Finally, a woman President

By Manish Anand

At last, the Indian polity, exhausted after exploring all options for the post of President, chose a woman. In the last 60 years of India's independence it never occurred to any of the burly politicians that India needed a woman politicians, because this is the nation which believes in inclusive society and social justice to all. And, top posts have invariably been taken to symbolically serve that purpose over the years. Indian polity must be thanked for this.

Last month I had raised the issue why a woman should be elected the President of India. I had pessimistic view that such a thing would happen when so many senile veteran male politicians need to be given a retirement solution by the bosses of the political parties.

However, a picture of Pratibha Patil, who is into 70s, in one of the newspaper appalled me, because she was helped by two of her security personnel in helping her to walk. Instantly, I heard myself saying not again, not another Shankar Dayal Sharma. At least the president should be physically independent.

Ostensibly, the qualification that won Mrs Patil the post of President was she being the staunch loyalist of the Gandhi family. It just adds insult to the woes of the New India, which wants itself to unchain from the slavery of sycophancy and spineless toeing lines of the high command.

Hopefully, Mrs Patil would realise that once she is the President she has to do justice to her position in the most upright and objective manner that more honour comes to the post as achieved by two of her predecessors, Dr K R Narayanan and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.

But, we must congratulate ourselves for another reason. The United States is yet to have a woman President! Hopefully, Hillary Clinton, if she is nominated by the Democrats ahead of Obama, corrects that anomaly.

Caste war

By Manish Anand

With 11 districts put under National Security Act in Rajsthan, a full-blown bloody caste war has become a reality in India, caused by the 50-year of misplaced reservation policy of the Indian government.

One caste group is on killing and loot spree, the fallout of any riots, with another dominant caste group in retaliatory mode, the government has been put to the severest test of its populist policy to tap mass votes by doling out the reservation carrot to various caste groups.

On the warpath are Meena and Gurjar caste groups in Rajsthan with the latter not enjoying the fruits of easy entry into the government jobs. Though Gurjars are in the OBC category, they find the job pie fully dominated by the Jat. So, they want an ST tag.

Meena have been the most affluent caste group in Rajsthahn (14 % population) and have dominated the ST category in the state and at all India level along with the Christian groups of the North-east.

Top government officials have been knowing for a long time that Meena could be straightaway put in the General category for their social and economic status. But the government can not dare to revise the beneficiary list ostensibly for the price that they would have to pay.

Few years ago, a Meena candidate in an IAS interview was thrown out of the interview board in two minutes by a short-tempered chairperson of the interview board, who just wondered why the Meenas should claim the reservation in jobs. The candidate had replied that as the benefit was there so he was claiming, the answer that fetched him 25 marks out of 300 and an unceremonious kick-out from the board.

Take a look into the IAS, IPS, IRS and other Central services, you would find end number of Meenas along with the Christian groups of North-east; all are the offshoots of a flawed reservation policy pursued without revision by the governments.

Aren't there other ST groups who too should be enjoying the pie of the sweet fruits!

Experts have been calling for a relook into the reservation policy for many failures without the governments noticing them. The case of Rajsthan is an eyeopener but the Central and the state governments hardly seem to have spine to go for the right diagnosis.

Ask any interviewee of IAS from the reserved categories, hardly any logical satisfactory explanation would come from them, who will fail to hide an embarrassed and guilty faces.

It's imperative that gradually caste groups have have left the stigma of being socially backward be removed from the reservation beneficiaries' list, which could be used to accommodate the caste groups who still remain at the lowest ebb due to theirs not making the politically dominant voice.

The message must go to the beneficiaries that that the reservation policy of the government has an expiry date.

And for the moment, the government must carry out the revision of the ST castes with immediate removal of the Meena and the Christian caste groups of the North-east who are socially (there is no historical rationale for their social backwardness) and economically well-off.