Chanakya's New Manifesto: To Resolve the Crisis Within India by Pavan K. Varma Read Free Book Online Page B

The OBCs on their part felt that what they got was too little too late, and that the SCs and STs had been the sole beneficiaries of the policy of reservations for too long. But in this melee of group interests, there is no doubt that there was a further and enduring shift of real power towards the weaker sections of our society. To give an example: in 1997, by the time the impact of the new policy was beginning to be felt, 621 candidates qualified for the coveted civil services. One-third of these had their schooling in villages or small towns; 450 came from families whose monthly income was less than500 a month; 114 candidates had illiterate mothers; and 87 were the sons of farmers.
    Of course, it is true that the expanding policy of reservations could become excessive to the point where it becomes inimical to the national interest. The pressure of carefully orchestrated group interests playing on the populist instincts of vulnerable coalition governments is a continuing danger. But it is also true that real empowerment of the vulnerable of discriminated groups has been a consequence of such policies. An objective analysis of the 1993 law which gives women, who are the most deprived among the poor, a whopping 33 per cent reservation in panchayats across the country, will support this inference. Women elected to the panchayats for the first time were reluctant stooges fronting for men—husbands, fathers, brothers or sons; those who won in the next elections were much less so; and those who have won in the subsequent elections have been clear about wanting to wield power themselves. It is also instructive to remember that no country in the Asia-Pacific region has such a high level of reserved seats for women in local bodies. In Japan, the figure is 6 per cent, and in Australia and New Zealand the proportion is less than one-third.
    The fact that past governments have often resorted to such initiatives for short-term, and sometimes cynical, political gains does not take away from the transformational change that does ensue far beyond the intent of planners. And significantly, this kind of change consolidates as it goes along, with every generation. A first-generation, partially educated villager, who manages to get a job at the lowest rung of government service because of the policy of reservations, begins to dream big for his children. He educates them better and wants them to be employed above his level, clinging to every opportunity he can avail of and building on it in every possible way. In a country of vast socio-economic discrepancies, this avenue of institutionalized upward mobility must be given its due.
    A fifth dividend of 1947 is that, contrary to what the skeptics predicted at that time, India has remained one country. The fact that this would be the case may appear self-evident today, but it was not how many informed and uninformed commentators saw the nation’s prospects to be in 1947. Winston Churchill whose opinions, in retrospect, were often wrongheaded, gave expression to this dominant view when he said that India is merely a ‘geographical expression...no more a single country than the equator’. Like him, many others thought that, given the bewildering diversity of India, its many languages and ethnicities, and its deeply ingrained insular fealties, the country would not hold together for too long.
    That this did not happen is a tribute to our nation builders, to the institutions they set up, and to the policies of conciliation and accommodation they adopted. Of course, there were grave challenges along the way. Very early on, in the 1950s, there was the potentially explosive demand from some states to redraw traditional geographical boundaries along linguistic lines. The central government handled it wisely, conceding to the demands. Again, when the project of a national language was opposed by non-Hindi speaking states, New Delhi defused the situation through the stratagem of deferment. The call for