Of Reservations and Welfare: Institutionalizing the Caste System

The obsession with minority welfare, SC/ST welfare, majority welfare etc is absurd and runs contrary to the spirit of the Constitution of India that grants equality to all citizens.

What right does the state or central government have to categorize all of us, me and you, as "minority" "majority" "SC/ST" etc and allocate seats / doles on such quota? That we may happen to be born into one of these groups does not mean a thing when it comes to being worthy for a post or being eligible for any dole/handout. I for one resent being included as a "vote bank" and prefer that whatever benefits I get should be as an individual citizen of the country and not as a community member.

None of the reservations / handouts / schemes targeting members of specific communities are necessary if

1. The government institutes a comprehensive, meaningful and all-encompassing social security inclusive of unemployment benefits, pension and free health care available to ALL citizens. THEN, remove the special benefits to govt. employees so that everyone who works is more or less on the same page. This will remove the scramble for government / PSU jobs and the associated cries for reservation. Have you ever heard of any community leader raise a hue and cry for not being adequately represented in private sector jobs?

2. Rather than create scarcity and play god doling out limited seats to their selected ones, government should use the money to augment capacity. For eg, investing in more colleges rather than handing out doles would mean that anyone who wants to study for a course will get a seat, so the question of reservation of seats becomes meaningless. Scholarships are always an option for the economically weak, and this has to cut across caste and community. I cannot for the love of God fathom why we need a separate scholarship for "minority students," "SC/ST students" etc. Wouldn't one scholarship for everyone, providing everyone actually gets it, be just as effective?

3. Play a proactive role in ensuring that merit and the rule of the law is enforced. Many a time, demands for reservations come when some community or group happen to usurp power (i.e dominate the decision making panels) in an organization and then most appointments / seats are cornered by members of that community/group (there are many such examples). This may require some affirmative action recruitment, but this should be temporary and again, not benefiting any one community on a permanent basis (which would then create a new inequality) but rather any community who happen to be marginalized.

Treating people on the basis of their birth rather than the basis of their merit is the core essence of the caste system. Various minority organizations, by demanding special privileges for their community members, are actually clamoring for strengthening the caste system, yet they realize it not.

Of Projects and Project Reports

Of late, the Kerala State Planning Board decided to shelve its much vaunted High Speed Rail Corridor project. The proposal has met with severe criticism from the very onset, the reason for opposing varying from allegations that proposal being publicity stunt to a means to siphon off kickbacks, and from the proposal being an impractical fantasy dreamt up by those who have no sense of ground reality, to a means to help the real estate mafia.

The 630 km line between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod, cutting across most districts would have made traveling faster, but at 1.80- lakh crore, the project was all set to become a financial white elephant. Realization seems to have finally struck that there are many alternatives that would ensure speedier travel at a far lesser cost: catamarans, quadrupling existing railway lines, mini-airports at all district headquarters, augmenting the existing highway network with more lanes and flyovers, and more are some of the possible options.

However, what is of concern here is the state already transferring Rs 17 crore to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for preparing the detailed project report. Needless to say, this is money down the drain, Worse, the government had also formed a public limited company- Kerala High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd - to implement the project, appointing an IAS officer as the managing director. This entire administrative jamboree is also substantial money down the drain. This reckless spending becomes even more grave when the government repeatedly claims to be short on funds to carry out infrastructural projects.

A basic no-frills flyover costs about 20 to 25 crores – and needless to say, there are many junctions in the state that cry for the same. The next time, say for instance, you are caught up in a traffic jam at Vytilla in Kochi, the busiest junction in the state, remember that a (toll-free) flyover could well have come up there had the government spend the money on something constructive rather than blow it away on a needless project report.

Good governance is doing something constructive on the ground, not announcing projects left, right and centre and blowing away the taxpayer's money on needless paperwork.