THe recent government proposal to further divide the country based on caste by providing OBC reservation raised another question in my mind. Who or what exactly is an OBC??
The answer I found was shocking!! The concept of OBC never existed in the constitution of India which was formed in 1950. The original constitution had only the categorization of SC/ST and recommended reservations for SC/ST for a given time period to ensure social justice, which I feel was fair enough.
But in 1990, instead of taking concrete steps to ensure that caste based reservation system comes to its logical end after giving equal opportunities to all sections of the society, the great V P Singh implemented mandal recommendations by amending the constitution and creating a totally new category called OBC (Other Backward Class). Mr Singh’s government made the 93rd amendment to the constitution to add OBC to SC/ST category. More funny is the fact that the reservation percentage based on this amendment done in 1990 was decided based on a 1931 census!! Originally there were about 1200 communities classified as OBC in 1990 and today their number is about 2300!! Instead of becoming a knowledge based developed nation, today India is becoming more and more backward thanks to Congress and Co..
I simply cant understand that if this so called OBC really existed in India, then it should have been more visible in 1950’s to the authors of the constitution, when they couldn’t see any such section in society, where did this come up from suddenly in 1990??? V P Singh who had become PM opposing congress was just trying to create a votebank of his own in the name of OBC and hence the same Congress which is pro OBC quota and reservation today opposed the same OBC reservation tooth and nail in 1990!!! What happened to Mr Arjun Singh’s social justice in 1990???
And now, since there are about 2200 communities in OBC as opposed to about 1200 in the orignal list, there is less quota for a OBC community than in 1990, and hence a section of OBC today is demanding a further divide in OBC called MBC (Most Backward Classes!)
So what exactly is an OBC? An innovation of Indian political class, to which more and more votebank communities are being added every year.
It is highly unfortunate that we Indians fail to understand the political gameplans and become pawns in their moves. India badly needs us, its youth to take charge of the situation before it becomes toooooo late.
Me like OBC
and so, me no like reservations
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All,
Once again an excellent article. Being born in a caste that Indian Government considers as forward caste, i want to bring few things to everybody’s notice. Mr. Ananymous thinks its law of Karma that’s catching up. Honestly i find it hard to believe that Brahmin’s could have ever planned the act of untouchables. The reason behind that was to ensure purity of thoughts and body. I personally can vouch that if you have a pure body, your mind will start thinking good thoughts and pure thoughts. For we all can say, Brahmins did not want to touch “”other”” folks for the reason that might spoil their sanctity. Brahmins have never ruled over and never will, but trust me whatever laws you change Brahmin folks will keep beating the system. The reason is Brahmins are more open to changes and are willing to learn.
Reservation, what a stupid waste of resources. Its like making a chicken fly with eagles. How can you expect people with lower IQ to compete with other smart folks and also on global level. You can create reservation locally and even nationally but not internationally. This is like making a superman from a weak guy. The rich can only support the poor, the strong can only support the weak. If you want reservation which i think we should, lets devise it based upon the income you make. Have your IT returns and show proof that you make way below the poverty line or whatever is the prescribed level as per Goverment of India. This again will be adjusted on yearly basis factoring inflation into account.
The reason the Constiution has reservation is because it wants the backward community to get the knowledge which the so called Brahmins never taught them. But who suppresses this folks these days and not get the required knowledge? There is atleast no suppressment these days, so lets get rid of the reservation based upon caste system and keep the reservation based on “”Income””. This way once we can become truly Superpower. This also will consistenly eliminate the reservation and soon within 100-150 years we will have no reservations.
Thanks
ram
I am agree with Ram that no one should be discriminated based on cast. it should be based on the talent.
so why do so called upper cast don’t let OBC/SC/ST people to buy houses in their societies (this is happening in gujarat)? why there is NRI quota in colleges and most of the time only uppercasts gets admission there? why upper cast hesitates to mingle with lower casts? in many areas of gujarat, people ask cast before even giving water to drink.
if you want reservation removed than remove surname which discriminates the people. no one should ask surname. upper cast should marry their children in lower casts. than only we will be able to remove reservation in true sense.
if you says it 2015 and in era of fb/whatsapp, there is no such thing like cast discrimination. why we sc/st are not allowed to do pooja in mandirs or why they arenot eligible to be appointed as pujari.
Superb Quote! Worth to be spread.
Recently read a smashing quote on someone’s shirt
We support OBC
Not Reservation
Yes Arun
We definitely need a drastic change in terms of people who represent us in the parliament and assemblies.. and also in the way they function..
As of now there is no accountability in the political system.
We need more young faces in the system, who can work for the nation and for the people, not for their own self or for their party.
If all our representatives starting from local corporators to the MPs have a true dedication towards the country and society, within a span of five years there can be developmental works which would exceed that of the past 60 years!
This is what I wrote once
http://hitxp.wordpress.com/2007/07/26/the-need-for-political-accountability/
The National Knowledge Commission headed by Sam Pitroda, publicly opposed this.. some people even resigned as a symbol of protest against Arjun Singhs Move…
Then what?
Even if court opposes this… its going to happen..
Because none of the parties want to go against the vote bank politics..
hhmm.. let facts never remains facts… and let people start using “”common sense”” for a change
Yes I agree anonymus. What you reap is what you sow. I will come to this point little later
I would not like to reveal my caste though I am brought up in decent and cultured family.
This is to avoid misinterpreting my views in the post.
But primarily, when I try to identify myself, today I am carved out by cultured, righteous ppl of different caste, creed, language etc…taking right character from anyone & everyone , anywhere, anytime. I follow my customs, truly aware of its importance, if not sure, I try to find truth in beliefs and actions but continue to be human being first.
Reg: What you reap is what you sow.
For that we need to understand karma very well.
Just a single thought is the seed of karma. The effect would be on self, family, village, or nation and generations together.
How far ppl have understood castism? and their duty towards the entire society? Somebody divided and ruled us.. interpreted Varnashrama wrongly.. without even verifying we accepted their version of history about us.
So yester yrs upper caste didn?t understand their duties and tortured others with their power, their succeeding generations suffered and are suffering. Now innocent uppercaste is suffering while lower caste is afflicting. The aim is BALANCE in Society.
The question is if yesterday?s action is reason for today?s sufferings, then how to stop its influence on tomorrow? What is our contribution in this direction? Should we allow it to continue its ripple effect in future too?
anonymous
There is nothing to fear. You can leave your name :)
This upper caste/lower caste thing did not exist in ancient India. It also started with some vested interests in the medieval India and continued into the British India, became a political tone after that, with a lot of hype.
Some of the so called upper caste and zamindari people ill treeated others during the medieval and British India, in the mean time Ambedkar entered the scene when free Indian constitution was formed, and he rightly felt that to correct the lack of opportunities available to suppressed classes for the past few centuries, a reservation should be provided for the first generation after Independence, and that was it.
But our politicians created a votebank out of it, never put an end to reservation, unlike what Ambedkar and Nehru really wanted, instead these politicians kept on extending the duration, adding new classes and the masses into the list, today most of the castes in the list were actually never oppressed at all!!
And we have the concept of OBC, talks about MBC etc..
There is no need for any reservation today because equal opportunities are available for all. Only in lower education economic reservation should be provided, because poverty has no caste/religion basis.
The solution for reservations is to first remove the politicians who depend on votebanks to come to power and not on the work they do.
usri u have shaken me up..thanks for the info…
but are brahmins also at fault may be not the current or previous generation but the foreforefore fathers / ancestors…””it is said that what you sow is what you reap””
Its is said that brahmins behaved/tourchered very wrongly to dalits and lower casts in old days and it is that curse(shrap) which is coming back to brahmins……
I am brahmin and felt scared for future after reading what you have written and the video…..
Guru and you are absolutly correct in saying
“”once the frequency of all/most individuals matches, a mass movement will be created automatically””
Yes you are right.. first lets start doing at an individual level at least.. in terms of action.. in the smallest way we can….
because there is nothing called ‘insignificant improvement’, every small improvement is very significant..
and once the frequency of all/most individuals matches, a mass movement will be created automatically…
Video clip is informative. Thanks for the link. We Indians are now disorganized in most of areas-socially, economically. We were in right path but we allowed others to lead to dark space. It is now our responsibility to reach goal when we have realized the fact. If the start is not a mass movement, we ourself can do it in individual level. and inspire others too to make a big stream.
Great Comments ursri
The last line is 100% true!
The country today is simply doing reverse discrimination.. and this is now going to become an endless loop..
see the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Xgc4ljHKM
Here is an interesting report on –
Are Brahmins the Dalits of today?
***********************************************
At a time when the Congress government wants to raise the quota for Other Backward Classes to 49.5 per cent in private and public sectors, nobody talks about the plight of the upper castes. The public image of the Brahmins, for instance, is that of an affluent, pampered class. But is it so today?
*Doctors in arms *
There are 50 Sulabh Shauchalayas (public toilets) in Delhi; all of them are cleaned and looked after by Brahmins (this very welcome public institution was started by a Brahmin). A far cry from the elitist image that
Brahmins have!
There are five to six Brahmins manning each Shauchalaya. They came to Delhi eight to ten years back looking for a source of income, as they were a minority in most of their villages, where Dalits are
in majority (60 per cent to 65 per cent). In most villages in UP and Bihar, Dalits have a union which helps them secure jobs in villages.
*At Ground Zero of the quota protests
*
Did you know that you also stumble upon a number of Brahmins working as coolies at Delhi’s railway stations? One of them, Kripa Shankar Sharma, says while his daughter is doing her Bachelors in Science he is not sure if she will secure a job.
“”Dalits often have five to six kids, but they are confident of placing them easily and well,”” he says. As a result, the Dalit population is increasing
in villages. He adds: “”Dalits are provided with housing, even their pigs have spaces; whereas there is no provision for *gaushalas* (cowsheds) for the cows of the Brahmins.””
*The middle class deserves what it is getting
*
You also find Brahmin rickshaw pullers in Delhi. 50 per cent of Patel Nagar’s rickshaw pullers are Brahmins who like their brethren have moved to the city looking for jobs for lack of employment
opportunities and poor education in their villages.
Even after toiling the whole day, Vijay Pratap and Sidharth Tiwari, two Brahmin rickshaw pullers, say they are hardly able to make ends meet. These men make about Rs 100 to Rs 150 on an average every
day from which they pay`a daily rent of Rs 25 for their rickshaws and Rs 500 to Rs 600 towards the rent of their rooms which! is
shared by 3 to 4 people or their families.
Did you also know that most rickshaw pullers in Banaras are Brahmins?
*Do our institutes connect with the real India?
*
This reverse discrimination is also found in bureaucracy and politics. Most of the intellectual Brahmin Tamil class has emigrated outside Tamil Nadu. Only 5 seats out of 600 in the combined UP and Bihar
assembly are held by Brahmins — the rest are in the hands of the Yadavs.
400,000 Brahmins of the Kashmir valley, the once respected Kashmiri Pandits, now live as refugees in their own country, sometimes in refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi in appalling conditions. But who
gives a damn about them? Their vote bank
is negligible.
And this is not limited to the North alone. 75 per cent of domestic help and cooks in Andhra Pradesh are Brahmins. A study of the Brahmin community in a district in Andhra Pradesh ( *Brahmins of India* by J Radhakrishna, published by Chugh Publications) reveals that today all purohits live below the poverty line.
Eighty per cent of those surveyed stated that their poverty and traditional style of dress and hair (tuft) had made them the butt of ridicule. Financial constraints coupled with the existing system of reservations for the ‘backward classes’ prevented them from providing secular education to their children.
*Who are the real Dalits of India?
*
In fact,
according to this study there has been an overall decline in the number of Brahmin students. With the average income of Brahmins being less than that of non-Brahmins, a high percentage of
Brahmin students drop out at the intermediate level. In the 5 to 18 year age group, 44 per cent Brahmin students stopped education at the primary level and 36 per cent at the pre-matriculation level.
The study also found that 55 per cent of all Brahmins lived below the poverty line — below a per capita income of Rs 650 a month. Since 45 per cent of the total population of India is officially stated to be below the poverty line it follows that the percentage of destitute Brahmins is 10 per cent higher than the all-India figure.
There is no reason to believe that the condition of Brahmins in other parts of the country is different. In this connection
it would be revealing to quote the per capita income of various communities as stated by the Karnataka finance minister in the state assembly: Christians Rs 1,562, Vokkaligas Rs 914, Muslims Rs 794, Scheduled castes Rs 680, Scheduled Tribes Rs 577 and Brahmins Rs 537.
Appalling poverty compels many Brahmins to migrate to towns leading to spatial dispersal and consequent decline in their local influence and institutions. Brahmins initially turned to government jobs and modern occupations such as law and medicine. But preferential policies for the non-Brahmins have forced Brahmins to retreat in these spheres as well.
*Caste shouldn’t overwrite merit
*
According to the
Andhra Pradesh study, the largest percentage of Brahmins today are employed as domestic servants. The unemployment rate among them is as high as 75 per cent. Seventy percent of Brahmins are still relying on their hereditary vocation. There are hundreds of families that are surviving on just Rs 500 per month as priests in various temples (Department of Endowments statistics).
Priests are under tremendous difficulty today, sometimes even forced to beg for alms for survival. There are innumerable instances in which Brahmin priests who spent a lifetime studying Vedas are being ridiculed and disrespected.
At Tamil Nadu’s Ranganathaswamy Temple, a priest’s monthly salary is Rs 300 (Census Department studies) and a daily allowance of one measure of rice. The government staff at the same temple receive Rs 2,500 plus per month. But these facts have
not modified the priests’ reputation as ‘haves’ and as ‘exploiters.’ The destitution of Hindu priests has moved none, not even the parties known for Hindu sympathy.
The tragedy of modern India is that the combined votes of Dalits/OBC and Muslims are enough for any government to be elected. The Congress quickly cashed in on it after Independence, but probably no
other government than Sonia Gandhi’s has gone so far in shamelessly dividing Indian society for garnering votes.
*From the Indian Express **: ‘These measures will not achieve social justice’ *
The Indian government gives Rs 1,000 crores (Rs 10 billion) for salaries of imams in mosques and Rs 200 crores (Rs 2 billion) as Haj
subsidies. But no such help is available to Brahmins and upper castes.
As a result, not only the Brahmins, but also some of the other upper castes in the lower middle class are suffering in silence today, seeing the minorities slowly taking control of their majority.
*How reservations fracture Hindu society
*
Anti-Brahminism originated in, and still prospers in anti-Hindu circles. It is particularly welcome among Marxists, missionaries, Muslims, separatists and Christian-backed Dalit movements of different
hues. When they attack Brahmins, their target is unmistakably Hinduism.
So the question has to be asked: are the Brahmins (and other upper castes) of yesterday becoming
the Dalits of today?
Paresh
Very well said.. What you have explained is plain truth..
Instead of providing reservations and creating a second class knowledge society in the country.. if the government is really interested in building a strong nation, they should provide quality primary education to all children in the country and ensure that they become competent enough to get into any kind of higher education entrance exams or to get into any kind of competent jobs…
Unfortunately, these dirty politicians want the reservation system to continue, so that there is always a second class ill educated dependent society which always votes for them to get more reservations… This is the simple plain truth..
Which is why instead of ensuring quality primary education to all, these politicians want reservations in higher education, private sector.. in all parts of the society.. how about cricket, athletics, about pilots of the politician’s helicopters or for the doctors who operate these politicians?
Reservations only divide the society, where people who come up based on their true merits develop a hatred towards those who depend on reservations…
This also causes brain drain where a merit oriented candidate says good bye to India and goes to a country like US where his/her merit is respected…
We will continue to hear that most NASA engineers, Pentagon researchers, IBM scientists in US etc are Indians…
This also ensures that India has a second class knowledge society were the students are happy to get 40% marks in the exams.. and they can never really face the competition in the western universities.. can the Indian government make foreign institutions like MIT, Stanford etc provide reservations to the backward classes of India?? Don’t the students from backward classes want to study in MIT and Stanford? What is the government doing to address this issue? ;)
In India citizens are facing reverse discrimination. The idea itself has been condemned in US.
One of my collegemate was banjara caste. He passed 12th grade with 39% after 5-6 trials. He got admission in electronics engineering – then no. 1 engineering branch. He stated that he could have become a doctor but he didn’t like cutting dead bodies. He was a friend and nothing personal against him, but the moment he got out (after 6 years) he got a job in BHEL. Thank god he didn’t go to MBBS college or got job in ISRO. What would you have expected him to contribute as a doctor or incharge of a section of space program?
Ex. Gujarat CM Amarsinh Chaudhary married second time after spending few years as CM. His reasoning in court was that because he was from backword class, and it is tradition in his caste and governmental laws didn’t apply to him (a white lie). His ex wife is still awaiting the court decision after 10 years or so.
My point is if a caste is backward, then give them encouragement to come forward – like free or subsidized tution – or give them like ~5% merit bonus for admission, that will ensure that the they have to work hard to get the benefits. and working hard is the key to uplift a backword class. The current reservation systems just creates more “”sarkari jamai (governmental son-in-law)””
Babu
because at that time, SC/ST were the most backward sections in India society and the likes of Ambedkar felt that by giving reservation to them for a limited period of time (about 1 generation), even they will be able to catch up with rest of the society soon and then the entire Indian society can grow uniformly…
Thanks to the Congress and its politics.. and then to V P Singh.. the entire concept got screwed up…
These stupid politicians even after 100 years will continue to say that we need to uplift SC/St/OBC/minorities etc because they really dont do anything for the SC/St/OBC/minorities , just treat them as votebanks.. and use their backward status for their political mileage…
We need true leaders who really care for all sections of the society including SC/St/OBC/minorities …. What have these political parties done to bring up the status of muslims in the country.. other than using them as a votebank?
I completely agree with Guru & Maya, but i need to know why SC/ST reservations was categorized when the consitution of India was made in 1950. Why is this SC/ST alone was required at the time?
Thanks,
Babu
Read your blog.Liked it a lot.Here is mine http://www.emotionalzombie.blogspot.com/
“”You say, if a student knows a seat is reserved for him he is not going to work towards it. Ask yourself- If a person knows Education is subsidized for his kids, food items are subsidized for him, is he going to work? Isn?t it harming the Economy? Isn?t the highly subsidized education we avail a classic example of social injustice? “”
Yes Maya, I completely agree with you. It should be the likes of Sam Pitroda and NRN who should be deciding on our systems and not the likes of jokers of political class.
It’s needless to say that the entire concept of OBCs and reservations is a creation of the political animal done for three reasons.One is for ensuring the vote bank.Two is for stifling the increase of an intelligent thinking segment which would naturally pose a threat to the incompetent politician,showing him to be the mediocre,conniving nincompoop that he is.Three is to ensure that the kith and kin of politicians get preference in these Institutes of higher learning,which they would not positively get through merit.
If India were to get into the super power bracket that it deserves to be given the intelligence capital,identifying,recognising and nurturing merit is vital.
Reservation would take India back to the dark ages while Kore,China and other Asian countries steal a march through sheer industry.
The only criterion should be merit and if at all any consideration is given,it ought to be for the economically backward.
A Sam Pitroda or a Narayana Murthy should be the decision maker on these issues impacting the Country’s image and future and not an archaic minister whose time is up.
Future Shock
Wisdomless Politicians
Meritless Admissions
Meaningless Curriculums
Substance less Examinations
Faculty less Departments
Student less Colleges
VC less Universities
Knowledgeless Society
Developmentless Nation
Into that hell of gloomdom
My Father, let my country
go to Sleep
let my country go to Sleep…..
Poem by BR Natarajan BITS Pilani