Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Must we begin here.. ?!

And there.. with this long overdue post, I begin this blog - mainly for casual reading and writing. As is quite evident from my other blog - The Last Word, I write very rarely and to a very limited and specific audience. I have long since realized, that there are way too many things that cannot be put in that form. So here goes.. Expect no blinding haze, no poetry, no whirlwind or abstract maze [oops, couldn't resist]

And so.. reservation is the name of the game, it seems.. The ultimate trumpcard, but I think they're overplaying it. At this rate, everyone's going to be 'benefitted' by some kind of reservation or the other, and thats as good as not having reservation at all because it's not going be special anymore, and therefore, not going to be winning them any votes anymore. Nevertheless, now the latest (actually, not very 'the latest', but lets pretend) on the reservations scene is for Muslims in TamilNadu, by none other than the revered thimuka chief himself.

The following is something I had written on a friend's blog sometime back. I have this ugly habit of leaving these essay-like comments on Schmetterling's blog, but hey, I'm at my profound best and it makes her blog look good.. So alls cool.. And so, commenting on a post on her blog on an earlier announcement by the very same on the very same, I said (initially):

If they could win the elections by not imposing the reservation, they would have.. Really, do you think they'd be playing this card, if they'd lose due to the loss of OUR votebank.. And here we see THE pitfall of democracy, in the fact that the majority (Here being the combined strength of all minorities) is almost always wrong.. As a whole, people are mediocre at best, confused, both easily influenced and distracted..


Anyway, the point being, it is now that the forward caste realizes how small in number we are, and it doesn't matter how smart (read ideologically advanced, for unbiased purposes), it only matters how many we are.. Welcome to democracy, welcome to the machine.. Yes, I will be glad if all would be educated and none would be poor.. But when I'm on the table at one end of a scalpel, I'd rather the other end was held by someone who deserved to be there NOT as a birthright..

Anyway, god bless us all.. Soon we shall begin a scramble for the leftovers of reservation.. Unless, we decide to be smarter and breed with a vengeance to be larger than the all the other minorities together.. Unless we can dictate the outcome of an election..
[Or lets just do what we do best.. Get out of the goddamned country, and write blogs on the happenings here, from there.. ;))]

Note: For the record, I'm not casteist.. and I really don't give a damn..

After writing this, I waited for a few days, but I couldn't resist the damn itch. So I wrote again (later)..
The official purpose of reservation, is undoubtedly, the upliftment of the backward classes.. Which is fine by me.. But what is the definition of a backward class.. A caste cannot be backward by nature of it's existence.. It can be backward only by nature of it's opulence, or the lack of it.. We, as a people, somehow have an inherent ability to
search out and successfully tread along the shortest path, and it begins right with the policy makers.. I won't even begin about how we jumped from being a predominantly agriculture dependant economy to now, fast moving towards being a services dependant one.. Skipping the ever crucial step of first having a strong manufacturing base.. Essentially implying, that we are hyper-sensitive to the vagaries of the market, more importantly, other markets more than our domestic one..

Anyway, the point really is this.. That our taxes were being used properly, and if the
essential and neccessary primary and secondary education was being implemented
and imparted in the right manner to all that it was really promised to, then they wouldn't need any reservation.. It would easily be merit for all.. Both for undergraduate education as well for the jobs..

Now, if they really have to implement reservation, let them go ahead and reserve as many seats as they want to at the primary and the higher secondary level.. Nobody, I am sure, is going to have a problem with that.. Thats playing a fair game.. But enforcing reservation at levels higher than the above mentioned, is accepting the fact
that the backward classes have had no adequate basic education and yet, are qualified enough to be holding the reins to the economy of this country..
Now, going beyond that.. If they did have to enforce reservation at levels higher than high school, there are many who say that it should be on the basis of annual income.. Now, the very fact that they cannot do it, is accepting that the entire income tax system is one big brilliant flaw..
Think about it.. To say that the generalization on the basis of caste is a more accurate representation of the economic status of a person THAN the actual official economic status of the person, speaks volumes about whats been happening..

Anyway.. For the record, I'm not casteist, and I STILL don't give a damn.. :) ..
Much too much, I say.. Rather, I say much too much.. Either way, a little off the track here and there but you get the message.. And so, after yet another coupla days of waiting and trying to resist the persistent itch, I succumbed.. Once again.. So this time I said (much later)..

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Relax, Just kidding..