A Report of the

Panel Discussion

on

“Politics of Reservations & the Future of India”

 

 

Jointly Organized by

Social Cause

&

Youth for Equality, Hyderabad Chapter

 

on

 

27^th May 2006 (Saturday)

(5:30 PM – 8:30 PM)

 

 

Panelists:

Ø      Dr. T.Hanuman Chowdary, Former IT Advisor, Govt. of A.P.

Ø      Dr. Prabhakar Korada, Head, Dept. of Psychiatry, Mediciti Institute of Medical Science

Ø      Dr. J. Veerendra, MD, DNB; Senior Resident, Nizam's Institute of Medical Science (NIMS)

Ø      Dr. B. Satya Varaprasad, MD; Senior Resident, Nizam's Institute of Medical Science (NIMS)

Ø      Dr. Ch. Pradeep Kumar, President, Andhra Pradesh Junior Doctors Association (APJUDA)

Ø      Sri S. Sriram, Advocate, High Court of A.P.

Ø      Sri Vikrant D. Shah, Software Test Lead, Microsoft India R & D Pvt. Ltd.

Ø      Sri Saurabh Bharadwaj, Software Development Engineer & Representative, Youth for Equality

Ø      Sri Vibhu Rishi, Software Professional & Representative, Youth for Equality

 

 

The program started with “Vande Mantaram” sung by Mr. Pradeep Kumar, Secretary of Social Cause following which Smt. Nipa Shah introduced all the honorable panelists to the audience. Smt. Dr Somaraju Susheela, the President of “Social Cause” welcomed the audience and introduced the organization. She spoke about the various events conducted under the aegis of Social Cause. She elaborated on how Social Cause has been working towards stimulating social thought and action. She then set open the stage to the invited speakers and chaired the panel discussion.

 

 

          Pradeep Kumar singing the Vande Maataram                                      Smt. Nipa Shah introducing the guests

 

 

Dr. Somaraju Susheela giving away the welcome address.

Below is a summary of opinions of the esteemed panelists during the session.

 

 

Mr. Saurabh, the representative of Youth for Equality, Hyderabad chapter condemned the populous policies by the Central government and termed the new reservation policy as “Robbing Peter to pay Paul”. He said that if the merited are provided with ample opportunities to pursue higher education without the concept of reservations, they would eventually pay back to the society which could be very beneficial.

 

He also came down heavily on political parties, which were busy talking about the release of a movie called “Fanaa” but were silent on this very important issue. He said though there was a great amount of struggle and movement in Delhi, little attention was heeded to the striking medicos and youth.

 

Mr. Saurabh was also skeptical that this string of reservations was not going to end here and that is going to eat into private enterprises which have survived to this day purely on the basis of merit. He said that he had never written his caste or religion on his resume, but with the new proposal, he fears that he not only has to write his caste, but also ask the caste of his colleagues which he never bothered to do so till now. He wondered saying, if the government proposes to introduce reservations in the private sector, then why it does not do so in the defense sector? He complimented defence officials for not agreeing to this non-sense.

 

He quoted Abraham Lincoln - “You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was” and said that it was now the time for youth to “Shed our blood or shed their blood” if things don’t workout in the favor of merit.

 

He appealed to all youngsters to travel all the way to Delhi to support the striking doctors and finally ended his voice with the poem by Ramprasad Bismil titled “Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai.”

 

Dr. Prabhakar Korada opined that “A section of the society needs support but we cannot deny a merit student his right”. He then examplained the evolution of caste system that is marred in controversy as we all witness it today. He said that during “Krithiyoga” there existed no such thing as caste. People were pious and were communicating with divine beings. The only aim of the people during that age was “Moksha” and nothing else satisfied them. He said that in today’s terms, people of “Krithiyoga” could be classified as “Qualitative Brahmins”. Later was the yuga called “Tretayuga.” There were sufficient resources, people had taken up trade and commerce and had to earn for their living. Later During “Dwaparayuga” due to severe crunch in resources, it became imperative that the society be divided and organized by profession or “Varna” which included the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas & Sudhras. During “Dwaparayuga” a Sudhra was never discriminated and caste was not by birth, but was rather by profession. As time went by, exploitation of the lower caste was initiated by some vested interests for their own benefit and exists to this day, which we are all trying to all resolve. Dr. Prabhakar also said that during the past, in the name of caste discrimination, there have been serious violations of human rights. Sudhra’s were not allowed to drink from the same source of water, untouchability was rampant.

 

Eventually, instead of attributing caste to the current profession, caste became birth based. To ensure that people who have suffered all these years no more suffer, reservations in sprit is correct, but there is a limit to it. He said that the politics of reservation did not start with Gandiji, but instead started when the partition of the country was achieved. Reservation was done for personal gain at a huge cost of others. Dr. Prabhakar said that there have been instances where people have tried to eradicate this caste system but have faulted. For example Sri Jayaprakash Narayan in his efforts asked the Brahmins to throw their sacred threads. Instead Dr. Prabhakar opined that the alternative was to ensure that all the other castes which are “supposedly” lower to become “Brahmins”. He strongly stated that this initiative of “bringing down” the people to meet a lower standard has been widely adopted by the Marxists, who have taken this to an extreme level. Rather Dr. Prabhakar wanted the youth to ensure equality by raising the bar of quality rather than lowering it.

 

Dr. Prabhakar was also of the opinion that the reservations should be at the grass-root levels which includes the education at primary and secondary levels. He said that some reservation category students in the medical colleges today are not competitive enough. He said that just by getting a tribal and asking him to study medicine is not a solution, but rather he should be given training at the grass-root levels to prepare him to compete with the rest so that a genuinely interested tribal is not left out in the race. He went further to point out that there are a lot of upper-caste people who live in the most deplorable conditions and this caste-based reservation will ensure that they can never expect a better quality of life. Dr. Prabhakar strongly felt that economically weaker section of the people should be the main consideration for reservations.

 

During his endnote he made it clear that all this controversy is fallout of vote-bank politics and the merited must vociferously reject this social evil.  He ended his speech stating that if merit is curtailed, people will eventually end up working for either “Uncle Sam” or the “Queen”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The talk by Dr. Hanuman Chowdary was awe inspiring and left most of the audience motivated and aware of the fallacies of the current structure of the government. He said that greeting people with “Namasthe” - the Bharatiya way was the best way since it was independent of time and distance. 

 

He was of the opinion that the “Youth” was the future of India and that there was no second thought about it. He also hit out at the current state of our parliamentarians and said that there is nothing like unparliamentarily talk today referring to the vocal address by Mr. Saurabh Bharadwaj. Coming down heavily on the concept of “Backwardness” he said that the “Kapu” community of Andhra Pradesh was branded as “backward class” by the erstwhile British Raj, but the “Kapus” brought this to the attention of Dr. Sanjeeva Reddy and requested him to ensure that “Kapus” be removed from the “backward” list, since they found it very derogatory to be called backwards. But in today’s situation it is exactly the opposite; there is a severe competition to be called “backward”.

 

He said that originally when the Mandal commission was instituted about 4000 castes were identified. But today there are about 8000 castes! He ridiculed that there is now one caste for a person who catches a “fish in the pond”, one for “fish in the lake”, one for “fish in the sea” and one for the “fish seller”. He said that this situation was very unfortunate and clearly shows how this is dividing the country. He blamed the Nehru dynasty for this state of affairs and quoted Menaka Gandhi, who once said “In the Nehru Dynasty now there is no graduate, except my son!”

 

Coming to reservations Dr. Chowdary said that the Hindu Society was expected to pay for the pain and injustice inflicted on the scheduled and oppressed classes. But, he said that this has gone out of control and has create a new class which he terms as “Government Brahmin Class” – a creamy layer that continues to occupy the positions which ideally is meant for the underprivileged. With deep regret of the current state of affairs he said that the Kerala Assembly has passed a resolution, where it stated that there was “no” creamy layer within the OBC section of the society in their state.

 

He also said that all political parties including the BJP were also silent on this issue and didn’t seem to open their mouths. Dr. Chowdary was of the opinion that since the OBC community has not been inflicted with any discrimination, there is no reason why the upper class has to pay for their education. He also cautioned on the demand of the Muslims to be included in OBC list.

 

He said that in Andhra Pradesh in the last 55 years seats have been reserved at 15% for SC and 7.5% for ST candidates. But, today only 6% of the working engineers belong to SC. He demanded the government give reasons for this disparity. He said that reservations have severely dented the SC & ST candidates to be competitive and that this model must be immediately discontinued.

 

Dr. Chowdary said that all of this was being done to settle scores and nothing else. He said that the evil “quartet” which includes the Marxist wants the country to be poorer. The other three in the quartet include the Missionaries, the Muslim Extremists & Macaulay’s progeny. He said that Macaulay destroyed the Indian system of education and said that Macaulay’s vision of “Indian in blood and color, but English in opinions, in morals, and in intellect” is still prevalent in the society.

 

Dr. Chowdary opined that the evil quartet who are a wily bunch of gangsters have hatched a conspiracy to keep India’s growth as slow as possible. But, he also said that in this information age, merit cannot be contained and India will grow and nobody can stop our progress. Dr. Chowdary quoted the famous political philosopher Edmund Burke - "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" and asked the youth to fight for the good. Commenting that though the movement has gained sufficient teeth, but the government is conscious and postponed the implementation to next year to see if the fire can be doused and the people can be subdued.

 

Dr. Chowdary said that Doctors who are posted for village/rural services will not be willing due to utter lack of facilities and the same is the case with a teacher who is teaching in a government school in a remote village will never send her child to the government school, but would rather send her child to a school in the city or a corporate school if it is available. He said that out of the 2 government school students who came out in flying colors in the recent SSC exam belonged to the Government run Gurukula and Kendria Vidhyalayas. He said that the government should encourage such schools to improve our dismal literacy rate, which is still 65% when compared to 95% in Indonesia and Malaysia. He said that the government rather than focusing on education is actually employing the “feed and breed” mechanism. He said that the Indian government is performing pathetically because they are not answerable and have no competitors unlike the private sector where there is cutthroat competition. Instead of governing the government is employing a political game, which is simply divisive.

 

Dr. Chowdary stressed that merit can never be contained. He quoted an example where the Manipal institute was planning to setup colleges in Sri Lanka, Maldives and even on Ships which are about 23 kms away from the Indian coast in the international waters. He also quoted Tamil Nadu as an example, where people who were oppressed as a result of reservation have become crorepatis because they went elsewhere and made money and fame.

 

Finally he said that there are better ways of improving the situation, which include improved primary education, and providing education loans to the economically deprived.

 

 

Dr. Veerendra said that he condemned the reservations and felt that it was indeed ineffective in all its spheres. He did agree that the so called backward classes had been oppressed before, but revenge was not the solution, to sturdy this aspect he said that though British did oppress Indian for centuries, we are not at war with them right now to take all the revenge. Rather, he said that both countries are in good terms.

 

He said that the concept of reservations is not for the benefit of the oppressed classes, but is rather for the politicians themselves. He said that if the reservations are here to stay, they are all set to fracture the masses further and bring mutual hate and resentment.

 

He further went on to quote that the current reservation helping the masses is falsified and it has not helped the oppressed classes in the last 50 odd years and will not help them in the future too. He said that this has only led to further cracks within the community as a whole. He further said that though reservations are intended for the backward, only the privileged section is taking advantage.

 

Dr. Veerendra said that the current stand of the medicos & youth is justified, since they understand the long-term implication of this falsified theory and said that nobody protests for the “right kind” of reservations. He said that no sane individual would fight against reservations for the Handicapped or Women in city buses, since it is obvious and logical to provide reservations where it is needed most. But the current trend of reservations is very dangerous and a befitting reply is needed.

 

Dr. Veerendra also said that there are 32% OBCs and already 22% of the available seats are being occupied by the OBCs and why there was this rush to reserve another 10% by eating into the general category?

 

Dr. Varaprasad was of the opinion that the reservation should at least be completely banned in PG courses. To strengthen his stand, he quoted an instance in PG admissions in Andhra Pradesh earlier this year, were a 1^st Rank PG student could not get a seat of his choice due to reservations! He said that this was the most hilarious situation our system had reached and voiced his opposition to the reservation policy at PG levels. He said that it was time for students and merited youth to fight for the cause and challenge the existing laws for correct amendments.

 

He said that though reaching AIIMS is a dream for most, few are able to make it since only 50 seats are available in the general category. He said that at PG levels we only need to encourage intellectuals since medical profession needs very high skills and if this reservation policy continues, the loser could be quality. He said that reservation should be based on social and economic statuses. He ended his talk stating that reservations are all set to divide the country and all must fight to set the things right.

 

 

Mr. Shreyas, representative of the Youth for Equality introduced the organization. He explained that the movement was stared as a result of a policy decision by HRD minister Mr. Arjun Singh’s and his announcement of 27% reservations to OBCs in central institutes. He elaborated on the below charter of demands by the youth of India.

Ø      Deferral of the proposed hike in reservation in the central universities.

 

Ø      An Expert Commission should be formed which would explore all the avenues of affirmative actions, review the efficiency of reservation as an affirmative action (considering both its benefits and drawbacks) and compare the efficiencies of the all possible affirmative actions. Thus it should come up with a fool proof and time bound strategy to uplift and empower the backward sections of our country without interfering with the overall development and well being of our Nation.

 

Ø      Implementation any new reservation policy only after the commission has submitted its report.

 

Ø      A white paper on the reservation policy.

 

Ø      Places in the Government jobs that are remaining vacant due to lack of eligible candidates from the reserved category should be opened for other eligible candidates immediately.

 

Ø      No action should be taken against the agitating students, interns and resident doctors in any form as regards to service break, termination, pay deduction, legal action etc.

 

Ø      The Hon'ble Prime Minister should give a concrete statement on the issue.

 

 

Dr. Pradeep Kumar, the President of Andhra Pradesh Junior Doctors Association (APJUDA) said that the media was in constant touch with him and has repeatedly asked him why one of the biggest association of Junior Doctors in AP has not voluntarily participated in the movement to oppose reservations. Dr. Pradeep clarified that the association he leads has people from all sections of the society including SC, ST & OBCs and that they are working hard in convincing all the junior doctors and should shortly join the agitations.

 

He wanted the government to answer what the reservation has achieved till date? And has it even remotely met the targets set forth? He said that the reservation policy has failed miserably and that new model has to be evolved which will eventually bridge the inequalities. He also stated that in the current generation, very little importance is being given to caste and some students don’t even discuss such issues. He said that Mr. Arjun Singh is all set to divide the nation and is playing the vote-bank card.

 

Dr Pradeep also said that Dr. Ambedkar, when he formulated the constitution clearly stated that reservation should exist only for 10 years. But he said that the politicians have hijacked this clause and continue to provide reservation, which is not exactly reaching the needy.

 

Dr. Pradeep also said that out of the 10 reserved seats 7.8 seats are being occupied by the people who actually are not under-privileged and belong to the creamy layer. He also went on to say that as per the results of EAMCET out of the 16000 SC students, 13000 were from corporate colleges, which clearly indicates that these SC candidates are no more underprivileged since they will have to dole out thousands as fees.

 

He ended his talk by stating that if reservation was the only hope for the government, then it our right to ask for “2-3 states where there will be no reservation”.

 

Mr. Sriram was of the opinion that the government is riding on “half-truths” are they are being perpetrated indiscriminately.  He said that the state has a constitution obligation to provide reservation. But, he clearly said that reservation was “NOT” a fundamental right. He said that our fundamental right is equality. Since we are all not equal – there are some measures to make the unequal equals. He reiterated that law was very clear in this regard.

 

Mr. Sriram quoting Champakam Dorairajan said that negation of equality under article 15(2) enables discrimination. In order to achieve equality he said “some discrimination maybe brought”. He also made it clear that there is nothing wrong with political parties saying in their manifesto that they will make provisions of more reservations.

 

Mr. Sriram said that sadly the “Merit class” is itself not a vote bank. He said that they are smug and believe that whatever is happening around them is always correct and taken “care off”. He felt strongly that to set things right the “meritorious” should come out on the voting day and vote. According the Mr. Sriram caste can be the basis for Reservation. 

 

Mr. Sriram said that the current union Health minister said that he did not recognize creamy layer. The minister believes that however rich SC/ST is he should be given reservation, which in his opinion is incorrect equalization. He also opined that OBC’s do not suffer the same as what SC and ST have suffered. He also quoted the Health Minster as “Until the last OBC is educated we need to have reservation” which according to Mr. Sriram is defies logical explanation.  He said according to the Supreme Court “The Creamy Layer has to be excluded to effectuate reservation”. Mr Sriram was also of the opinion that the Creamy layer OBCs who have been traditionally occupied the position need to immediately vacate to make way for the deserving OBCs.

 

The demands for reservations have reached mammoth scales, for example in Telengana Muslims were offered 5% reservations whereas in Rajasthan BJP has promised to recognize Jats and Jains as backward so that they can leverage the benefit of reservations. Mr. Sriram said that though Laloo Prasad Yadav was from the backward community, he happens to be the No.2 efficient minister in the UPA Union Cabinet; the reason according to Mr. Sriram is that the “situation” makes a person perform and deliver. To give an example, Mr. Sriram said that a Milkman who delivers milk to for about 12 hours a day and manages to get 300^th rank is more merited than a person who has all the opportunities and gets 90^th rank. So, Mr. Sriram said that reservation per-se is not completely anti-merit, but a tool when used properly can provide opportunities.

 

Mr. Sriram ridiculed the silence of Dr. Manmohan Singh who is the most merited minister (a puppet in the hands of Sonia Gandhi) or Sushma Swaraj who till now has been considered the icon of the middle class or Arun Jaitely who is the mouthpiece of the BJP. Mr. Sriram wanted to know the reason for their silence and attributed all of this to vote-bank politics.

 

Mr. Sriram said that it is not dooms day yet and that there is still enough space for merit. The solution is not just merit but “Free Merit” - a merit should be shackle free. He also reiterated that in super specialty there could be no reservation as per law. Finally, he said that we need public debate to get a general opinion. The government should have undertaken the exercise of getting the public opinion before having made commitments - this way it could have been much easier. Mr. Sriram said that it is better to talk to our brethren rather than engage in civil war. He also stated that the rural population begs for attention and more attention must be diverted there.

 

 

Sri Vikrath Shah presented a very analytical talk. He said that it was not Politics of Reservation but rather Reservation was itself Politics.  He later went on to elaborate on the current framework of democracy we all swear by. He said that there are two types of democracies, which are in vogue, which includes Direct Democracy & Representative Democracy – this form is currently practiced in India.

 

He said that “Representative Democracy” can be further classified as Minimalist Democracy – which is a set of good people from a sample set who rule since the citizens themselves don’t have a clear vision to participate in policy decisions, secondly there is Aggregative Democracy where in the laws and policies are close to the median voter. Finally there is Deliberative Democracy, which is based on the notion that democracy is government by discussion and where it is believed that laws and policies should be based upon reasons that all citizens can accept. Mr. Vikrant said that he believes that Indian democracy lies somewhere in between Aggregate Democracy and Deliberative Democracy which he termed as “Divisive Democracy”.  He went on further to say that in such a democracy a person who has no education can take decision to influence the educated.

 

He said that the politicians of India are NOT short sighted and have a clear vision; the people who are short sighted are the agitating doctors. He said that the government had a clear vision and that they were neither shortsighted nor long-sighted but were “5-Year sighted” and have their requirements set as it happens in the software industry. The politicians are clear on what they want they are sure what to do in the “forthcoming” elections.

 

He said that the “Minorities” of the country are they most united within our country and they have become the vote administrators. They decide who should rule. Secondly there is the backward society, which is “not” united, and they too know what they want and the politicians know this and dole out promises for the sake of votes. Finally there is third category which is not united. They will stay together for sometime but the attitude of “Chalta Hai Chalne Do” is well understood by the government and buys time to ensure that the issue cools down. So there is an urgent need to unite these communities and have a long-term vision.

 

Finally he ended his talk stating that we are currently getting what we deserve and have unfortunately garnered this attitude over the years. We need to stand united to fight this evil out.

 

Sri Vibhu spoke of the objectives of “Youth for Equality” movement and on how this movement has evolved over the last 2 months and requested all present to whole-heartedly participate in it. He said that all that Youth for Equality wanted was “equality” and said that it was not just limited to the medicos and all people who are worried for the future of the nation must work to add fuel to this movement.

 

He also stated that unfortunately Youth for Equality, Hyderabad was not getting sufficient media coverage as the Delhi and Mumbai counterparts were getting. He attributed this to insufficient participation to carry out bigger rallies. He also told the audience that he has started blog at http://YFEhyderabad.blogspot.com to cater to Youth for Equality, Hyderabad.

 

He made a call to people asking them to turn on the headlights on all the vehicles during daytime as a sign of protest.

 

The talks were followed by Q & A session where a few participants were given opportunity to come on to the stage and voice their opinions. This section of the program was well received. Finally Mr. Aditya Rao, Vice President of Social Cause proposed the vote of thanks.

 

                                    - Aditya Rao

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