Pie= Circumference of people
Diameter of needs
Pie is the root of all problems (sorry Euclid)
I was surfing the TV channels yesterday and came upon a debate on the issue of ‘reservation’ on an English channel. The panelists were a mix of erudite, plebeian and banal. After one particular erudite member of the panel explained why he was pro reservation in a very well constructed argument, a student began talking against reservation. I am sure if the people who are anti reservation today are given a chance to benefit from reservation because their caste suddenly comes under the reserved category, they will switch arguments and become pro-reservation in their views. (BTW caste it seems is abolished in our constitution!) It is a question of ‘not getting a part of the pie easily’ that affects most people who are anti-reservation and not reservation per se. When Dr. Ambedkar drafted our constitution, he drafted the best Constitution in the world, given the socio-economic situation of our society at that time. But times change and so various bills have been added to either correct some laws which were redundant or because our society felt the need for some more. So then why are we so prickly about doing away with reservations all together? Even Dr Ambedkar gave reservations ten years. He felt our society will correct the harm done in the past in a period of ten years. How wrong he was! He was a dreamer whose dream of equality for all castes and classes has been sorely tested by us as a people. Considering reservation has been around for so long, why aren’t all the reserved seats, whether in schools, colleges, hospitals, Government set ups, teaching profession and so on ever filled? Somewhere things don’t add up! We are 125crore Indians today, out of which at least 35% come under the reserved category! Why don’t we see the benefits of that reservation today? In fact more castes are asking for reservation. Is there any logic in this? Some people argue that reservations are ok, but not in the medical profession where you require real merit, otherwise people’s lives are at stake! With the same logic, capitation fees should be abolished as well right? Unmeritorious rich kids who pay their way and become doctors are as bad as unmeritorious poor kids right? We, the taxpaying people of India, don’t deserve anything unmeritorious. This is where the political and bureaucratic generation which followed Dr Ambedkar’s generation failed us! They cut up the pie more and more, for their vote banks and for their selfish interests. The rich across caste lines became richer while the poor became poorer. People who had converted to other casteless religions to avoid caste based Hinduism, still marry within their caste! More in the political class want to give sops to their castes so that their next seat in the parliament is booked or should we say ‘reserved’? All in all, these doctors of democracy are busy treating the symptoms while the root of the disease spreads its tentacles and becomes stronger and stronger with each passing democratic year. The only solution for this is to work towards making the pie bigger. Reservations can and will only go if everybody has enough. Food, shelter, education, health has to be made available for all. We have lost sight of the basics. Let’s get back to them. Let’s tackle the poverty and hunger that we see so much of, that we have become desensitized to it. We are immune to it and it becomes invisible. But it exists! And unless we deal with it, it will only grow and so will our problems. The situation today is so dire that it will take many hundreds of years to correct. But it is never impossible. A dream can be achieved if it is dreamt of in the first place. So let’s all dream of making our country so self sufficient and viable that the need for reservation won’t exist. Maybe then, Dr Ambedkar’s true dream of a casteless, equal India will finally come true! Please will the political class stop seeing nightmares and making them our reality? Please let them dream right! Otherwise we will have 100% reservation and yet no one will be able to eat the pie!
