Long Live the Letter

I have always had faith in Letters to the Editor. ‘The Editor’ to me is a faceless, omnipotent paragon of morality and justice, whose ‘write and I shall publish’ policy would set the world right again.

I have written a lot of letters (on illegal organ transplants, corruption, Rahul Gandhi, the Clemenceau) and none have ever been published. My faith remains. I really have set a record of sorts about the quota-issue.

Time for my mother to take over – in response to Yogendra Yadav’s reply to Pratap B Mehta’s resignation letter.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/4984.html


Dear Mr. Yogendra Yadav,

Yesterday I heard you propagating your formula for reservation on the basis of disadvantage points on the television and also read your letter to Mr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta in The Indian Express. Let me tell you at the very outset, without mincing any words, that I was terribly disappointed and disillusioned.

I had the privilege of meeting you some time in 1986 in Chandigarh at your residence. I was greatly impressed by your choice of a career in education over civil services. Since then, I have been an avid follower of your programs and Election Specials. However, after yesterday, I realized that another champion of Freedom of Thought has fallen prey to the malady of arm-chair intellectualism. Most of the intellectuals suffer from this, but et tu?

For almost eleven hundred years, India was ruled by the invaders who perpetuated the caste system for their own benefit and the Englishmen mastered this art to perfection. The present Congress leadership which fought with the Britishers for freedom won because they learnt their rules of the game. And now, they are past masters at the game of perpetuating their corrupt, self-serving and morally bankrupt regime. I fail to understand how you can blame the ‘upper castes’ for the social injustice in independent India which was ruled by your wise state government, wolf-in-the-sheepskin Congress party.

I am an educationist for the last 24 years dealing with children at primary and secondary levels. I never felt that merit was scoring high marks in the exams. You will agree that merit is achieved by developing the analytical and logical abilities of a child from the grass root levels. It is the ability of a person to deal with his environments in an intelligent manner, fighting against all odds.

The Disadvantage Points Formula will fail to redeem the society and break the caste cauldron in fact it will perpetuate it.
Let me ask you some pertinent questions.

How will you ask a child who although belongs to an upper caste, but is economically backward and scoring 85% marks, to reconcile with a child with 60% through reservation and securing a seat. What will you say to this particular child when he comes to know that the reserved candidates grandfather was an SP, the father an IAS Officer, and the son still availing the quota seat? So your Disadvantage Points Formula stands for inclusion of creamy layer?
3 generations of economically forward class and still availing reservation? This is what the agitating students are objecting to. They want a white paper to be prepared by an apolitical commission. Why is it so difficult for the government to agree to it? And you still trust them that they are for the Backward Castes? In fact, they want to perpetuate this neo-Brahminism in SC/ST/OBC.

How often, and how many crutches will be provided to this creamy layer when they are studying in the same school, taught by the same teachers and the same syllabus?

Don’t you think that these wily politicians have taken advantage of our naïve intellectual honesty and are laughing all the way to their vote banks? I can see their design of keeping reservation only at the tertiary level. Keep them happy by throwing a tukda of progress to them. Why don’t they ever talk of reservations at primary and secondary levels? It is because they will no longer be able to fool the educated multitude. The example in question is the pro-reservationist rallies where people were openly admitting that they were lured by money and they didn’t even know what the issue was.

Do you think this movement is just an elitist movement restricted to the Metro cities? Be thankful it is still in the hands of educated elite because they are reasonable, non-violent and believe that saner voices will stand up for their nation. Remember George Bush said that we have to beware of India and China because of their Intellectual Capital. Bring reservation and you jeopardize this.

As the enormity of the situation is becoming clear to the people, more of them are joining. From traders to bar girls, everyone is realizing the futility of this self-serving exercise of the politicians. They have time to pass Office-of-Profit Bill at the earliest when the 33% reservation for women is being stalled for the last 10 years. Is it not apparent what their priorities are? It is their “Office of Profit” not reservation, until women become a strong vote bank.

Instead of intellectual sparring, do you have a concrete program for the upliftment of the downtrodden i.e. economically and socially backward people? Otherwise, all intellectual discussion will be like the paper tiger. All of us will be happy that we have added something to the discussion, sit in our plush residences and feel that we have added our might to the debate.

Like Pratap Bhanu Mehta says, “Perhaps I trust society too much, perhaps you trust the state too much”
Is it possible for all of us to rise above narrow parochial interests of the politicians and combine these trusts to find a real solution? Perhaps I have, but who will listen to me? Who will understand the concern of this agitating educated intelligentsia?


Yours sincerely,