16.
Then on 4.11.2005, the SC constituted a high level Committee chaired by K.J Joseph, a retired Judge from the Kerala High Court, to collect information about the OBC creamy layer in Kerala.
The Committee was directed by the SC to follow the 1993 criteria laid down by the Central Government to identify the creamy layer among the OBC.
The Committee identified a ‘creamy layer’ among the OBCs and submitted its finding on 4-8-1997.
Many objections were filed against the Committee’s findings and the SC scrutinized the situation and passed judgment on them (Indira Swahney II).
As part of the judgment the SC scrapped the Kerala OBC Act 1995 and ordered the State to implement the findings of the committee: that is to exclude its OBC creamy layer from the State and central government employment with immediate effect. That was in 1999.
Now the April reservation law that granted 27% quota for India’s OBC students excluding its creamy layer is only an attempt to extend the judgment of Indira Swahney (1992) to admissions to educational institutions as well.
Some doubts and concerns
Now what is the whole essence of granting 27% reservation to OBC excluding its creamy layer?
IITs and IIMs are not ordinary institutions. How many among the OBCs if the creamy layer is excluded stand a chance to enter those institutions?
A contemporary genuine concern of India’s leadership, both legislative and judiciary should be: (1) are all Indians benefiting from its current economic growth (2) is India celebrating a balanced economic development in which all its citizens are given a justifiable share in education and employment? If these are not happening, then can India be seen as a progressive and humanistic nation?
Certainly, if India has still a backward class to which development has not trickled down, it means that its government has not fulfilled its constitutional commitment to them. The 1992 Judgment of Indira Swahney and the subsequent judgments based on it are making the presumption that the OBC creamy layer is at par with the ‘forward’ castes. Here the terms ‘backward’ and ‘forward’ are very subjective. When the judgment states that the OBC creamy layer is equal to the ‘forward’, then it has to define what is forward.
Instead the SC instructed the higher institutions to follow the 1993 criteria that were used to identify the creamy layer to be excluded from employment. Children of parents who have an annual income of 2,5 lakhs, including other property income, are therefore included in the creamy layer. What is the logic in this while the annual fees at the higher institutions are to the tune of 3,5 lakhs?
This shows that the criteria that are used to exclude the OBC from employment cannot be used for educational admissions.
Under the nose of independent India’s legislature and judiciary, the majority of its backward people remained locked up in their traditional ghettos as discriminated, condemned and violated by its so called upper castes. Constitution guaranteed them reservation in employment a programme that was to last for 10 years. Yet there was no five-year plan or fast track plans to accomplish that programme within the stipulated period.
And when you talk about India’s OBCs, you are talking about its skilled people that held its glories high until the atrocious Brahmanic Hinduism defeated their status and elegance. But the free India did not acknowledge the OBCs as a defeated but a failed group, stupid and unintelligent and reservation was not taken as their right but as handout. And at heart India’s ‘forward’ found a threat in it’s ‘backward’.
In the absence of any strategic plan to develop the OBCs as a collective or a caste group, its responsibility fell straight on its individuals. It was no wonder that the highly segregated brahmanic Hinduism that entered their psyche both as a tool of social division and a myopic religious consciousness to deplete their humanity, love, care and solidarity made them think only in terms of themselves and not collectively. Yet OBC as a whole should have offered helping hands to each other as their humanistic obligation.
In the midst of everything, the poor OBC remained poor and those who managed to make use of reservation in education managed to develop better than the rest. But to claim that they all attained level of competency with the forward is false and those who make that claim should establish that in concrete terms.
As a whole, the OBC creamy layer is in need of initiatives to assist them for they are a potential and upcoming section of the Indian constituency that has to come a long way to be equal with the ‘forward’.
It is true that a slim minority among the OBC have acquired competency with the ‘forward’; those who have representations in Parliament and Legislative Assemblies, high earning executives and who own businesses.
Yet why did the SC made such a judgment far removed from the realities at hand?
Following is an extract from the SC’s judgment on last year’s stay on parliament’s 27% reservation for the Other Backward Classes (in short the 'OBCs') contained in the Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006.
“The primary ground of challenge is that the Union of India has failed in performing the constitutional and legal duties toward the citizenry and its resultant effect. Consequentially the Act shall have the effect and wide ramifications and ultimately it shall have the result in dividing the country on caste basis. It would lead to chaos, confusion, and anarchy, which would have destructive impact on the peaceful atmosphere in the educational and other institutions and would seriously affect social and communal harmony. The constitutional guarantee of equality and equal opportunity shall be seriously prejudiced. It has been contended that a time has come to replace the "vote bank" scenario with "talent bank". The statute in question, it is contended, has lost sight of the social catastrophe it is likely to unleash. Not only would the products be intellectual pigmies as compared to normal intellectual sound students presently passing out. It has been highlighted that on the basis of unfounded and unsupportable data about the number of OBCs in the country the Act has been enacted.”
The judgment is mindful that the Indian government failed in fulfilling its constitutional and legal obligations to its people. But its consequence should be suffered by the poor OBCs for admitting them to India's higher institutions would lead to 'chaos, confusion and anarchy... '.
Is this judgement based on any observation or evidence or is it simply an excuse?
Or is the judgment referring to the chaos and atrocities India’s ‘white lilies’ staged on the streets of Delhi and Bombay against the 93rd amendment to fulfil the government’s legislative obligation to India’s backward spearheaded by Arjun Singh?
And more explanations are needed as to how “The constitutional guarantee of equality and equal opportunity shall be seriously prejudiced” if the OBCs are admitted into India’s higher institutions?
So where is India’s humanity? Even the esteemed legal institution of India does not see the need for the developed assisting the less developed as the means for achieving equality. Instead they claim that there is a constitutional guarantee in India that only equals should be guaranteed equal opportunities. (That is how I understand it)
The judgement went to predict that the Act would only guarantee ‘intellectual pigmies as compared to the normal intellectuals’. Who are these normal intellectuals of India? Somebody please help me to understand.
If so, does the judgement imply that the people who qualify through affirmative action programmes that are currently run through various institutions of the world are intellectual pigmies? Certainly such views would be met with disgust by the countries that have effective affirmative programmes.
In my understanding, education has the paramount potential to transform the unequals to equals and its admission processes all over the world are structured on such principles.
However the SC ruled that 27% of the OBC could be admitted to higher institutions excluding its creamy layer. So those institutions might have taken measures to deal with the chaos and anarchy of those 27%. The fact of the matter is that if the creamy layer is excluded, there is hardly any one from the OBC who is going to those institutions.
Currently the OBC percentage in India’s esteemed institutions is 9, that is from the nearly 60% of its population.
Indira Swahney judged in 1992 that the OBC reservation in employment is restricted to 27%. But studies in Kerala and elsewhere claim that after its implementation, OBC representation in employment plummeted to a mere 5%. Whereas 20% of India’s creamy layer from the general population grab most of the executive jobs in the country’s private sector that dominates 85% of India’s job market.
Only those who have a humanistic consciousness can understand what I say. India’s economic growth is going to be a disaster unless it takes care of its human divide along caste and religion in constructive and creative ways. Our esteemed legal institutions are loosing sight in this when they say that the development of the OBC is coming at a huge price of chaos and conflict in the higher institutions.
Next. The relevance of the Kerala OBC Act 1995 and 'vote bank'
References:
Indira Sawhney II judgement : http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/qrydisp.asp?tfnm=16589
2007 Judgment, stay on OBC Act: http://www.esamskriti.com/html/readcont/sc_2007.doc
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Saturday, 4 August 2007
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Kerala Minorities and their 'Minority Status'
(Religion as an opinion or an intellectual vision as we knew it is changing, taking new forms of power, politics and material. We are upset about changes. But do we fear that breaking our silence on changes will dent on our decency and good nature. For those who think that a discussion on change is eminent to forge a healthy religious unity among the Kerala people, here is an opportunity)
The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) on Wednesday granted minority status to five educational institutions under the Pushpagiri Medical Society; ending an eight-year-old wait that began in February 1999. With this, the number of professional colleges having minority status in Kerala has gone up to 11. reference
Currently the number of minority institutions that got ‘minority status’ stands at 27 and the upward trend continues.
The Commission’s verdict, apparently kept under wraps by Kerala’s Media from reaching its majority, is riddled with controversy, lack of common sense and is another example for India’s judicial bungling.
That an Indian constitutional clause (article 30) intended to guarantee a minority, rights to run own educational institutions to attain equal development with the majority is used to enhance the minority’s domination over the majority, is the controversy.
The verdict is a cover for the rich owners of Kerals’s Professional Colleges to renege on their social responsibility. For the socially and economically backward, still reeling under India’s old apartheid and the poor it deflects professional education into an unreachable trajectory.
No doubt, it hacks through the socialist model of development that Kerala has been envisaging for decades. I wonder how many current flag bearers of the ‘minority status’ would have been there if Kerala had not embarked on that model.
Currently the two minorities in Kerala, the Christians and the Muslims, are far more advanced than the rest of its population.
One cannot forget how these minorities have turned Kerala’s old apartheid situations to their favour: a Kerala that reeled under the lordship of a lazy, unskilled feudal land-lords, and an equally inefficient royal princes.
Colonialism with its missionary outfit and the oil in Arabian lands rushed more opportunities into the minorities’ hands.
When feudalism crumbled, its bankrupt managers had no choice but to pawn away Kerala’s land properties to the rich minorities.
In the rush of the foreign money even when the minority wholesaled the landed property of Kerala, the poor patiently retreated to the outskirts blaming their own destiny, appreciating and respecting the achievement of the minorities.
They never interfered with the minority’s rights to language and religion and never discriminated against them.
Yet, why are my minority friends cutting out a sorry state of them invoking article 30? To gain development at par with the majority, or to renege on their social responsibility towards the disadvantaged and the poor
Who is a Kerala Minority?
Amidst all these perhaps the most interesting questions are (i) Who is a Minority in Kerala (ii) In the context of Article 30 of the I.C, are the rights for minority educational institutions the same as ‘minority status’?
Even the UN that stands to protect the rights of the minorities the world over does not give a definition on, ‘Who is a Minority?’
In some context, minority is taken to be people that are undergoing serious discrimination and ill treatment from the rest of the population, which has never been the case in India.
Likewise, the Indian constitution never defined who is a minority in its national or state contexts. The following article highlights that even article 30 of the Indian constitution are silent on “Who is a minority?” reference
John Dayal, President of All India Catholic Union Secretary general, All India Christian Council defines in his article, “The Indian Government, the Supreme Court and the Religious Minorities of India”, that article 30 as one that gives “ Minorities, both religious and linguistic, the right to administer their own institutions as the means to preserving, encouraging and propagating that distinctive culture which makes them what they are, members of India’s rich tapestry of a plural culture”. reference
Do Christians in Kerala have a ‘distinctive culture’ different from that of the rest? If so, is it European, Roman or American? The same question applies to the Muslims?
According to a 2004 statistics in Kerala, there were 258 professional colleges run by minorities against 89 Hindu-owned. Were they for ‘preserving, encouraging and propagating minorities’ distinctive cultures? (Somebody please help me)
In the same article Dayal talks about Soli Sorabjee, India’s esteemed former Attorney General that he recently presented before the Supreme Court of India that “the right of the minority communities to establish and administer an educational institution was absolute and this right should not be "tinkered" with.”
But see what is reported as written by the very honourable attorney general under “What is a minority?” on April 11, 2007.
In the Kerala context, he observes that “In its advisory opinion in 1958 on the Kerala Education Bill, the Court opined that as the legislation in question applied to the whole of the State of Kerala, the existence of a minority “must be determined by reference to the entire population of that State” and that by “this test, Christians, Muslims and Anglo-Indians will certainly be minorities in the State of Kerala” ”(this opinion was based on numbers).
In the next page he expresses his own view that the practice of deciding a minority based on mere numbers is ‘not conclusive’. Instead he says, “ The criterion should be empowerment. The relevant questions to ask are, what is the strength of the community in decision-making, formulating policies and their execution” reference
Based on these criterions, who is a minority in Kerela?
If anybody is having any doubt read the following article. reference
A little bit of history
The current ‘minority status’ has a history starting with the Self Financing Institutions established in Kerala in 2000 during the time of A.K. Antony (UDF) as the Chief minister. Initiated apparently to attract rich learners who threw huge capitation fees in colleges outside the state, it evolved into a private-public partnership in higher education with the slogan ‘one aided college equals two government colleges’ that contained a reservation programme for the backward (socially, economically and physically).
That the disadvantaged Hindu communities and the poor were unable to take advantage of this government partnership offer is a crucial point here.
Instead, the economically, politically and educationally dominant minorities lapped it up.
This resulted in an enormous rise in the number of seats created in the private colleges. According to the Education Minister E.T. Mohamed (2005), the number of seats in engineering, medical, agriculture and B.Pharm courses rose to 29,511 in 2005-06 from 9,369 in 2000-2001. During the same period, the number of candidates admitted under the reservation quota for Scheduled castes, Tribes and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes also shot up to 7,004 from 2,666. reference
However the management of the unaided institutions was never in favour of a reservation intended to help the poor.
Without mentioning a few ‘important’ Supreme Court verdicts made in the case of unaided institutions in the era of the Capital, the story of Self-Financing Institutions will not be complete.
The first was the Unnikrishnan case (1993), in the verdict of which Justice Jeevan Reddy evolved a scheme to help the poor, which was apparently the base for Antony’s education plan.
The second was Justice B.N. Kirpal’s majority judgement in the 11-judge TMA Pai case (2002). In the zeal to remedy the pitfalls in the Unnikrishan case, TMA Pai ruling went in favour of the managements. It gave autonomy to un-aided institutions in certain aspects and State control in other aspects which created more confusion than clearing some. It let the aided colleges to interpret autonomy as it pleased to charge tuitions fee and capitation collection at their whims and fancy.
It also made some slip-ups here and there which prescribed reservation ‘locally’.
After the TMA Pai case verdict, the fees both in the aided and government colleges soared beyond the reach of ordinary people about which the Supreme Court could do nothing. reference
Then there came a Supreme Court Verdict in 2005, which abolished the government quotas in unaided professional colleges in the case of Kerala.
The Kerala Professional College Bill passed in the legislative Assembly (2006) was apparently the state’s way of dealing with the issue that too is nullified by the Supreme Court.
As MA.Baby, the current minister of Education (LDF) explains the Bill was dealing with Minority Educational Institution and not about Minority Status. And according to him hardly any of the Kerala minority institutions had opted for minority status because they never fulfilled the conditions it entailed. That means minority institutions and ‘minority status’ are two different things. reference
Amidst all these constitutional and legal confusions, then all of a sudden we see the tinkering up of the Commission for Minority Educational Institution with extra judicial powers and the appointment of three members from the minority communities as its commissioners and it conferring ‘minority status’ on Kerala’s minority institutions.
This legally redeems them from the social responsibility of reservation.
Some Suggestions as Way forward
(1) The government of Kerala instead of wasting time on discussing the matter with private management who had already lost their credential on trustworthiness should embark on making new laws to assist the disadvantaged and the poor
(2) In case it fails, it should withdraw with immediate effect, the aid it provides to the minority educational institutions and assists the disadvantaged communities and the poor to establish their own institutions until a proportional balance is reached in development between them and the so-called minorities.
(3) This issue having the self-financing managements and its supporters on one side and the government, the disadvantaged, the poor and their supporters on the other, many think, has the potential to divide the Kerala people along religious-social and personal lines. What can be done to avert this impending crisis seems to me an important question.
------
The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) on Wednesday granted minority status to five educational institutions under the Pushpagiri Medical Society; ending an eight-year-old wait that began in February 1999. With this, the number of professional colleges having minority status in Kerala has gone up to 11. reference
Currently the number of minority institutions that got ‘minority status’ stands at 27 and the upward trend continues.
The Commission’s verdict, apparently kept under wraps by Kerala’s Media from reaching its majority, is riddled with controversy, lack of common sense and is another example for India’s judicial bungling.
That an Indian constitutional clause (article 30) intended to guarantee a minority, rights to run own educational institutions to attain equal development with the majority is used to enhance the minority’s domination over the majority, is the controversy.
The verdict is a cover for the rich owners of Kerals’s Professional Colleges to renege on their social responsibility. For the socially and economically backward, still reeling under India’s old apartheid and the poor it deflects professional education into an unreachable trajectory.
No doubt, it hacks through the socialist model of development that Kerala has been envisaging for decades. I wonder how many current flag bearers of the ‘minority status’ would have been there if Kerala had not embarked on that model.
Currently the two minorities in Kerala, the Christians and the Muslims, are far more advanced than the rest of its population.
One cannot forget how these minorities have turned Kerala’s old apartheid situations to their favour: a Kerala that reeled under the lordship of a lazy, unskilled feudal land-lords, and an equally inefficient royal princes.
Colonialism with its missionary outfit and the oil in Arabian lands rushed more opportunities into the minorities’ hands.
When feudalism crumbled, its bankrupt managers had no choice but to pawn away Kerala’s land properties to the rich minorities.
In the rush of the foreign money even when the minority wholesaled the landed property of Kerala, the poor patiently retreated to the outskirts blaming their own destiny, appreciating and respecting the achievement of the minorities.
They never interfered with the minority’s rights to language and religion and never discriminated against them.
Yet, why are my minority friends cutting out a sorry state of them invoking article 30? To gain development at par with the majority, or to renege on their social responsibility towards the disadvantaged and the poor
Who is a Kerala Minority?
Amidst all these perhaps the most interesting questions are (i) Who is a Minority in Kerala (ii) In the context of Article 30 of the I.C, are the rights for minority educational institutions the same as ‘minority status’?
Even the UN that stands to protect the rights of the minorities the world over does not give a definition on, ‘Who is a Minority?’
In some context, minority is taken to be people that are undergoing serious discrimination and ill treatment from the rest of the population, which has never been the case in India.
Likewise, the Indian constitution never defined who is a minority in its national or state contexts. The following article highlights that even article 30 of the Indian constitution are silent on “Who is a minority?” reference
John Dayal, President of All India Catholic Union Secretary general, All India Christian Council defines in his article, “The Indian Government, the Supreme Court and the Religious Minorities of India”, that article 30 as one that gives “ Minorities, both religious and linguistic, the right to administer their own institutions as the means to preserving, encouraging and propagating that distinctive culture which makes them what they are, members of India’s rich tapestry of a plural culture”. reference
Do Christians in Kerala have a ‘distinctive culture’ different from that of the rest? If so, is it European, Roman or American? The same question applies to the Muslims?
According to a 2004 statistics in Kerala, there were 258 professional colleges run by minorities against 89 Hindu-owned. Were they for ‘preserving, encouraging and propagating minorities’ distinctive cultures? (Somebody please help me)
In the same article Dayal talks about Soli Sorabjee, India’s esteemed former Attorney General that he recently presented before the Supreme Court of India that “the right of the minority communities to establish and administer an educational institution was absolute and this right should not be "tinkered" with.”
But see what is reported as written by the very honourable attorney general under “What is a minority?” on April 11, 2007.
In the Kerala context, he observes that “In its advisory opinion in 1958 on the Kerala Education Bill, the Court opined that as the legislation in question applied to the whole of the State of Kerala, the existence of a minority “must be determined by reference to the entire population of that State” and that by “this test, Christians, Muslims and Anglo-Indians will certainly be minorities in the State of Kerala” ”(this opinion was based on numbers).
In the next page he expresses his own view that the practice of deciding a minority based on mere numbers is ‘not conclusive’. Instead he says, “ The criterion should be empowerment. The relevant questions to ask are, what is the strength of the community in decision-making, formulating policies and their execution” reference
Based on these criterions, who is a minority in Kerela?
If anybody is having any doubt read the following article. reference
A little bit of history
The current ‘minority status’ has a history starting with the Self Financing Institutions established in Kerala in 2000 during the time of A.K. Antony (UDF) as the Chief minister. Initiated apparently to attract rich learners who threw huge capitation fees in colleges outside the state, it evolved into a private-public partnership in higher education with the slogan ‘one aided college equals two government colleges’ that contained a reservation programme for the backward (socially, economically and physically).
That the disadvantaged Hindu communities and the poor were unable to take advantage of this government partnership offer is a crucial point here.
Instead, the economically, politically and educationally dominant minorities lapped it up.
This resulted in an enormous rise in the number of seats created in the private colleges. According to the Education Minister E.T. Mohamed (2005), the number of seats in engineering, medical, agriculture and B.Pharm courses rose to 29,511 in 2005-06 from 9,369 in 2000-2001. During the same period, the number of candidates admitted under the reservation quota for Scheduled castes, Tribes and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes also shot up to 7,004 from 2,666. reference
However the management of the unaided institutions was never in favour of a reservation intended to help the poor.
Without mentioning a few ‘important’ Supreme Court verdicts made in the case of unaided institutions in the era of the Capital, the story of Self-Financing Institutions will not be complete.
The first was the Unnikrishnan case (1993), in the verdict of which Justice Jeevan Reddy evolved a scheme to help the poor, which was apparently the base for Antony’s education plan.
The second was Justice B.N. Kirpal’s majority judgement in the 11-judge TMA Pai case (2002). In the zeal to remedy the pitfalls in the Unnikrishan case, TMA Pai ruling went in favour of the managements. It gave autonomy to un-aided institutions in certain aspects and State control in other aspects which created more confusion than clearing some. It let the aided colleges to interpret autonomy as it pleased to charge tuitions fee and capitation collection at their whims and fancy.
It also made some slip-ups here and there which prescribed reservation ‘locally’.
After the TMA Pai case verdict, the fees both in the aided and government colleges soared beyond the reach of ordinary people about which the Supreme Court could do nothing. reference
Then there came a Supreme Court Verdict in 2005, which abolished the government quotas in unaided professional colleges in the case of Kerala.
The Kerala Professional College Bill passed in the legislative Assembly (2006) was apparently the state’s way of dealing with the issue that too is nullified by the Supreme Court.
As MA.Baby, the current minister of Education (LDF) explains the Bill was dealing with Minority Educational Institution and not about Minority Status. And according to him hardly any of the Kerala minority institutions had opted for minority status because they never fulfilled the conditions it entailed. That means minority institutions and ‘minority status’ are two different things. reference
Amidst all these constitutional and legal confusions, then all of a sudden we see the tinkering up of the Commission for Minority Educational Institution with extra judicial powers and the appointment of three members from the minority communities as its commissioners and it conferring ‘minority status’ on Kerala’s minority institutions.
This legally redeems them from the social responsibility of reservation.
Some Suggestions as Way forward
(1) The government of Kerala instead of wasting time on discussing the matter with private management who had already lost their credential on trustworthiness should embark on making new laws to assist the disadvantaged and the poor
(2) In case it fails, it should withdraw with immediate effect, the aid it provides to the minority educational institutions and assists the disadvantaged communities and the poor to establish their own institutions until a proportional balance is reached in development between them and the so-called minorities.
(3) This issue having the self-financing managements and its supporters on one side and the government, the disadvantaged, the poor and their supporters on the other, many think, has the potential to divide the Kerala people along religious-social and personal lines. What can be done to avert this impending crisis seems to me an important question.
------
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Stay on OBC Reservation Bill- Gross Human Right Violation?
Cheat us once. Shame on you.
Cheat us twice. Shame on us.
{A Chinese proverb}
My concern is based on two recent legal decisions made by the esteemed Supreme Court of India, the final authority on legal matters in the nation. First, the March 29, 2007 stay on Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Bill that was intended to provide 27% reservation in admission to Other Backward Castes. Second, it granted protective minority rights to Christians and Muslims in Kerala, two most economically, socially and educationally advanced religious groups in the state in terms of their ownership in capital, landed property and institutions.
If the first decision put a plug on many young Indians’ dream to enter India’s elite institutions in the 2007 academic year, the second has not even trickled into Kerala’s ordinary people. Because they haven’t even heard of it; the media in Kerala, owned by Christian and Hindu managements apparently muted the news.
According to my knowledge no TV channel, state run or otherwise, a radio station or any means of public or private communication uttered a word about the crisis that has the most devastating effect on the majority Keralites who belong to Hinduism, the most traditional religion of the land.
Neither Deshabhimani, a media apparently under the ownership of the state’s ruling Communist Marxist party did find it apt to inform the public.
The only media in my understanding that disclosed the judgment was Madhyamam, apparently run by a Muslim management and not read all over Kerala. My hats off to its editorial integrity.
A few websites that disclosed the matter are of little use to the affected Kerala population for Internet and English are beyond their reach.
More on the OBC Reservation Bill
According to N.S. Sajith in the ‘The Judiciary’s Excesses’ that appeared in Deshabhimani Weekly, 22 April 2007, Supreme Court’s March 29 stay on the Reservation Bill was its second quash on Parliaments’ initiative to reserve seats for the backward castes. In 2006 it had ruled against admitting India’s socially and educationally backward learners into professional Institutions. The parliament then unanimously passed the Reservation Bill as part of its 93rd constitutional amendment, on April 7, 2007 as an alternative to that ruling.
The protest staged by the student bodies of the elite institution of All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi and the euphoria it unleashed in the major metropolis of India after the SC’s stay is an indication of how they view the government’s act to bring the disadvantaged in the society up to their level.
Those ‘meritocrats’ of the current globalised material world of India see themselves as an advanced group replete with inborn potential as opposed to the majority with hardly any potential begging for an undeserving statusquo.
It is not by accident that the majority of ‘meritocrats’ are in those institutions. In racial and religious terms they represent India’s oppressor castes. Out of anger they called Arjun Singh the minister of India’s Human Resource Development who presented the Bill in the parliament as one of the ‘cynical old man acting on cold political arithmetic’.
They ridiculed Ram Jethmalani for saying in the Parliament that “the present generation, the people of so-called merit must learn that the present society will have to pay for the sins of our ancestors’.
But how do they know about their ancestors if the truth about their ancestry and anthropology is shrouded in the fabricated history of India?
They believe that they “belong to the Rang De Basanti generation who believe in har desh mahan nahi hota, use mahan banana padta hain (A country can achieve greatness only if its citizens strive to make it great”.
And this should be read in conjunction with the Supreme Court’s judgment,
“Nowhere in the world do castes queue up to be branded as backward. Nowhere in the world is there a competition to become backward” (Sunday Times; South Africa).
The government had made it clear that the additional 27% OBC admission would never affect the non-reserved in any way. It has plans “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)”, if the plan goes ahead.
However the central government is still determined to maintain the Bill.
On 23rd April, it appealed before the Supreme Court to ‘vacate the stay on the Reservation Bill’. But the court declined.
The failure of Indian democracy.
Ironically the Court’s judicial rationale on staying the Bill has nothing to do with the backwardness of the OBC. But it has everything to do with the backwardness, lack of merit and morality within the democratic components; executive, legislative and judiciary of India controlled so far by its ‘great’ groups.
While the court heavily criticised Mandal commission’s (1991) recommendations to provide 27% reservation for OBC as inaccurate and flawed being based on false fundamentals it does not know how the correct information could be gathered. That was how the SC judges answered the minister from Kerala on his question about it last week. The legal authority of India is questioning after sixteen years the Commission’s findings that OBC constitute 52% of the population of India.
What more, India has no valid information on the demography of its backward castes. The only information of that kind available from a 1931 national census is not valid now. The commission’s statistics were the basis for the reservation Bill.
There is not even a proper definition for India’s disadvantaged people in the normal historical and anthropological contexts. Scheduled caste, tribes, backward and other backward are political categories tinkered up in the post- independent India.
The classic cases of India’s judicial, executive and legislative bungling are surfacing now only to punish the majority population who are already variously disadvantaged. Alienated from traditional skills, they lost their historical and social relevance and are now a political football between the executive and the judiciary.
Some may concur with NS Sajith that the stay on the reservation Bill is the case of India’s judicial excesses on the executive.
The ‘meritocrats’ may proclaim that time has come for India’ s judicial awakening to clear up its political mess such as ‘vote bank’ a sleazy trade of reservation for political power between India’s ‘great’ leaders and small people.
But when one reads the following statement from the SC verdict on the Bill, belief in the court will take a different turn
“(OBC Reservation) would lead to chaos, confusion, and anarchy which would have destructive impact on the peaceful atmosphere in the educational and other institutions and would seriously affect social and communal harmony. The constitutional guarantee of equality and equal opportunity shall be seriously prejudiced” (http://www.esamskriti.com/html/readcont/sc_2007.doc).
Kerala has been a reservation state. And any communal and racial harmony it can boast of has come from its reservation approaches nullifies the above argument.
Prabhul Biwai in his essay,’Anti-quota Stir Misguided’ argues that the anti-reservation move was not spontaneous and natural but organised by three parties ‘one 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’
(http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/may/30bidwai.htm)
If this is true, it puts the judicial integrity of India’s Supreme Court in serious jeopardy making its monumental stay on OBC reservation a deliberate attempt at further stagnate the socially and educationally backward castes of India who have been the subject of a political ride since independence, the responsibility of which rests on its so called leaders who belong to the ‘meritocrats’ camp.
In this regard the issue of the Bill’s stay is the violation of the fundamental human rights of its disadvantaged population. It implies that India’s apartheid still continues under its democratic skin.
And the ‘meritocrats’ ’ presumption that only one section of the population is eligible for super speciality education and the majority does not qualify for that is gross insensitivity to India’s skewed socio-economic and educational development and is therefore a further proof for its hidden apartheid.
The court did not argue that ‘a backward minority’ is a myth, but it opposed the arithmetic used in projecting their statistics. Is it the problem of the backward castes?
The court has agreed to hear the appeal on the Bill in a few months’ time seemingly in September. And how are the politicians going to formulate a comprehensive caste statistics about a major chunk of India’s population in an honest and sincere manner within such a short time?
And what will be the outcome of that appeal?
An important question now, is what is the role of India’s disadvantaged castes to help each other to escape from this politico-judicial quagmire?
As I wrote at the top, they have cheated India’s disadvantaged not once but many times. So now the fault is theirs if they do not stand up to get counted.
And how do they do it?
Next Kerala’s controversial ‘minority rights‘
Cheat us twice. Shame on us.
{A Chinese proverb}
My concern is based on two recent legal decisions made by the esteemed Supreme Court of India, the final authority on legal matters in the nation. First, the March 29, 2007 stay on Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Bill that was intended to provide 27% reservation in admission to Other Backward Castes. Second, it granted protective minority rights to Christians and Muslims in Kerala, two most economically, socially and educationally advanced religious groups in the state in terms of their ownership in capital, landed property and institutions.
If the first decision put a plug on many young Indians’ dream to enter India’s elite institutions in the 2007 academic year, the second has not even trickled into Kerala’s ordinary people. Because they haven’t even heard of it; the media in Kerala, owned by Christian and Hindu managements apparently muted the news.
According to my knowledge no TV channel, state run or otherwise, a radio station or any means of public or private communication uttered a word about the crisis that has the most devastating effect on the majority Keralites who belong to Hinduism, the most traditional religion of the land.
Neither Deshabhimani, a media apparently under the ownership of the state’s ruling Communist Marxist party did find it apt to inform the public.
The only media in my understanding that disclosed the judgment was Madhyamam, apparently run by a Muslim management and not read all over Kerala. My hats off to its editorial integrity.
A few websites that disclosed the matter are of little use to the affected Kerala population for Internet and English are beyond their reach.
More on the OBC Reservation Bill
According to N.S. Sajith in the ‘The Judiciary’s Excesses’ that appeared in Deshabhimani Weekly, 22 April 2007, Supreme Court’s March 29 stay on the Reservation Bill was its second quash on Parliaments’ initiative to reserve seats for the backward castes. In 2006 it had ruled against admitting India’s socially and educationally backward learners into professional Institutions. The parliament then unanimously passed the Reservation Bill as part of its 93rd constitutional amendment, on April 7, 2007 as an alternative to that ruling.
The protest staged by the student bodies of the elite institution of All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi and the euphoria it unleashed in the major metropolis of India after the SC’s stay is an indication of how they view the government’s act to bring the disadvantaged in the society up to their level.
Those ‘meritocrats’ of the current globalised material world of India see themselves as an advanced group replete with inborn potential as opposed to the majority with hardly any potential begging for an undeserving statusquo.
It is not by accident that the majority of ‘meritocrats’ are in those institutions. In racial and religious terms they represent India’s oppressor castes. Out of anger they called Arjun Singh the minister of India’s Human Resource Development who presented the Bill in the parliament as one of the ‘cynical old man acting on cold political arithmetic’.
They ridiculed Ram Jethmalani for saying in the Parliament that “the present generation, the people of so-called merit must learn that the present society will have to pay for the sins of our ancestors’.
But how do they know about their ancestors if the truth about their ancestry and anthropology is shrouded in the fabricated history of India?
They believe that they “belong to the Rang De Basanti generation who believe in har desh mahan nahi hota, use mahan banana padta hain (A country can achieve greatness only if its citizens strive to make it great”.
And this should be read in conjunction with the Supreme Court’s judgment,
“Nowhere in the world do castes queue up to be branded as backward. Nowhere in the world is there a competition to become backward” (Sunday Times; South Africa).
The government had made it clear that the additional 27% OBC admission would never affect the non-reserved in any way. It has plans “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)”, if the plan goes ahead.
However the central government is still determined to maintain the Bill.
On 23rd April, it appealed before the Supreme Court to ‘vacate the stay on the Reservation Bill’. But the court declined.
The failure of Indian democracy.
Ironically the Court’s judicial rationale on staying the Bill has nothing to do with the backwardness of the OBC. But it has everything to do with the backwardness, lack of merit and morality within the democratic components; executive, legislative and judiciary of India controlled so far by its ‘great’ groups.
While the court heavily criticised Mandal commission’s (1991) recommendations to provide 27% reservation for OBC as inaccurate and flawed being based on false fundamentals it does not know how the correct information could be gathered. That was how the SC judges answered the minister from Kerala on his question about it last week. The legal authority of India is questioning after sixteen years the Commission’s findings that OBC constitute 52% of the population of India.
What more, India has no valid information on the demography of its backward castes. The only information of that kind available from a 1931 national census is not valid now. The commission’s statistics were the basis for the reservation Bill.
There is not even a proper definition for India’s disadvantaged people in the normal historical and anthropological contexts. Scheduled caste, tribes, backward and other backward are political categories tinkered up in the post- independent India.
The classic cases of India’s judicial, executive and legislative bungling are surfacing now only to punish the majority population who are already variously disadvantaged. Alienated from traditional skills, they lost their historical and social relevance and are now a political football between the executive and the judiciary.
Some may concur with NS Sajith that the stay on the reservation Bill is the case of India’s judicial excesses on the executive.
The ‘meritocrats’ may proclaim that time has come for India’ s judicial awakening to clear up its political mess such as ‘vote bank’ a sleazy trade of reservation for political power between India’s ‘great’ leaders and small people.
But when one reads the following statement from the SC verdict on the Bill, belief in the court will take a different turn
“(OBC Reservation) would lead to chaos, confusion, and anarchy which would have destructive impact on the peaceful atmosphere in the educational and other institutions and would seriously affect social and communal harmony. The constitutional guarantee of equality and equal opportunity shall be seriously prejudiced” (http://www.esamskriti.com/html/readcont/sc_2007.doc).
Kerala has been a reservation state. And any communal and racial harmony it can boast of has come from its reservation approaches nullifies the above argument.
Prabhul Biwai in his essay,’Anti-quota Stir Misguided’ argues that the anti-reservation move was not spontaneous and natural but organised by three parties ‘one 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’
(http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/may/30bidwai.htm)
If this is true, it puts the judicial integrity of India’s Supreme Court in serious jeopardy making its monumental stay on OBC reservation a deliberate attempt at further stagnate the socially and educationally backward castes of India who have been the subject of a political ride since independence, the responsibility of which rests on its so called leaders who belong to the ‘meritocrats’ camp.
In this regard the issue of the Bill’s stay is the violation of the fundamental human rights of its disadvantaged population. It implies that India’s apartheid still continues under its democratic skin.
And the ‘meritocrats’ ’ presumption that only one section of the population is eligible for super speciality education and the majority does not qualify for that is gross insensitivity to India’s skewed socio-economic and educational development and is therefore a further proof for its hidden apartheid.
The court did not argue that ‘a backward minority’ is a myth, but it opposed the arithmetic used in projecting their statistics. Is it the problem of the backward castes?
The court has agreed to hear the appeal on the Bill in a few months’ time seemingly in September. And how are the politicians going to formulate a comprehensive caste statistics about a major chunk of India’s population in an honest and sincere manner within such a short time?
And what will be the outcome of that appeal?
An important question now, is what is the role of India’s disadvantaged castes to help each other to escape from this politico-judicial quagmire?
As I wrote at the top, they have cheated India’s disadvantaged not once but many times. So now the fault is theirs if they do not stand up to get counted.
And how do they do it?
Next Kerala’s controversial ‘minority rights‘
Thursday, 12 April 2007
Vishu- Keralite's New Year
vishukonna(cassia fistula)
Keralites celebrate this year, April 15 as their New Year day. Pampered at its western coast by the Arabian Sea, Kerala is the smallest state in India.
Its population of 30 million speak Malayalam, a language formed out of Tamil under Sanskrit influence. Nearly one third of its population live overseas in Africa, Europe, America, Canada, Australia, the Middle East and Asia.
Keralites celebrates their New Year as Vishu. It is the day on which the sun enters the Mesha zodiac according to astronomical and astrological calculations popular in the state. On the celestial map it comes after the autumnal equinox. Zodiac is a band of 12 constellations around the sky with the ecliptic passing through its centre.
Its population of 30 million speak Malayalam, a language formed out of Tamil under Sanskrit influence. Nearly one third of its population live overseas in Africa, Europe, America, Canada, Australia, the Middle East and Asia.
Keralites celebrates their New Year as Vishu. It is the day on which the sun enters the Mesha zodiac according to astronomical and astrological calculations popular in the state. On the celestial map it comes after the autumnal equinox. Zodiac is a band of 12 constellations around the sky with the ecliptic passing through its centre.
Setting of the Kani
The celebrations kick off in the early auspicious hours of the day (between 4 am and 6am) with the watching of the Vishukkani (kani). Kani as shown in the picture is an arrangement of few natural articles easily available in any Kerala home during the season. It is set out by the lady of the home. She does it the previous night after the household went to sleep so that nobody else sees it before the right time.
Vegetables and fruits golden in colour, rice or paddy, konna (cassia fistula) flowers, a clean folded linen, a coconut half, beetle leaf, a book, coins, rounded metallic mirror and gold are the items needed to set the kani.
It is set in a bell-metal pot (any round pot will do). To start with, spread the paddy into its centre. Oil is poured into the coconut half to which a cotton wick (cloth folded and tied to form a bulb at the bottom) is lowered. This coconut lamp is placed over the paddy at the centre of the pot. Everything else is arranged around it in an orderly fashion with the mirror behind to reflect its light when lighted. Prayer room is an ideal place to set the Kani.
When the lamp is lighted at the auspicious time, the kani is ready to be seen by the household. Normally the lady of the house leads everybody in the family one by one to the kani blindfolded so that it is his or her first sight of the day.
The golden colour of the fruits and the flowers resemble the colour of the Sun. The light from the coconut lamp reflected from the round mirror when shines through the yellow article creates a spectacular miniature sunrise.
After the turn of the people the kani is taken to the outside to be seen by the cattle, the birds and all living animals and plants.
However the arrangement of the kani may vary from places to places.
Vishukaineetam or giving Vishu gifts is the second item of the celebration. It is the responsibility of the man of the house. He presents coins to everybody in the household and receives them from the most beloved one in the family.
Seeing spectacular sight and getting presents on the first day of the New Year takes care of the entire year is the belief behind Vishukani and Vishukaineetam.
As the day unfolds youngsters get serious with firecrackers and females with cooking a sumptuous lunch. It is prepared in the Kerala culinary style to include the four prominent rasas (tastes): bitter, sour, sweet and hot.
Meals are served on plantain leaves. All members of the family sit together for the meals. After the meal people visit friends and relatives and indulge in entertainments.
While Vishu embodies prosperity, beauty, wellness, knowledge, communal life, family organisation and friendship at a mundane level it unfolds ‘an elementary oneness’ of the universe at a spiritual level.
The time the sun enters the Mesha zodiac has implications for life on earth that are affected by seasons and other aspects of nature.
Every year, in Kerala, learned Jyothisis predict such effects based on the astrological calendar called Panchangam. This is an ancient Indian practise.
Vishu a secular event
Vishu observations are secular. Nothing about religion is mentioned in its original texts in spite of the contemporary Kerala temple practices to attach it with the deities.
Vishu is not the only New Year celebrations in India. It is commemorated in various parts of India under various names during March-April. In Tamil Nadu it is celebrated as Puthu Varsham. In parts of Tamil Nadu closer to Kerala, people celebrate Vishu as New Year. In Andhra Predesh it is known as Ugadi. The Bengalis celebrates it as Polia Baishak and the Assamese call it Bihu festival. Baishakhi is the Punjabi New Year.
Nepalese celebrate it by the third week of March while the Kashmeeris observe it on the second week of March. Many olden traditions in the world observe New Year on the days of vernal or autumnal equinoxes which falls during March.
Indians in general and Keralites in particular are people who wish to carry on with their traditions wherever they happen to live. It is important to pass on their ancient wisdom to their younger generations. Even if you live away from home it is not difficult to organise a Vishukkani for the auspicious time of the day.
One can replace many original things in the kani with the locally available products. For example, in South Africa a yellow pumpkin and a yellow ripe mango can replace the jackfruit and golden coloured cucumber. Any yellow flower of the season can replace the konna flowers. Coconuts are available all over South Africa and a cotton cloth wick can be made out of pure cotton (or any small lamp will do).
I wish all Keralites and all who celebrate new year now, a very Happy Vishu and a prosperous New Year.
Sunday, 18 March 2007
CAPE TOWN -A WORLD TRAVEL DESTINATION PART-2
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OUR FIRST TRIP TO CAPETOWN
Ever since we came to South Africa, a visit to Cape Town was on top in our wish list. Housing many wonders including South Africa’s parliamentary buildings, it is considered an
(picture from UCT website)
exotic tourist destination by South Africans and foreigners alike.
Several times we planned a visit to the city. But by some reason or other it did not materialize for a long time.
Then there came an invitation by courier asking our younger daughter to appear before the management of Telkom South Africa for a bursary interview in Cape Town. The bursary was for her studies at the University of Cape Town, where she was about to start her tertiary education in a few weeks time.
It came in such short notice that we had to make haste in preparing an itinerary for our trip and pack. With a few tips from her father our elder daughter took care of that. Packing and the sundry were as usual left with our younger daughter and myself.
We worked around the clock like busy bees. When we went to bed after making sure that everything had been packed in the car it was past nine at night. My husband set the alarm so we could start off by 5.00 in the morning.
Next day at 5h00 sharp we hit the road.
Nine hours to cover the thousand kilometers from our home town (Grahamstown) to Cape town and an hour for lunch and coffee breaks, we estimated the arrival time to be 3 in the afternoon.
We reached the outskirt of the city of Cape Town by 2 in the afternoon. From there on we were thrown into the hustle and bustle of the city. The last leg of hundred kilometers was not anything like what we experienced till then.
The more we sank into the city traffic the more strenuous the driving became. At regular intervals the highway branched into many lanes causing the inexperienced drivers to veer into a wrong lane. By the time you had realized the mistake there was no coming back until you reached a flyover. By then you are far removed from your destination.
Before we reached the city traffic we had decided that my husband would be on the wheel, our elder daughter assisting him with direction.
Armed with a road map of the city she sat on the passenger seat and steered our way to the city centre and to the hotel we had booked for a couple of days. Flashing glances between the road signs across the road and the road map she broke the tense silence in the car suggesting that her father stay on the lane or to drift left or right where she indicated.
At 120km/hour changing lanes was not easy.
Vehicles dashed in a single direction in three lanes. The race created a sense of urgency. Laws of motion, as it were, presided over human destiny.
It evoked in us a sense of diligence and an anticipation of the city’s industrial and corporate hub that was soon waiting to unfold before us. Both the drivers and the passengers in those speeding vehicles were masters or servants of that corporate world.
They were chasing time.
Yet they were extremely courteous and friendly to the visitors. A car that bore the registration number of another province was forgiven if it veered inadvertently into the faster lane.
The highway was protected on both sides by high walls. They tucked the city’s poor citizenry away from its time-chasers.
Slowly the motion streamlined into a rhythm. We were cruising in the flow.
Once the tension subsided, we became jovial to make remarks about the huge blocks of buildings on both sides. The traffic became hectic minute by minute as we entered the city center. The speed limit suddenly dropped to 60 km/h and we felt the entire world flooded with vehicles.
Inside the city, traffic was controlled by intermittent traffic lights. In front of the red light sometimes you have to pause for two to three minutes.
As we entered into the thick of the city traffic we got lost a few times since we took the wrong lane. Because traffic instructions were perfect, we could find our way easily back.
In case you are lost terribly you can enter into any petrol station which are spread all over the city and the petrol attendants are of excellent help to guide you through.
At one point we saw a flash of a deep blue on our right indicating the proximity of the beech and the beach hotels. We had booked for a hotel on the beachfront.
In five minutes our car was pulled into the front lobby of the hotel. We had booked into one of its self-catering apartments.
The receptionists at the counter were an Italian couple. They were extremely friendly. We felt as though we were visiting a long lost family friend. After exchanging greetings and small talk we went to our fifth floor apartment.
Spotlessly clean, the bedrooms, kitchen and the sitting room offered us a pleasant ambience.
We were all very tired. My husband offered to make us tea and after that we decided to have a nice rest.
.
Monday, 5 March 2007
MARCH 5, 2007- PROTEST AGAINST YAHOO! INDIA'S PLAGIARISM
VIOLATION TO ONE IS VIOLATION TO ALL
It was with great shock that I read about Yahoo's infringement upon the copyright of a Malayalam Bogger (Suryagayathri) and a Malayalam web-publication (Puzha.com). How could a web giant stoop that low?
Its subsequent denial of the copyright violation by distancing itself from the action of WebDuniya, its own subsidiary and the deleting of the content in question from their web was like adding insult to injury. When Yahoo! India makes such claims it is making the public doubt about the integrity of the organisation and its code of conduct for the employees. We take an employee of Yahoo as Yahoo itself.
Trying to fool the Malayalam language users certainly does not spell a fair business practice on the part of Yahoo. It is not by trampling on the rights of individuals and small publications that a giant corporation like Yahoo! India should flex its muscle.
Where are its work ethics and philosophy on customer care and relations?
If they had genuine customer interest in the Malayalam language users, they should have done their homework with care, sensibility and sensitivity.
A word to Yahoo India: it is not yet late to do the right thing; respect the copyright of the individuals on their blog content.
If they had genuine customer interest in the Malayalam language users, they should have done their homework with care, sensibility and sensitivity.
A word to Yahoo India: it is not yet late to do the right thing; respect the copyright of the individuals on their blog content.
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