The controversy surrounding “Aarakshan,” meaning reservation, a new Bollywood film by Prakash Jha, has once again brought to the fore the unsettled and simmering issues around caste-based reservation in higher education. The matter is so politically charged that Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh banned the screening of the film, although the ban was later lifted in the latter two states.

The policy of reserving 22.5% of government jobs and university seats for members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, known as Dalits and adivasis, respectively, goes back to the Indian Constitution. But far more controversial was the more recent mandating of an additional reservation of 27% of seats for people who fall into other disadvantaged groups, known as Other Backward Classes, bringing the total reservation up to almost 50%.  This additional reservation in higher education was finally mandated by the Supreme Court in 2008.

The principal rationale for caste-based reservation in India, akin to race-based affirmative action in the United States, is to create equality of opportunity for historically disadvantaged groups. A related argument is that the historical fact of long-standing social repression is in itself a morally compelling reason for the counter-balancing force of reservation.

As I’ve suggested recently, inequality of outcomes is crucially affected by inequality of access. So, in theory, the argument that reservation, by creating a level playing field, will in the longer run alleviate inequality and other social deprivations makes sense. However, this begs the question of whether the system does, in fact, deliver on these benefits for disadvantaged groups.

Critics of reservation, as cited in a recent paper, argue, amongst other things, that caste-based quotas stigmatize rather than uplift targeted groups, and they entrench rather than alleviate long-standing inequalities. As Mr. Jha himself notes, one often hears people ask, “Would you want to be treated by a doctor who got in to medical school through reservation?”

Caste-based reservation may also carry unintended negative side effects along other dimensions of historical disadvantage. A much cited study finds that caste-based reservationreduced the overall number of women gaining admission into engineering colleges, because women were under-represented amongst those applying in the reserved category.

Leaving these arguments aside, the crucial questions are the ones I started with: Does caste-based reservation lead to improved educational outcomes for students in both the reserved and open categories?

A recent study by economics professor Sheetal Sekhri of the University of Virginia uses data from Indian college admission tests and exit results to test statistically whether the introduction of reservation raises educational performance as compared to an alternative hypothetical scenario of a pure meritocracy, where students are admitted based only on their rankings in admission tests.

The results of the study are not encouraging.  A higher average “quality” of upper-caste students, defined by high performance on admission tests, has a negative impact on the academic performance of lower-caste students, the study says. Further, the performance of upper-caste students, as measured by exit tests, is also adversely affected by reservation, with the strongest effects on high-achieving upper-caste students.

Professor Sekhri interprets these results as suggesting that upper and lower caste students are in “competition” over scarce academic resources, such as access to faculty, support services, social networking, etc. and thus they tend to provide peer support only to their own caste members. Her striking conclusion is that a more integrated college environment, mandated by reservation, doesn’t achieve its intended goals of raising the educational performance of disadvantaged groups. And this discouraging finding is in line with other scholarly studies, such as by Anjani Kochar of the Stanford Center for International Development.

Reserving seats for the underprivileged has also created a private sector response by the relatively well off, who come mostly from the upper castes. Just take a look at the booming industry of “coaching classes,” which prepare students to take admissions tests for the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management.

Of course, reservations didn’t create coaching classes, which have been around for a long time as a response to the poor quality of the education system. But reservations certainly accentuated the growth of this industry by inducing upper caste students to compete for a smaller share of a fixed number of university seats.

An estimate by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry suggests that the coaching industry is worth a whopping $2.2 billion a year, with the typical student paying over $2000 for eight months of coaching, comprising as much as a third of a middle-class family’s budget. The cost of coaching is beyond the reach of many poor and lower middle income families, who are disproportionately represented by lower castes.

Rupa Subramanya Dehejia writes Economics Journal for India Real Time. You may follow her on Twitter @RupaSubramanya.

May 14, 2011

By Ammu Kannampilly

CHENNAI, India — Kumar Sri Sri wants to bring a bit of love to India’s parliament.

Even in a democracy known for its political diversity, the 35-year-old part-time make-up artist stands out as founder and leader of one of the country’s unlikeliest political groups, the All India Lovers Party (ILP).

Motivated by the prejudices he had to overcome to marry his own wife, Kumar created the ILP in 2008 to support couples who wish to marry despite parental disapproval over differences in caste, religion, and social rank.

Those who stray outside the norm can end up estranged from their parents or, in the worst cases, as victims of “honour killings” carried out by outraged relatives to protect what they see as the family’s reputation and pride.

The ILP’s political platform demands affirmative action in the workplace, as well as free housing and childcare for couples living without family support.

Sitting in the party HQ, a small room papered with political posters in Chennai, the state capital of Tamil Nadu, he boasted how he had helped 25 couples get married in the last three years.

“My goal is that we must get at least 10 people from the party in the national parliament by 2014,” said Kumar, who has an unashamed desire for lasting fame.

“Even after I die, my name should be known, for creating the All India Lovers Party,” he told AFP.

Kumar first tried to make a splash as a movie star.

After dropping out of school in 1989, he headed to Chennai, home to India’s massive Tamil film industry, where he struggled to break into a business where connections count for everything.

“When I left my village I had told everyone I will either come back as a big star, or I won’t return,” he said.

He worked as a waiter in a diner and a video store clerk before finally landing a job in the film studios, as a junior make-up artist.

It was at this time that he met his future wife, Mangadevi, a make-up assistant whose father was a tailor on the film sets.

Laughing, Mangadevi recalls how Kumar “would come by, talk to my father, and leave. Then one day he told me, ‘I love you’.”

The couple dated for nearly a decade while they worked and tried to win over Kumar’s parents, who wanted their son to marry someone wealthy.

“My parents wanted a girl who would come with a hefty dowry, maybe 200,000 ($4,500) or 500,000 rupees ,” he explained.

Unable to secure his parents’ support, the couple eventually went ahead and got married without telling Kumar’s family.

“It made me realise all the problems lovers face, because their families want them to marry according to caste and money,” Kumar said.

“People laughed when I told them I wanted to create a party for lovers, but I know there are millions of lovers in this country who will vote for me.”

The ILP has around 20 volunteers who help paste posters and hand out leaflets, and Kumar claims a 100,000-strong following, although his survey techniques are questionable.

“I know because they call and talk to me. I get at least 15-20 calls a day from people who want to support the party,” he said.

His salary from his two jobs, as a make-up artist and a neighbourhood milkman, pays for the ILP’s running costs.

The party logo is a heart pierced by Cupid’s arrow and, just in case the meaning still isn’t clear, the heart is filled with an image of the world’s most famous monument to love, the Taj Mahal.

A few months after he launched the party, Kumar met Lakshmi, 23, and Srinivasan, 36 — his first success story.

The Chennai-based couple fell in love while working in the same clothing shop, but Srinivasan’s parents objected, citing the vast difference in their social backgrounds.

His father held a coveted government job, working for the railways, while her father was a poor labourer.

Seeing Kumar’s posters around town, Lakshmi’s father got in contact and asked him for help, after which Kumar arranged a meeting with both sets of parents.

“I told them, don’t worry about money, they are both young and they can work hard and make money,” he said.

The couple married in August 2008, with grudging consent from Srinivasan’s parents.

“If we hadn’t met Kumar Sri Sri and we weren’t married now, I can’t imagine how unhappy I would have been,” Lakshmi said.

But not everyone is enamoured of Kumar’s politics.

The conservative Hindu Makkal Katchi (HMK) party has campaigned against the ILP, objecting in particular to Kumar’s support for Valentine’s Day.

“It’s against our tradition, it’s against our culture, it’s trying to spoil the family system of our nation,” said HMK organising secretary Thomas Kannan.

“We want to nip it in the bud, these type of people,” he said.

It is clearly going to be some time before Kumar’s ambition flowers into political success.

When the ballots were counted Friday in Tamil Nadu’s state election, Kumar had only managed a couple of hundred votes and lost his deposit in the Chennai constituency he contested.

But his enthusiasm was undimmed.

“No problem! It’s my first election, there are many ahead of me.

“One thing I know for sure though is that without love there can be no success. Without love you can’t do anything,” he said.

Posted on www.google.com

May 4, 2011

By Arpit Parashar

The political development of the last week have thrown a new, surprise candidate in the power equation of caste politics. Former bureaucrat Udit Raj, the man at the forefront of the campaign to push for OBC and SC/ST reservations in the private sector, has formed a new socio-political front called the Upekshit Dalit Mahapanchayat in Uttar Pradesh.

Though politicians have heard of Raj’s efforts, most of them have not taken notice of the development. A senior BJP politician, speaking to the media “off the record” after a press conference, laughingly dismissed the “concept” of upekshit (marginalised) Dalits as imaginary.

However, one must not forget that the initial reaction of the mainstream parties to the formation of now-successful Dalit parties, like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), was one of dismissal. The Congress often ridiculed the rise of Mayawati’s BSP two decades back. It seemed to tell the BSP, “Align with a mainstream party, or you will lose relevance.”

Ironically, in the case of Uttar Pradesh, the BSP has become the mainstream party and the Congress a marginal player.

The Mayawati brand of politics and the successful assertion movement led by the Kanshi Ram’s Backward and Minority Communities Employees’ Federation (BAMCEF) has translated into successful electoral campaigns and subsequent victories for the BSP over the years. She is presently serving her fourth term as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, after having served three short terms between 1995 and 2003.

And, she won in Uttar Pradesh on her own by engineering a major social change last time around. She came to power without any support from the Congress, the BJP, or the Samajwadi Party in 2007.

Why then has Raj formed a front that will only weaken a successful movement of the country’s most underprivileged and oppressed castes? Observers believe that Raj’s movement is an attempt at addressing the problems that the Dalits face under Mayawati. They point out that power, as is always the case in Uttar Pradesh, benefitted a particular caste group.

“The question is not what Mayawati can do to [Dalits], but what we can do to us,” writer and journalist Chittibabu Padavala wrote about the meaning of Mayawati’s victory in 2007 in The Economic and Political Weekly.

The Dalits have definitely benefited, not just by their own assertion but with consistent efforts of the state government too. Caste atrocities have reduced, affirmative action has been taken and they are much better represented in the administrative and political structures now. But, looking deeper, one finds it is only the Jatavs, who are reaping benefits this time.

Raj says, “Only Jatavs!” And, why is it so? “Because Mayawati is a Jatav too,” says Raj.

Politicians and observers say that while power has changed hands and the traditional ruling castes are no longer the ones in power, the state has seen the emergence of a new feudal system with Jatavs as the dominant caste.

Jatavs make up nearly 57 percent of the Dalits in Uttar Pradesh, and eight to nine per cent of its total population, almost same as that of the Yadavs. The BSP broke the backbone of Samajwadi Party’s successful Yadav-Thakur voter base, using its stronghold among the Jatavs in 2007.

Jatavs are now emerging as an assertive caste in the state, especially with their numbers in the administration growing rapidly in the past decade. “A simple analysis of the data on recent appointments in the police and the administration shows a 30 to 35 per cent increase in the number of appointments of Jatavs,” a senior BSP minister told Tehelka on the condition of anonymity.

Many top postings are recommended from Lucknow. Many other happen almost by default when the candidate is Jatav. It is considered a safe bet to have a senior Jatav officer in any district administration.

The Jatavs have been politically conscious and involved since the time of Babu Jagjivan Ram of the Congress in the 1960s. Then when Kanshi Ram and Mayawati came together, Jatavs took the BAMCEF’s assertion movement forward. And they still do: they form a large chunk of the BSP cadre.

“This constant hammering of her caste’s identity has made them politically forward looking,” Raj says.

The other castes among the Dalits, on the other hand, are still underrepresented in the state government jobs, making up barely five to eight per cent of the force in the administration and the police in the state, that too only on lower posts. Off the record, senior officials in Uttar Pradesh say that most of the housing schemes for Dalits in the state have benefited Jatavs more than any other caste.

“Fruits of governance have gone to just one caste. There is no difference between this regime and the other regimes in the past. Rather, the discrimination is much more open under Mayawati’s rule,” Raj alleges.

The socioeconomic rise of the Jatavs has on the one hand made them confident, and they have stood up to the higher castes in the state, while on the other hand they have also fallen prey to the feudal practices alien to the Jatav society.

They are traditionally a more equal caste and not patriarchal. But, that has changed over the past decade and has often resulted in crimes against lower Dalit castes.

The number of rape cases involving Jatav men has seen a constant rise in western Uttar Pradesh, a phenomenon, senior police officials say, has not been noticed before. Jatavs are often caught in cases of atrocities against other lower Dalit castes as well as the higher castes.

In the Jewar village in Greater Noida near Delhi, where an international airport and India’s first F1 racing track will come up soon, a minor girl from the Valmiki community was raped by a Jatav man in 2008.

Her ordeal did not end there. She was married off to the man who raped her within a few days. The villagepanchayat consulted both the families in the presence of the police and elders made the decisions. The girl now has two children and is not allowed to even step outside the house.

This is not the only such case. There have been many similar cases across western Uttar Pradesh involving Jatavs, information on which is regularly fudged to keep the official counts down.

While Mayawati represents the political force that has consolidated the Dalit vote, Raj partly represents the Dalit movement outside of electoral political framework working towards a caste-less society. He has led campaigns across the country as head of various Dalit unity groups to open up the communities to conversion to other religions. Thousands of Dalits have embraced Buddhism, Islam and Christianity and snubbed the Hindutva forces, irking the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and similar groups repeatedly.

Raj has also challenged Mayawati many a time over the past decade to embrace Buddhism and put an end to the casteist politics altogether. “The objective is the revival of Buddhism to create a caste-less society, so that the decadent social structure can be changed,” he says.

But, Mayawati has consistently attacked him and leaders from all other lower Dalit castes in a derogatory way, he alleges. “Mayawati has been repeatedly pointing out who belongs to which caste. She called Ram Vilas Paswan a Dusadh, pointed out that Bangaru Laxman is a Valmiki, and called me a Khatik,” he said.

“And then in 2008 she announced that her successor will only be a chamar. She has discriminated within the party and openly too. But, you cannot, in India, in a democracy, say who will be your successor and treat the voter base like it is your kingdom. Why preach about the Bahujan samaj when you openly discriminate and say only a chamar will be the successor? Why not any Ambedkarite, irrespective of the caste?” he questions.

Raj formed the Indian Justice Party in 2003, after quitting a government job in 2001. He had ideas very different from that of the BSP. He wanted to push for an equal education system, job reservations for Dalits in the private sector and unite the voters on those lines.

But, now he says it is not the way to go forward. A sense of disillusionment over the four years of Mayawati’s present rule has changed his approach. “I have realised that ideology, development and even honesty do not play a very important role in Uttar Pradesh. Caste configurations and equations do,” he says.

The main agendas of his party have not attracted the communities or the voters. Hence, the new front with a different approach, he says.

Dalit leaders from other parties have joined him too. Ram Nihore Rakesh from the Congress convinced him to form the Upeskshit Dalit Mahapanchayat to fight the rights of castes lower in hierarchy, like Pasi, Dhobi, Kori and Khatik.

“These castes are not aware, educated and conscious of participation in the government and about their rights in governance,” Raj says.

He realises that the caste system cannot be rooted out so easily; it will exist; people in Uttar Pradesh will vote along caste lines.

He now plans to unite leaders representing the marginalised sections from all parties and bring them together. He also wants to collaborate with other parties representing marginalised groups, like the Peace Party, which represents the Muslims in the state.

Jats found the Rashtriya Lok Dal, Yadavs and Gurjjars found Mulayam Singh Yadav, Thakurs found Amar Singh and Jatavs found Mayawati. Maybe it is time for another ignored section of Uttar Pradesh to find representation in the state, where caste loyalties run deep.

Whether Udit Raj succeeds and his ideas translate into votes and electoral success in the 2012 assembly elections or not, he can still play a very important role in bringing debate to the Dalit discourse and push the political system a step closer towards the marginalised within the Dalits.

Posted on www.

April 29, 2011

The decision of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to place India in the ‘Watch List’ of countries along with Russia,Afghanistan and Cuba raises questions of bias and flawed methodology, a Washington-based eminent Hindu group said here.

“USCIRF’s decision to club India in with a dozen or so of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world, while overlooking others, again raises questions of bias and flawed methodology,” Prof Ramesh Rao of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) alleged.

“The Commission’s censure of India in 2011, despite that country’s celebrated pluralism and absence of any significant recent religious discord — despite provocative terror attacks — seems based more on a disagreement over some states’ effort to monitor coercive and forced conversions,” Rao said.

The USCIRF decision, however, was not unanimous.

Commissioners Felice Gaer and William Shaw dissented, describing the listing of India on the watch list as “ill-advised and inappropriate”.

HAF was the only organization invited to testify by USCIRF that demanded India’s removal from the watch list, and its arguments were echoed by the two commissioners in their public dissent.

Besides Rao, the author of HAF’s annual Hindu human rights report, Suhag Shukla, HAF’s Managing Director and Legal Counsel testified before the USCIRF Commissioners in Washington last month arguing that India did not belong on the watch list due to its robust human rights mechanisms and independent judiciary that comprehensively probed incidents of inter-religious violence.

They insisted that the “predatory proselytizing” supported by many US churches vitiates inter-religious harmony in India as well as other countries and must be considered in any comprehensive analysis of international religious freedom, a media release said.

“We are disappointed that the compelling evidence we presented did not move the majority of commissioners away from their deeply flawed assumptions about India,” Shukla said.

“But continuing to call out bias within quasi- government bodies, such as USCIRF, that lack Hindu, Buddhist, or Sikh representation and bringing to light the damaging role that predatory proselytization plays in inter-religious relations around the globe are guiding principles and imperative for HAF,” Shukla said.

Shukla and Rao offered evidence of the Constitutional and legal accommodations provided to India’s minorities, including the existence of separate personal and family laws for Muslims and Christians, governmental subsidies for the annual Haj pilgrimage for Muslims and the right of all religious communities, except Hindu, to independently control their respective places of worship free from government interference.

They also highlighted India’s affirmative action policies and reservations in government and educational institutions, intended to afford economic and social advantages to religious minorities.

Posted on www.expressindia.com

April 27, 2011

By Ruchira Singh & Tarun Shukla

New Delhi: Indian industry faces a potential slowing in terms of investment, both domestic and foreign, and rising raw material prices, but these are not as serious as the growing perception among most people that “big business” is corrupt. India’s most powerful business lobby, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), must fight this perception, and leading the charge is new president B. Muthuraman, a former managing director at Tata Steel Ltd (he is now the non-executive vice-chairman of the company. Muthuraman, who joined Tata Steel in 1966 as a graduate trainee, has already come up with a plan—a code of ethics for industry. In an interview, he spoke about this code, and how he thinks India can continue to grow rapidly.

What is this new code of conduct of ethics for the industry you plan to come up with?

I talked about two codes. One is the code of conduct for all companies in terms of governance. The other one is (a) code of affirmative action in terms of supporting the schedule castes, scheduled tribes…

What was the trigger for these?

Affirmative action is necessary… The trigger is (that, in) India if you want have to growth, it has to be inclusive growth, with all sections of society (included). We see a lot of social unrest, and the basic cause of all…that social unrest is the inequality of opportunities present, and we need to rectify this, a mistake of several thousand of years.

What’s your view on reservation of jobs for people from the scheduled castes and tribes in the private sector?

Things done voluntarily are a better way of achieving the result. Reservation is something which I don’t want anyone to get forced into. I want a situation where companies proactively engage themselves in doing things that make reservation unnecessary.

You have spoken of an amnesty scheme to cure tax evasion. This was implemented some years back, and there was a lot of political opposition to that. Do you think that if your idea is implemented by the government, it could bring back those feelings in people?

If you have an amnesty scheme, it must be the last one. People who don’t declare (income) and get found out must be punished. Only if there is a fear of punishment will it (an amnesty scheme) work well.

Corruption seems to have become a mass movement, with the common people coming out and voicing their disgust towards it. What does CII plan to do to tackle this problem?

CII has instituted a council —what is called the council for governance and transparent practices. And what we want to do is for industry to adopt a code of governance and practice this code.

What would this entail?

For example, many companies in India have an ethics counsellor. The chief ethics counsellor’s job is that he or she talks to the employees and there is a whistle-blowing policy which is encouraged in those companies. Some of these things are good practices. I would like see (all) companies…adopt these practices.

You have said that 8-8.5% economic growth is almost a given this fiscal, and if some 100 mega projects come up this could touch 10%?

Yes.

Which sectors would these projects be in?

They have to be largely in infrastructure, which will, in turn, aid other things to come.

Realistically speaking, how many of these do you expect to go through?

We have to select the projects alongside sitting with the government. Once this is agreed upon, we have to set up a control room to make sure that every quarter someone reviews (the projects) and problems are solved. We are in the process of discussing this with the government—(for forming) an industry-government body.

Posted on www.livemint.com

April 18, 2011

By Md. Ali

New Delhi: A national level political party, Welfare Party of India (WPI), has formally been launched today, April 18, at the political convention here in the national capital at the Constitution club. Interestingly the focus of the convention was to emphasize that the party was neither a political party of the Jamaat-e-Islami nor a Muslim party.

Importantly the top functionaries including the president of the party Mujtaba Farooque and its general secretary Dr. SQR Ilyas, are supposedly one of the most powerful leaders and office bearers of Jamaat-e-Islami. Even till now Mujtaba Farooque is the general secretary of the Jamaat and Ilyas, the media coordinator of JIH, was one the brains behind the idea of the party.

During the convention, both the president and the general secretaries repeatedly asserted that the WPI has not been established exclusively for Muslims and the party will fight for the principles of “equality, freedom, justice and fraternity.” But the convention also saw leaders criticizing the mainstream political parties for manipulating Muslims as their vote banks and thereby emphasizing the importance of the WPI as the voice of Muslims.

“The assumption that the Indian Muslims aren’t concerned about their other brothers in the country will be doing great injustice to the second majority of the country,” said Farooque, the president of the WPI.

“It’s not for fun and power that we entered politics. It’s only when every body whom we trusted and became dependent upon, betrayed us and considered its their due right to oppress us, that we felt that now we can’t continue with this kind of political system,” Farooque further added.

The fact that Father Abraham Joseph, a Catholic priest from Kerala has been selected as one of the vice presidents including one non-Muslim, Mrs. Lalitha Naik, a former Karnataka minister, comes as a master stroke for creating a larger secular image for the party. Out of 16 prominent office bearers of the WPI, there are 11 Muslims and 5 non-Muslims.

The convention was attended by several civil society representatives and hundreds of delegates from across the country.

The criminalization, communalization, commercialization and the sectarianization of politics are the biggest evils of our prevailing political culture and the WPI is committed to start a new era of value-based politics, added Farooque. “We might be late in terms of our arrival on the political stage but we promise you that with our genuine and sincere efforts we will try to create an alternative political culture,” added Farooque who is also the general secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind.

The WPI is the result of coming together of several concerned civil society representatives belonging to different backgrounds, communities, classes and social and political groups. Prominent of them include Father Abraham Joseph, Lalitha Nair, a former Karnataka minister and the prominent social activist from the state, Zafarul Islam Khan, Editor, The Milli Gazette fortnightly, Ilyas Azmi, former MP and senior leader of BSP, Prof. Rama Panchal, an eminent social activist from Madhya Pradesh, Prof. Sohail Ahmad Khan, former chairman, Bihar Minority Commission, Prof. Rama Surya Rao, an academician besides several others.

The convention was also attended by dalit leaders including Tej Singh, president, Ambedkar Samaj Party who offered his full support and cooperation to the WPI in future.

With Mujtaba Farooque as its president, the Welfare Party of India has also got five vice-presidents — Ilyas Azmi, Father Abraham Joseph, Maulana Abdul Wahab Khilji, Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan and Mrs. Lalitha Nair.

The five general secretaries of the WPI are Dr. SQR Ilyas, Prof. Sohail Ahmad Khan, Prof. Rama Panchal, Mrs. Khalida Parveen and Mr. PC Hamza. Mr. Abdus Salam M has been selected as its treasurer. The party has started with just 203 members but will soon start a membership drive across the country.

The occasion saw lots of speeches about ideal state of politics. SQR Ilyas, general secretary of WPI, for instance said that, “We wanted to show that even an ordinary person on the street can empower him/herself by becoming part of alternative democratic politics and that’s why launched WPI.”

Mujtaba Farooque, president of WPI said that “at present there are only two categories of people living in India, one is getting poorer day by day. It’s a class which can’t spend even 20 rupees per day and the other is getting only richer and richer. We want to change this oppressive process of marginalization by bringing about change through political participation.”

The Welfare Party aims at realizing a value based welfare state governed by the principles of justice, freedom, equality and fraternity. It will strive for the establishment of the welfare state by recognizing and realizing the right to livelihood.
The other thing high on the agenda of WPI is facilitating “equitable, just and inclusive growth” besides bringing about empowerment of the weak and oppressed through “affirmative action realizing the principle of social justice.”

WPI leaders specifically emphasized the protection of cultural diversity by providing full opportunities to different cultures to thrive and realize the “notion of linguistic, geographical and cultural federalism.

With a middle class and media led campaign against corruption, the disease also found mention in the party press note. WPI claimed to stand against any kind of corruption and will advocate for “mechanisms of accountability and transparency at all levels of public life.”

Sending a positive message to the fairer sex, the party’s aims and objectives specifically talk about women rights in unique words. It mentions facilitating “equal growth and development opportunities for women” so that “their femininity is respected and protected in its true spirit.”

There are around 1200 political parties including 6 national parties, 44 regional parties and 1152 local political outfits in India.

Posted on www.twocircles.net

April 17, 2011

By Anosh Malekar

The Anna Hazare blitzkrieg, which shook up the entire system, proved that India is changing fast. A similar tremor of change was felt at the heart of the Mahalaxmi Temple in Kolhapur on Saturday. In this case, the pride of the patriach, the ultimate male bastion fortified by centuries of rules loaded against the fairer sex, was finally breached.

The garbhagruha (sanctum sanctorum) of the important twelfth century temple in a city of half a million, nestled in the lush corner of south Maharashtra’s sugar belt, was witness to a change in the course of history, with one line shouted out by a trustee of the temple a few minutes past 10.30 am: “Let the women devotees in.”

The trustee requested the male devotees to empty the tiny space and make way for the women. What followed was a group of women, who walked up the silver-coated staircase leading to the innermost shrine of Ambabai with a quiet zest in their steps, even as the few priests inside watched, aghast.

The centuries-old barrier had been broken at last, even as the hardcore traditionalists, which most of the priests in the garbhagruha are, watched in dismay because to them the sanctity of the divine abode of Ambabai, one among the Shaktipeeths, had been defiled.

However, for the women devotees, this was nothing short of a glimpse of heaven. Gavlanbai Badhe, a 65-year-old from Ambajogai, could not believe her luck. “I did not know they were allowing women inside the garbhagruha. I could get so close to Ambabai. I must be really lucky,” she said, on being told that she was one of the first few women to be so close to the deity.

Priest Manoj Munishwar tried putting on a brave face. “Nobody ever objected to women entering the garbhagruha. But, according to the tradition and culture of this city, only women from the royal family are allowed to enter and touch Ambabai. The king is an avatar of Vishnu and, hence, his wife is considered Vishupatni or Laxmi. Not everybody can claim that status,” he told Mirror.

However, the air was clearly filled with a sense of freedom and relief, as many women devotees got the chance to make a wish come true, which till now they had thought they would have to take with them to the grave. Advocate Anuradha Kulkarni from Goregaon was overwhelmed. “Today I met my mother without any barrier between us,” she said, her eyes moist with joy. A diehard devotee of Ambabai, the 54-year-old would make it to the Mahalaxmi temple whenever her busy schedule as a lawyer and an amateur actor would permit.

“I have been here many times. Frankly I never expected to get so close to my mother in this lifetime. But yesterday when I saw on television that the government was going to let women inside the garbhagruha I rushed in to be among the first to catch a glimpse of the goddess,” she said. Kulkarni happened to be in Kolhapur after a tour of Karnataka. She told Mirror that she was now raring to come back with her husband for a “very special darshan,” may be later this year.

Shruti Bele, another devotee from Jalgaon, was so excited that she had entered the abode of Ambabai, she could hardly express herself. “Today I have earned a lifetime’s punya. That is how I feel deep down in my heart.”

Hemlata Mankar from Ahmednagar, who was with her extended family of sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, she had sought peace and prosperity for her family. “I am sure my whispers could be heard by Ambabai. I could get so close to her.”

While the city, a principality under the British, still swears by the progressive ideals of Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, who initiated the earliest affirmative action in the country in 1902, many of its residents are unhappy with the happenings of the past few days.

Eighty-year-old resident Sulabha Shikhare, who had walked a kilometre for her daily darshan, refused to enter the innermost shrine as a mark of protest. “What is this? They are breaking all traditions. Women are not supposed to touch Ambabai. The goddess will get angry and strike back with a vengeance,” she warned, loud enough for everyone present to hear.

Chetan Chaudhary, who is from a family of priests, said this was a political stunt. On Wednesday, Bharatiya Janata Party state women’s wing chief Neeta Kelkar stormed the sanctum sanctorum with a group of women activists, taking the priestly class by surprise. She had taken a cue from Maharashtra Navnirman Sena MLA Ram Kadam’s demand in the State Assembly that such discriminatory practices be done away with. Kadam and Kelkar were present on the temple’s premises to celebrate their victory in front of television cameras so that the world could see the change.

“Ambabai spares none. She will teach the guilty a lesson,” said S T Sarate, a former Army personnel and security chief of the temple, watching the drama from the sidelines. “The residents of Kolhapur are enraged. But we trust Ambabai to settle the score.” The few trustees present nodded in unison. One of them, Dhanaji Jadhav, said there was little the trust could do as the matter was sub-judice and the trust’s writ was limited to the outer premises of the temple.

In 2000, Narendra Dabholkar of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (the anti-superstition brigade) had filed a case in the Supreme Court seeking the removal of restrictions on women’s entry inside the temple. While the members of the Mahalaxmi Temple trust have maintained that they are in favour of allowing entry to women, the temple pujaris have refused to bow down.

However, Saturday was a different day and the priests watched it unfold helplessly. “What can we do? It is for the government to decide,” Aniket Ashte, a young priest, said. The day after the BJP women’s wing forcibly entered the sanctum sanctorum, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar intervened to throw open the doors of the temple to the fairer sex. On Friday, the Minister of State for Home Satej Patil, who hails from Kolhapur, rushed in to announce that women will be permitted inside the garbhagriha between 10 am to 11.30 am daily.

The trustees and the priests believe this is only a temporary measure to calm the frayed nerves of a few women activists and political opportunists. While the argument if the move is politically motivated or not will attract many, the priests of them temple raised a practical problem that will have politicians scratching their heads, especially women leaders.

“Do our politicians know that to maintain sanctity of the goddess it is essential for a devotee to be draped in a single piece of cloth that has to be without a stitch on it. Now, would a decent woman agree to enter a temple with only a saree draped around her and nothing else?” asks Narhar Ramchandra Joshi, a septuagenarian resident of the locality. He also pointed out that the garbhagriha was so tiny, 5 feet x 6 feet, that it would be difficult for women to maintain their dignity with so many men around.

Neeta Kelkar had no answer to that, but clarified that this was not a political stunt but a genuine fight for equal rights in the land of Shahu Maharaj. “Ram Kadam, though from a different political dispensation, is like a brother. And we have got together for a just cause,” she said. But the priests were sceptical. “They will be judged in Kolhapur by their deeds,” warned the priests.

While the debate on whether Ambabai will bring her wrath down on Kolhapur is unlikely to end any time soon, the truth is that our society has finally moved another step closer to creating a society that thrives on individuals, and not just women and men.

About the temple
The Mahalaxmi, locally known as Ambabai, temple traces its history to 664 BC, during the Chalukya era and is dedicated to the worship of Shakti. The temple is believed to be constructed over the centuries and took its present form around the 12th century. The architecture of the temple is purely Chalukyan and not Dravidian, says the temple’s website.

One among the Shaktipeeths, the temple is a major attraction for devotees drawn from across the country, but especially from Karnataka and Maharashtra. It is believed that the darshan of Shri Balaji at Tirumala is incomplete without visiting the goddess Mahalaxmi at Kolhapur.

The temple attracts thousands of local and outside visitors daily. The trustees and priests claim the number crosses a lakh during Navratri and other important festival days.

Posted on www.ahmedabadmirror.com

April 9, 2011

By Rasheed Khalid

Economist Dr. Parvez Hasan has said that confrontation with India costs Pakistan dearly adding we should maintain a better balance between defence and development and between investment and consumption.

Dr. Hasan was speaking at launching of his ‘My life my country: memoirs of a Pakistani economist’ organised by the Institute of Strategic Studies in collaboration with Ferozsons Limited here on Friday.

Dr. Hasan said that Pakistan achieved many things like strong defence, nuclear deterrent, vibrant female presence at all levels of society and a free media and role of civil society cannot be ignored. But, he lamented, we have an existential threat from extremists who are misrepresenting and distorting our religion.

He said that strong motivation to write the book was the ‘qarz’ he felt his generation owed to the creation of Pakistan. He said that as a Punjabi boy in British India, he grew up with Hindus and Sikhs who, contrary to belief, are normal people like us.

He said that creation of Pakistan was the strongest affirmative action in the 20th century. He pointed out that well-to-do class mostly do not pay taxes and public education is a mess, population control was neglected, and balance between defence and development became seriously distorted with the disastrous 1965 war with India. We messed the export development and opportunities and it had been on a downward slide for a quite long.

Earlier, ISS Director Ashraf Jahangir Qazi said that a large amount of Pakistani population is living below the poverty line and gap between the poor and the rich is increasing alarmingly.

He said that Pakistan’s population today mainly comprises of youth, which due to lack of resources and stagnant economy are disqualified from the start. The education level is highly unimpressive and most of the youth is primary educated and cannot afford further education. Shahid Javed Burki, and Sakib Sherani also spoke on the occasion.

Posted onwww.thenews.com

April 4, 2011

By KS Narayanan

Acknowledging the demand for 250 million skilled persons over the next ten years, the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade & Industry called for several measures that include encouraging industrial houses to set up own training institutes and take up existing centres under public-private partnership.

These recommendations came from the sub-committee on Skill Development, Affirmative Action and Corporate Responsibility when it presented its recommendations before a meeting of Prime Minister’s Council on Trade & Industry chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his residence last week.

The meeting was attended by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council C Rangarajan and top corporate honchos of the country that included Ratan Tata, Chanda Kochhar, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Deepak Parekh, Swati Piramal, Rahul Bajaj, Azim Premji, and Kumarmangalam Birla.

Another crucial suggestion from the sub-committee was setting up of sector wise skill council at the national level to ensure quality and develop competence standards and qualifications as per the broad guidelines as National Council of Vocational Traning and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).

According to a study conducted by NSDC over 250 million persons are in demand in next ten years over 21 key sectors that include food processing, healthcare, transport & logistics, building & construction, auto & components, education, gems & jewellery, informal, organised retail etc

However Industrial Training Institutes across India have a capacity of mere 1.07 million according to NSDC study conducted in January 2007.

V Krishnamurthy-chairman National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, K Anji Reddy-chairman of Reddy Laboratories, S K Munjal-chairman, Hero Corporate Services, Venu Srinivasan-chairman of TVS Motors, Anu Aga- chairperson Thermax and R P Singh- Secretary in the Industry Ministry are members of the sub-committee.

Ashok S Ganguly noted industry expert and Rajya Sabha member, also member of the sub-committee made a power point presentation before Prime Minister.

Posted on www.expressbuzz.com

By Yogendra Yadav

Earlier it was the Gujjars, now it is the Jats. Before that it was the Mala-Madiga dispute in Andhra Pradesh. And one often hears about reservation for all Marathas in Maharashtra. The names keep changing, the pattern does not. Neither does our response.

The script is familiar. Caste groups like Jats and Marathas, land-owning communities with some numeric strength and political clout, lay claim to backwardness. Those below them in the social order, like the Gujjars in Rajasthan, resent this intrusion and want special protection to safeguard their benefits. Or those communities among the SC or OBC who have not benefited much from reservations want a sub-quota . Agitators take to the streets, often blocking roads and railways. Governments do not want to take a decision and resort to soft-pedaling , delay tactics and collusion, hoping that that the judiciary will step in to relieve them of the burden of decision-making .

The national media responds with impatience , as if it is being dragged into an alien land and a bygone era. Caste groups in question are discussed as if these are unknown tribes from Africa. Editorials deplore political motives behind such protests and call for strict action to ensure smooth traffic. There is a clamour for judicial intervention. Once some committee is formed, everyone forgets it like a bad dream, till the next crisis erupts.

We do not stop to ask the hard questions. Why does this crisis erupt so regularly? Why do these demands always turn into a street battle? Why is every solution so transient? What is the way forward?

These questions force us to face an unpleasant truth: the policies of social justice have reached a dead-end . For a country that has such a vast and influential programme of affirmative action, we are remarkably deficient in imaging mechanisms and designs of social justice schemes. We have a maze of institutions to handle it but simply do not have a system of processing competing claims to affirmative action. This is a country famous for its statistical system but has virtually no evidence for settling these claims. We do not know, for example, if the proportion of graduates and professional degree holders among Jats are more or less than other OBC communities in Haryana and UP.

There is no need to start from scratch in the search for a way forward. As often happens in India, the solution lies in the cupboards of a ministry. The report of an expert committee headed by professor N R Madhav Menon, “Equal Opportunity Commission: What, Why and How?” has been in the public domain for two years. (Accessible at http:// minorityaffairs.gov.in/newsite/reports/ eoc_wwh/eoc_wwh.pdf). The report suggests the formation of an equal opportunity commission (EOC) as a long-term mechanism for dealing with disputes concerning social justice. The proposed EOC would be a path-finding institution that would help evolve and evaluate mechanisms for affirmative action, using an evidence-based approach . It would gather data on the socio-economic and educational status of various social groups and communities. It would also monitor the social profile of higher educational institutions and select sectors of employment. The EOC would be open to any social group that perceives a denial of equal opportunities. It would cover public and private sectors. Unlike the existing commissions , the EOC will focus on advisory, advocacy and auditing rather than individual grievance redressal.

An EOC was on the Congress manifesto in 2009. It was mentioned in the president’s address to Parliament. Yet the proposal is still doing the rounds of the corridors of power, caught up in the turf-wars that ministries and commissions play in New Delhi. If we had such an institution by now, the Gujjar dispute, the Jat agitation, the Mala-Madiga dispute and several others could have been resolved. Protests may still occur but there would be a clear mechanism and some solid evidence to resolve disputes.

The forthcoming caste census could help with some of the evidence needed for a clear affirmative action policy. But it can do so, only if the findings of the main census are linked to the caste census and we get demographic , educational and economic data for each caste. The preliminary figures of Census 2011 are out and we still do not know the exact nature of the caste census that is to take place later this year.

Perhaps we are waiting for another crisis . To borrow a Hindi proverb, we believe in digging a well after we notice a fire.

Posted on www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com