The Road Always Taken : Arjun Singh wants popularity the easy way ?

I have been following Arjun Singh and his plea for OBCs very closely for the last one month. I have read the news websites and a few blogs. For the uninitiated, Arjun Singh is India’s current Human Resource and Development . He is currently passionately engaged in obtaining quotas for OBCs in government run institutions, which includes the very prestigious IIMs. The government is confirmed that it wants the 27% reservation for OBCs and it will not back down. However, in spite of much propaganda the Supreme Court has stayed the bill much to the chagrin of its supporters. Arjun Singh is obviously not happy and will do what he can…Brinda Karat is also very angry because she thinks the judiciary is acting high-handedly.

I am not in support of reservations of this kind but I am not blogging today to win over some readers to understand my point of view and support it eventually. I want to raise some questions that will hopefully help us understand the dynamics of this issue.

*From Arjun Singh’s past political history, even if his obsession for the ‘deprived’ cannot be suspected, his political acumen can be. He had criticized Narasimha Rao’s alleged failure to save Babri Masjid, not in 1992 when it was destroyed but some years later…I am forgetting when. So when he backs a bill it should not be accepted prima facie.

*Assuming that the educated politicians who have accepted the Bill and supported it have done some deep research into the merits of a 27% reservation for OBCs, there is still no GOD ENOUGH reason provided for endorsing the bill, except that ‘reservations’ have always helped Indian political parties to cling on to the ‘mai-baap’ image which they so fondly treasure. SC/ST reservations have been misused countless times. SC/STs are not all poor people. But the reservations do not differentiate between them. It ought to be remembered that the OBC Bill is bound to follow a similar trajectory. Once financially deprived, families will prosper and the OBC Bill will lose its utopian purpose.

*If you think I have betrayed my words and ‘softly’ tried to advocate my point, I will accept and give my final ARGUMENT. Arjun Singh’s title deals with two very useful words ‘resource’ and development’. I am sure immense amount of thinking must have gone in wording the title but does Arjun Singh really understand it ? He is supposed to shoulder the responsibility of finding RESOURCES ( for OBCs) and helping in their DEVELOPMENT. Arjun Singh will argue that his Bill aims as much. But look closely, is not ‘resource’ and ‘development’ also finding out which kids in OBC families are not getting education and providing them with the resource so that they can develop. Now... there are innumerable kids in India and it must be a darn difficult job to find them, and then educate them. It is easier to spot them as applicants to IIMs (whatever their intellectual capabilities) and then give them a comparatively smooth walk. There are two ways to do the job that Singh has assumed responsibility for. The hard way and the easy way. The hard way would ensure education for all OBCs. The easy way is Arjun Singh’s way. Give speeches and them become another Ambedkar.

In concluding I would like to say that I was disappointed at the analysis of the OBC Bill by the media. My analysis can be proved erroneous only if one accepts that all OBCs cannot be tracked down and given the resource she/he deserves and it is in this acceptance/ resignation that I locate my country’s problem.

Chandan Mitra, editor of Pioneer wrote some very awful (perhaps true) facts about Arjun Singh’s incapability to learn from political mistakes. What I found most funny is the fact that Mr Mitra thinks that no one will remember who Arjun Singh was in 10 years to come. Clearly he did not know that Jamia Milia is naming a Department and a street (within the campus) after MR ARJUN SINGH.

This is my country and yet I do not understand it most of the times. [ :( ]