Ambedkar's legacy circa 2006

Yesterday one observed the birth anniversary of a man credited with the creation of the foundation of our Republic, the bulwark of our State: our Constitution, which we in our hope gave to ourselves on the 26th of January 1950. This man had come a long way, from the squalor of the cantonment of Mhow in the then Central Provinces, to being a member of the highest decision-making body of the country, the Union Council of Ministers. He had come a long way from being a student who studied in the light of the candle at night, just to avoid the hustle and bustle of the neighborhood in the day, to becoming the man whose words the whole nation stayed silent to listen. From the days when he would smuggle sandwiches into the British Library, just to save time and read more and more, he would go on to become the most favored of patrons of the booksellers of the world, buying carton loads of books at one go.

All his achievements, all his glories, he secured not because he reveled in the fact that he belonged to a certain community, or because he managed to secure the State’s support in his initiatives and endeavours. He secured his place in history because he had the guts to fight against the system, if the situation so demanded, and if the system were to underestimate or even deny him his right to a better life merely because he was a member of a specific community. He deserves to be venerated not because he strove to liberate a specific community from the clutches of injustice, but because he believed that the wheels of change need just to be prodded for them to be set in motion, and that push would come not from the skies, but from the earth, from its people, his people. When I use the possessive adjective ‘his’ here, do not think that I refer to his community, for I refer to the human race as such, as I believe he too would have.

And today that this great man’s name is dragged in whenever someone talks of reforming the reservation system, when his legacy is so maligned by his so-called followers to let go of the crutches of social welfare even when they no longer may seem to need it, my heart bleeds. This man never identified himself as a member of specific community to gain special privileges, or to distinguish himself from the rest of the people; rather he believed that just as a Brahmin is proud to call himself a Brahmin, so also should he permitted to feel proud of his identity. He didn’t ask for dole-outs; he asked for assistance. His own education wasn’t the result of a reservation policy, but of a magnanimous monarch’s appreciation of the merit of a deserving student, which stood the risk of being wasted in the face of social pressures. Thousands of such deserving students, many of them from the hitherto referred to as Depressed Classes, were supported by many other monarchs throughout the land, without the compulsion or rule of the State, but merely out of respect for the merit inherent in these students.

Maybe he felt that the nascent nation, in its founding days, would be imbued with a sense of guilt or maybe even a desire to undo the wrongs of the past, and would therefore lift those who had lain in the squalor of Time for centuries to the light, and so introduced the proviso for reservation, albeit time-bound, for largesse when granted for infinity becomes the very shackle from which he sought to liberate his people. But when man proposes, God disposes, and He disposes through His creations. And so, the very ‘honorable’ political class found it inconvenient to abolish the largesse, or even review the munificence. His own, those whom he sought to liberate found this life of ease and luxury, when one only needed to be born in a specific community to claim privileges for life, so very relaxing that they never bothered to get up from the very gutters the largesse was intended to clear out. And so this man dies a thousand deaths every day, for now not only do those who considered him their enemy condemn him to Hell, but the bacchanalian behavior of his followers leads him to purgatory!

Do we dance at this number?

The dance bars will open again, so declared the Hon’ble High Court of Bombay. The point that the Hon’ble judges made was that the government i.e. the State cannot prohibit an individual from taking recourse to any profession. By implication, a citizen of the Indian State can choose any profession and profess it, without there being any restriction on him/her in any manner whatsoever. Laudable statements, indeed.
Considering that this is a matter concerning the judiciary, I will tread delicately. The fact’s that the verdict has raised certain questions in my mind. Does the right to choose one’s profession make one impervious to social concerns? Say, someone feels seditious, does the right to profession permit him/her the privilege of becoming a traitor or even a terrorist? Or if someone wants to earn money the bad way, does this freedom guarantee that the police will not catch him/her if he/she choose to indulge in smuggling/extortion/theft/fraud? And if not, then why these double standards?
The Hon’ble High Court clearly has quashed the amendment brought in by the Government of Maharashtra on technical grounds, but surely they also agree that the issue is not as simple as it is being made out to be. I am no moralizer, frankly, if someone wants to dance in a bar, and if such a person is comfortable with people trying to grope and fondle her, well, she’s welcome to her career decision. But the fact’s that here there are people who object, and maybe this objecting crowd is far more than the numbers constituting the dance-bar employees. Maybe the critics far outweigh the patrons. And for once, the political system had chosen to listen to this group rather than the other. Just as when a particular book is banned merely because it is deemed hurtful to the sentiments of society, because it is deemed offensive, so also the political class chose to ban the very profession of dancing in bars, merely because a very large majority of people found it offensive to their sensibilities. If the former is acceptable to those advocating the freedoms of humanity, then accept the latter as well. If you don’t, well, then stop making such a show of your adherence to human rights.
People have screamed out loud that these women are being denied employment. I ask you, has this nation come to this state when our women are incapable of finding employment in any other area? And will we allow our nation’s wealth to continue to encourage such depravity as is being perpetrated on these women in these dance bars, and which they bear in silence, merely because they have hungry stomachs to feed?
I must have seen more than five separate petitions against the reservations in the premier institutes, but to date, not one petition asking that we at least try to curb the tendency of young, beautiful, yet misled women ending up in these flesh-pots. I have the highest respect for the women who are employed in these joints, for they indulge the decadence of others, courting such degenerates that even Satan would be ashamed, and for what, but thirty pieces of silver. Liberate them; show them the light of a new day, when they can seek suitable employment elsewhere, for their sake, for our sake.

Re-Serve this System please!

A lot of blogspace has been already dedicated to the recent reservation fuck-up (yes, I am using the term, and it feels good) by the ‘honorable’ Minister for Human Resources & Development for the Union of India, the ‘venerable’ and ‘respected’ Mr. Arjun Singh. I don’t think I need to be clearer about how I feel about this whole affair.
Reservation per se, I am ready to accept on certain grounds and certain conditions.
Firstly, the entire provision must be a time-bound affair, not an ad infinitum proviso for those who have lifted their eyelids much after their forefathers were last abused in the name of community and caste. I appreciate that society is obliged to repay these communities in full for the tortures it inflicted on them for centuries, I accept that without as much as a whimper. But for long?
Secondly, there must be some factoring on the basis of the economic conditions of the family of the one seeking the reserved seat. Come now, if I happen to come from a family with an annual income in excess of Rupees Two lakhs per annum, happen to have a house, a car owned by my family, surely I am in no way disadvantaged. Then should I be permitted to claim that which is the right of those clearly lacking all this and more?
Finally, rather than numerically setting aside seats in the name of some community/communities, give them some leverage, maybe if one is admitting students on the basis of academic performance, grant them a 5 pc difference, but only if they happen to be economically disadvantaged, else tell them to stand in the general line. Sure, reserve seats, but only for those who have done exceptionally well, despite the adverse conditions at their residences. That way, one cannot be accused of compromising on merit alone, while still maintaining one’s lofty goal of social justice.
By now, you, my friend, will have understood that my ‘system’ of reservation rests solely on the premise of economic status, and not so much on the community-based approach adopted hitherto. Maybe this system is doomed to failure so long as the State is incapable of ensuring that each and every person is perfectly honest as far as his/her income is concerned. But there is hope. The Union Finance Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram, is doing a stellar job of slowly but steadily reforming the archaic financial systems, to guarantee that accountability which this nation sorely needs.

The Oarman's Beloved

The flute rang out in the meadow,
A liturgy of emotions, a parody of the soul,
A panegyric to the broken hearts.

She sat beneath the banyan tree,
Awaiting the boat,
The vessel that would bring him to her,
He, who had her heart captive,
In the folds of his bosom.

The river lapped at her feet,
Caressing her pink soles,
Fondling her delicate toes,
Adoring her dainty anklets,
Of silver and gold.

The butterflies came
And brushed her golden tresses,
Flew they past her hazel-brown eyes,
Those eyes which would open,
Open only to see her beloved’s precious visage.

Came the caravans and the mendicants,
Those who moved on in this world,
And those who moved beyond,
Gazed at this beauty in stone,
And wondered in awe,
Is this what love brings to man?

Then came the cry of the oarsman,
Hailing the shores of his native land,
The shores of his beloved.
And in a flash closed her eyes,
To drink in her tears,
Her tears of joy, her tears of bliss,
Her love had come, her life had come.

The Gift

My heart jumped a thousand leagues
Up in the air,
Tearing the heavens beyond
And touching the stars glorious!

Came in my dream
An angel so sweet
So beautiful, so pure
Quite like the dew in the morn.

Promised she to me
Shall I come in your midst
When the sun sets in the West
When the sea is aflame in her passions.

Sat in her wait,
I, all day, beside the crashing waves,
On the lonely parapet,
On the driveway of gold and silver.

Glanced at me,
And dismissed me as lovelorn,
Scores of passersby,
And other couples in affection.

Slowly, but steadily,
The glorious moment approached
The sun started its descent
Into the turbulent waters of the bay.

And then, as I watched
This sight beautiful and serene,
I realized what my angel
Meant by in my midst.

For by the sights and sounds,
Of the tranquil scene,
She had given me
The gift of the heavens, the presence of the Gods.

It's hard to say goodbye to yesterday!

I wrote last week about my feelings regarding leaving college. But on the day itself, I somehow couldn’t bring myself to control my emotions. When after the whole function was over, when the whole bunch had danced to their hearts’ delight, when perhaps for the last time, we had a blast, and I feel downcast. When people came up to each other, and hugged, shook hands, and wished each other all the luck in the world, I cried, maybe not overtly, but my heart wept.

The French say, ‘Partir c’est mourir un peu’. To leave is to die a little. A day after the farewell, I am coming to realize what they mean. All night long, I tossed and turned, remembering the good days, when we all laughed and played pranks together, when we would raid each other’s lunchboxes and yet manage to have a decent lunch for oneself, when we would sit and furiously copy out journals and assignments, when we would give each other the glorious kick on the backside on our birthdays, when we would loot the hapless birthday boy of his monies by way of treats, when we would wish each other at midnight on our birthdays, just to be the first one to wish the chap/lass. And now, as I write this, I cry. I mean, where will I get these days again? These friends, these buddies, the people with whom I would fight, but also play around with. Friends with whom I flirted, and who flirted with me. Friends who tortured me, and who suffered my tortures silently.

I know this isn’t the end. We still have nearly two months before it all ends. But this is the beginning of the end. And that is a heart-wrenching feeling. One that tears the heart asunder, one that leaves one filled with a strange emptiness, a void that has no end, no limit. Maybe I am the sentimental type, maybe I always was the eternal romantic, but today, I just wish I had a shoulder to cry on. I wish I could cry more openly. Because I can cry but now, and hold my tears hereafter.