Caste Aside

Before we even have a chance to recover from the proposed re-Mandalization of our educational institutions, the caste brigade delivers yet another blow. Reservations in the private sector!

Caste politics can take a back seat in this new drama. There is much more to this latest call for dividing the masses than meets the eye. Its not about caste votes, its not about caste loyalty. Its about channelizing the rising presence and muscle of caste groups into the mainstream and getting them together to focus their collective wrath on inconsequentials. Take the Sambahji Brigade’s ravaging act at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute or their call to blow up Dadoji Kondev’s statue in the Lal Mahal over unproved allegations that he fathered Shivaji. It has been that and nothing else.

There is much more publicity to be had in such daring acts committed with false bravado, than diverting this energy towards a beneficial cause. Such act of terror get them the much needed edge; they instill fear. And when petty issue like this hog the lime light, they kick out the other shortcomings which need to be attended to. How convenient for everybody! The living conditions in the area I stay in may be deplorable, the roads have virtually disappeared, my children do not go to school…but I am not worried about that as long as the statue is removed from the mahal. I can proudly show my history sheet to my grandchildren, if there will be any.

58 years of reservations, facilities and concessions have failed to get them up to speed with the rest of the so called upper castes. Why do we think that any new policy will be of help? Why at all do we have such illusions?

Can messieurs Paswan, Ambedkar and his ilk can it?

If we are really hell bent on reservations, why not go the whole hog? Parliament also needs to be included in the ambit of this law, as also the presidency, the council of ministers.
I shudder at the thought of the being treated by a super specialist doctor who has ‘passed’ out through an institution by the criteria of the caste he/she was born in.

Why does IDENTITY remain such a conflict zone? Why does caste find a voice outside of the traditional sphere? Why can’t we strive for merit as the new equalizer? Why can’t the mai-baap sarkar be a proactive state? Why don’t we look beyond establishments and legislations for solutions?

Why? Why? Why?

Answers anyone?