Mera Bharat Mahan

India is the only country in the world where people would love to be called backward, and the numbers are exponentially increasing.

India is the only country in the world which since its independence has become increasingly backward, with more and more castes being added to the backward list. Economic boom and increasing backwardness go hand to hand in India!

No political party in the country cares to explain about why inspite of their rule in the country for the past six decades, backwardness has increased in the country! But every political party agree that India has become more backward in the past six decades and hence there should be more reservations.

When the constitution was formed in 1950, only SC and ST were added to the reservation list and even this was expected to be removed within two decades after ensuring equal opportunities to all. But today after 60 years we have SC+ST+OBC, and even there are demands for MBC. Great going! Add more, infact add all...

Half a century ago there were 2000+ listed backward castes in the country and today we have the number doubled! Its 4000 plus!. Central list has gone up from 1200 to 2300. Our political leaders have doubled the backwardness of this country and they are very happy about it. It is an achievement to make the country more and more backward and at the same time get laws passed to provide reservations to all those who are added to the list of backward castes. Well done Indian politicians!

The recent Supreme Court judgement clearly said that "when more and more people aspire for backwardness instead of forwardness, the country itself stagnates". But then, if the country doesnt stagnate and if all become forward, then who will vote for the political parties? So, all the political parties have unanimously decided, let the country continue to stagnate.

If a child belongs to a economically poor family which is unable to afford its education, and if the family does not belong to the list of the so called backward classes, thats it, forget the child's education. Why? Because in India poverty doesnt matter, only caste matters! Backwardness is not measured by economic status, but only by birth. At the same time there are also cries from the same political parties to eradicate caste system based on birth!

Indian constitution guarantees equality to all, and yet right from my birth till death, I have to fill my caste details in all government application forms. Right from the education till job, promotion, everywhere things get decided based on the caste. But dont forget, there is equality in India.

The authors of the Indian constitution dreamed about eradicating the caste system in this country. But sorry, the castes are here to stay, and are getting deeply rooted in the society like never before. All our great political parties will ensure that.

But please dont think that the really backward caste people are benefiting from this either. Reservations are only a theoretical concept in India. To get reservations you need to have a backward caste certificate, and to get that certificate you need money - called bribe. So if you belong to a backward caste and are really poor, sorry no reservations for you either. It costs atleast 1500 Rupees to get a caste certificate, irrespective of whether you really belong to the backward class or not. I have seen with my own eyes, people of non-backward castes getting educational seats using fake backward class certificates. Which is why I said, India is the only country where people would love to be called backward. I have seen well paid government officials (mis)using their caste to get educational seats to their children who havent performed well in the exams!

What does this mean? It means that keeping out the creamy layer is only a theoretical concept, because its easy for rich backward class people to get a below poverty line income certificate by paying bribe/by influence, and then use that certificate to get educational seats and jobs to their kids who havent scored good marks. So, the really backward people in the backward classes are not benefiting either! And hence the country is becoming increasingly backward. And one fine day, everybody will be backward, and the cycle would be complete when there will be 100% reservations in the country. So, I think we are moving in the right direction. Let us increase the quotas more and more, let us fight for equality and give reservations for all. I am with Arjun Singh and co.

Supreme Court in its verdict rightly asked the government to exclude the creamy layer, i.e those who are economically strong and belong to the backward classes, from the reservations. But immediately after the judgement we had NCP, Mayawati, CPI all talking against the exclusion of creamy layer! If you are a poor upper caste youth, sorry nobody cares about you, but if you are a rich backward caste youth, welcome, we have quotas for you.

We do not care about improving the economic status of the backward classes so that they can provide good education to their children. We do not care about making the children of all castes in this country merit oriented by opening quality education institutions in every village. Compared to the huge efforts done in providing quotas, there is almost no effort done to provide quality primary education to all students of backward classes, to enable them to reach higher education and jobs without depending on quotas. We are only interested in creating a second class knowledge society who become doctors and engineers by knowing less than what is required. Now did you get why all our political masters go abroad for their medical treatment? We give equal opportunities to all irrespective of merit, but never take any chances ;)

The dropout rate from primary schools by the OBC students is the highest in the country. By the time they reach 4th standard the drop out rate is 25%, and by 8th standard, the drop out rate is above 50%! These figures are from none other than our own HRD ministry! But governments dont care about improving the situation there. My question is, if OBC students are not even able to complete their primary education, then what is the use of quotas in higher education and jobs. You will never get those quotas filled by the really needy because they already dropped out of school in the primary level itself! On the other hand, if we ensure that all OBC students get good primary education, then the intelligent ones among them will anyway get merit based seats, and in that case why do we need quotas in higher education at all?

Sorry, for a moment I forgot that I was arguing in India, so let me continue my Indian argument :)

Why not reservation in sports? in cricket, hockey, tennis everywhere. The government is denying equal opportunities for people of backward classes by not providing them quotas in sports. Even in backward classes there are youth who want to be in movies, sports, etc. Why not introduce reservations there. We have to provide social justice in all forms of professions. Not just in government institutions. There are those backward class youth who dream about joining Microsoft and Google. What has the government done to give equal opportunities to them? Why not ask private IT companies to introduce quota systems? There are thousands and thousands of job opportunities in the IT sector today and its purely based on merit, and so the youth of backward classes are being denied opportunities here. If the government really cares about providing equal opportunity to all in the well paid private sector too, then they should bring legislation to introduce quotas in MNCs too.

Till about a few years back I used to dream about a country where caste is a thing of the past. Now I see a bright future where . There will be groups of students and professionals who identify themselves as merit based and quota based. I think this will narrow down the divide of hundreds of caste groups into only two groups, quota and merit based. Great attempt to bridge the divide!

People like V.P.Singh and Arjun Singh are really great. Even Ambedkar was not able to identify the backward classes belonging to OBC when the constitution was written, and four decades after independence V.P.Singh identified these classes and Arjun Singh is promoting them! I will continue their legacy, and I demand that we also add EBC to this list. Nobody has identified EBCs till to date, I have. EBC means economically backward castes and there are quite a lot of them in the country. I urge the government to conduct a national survey, probably another sachar commission, and come up with a percentage for EBC quotas.

I have to state another irony here. It was initially V P Singh who introduced Mandal and OBC concept in the country, and the then leader of opposition Rajiv Gandhi blasted the mandal report left and right in the parliament. I hope people like Arjun Singh read that speech of their beloved leader before talking like nuts. As Rajdeep Sardesai said on CNN-IBN, Congress opposed Mandal Part I, but is embracing Mandal Part II. In politics, not only there are no permanent friends or foes, but also there are no permanent ideologies.

Prof. Pankaj Chandra, Director of IIM-Bangalore says that, what he is worried most about is, apart from a lack of infrastructure and faculties to accomodate quota based students, he is even more worried about how to maintain the same quality of IIM graduate output, irrespective of how the input is, because now the input also will include non-merit based students! Looking at the professor's arguments I wont be surprised if multinational companies and higher education institusions abroad, say in US, lay out a condition in the future saying they will accept applications only from merit based students of IITs and IIMs!

I have to talk about another stupid argument here, where some people try to compare quotas in India to affirmative actions in US. Those who do this comparison should remember that you cannot fool all the people all the time. In affirmative actions of US, equal opportunities are given to blacks and whites in US, but there is NO COMPROMISE ON MERIT. If there is a black and a white candidate for a job, and ONLY if both have scored EQUALLY in terms of merit, only then does the affirmative action in US say, give preference to the black. Where as in the case of Indian quota system, the quota based students can score way below merit based students and yet get an opportunity. Now this is exactly the reason why in US, even blacks have become great scientists and researchers, where as in India most of our professors have not even completed Phds.

In the past I used to think bad about those merit oriented students who used to fly away to USA. I used to criticize those who join NASA instead of ISRO, pentagon instead of DRDO. But today if I see any merit student who has no money to go to US, I will sponsor his complete package and go to the airport to say goodbye and wish goodluck. Let his talent be recognized atleast in some other part of this world and let humanity benefit from it. Even though nobody consulted him before he was born in a poor upper caste, nobody can change his destiny either. Here lies the answer why there have been no nobel prizes in independent India. All the Amartya Sens and Kalpana Chawlas have already left India.

But I will continue to stay in India, for I believe that there is ample scope for me to show my talent here, and its a privilege to be accompanied by great people like Arjun Singh and co. India is a land of opportunities, and there is an ever increasing scope for improvement. Let us all work together to build a super power out of India. Let us demand in the UN to have quotas for superpower status. We fight against all kinds of discrimination and social injustice.

Mera Bharat Mahan.