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Caste
as Career Move Why quota-based promotion is not the route to social justice
Facilities at the point of entry to candidates who come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds are perfectly explicable. What is not is to convert caste identity into the most important determinant of career growth. Rather than take the route he has already begun walking down, Vajpayee should consider a commission that will look into India's experience with reservations over the past half-century. Has it resulted in the creation of a Dalit elite, comprising sub-castes like the Chamars, who appropriate most of the benefits? This should be the focus of the prime minister's exertions, not a further wooing of the privileged Dalits -- and that term is no longer an oxymoron -- with promises of easier promotions. Vajpayee's real obligation is to the truly wretched of the Indian earth, the SCs and STs for whom quotas have not become a family heirloom, passed down from one generation to the next. Paper Protection How long can you keep out foreign-owned publications?
Such fears were understandable in 1955, when the cabinet decision to keep out foreign-owned newspapers was taken. India was a newly independent country, with its own set of insecurities and an infant economy. Today, technological and broader national developments have rendered this logic obsolete. With 50 years of protectionism, Indian publications have been given adequate time to strengthen themselves. Further, with foreign-owned television channels allowed to beam into homes across India, how can there be one rule for the electronic media and another for print? Finally, there is the question of the Internet. On any given day, an Indian with a computer and a Net connection can read the most recent issue of just about any major newspaper, be it British, Australian or Pakistani. In effect it is less well-off Indians, those without access to computers and websites, who are denied this facility. Those who argue that a "locals only" print policy in some way fosters Indian democracy are, therefore, actually being anti-democratic. |
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In
a judgement in September, the Supreme Court had said reserved-category
government employees would not be treated as senior to general-category
colleagues of the same rank, even if promoted earlier. Addressing
Scheduled Caste (sc) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) MPs a week ago, Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced his government's intention to undo
this ruling. Going further, he spoke of even more liberal qualifying
standards for the promotion of SC and ST officials. In sum, Vajpayee has
indicated a readiness to amend the Constitution if the apex court's wisdom
is not politically convenient. Given that the BJP hauled Rajiv Gandhi over
the coals when he did just so with the Shah Bano judgement, this can
hardly be called a principled and consistent stand. Bad politics apart,
there is the larger question of merit. It is nobody's argument that SCs
and STs are not traditionally depressed groups. Having said that, a blind
adherence to the current system of reservations -- indeed, its
institutionalisation into a permanent structure -- is certainly far from
what was originally envisaged.
For
Indian industrialists, liberalisation seems fine as long as it affects the
other guy's business. Few sectors reflect this hypocrisy more than the
print media. Press barons who don't think twice about eulogising
competition and pointing out that the arrival of foreign companies has
given the consumer greater choice, positively baulk at the mention of
foreign-owned newspapers and newsmagazines. The sentiment was prevalent
again this past week when the subject came up for discussion at a business
conference in Delhi. Once again the old cliches were brought out -- that
the Indian press performs a national duty, that foreign publications will
corrupt the soul of India with alien values, that Indian media companies
cannot hope to take on the deep pockets of rapacious global press barons.