11/03/10

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.

13 comments:

sravan said...

I beg you to explain, what is a hindu party here??
You seem to categorize all the major national perties under one umbrella Hindu party>??
What in actuality you call a hindu party??

Sridhar said...

Kuffir: I am trying to understand the logic here - is it the assumption that out of the two women contestants, the upper caste woman would win most of the time? Or is it that the parties would field only upper caste women believing that they would have better winning odds and expecting all would do the same (Nash equilibrium)? Or is it that potential winning or qualified candidates can not be found in lower caste women? Also, it seems that the parties would not volunteer to see that a proportion of women would be from backward castes - though parties already are exercising such consciousness in fielding women and backward caste (any gender) candidates seemingly to showcase their commitment to social justice.

Wondering how the dynamics exactly work.

Kiran said...

"what do these impure aspirants think of this new turn of events, i wonder"

Do they think ? i wonder :)

Desi Aadmi said...

@Kufr,

Great Post.

Caste is much much bigger source of discrimination in India than gender. All the upper class brahmin feminist women utter high words of equality and go home to belt their domestic helps, which are often under-14 girls from lower castes. I still remember one of the female relative of my mother bad mouthing her car driver(who is from lower caste) for taking a wrong turn. Hmmm...most of the upper caste people do not recognize the concept of dignity of labor.

@sravan,

A party is called a hundu party that is dominated by upper castes.

gaddeswarup said...

There are some explanations here:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100309/jsp/nation/story_12194816.jsp
"Is there a sub-quota within the women’s quota?

Yes, of the 182 reserved seats, 42 — that is, roughly 22 per cent — will be reserved for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women. This is in keeping with the current policy of reserving 22 per cent Lok Sabha seats for SCs and STs.

The Assemblies too will have a sub-quota for SC/ST women within the women’s quota.

Will the sub-quota seats for SC/ST women come into being over and above the current 22 per cent SC/ST quota that is open to both genders?

Yes. This means, of course, that nearly 30 per cent of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats will now practically be reserved for the SC/STs.

So what will be the total quota volume after the women’s bill is passed?

Fifty five per cent — 33 per cent for women plus the existing 22 per cent for SC/STs."

But I do not understand the last two answers.

Krishna Chaitanya said...

obc reservation is only an excuse to stall the bill. The parties opposing the bill perfectly know that without providing reservation for obc men, reservation for obc women might not be possible. This is just an excuse to stall the bill.

kuffir said...

sravan,

i think desi aadmi has adequately answered your question.

sridhar,

looking at rough population and representation figures, it seems like upper caste candidates have over 4-5 times more chances of getting into parliament or assemblies than obcs. the advatage goes up further hen you compare uc hindus and muslims. and it goes up even further when you compare uc women and obc/muslim women. so, it's a combination of all those factors you outline that'd work, i think.

kiran,

well, i strongly feel they should.

kuffir said...

desi aadmi,

thanks for sharing your views.

swarup garu,

yes, there's some confusion on how the sub-quota for sc/st women would be counted.

krishna chaitanya,

that's a sharp observation. hmmm.

Reality said...

@ Kuffir
There is no confusion on SC/ST quota and women quota. In lok sabha there are 545 seats. Out of these 120 will be reserved for SC/ST as per 22% reservation. In these 120 seats ,40 will be reserved for sc/st women. Out of the rest 425 seats 141 seats will be reserved for women.

So total quota seats = 120+141 =261

This is 47 % of total seats not 55% as per swarup.

gaddeswarup said...

That compilation was by Radhika Ramaseshan in 'The Telegraph'.

sravan said...

And why do not you call AIMIM as a hindu party? It is the same upper classes in muslim vis-s-vis upper castes in hindus that dominate the party???
Like the hindu society the muslim society is sliced into social classes. Since it is a minority they tend to keep the issue closed. while the upper classes are gaining the lower strata are being suppressed.
Atleast being at the advantageous position of majority hindu population are able to boldly appreciate their internal class differences.

And congress at the union is headed by a muslim who was born catholic.At the state level until recently a christian was leading the party.

kuffir said...

sravan,

and i'd call the aimim a hindu party if it promoted upper caste hindu interests. but that's rather irrelevant really, because we're discussing the parties which promoted this hindu women's reservations bill.. and you dragged the mim into this-- are they beating up the lower classes among muslims like the hindu trs is beating up adivasis like ravindra naik? but why did they assault naik, i wonder. that's an expression of democratic aspirations, i suppose.

gaddeswarup said...

This interview
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/devils-advocate-moily-on-womens-quota-bill/111510-37.html?from=tn
suggests that there is an overlap in the quotas and 'reality' above is apprximately correct and The Telegraph figures are wrong.

 
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