Some might ask: “The Reserved Group
have been poorer than the Non-reserved Group for centuries - does it not by
itself show that the Non-reserved Group have been oppressing the Reserved Group
and that such oppression is the chief and direct cause of the latter’s lower
finances?” Governments in India would say yes as a ready and easy justification
for reservation. But that is not the
truth.
For
centuries after the British arrival into and annexation of India, and after
Independence too, our economy has been ill-managed or mismanaged and hence the
whole of India severely underperforms in GDP and has a lower per capita income
for all groups. If we have a
well-managed economy the income levels of all, including the Reserved Group,
would rise significantly. The
better-managed US economy proves it.
Take a look at its official figures for a recent year put out on a
website and reproduced below. You will note that the once-enslaved African
Americans now have an average income close to the national average. And among
them their women have done better than their men on a comparison between
man-to-man and woman-to-woman. That is, Africa
American women come closer to the income level of the average income of all
women in USA as compared to what their men do among all men.
INDIVIDUAL BLACK INCOME
|
||
Individuals
Per capita income (dollars)
|
Blacks
|
All USA
|
39,623,138
$18,102
|
313,914,040
$ 27, 319
|
|
Mean
earnings (dollars) for full time, year round workers
|
||
Male
|
$
46,357
|
$ 64,650
|
Female
|
$
40,473
|
$ 47,001
|
Median
earnings (dollars) for full time, year-round workers
|
||
Male
|
$
37,526
|
$ 47,473
|
Female
|
$
33, 251
|
$ 37,412
|
SOURCE :
US Census Bureau 2012 American Community Survey
BlackDemographics.com
|
||
Well,
if reservation does not work, what is a good and fruitful way for a government in
India to give help to those among the Reserved Group where it is needed – the
kind of help which works best to lift them and which does not hurt others or
the nation? This certainly needs to be
answered.
As
we saw, the feeling of superiority still remaining with a good number of people
is an attitude of their mind. The surest
ways to change that attitude to the maximum are by action on two fronts. One is through laws prohibiting aggressive or
insulting display of that attitude. We
do have some such laws in place, but they should be applied honestly and
carefully – some review on them is welcome too so relief goes where it is truly
needed. Violent or other criminal acts by one group on another, if they occur,
must be dealt with sternly and dispassionately through the police and courts. The other front is education. Central and State governments must act
jointly in spreading good basic education among all as their greatest mission.
Have
you not seen that most cases of public or aggressive display of a feeling of
superiority are reported from areas where the general level of education is quite
less or nil? That tells us something, and shows us the way forward. Education is a good external tool to help open
up our minds and rethink on ourselves. A
good basic education is the best surrounding for young students outside their
homes to question and think for themselves and feel emancipation from the hold
of misguiding leaders of their group – Reserved Group or Non-reserved Group – who
keep showing a mirage to their people. It must of course be compulsory as well
as free. Vast numbers of children of the
Reserved Group should benefit most in this noble deed of a government because
they could get a stimulus and a push to get educated and to value learning –
something they may not derive from their homes.
It would then be a real leap for those children and a true course
correction of any historical misfortune in their families.
Unlike
reservation which can prop up only a few individuals and create resentment in
many, benefits of good basic education can reach everyone with a potential to
uplift everyone. But here we should
take a warning – if, again through reservation, we employ teachers without good
credentials we will merely generate statistics on educational infrastructure
but not provide good education. So by this method, with no spoilers coming in, we
should all will in the future. We have to believe in good things for us, strive
intelligently and march ahead. There is
simply no other way to cure our social disease.
Least of all, permanent reservation does not work better in any manner
and it pulls us down.
Let
us look at the number of years since 1950 till now, a distinct post-reservation
era in the country, and the same number of years before 1950, and ask ourselves
when has been the acrimony between the two groups more intense – before or
after? Our straight answer should be, After.
So every year that we retain reservation
will leave us with more ground to cover on a journey of reconciliation, needing
a longer time to remove bitterness piled up through the reservation regime. A least painful way to do away with
reservation would be to scale down the percentage of reservation gradually, say
by 1% or 2% annually over the next fifty or twenty-five years – and meanwhile
spread good basic education far and wide.
Now,
some incidents from recent history and what we see around us. Consider UK and India. Once the British dominated
and subjugated all Indians, whether they belonged to the Reserved Group or the Non-reserved
Group, which went on in a large part of India for over 150 years in various
stages till 1947. Englishmen thought of
themselves as a super superior group to all of
Indians for so long. Today Indians and Indian origin persons comprise about 1.4
million people in the UK and they form the single largest minority population
in that country. UK does not grant to
British Indians permanently residing in that country any special privileges which
are not available to their natives, not do those Indians expect to be given
such privileges in that country. Certainly
the standard of life for those 1.4 million people in the UK is far better than
that of any group of people in India.
Take
Germany. Jews over there numbered approximately 2,14,000 on the eve of World
War II. When the War ended, about 90% of
the Jews in Nazi Germany had been put to death in the Holocaust. You can guess the intense feeling of
superiority many Germans of Aryan descent would have had over Jews. That was the past. Presently about 2,50,000
Jews live in Germany, and they do not have privileges like reservation in
German colleges or jobs with the German government. They live honourably in Germany and are equal
with other Germans.
Think
of America. African Americans form about
12.6% of the US population. Their earliest
forefathers were brought in as slaves.
They grew families and all of them slaved and lived a dishonourable life
in that country. For that reason,
however, now their descendants in the US are not given privileges like reserved
seats in its universities or reserved jobs in its government services. Still we see many African American persons
competing today with the rest of America and excelling in many fields.
Compared
to the terrible trauma of those times for Jews and African Americans, it was generally
a peaceful existence for the Reserved Group in India. We can certainly move towards reconciliation
between the two groups in India more easily than it was possible for Germany or
the US. We should indeed relate with the
US experience more closely.
Martin
Luther King, Jr, drew inspiration from India, i.e., from Mahatma Gandhi, during
his campaign for civil rights in the US.
I think the whole of India can now have a return gift from the US this
way – one, by learning from their history about the cruel oppression of man by
man in the form of state-sanctioned slavery for nearly two and a half centuries
which would tell us that the ancestors of the Reserved Group in India were
spared from similar horrible indignities; and two, by knowing about their ways
to get over a troubling emotional connection with their ancestral past so they
can relish their present lives and move ahead. Here I will say something about the second
part. Just take one national event of
that country in the recent past, which made the world look at the US with awe.
(To be
continued)
* * * *
*
Copyright
© R. Veera Raghavan 2015
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