go, junk your hypocrisy

jaithirth rao asks:

The Congress, the BJP and the Left are all supporters, although the enthusiasm of all their members is suspect. The SP, the RJD and the BSP are opponents and are very vociferous and obstructive about it. The mystery remains: are the supporters pro-women and are the opponents anti-feminist? Does this simplistic analysis say it all? [emphasis mine].

the bill, in its present form, is unfair. but i doubt that matters to the hindu parties (the congress, the bjp and the communists). their twisted idea of gender justice ignores caste and creed altogether. or should i say: conveniently ignores caste and creed? if this bill is enforced, in its current form, it'd increase the already bloated upper caste over-representation in houses of legislature by a huge margin, at the costs of the lower castes and the muslims, primarily. the obcs, muslims, other religious minorities and hundreds of small castes among the dalits and adivasis are already under-represented in the state assemblies and parliament. this bill would not only take away a large portion of the current obc and muslim shares in elected houses, but also close the door on any growth in their numbers for a very long time. the ruling classes seemed to have had enough of all the insubordination from the impure since mandal and mayawati. they seem to say: enough! this shall remain a hindu nation.

and how will this hindu bill affect the fortunes of those from the impure castes who joined the telangana movement?

the separatists in telangana have a lot in common with the crusaders fighting for a hinduised form of gender justice in delhi. they have also been able to fashion a story of injustice that revolves around one single, overarching reality: geography. their sense of geographic justice too looks at caste, creed and also gender issues as reflecting only minor injustices. but a lot of aspiring district level politicians from a few obc castes had joined the separatist movement in the hope that the formation of a new state would increase their chances of getting into the state assembly. how? that's a difficult question to answer, but they seem to think that a new state would change existing political formations and pave the way for the growth of new parties. one can't imagine how that'd happen, considering the two major parties haven't suffered any change in their support bases in recent times. and the only other party which had made some progress, in spurts, in the region was the trs.

what does the trs think of those from the impure castes? not much, it'd seem. one incident, from a few months ago, which involved the brutal assault on a former party mp, an adivasi, for daring to speak up against kcr, illustrates what the doras at the helm of the party think of insubordination from those from the lower castes. this news story has more details:

A prominent rebel leader of TRS, who is among a dozen leaders who have raised the banner of revolt against party president K. Chandrasekhar Rao, after the recent election debacle, Mr. Naik, a Lambada, lodged a complaint against the TRS leadership invoking provisions of SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities Act) in the Banjara Hills police station. In retaliation, TRS leaders filed a separate complaint accusing him of abusing them by caste name. Trouble broke out in the party headquarters shortly after the emergency meeting began around noon when Mr. Naik walked in to participate in the proceedings without an invitation from the party. Though he was stopped at the gate, Mr. Naik managed to go near the meeting hall where he was cornered by a group.

He took the party workers by surprise by raising pro-Telangana and pro-KCR slogans. One of them even chaired him on his shoulder. The workers tried to persuade him to return stating that his resignation had been accepted. Mr. Naik had, in an open letter, challenged KCR to reply to questions raised by the former or else treat it as his resignation letter.

As Mr. Naik insisted on attending the meeting on the ground that it was convened as a follow-up to his letter, the workers pushed him up to the gate where he took his car to proceed to the house of a former TRS Minister A. Chandrasekhar who was expelled from the party only Sunday night. Emerging from Mr. Chandrasekhar’s house with a torn shirt, Mr. Naik rubbed his nose on the floor seeking forgiveness from the people of Telangana for committing “the sin of being a part of TRS”. He threw sand in the air as he cursed Mr. Rao and his family. Accompanied by Mr. Chandrasekhar and another expelled leader J. Balakrishna Reddy, Mr. Naik drove to the police station.

but mr.naik hasn't given up on telangana, and is now trying to garner support from the bjp and its most rabid hindutvavaadi, narendra modi. as i said, there are too many wanna-be legislators, especially from a few obc communities, in telangana, and their support for the movement is fuelled by expectations of future growth in opportunities. but this bill will definitely greatly reduce opportunities for obcs among them. until now, obc representation in the andhra pradesh assembly has hovered around 15%, on an average, through the decades. now, it'd seem like even 15% would be an unachievable goal in the next assembly. after having consistently played along with their upper caste patrons in propagating vigorously a loose, insubstantial but colourful narrative of regional discrimination, and downplaying and ignoring caste and gender based injustice in the past few years in pursuit of their own narrow ambitions, what do these impure aspirants think of this new turn of events, i wonder.