Santosh Desai has courageously tried to row against the flood tide and has gone beyond the pet propaganda of the Brahminical ruling caste to hoodwink public and selling chalk as cheese. However, it should be noted that he too is abiding by the political correctness and has not used the dread out-caste word 'Muslims' in his analysis, lest his wani will get polluted. Lalu, Mulayam and Sharad Yadav are openly using Muslim backwardness and their marginalisation to put the whole reservation exercise in different perspective. It is notable that there is no independent voice of Muslims effective enough to fight for their rights as the whole charade of democracy is staged out. Let us see how long India's skewed democracy can keep out Muslims from the mainstream politics and how peacefully the Brahmin Raj accommodates Muslims.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Citycitybangbang/entry/reservations-about-democracy Reservations about Democracy Santosh Desai <http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Citycitybangbang>, 21 March 2010, 01:33 PM IST The Women’s Reservation Bill contains around it a beehive of paradoxes and posers. The fact that it has the popular support (at least on the face of it) from so many major political parties that are otherwise so implacably opposed to each other is noteworthy. That it faces opposition from parties representing some backward and marginalized classes makes the debate even more intriguing. As many have argued the problem identified is clear enough. After so many years of elections, one would have expected that we have a fairer representation of women but that is far from being so. Women don’t get fielded because they are not seen as candidates that can win, in most cases. The reservation thus is a way of forcing change, since it doesn’t seem to be forthcoming on its own. The underlying logic is that by ensuring enough representation at the top, the entire community gets a boost. 33% reservation of constituencies on a rotational basis, thus seems to the only way out, argue those backing the bill. The problem with this argument is that there is little evidence to support its central tenet- that more women at the top changes things for the better for women at the bottom. Today, the most powerful woman in the country is a woman as are the chief minister of the largest state, the chief minister of the capital of the country, the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha & the President of the country. Three of India’s most significant political parties are not only headed by women, but run with absolute powers. If in spite of such representation at the top, we do not see more women being fielded as candidates, then clearly getting women leaders does not by itself ensure a better lot for their followers. The insistence on women’s reservation is perhaps nothing more than an attempt to construct a pleasing façade of fairness without a real desire to bring about change on the ground. It is a victory for activists pushing for this move, but it might well be a victory for them alone. In the absence of a mechanism for this move to percolate down to women in their everyday lives, all we are doing is to create a new category of rulers. In effect, what we are seeing is an arrangement to distribute power amongst the elite more evenly, than to bring about social change. Here we are bypassing the electoral process and directly apportioning power to a particular constituency. The legislative fiat is an easy if airy swish at revolution, and this proposal in particular reeks of vested self-interest hiding behind political correctness. The demand for sub-reservations is hardly unfair, and certainly not worthy of being dismissed out of hand, if one were to agree with the implicit logic of the bill in the first place. If we need reservations for women and we need reservations for backward castes, why would we not need reservations for backward caste women? Why are all men not the same but all women are? To argue that political parties are free to pick backward caste candidates is ridiculous; for by that argument there should be no reservation for women in the first place. The nub of the matter is this. Either we believe in democracy and its wisdom or we don’t. The truth is that women all over the country are free to elect who they please and they do not seem to be electing enough women. To argue that they should be compelled to do so takes us along a very slippery path. Of course, a good part of this reason is that women exist in a larger network of social relations that limit their free will. But unlike the Schedule Castes where given their lower proportion in the population, they have very little change of getting elected without reservations, in the case of women, they make up half the population and given the fragmented nature of our polity, can exercise very sizeable clout. Even if a fraction of women were to vote for other women, the political scenario would change. In a democracy, we cannot choose what others must choose. Democracy succeeds when real change takes place; not merely the appearance of change. Accelerating apparent change by imposing an artificial improvement is to distrust democracy. If that is the rate of change acceptable to all voters, it is important for us to listen. The electoral decision is an outcome of a complex combination of calculations that the voter makes. Not doing so is an invitation to distortions of other kinds. Also, unleashing the reservations genie is an invitation to any number of interest groups to agitate for its own share. There is one heartening side to this saga. For once, we have a bill being presented at some risk to the government, that does not contain a whiff of political expediency. No one is agitating for it in a real sense, and there is not much direct political gain at stake. The only issue involved is a principle. Too bad, it is this one. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=en.
