headless chickens

'------- has already taken a decision to re-organise the Lottery Department. Intensive legal steps are going on to ban illegal lotteries. At the same time, steps have been taken to considerably increase in the lottery market of -------, the sale of ------- Lottery. The re-organisation package will include specific purpose super bumper lotteries, attractive prize structure, intensive publicity campaigns and more facilities to agents and sellers. In order to get registration in the welfare fund, the lottery sellers will have to sell ticket of ------- Lottery worth at least Rs.10,000 per month.'

doesn't that sound like a corporate honcho speaking? the signs are all there: power words like re-organisation, marketing mantras, promotional schemes, advertising campaigns, sales incentives, targets and carrots for the distributors/dealers. and who else would so shamelessly push a product like lotteries?

well, the speaker is not from the corporate world and the missing words are: Government, Kerala, State and Kerala. read the full speech here (the para quoted is from page 50).

largely private

Here's a quick summary: in spite of the 'burden' of reservation, (a) our public sector companies -- particularly banks -- are flourishing in the face of de-licensing and unfettered competition, and (b) the southern states -- and in particular Tamil Nadu, the state with the highest level of quotas -- have also done quite well -- if not better than the rest of the country.

that's abi reacting to a post on indian economy blog by an ill-informed blogger who attributes the inefficiency of the public sector in india to reservations. it's unfortunate that abi doesn't question the underlying presumption of the other blogger's stand: that the infusion of the 'merit-less' (read lower castes) into the public sector through reservations has been as significant ( in terms of numbers) as to significantly alter its performance

here, check the numbers of the dalits in the central public sector enterprises. you'll notice that around 85% of the dalits and adivasis are in the lowest three echelons and in the top two rungs, their combined number doesn't exceed 14%. and we would never know how many of the truly significant positions in those two rungs are occupied by the dalits. and we would also never know the position of the dalits and adivasis in the rest of the public sector which accounts for 75-80% of the total manpower employed in the public sector.

let me explain: central public sector undertakings do not include departmental undertakings, banking institutions and enterprises where govt equity holding is less than 50%. this broad, nebulous expanse of entities comprises of the railways (which is clubbed with the central government), banks, other enterprises producing and distributing goods and services (like utilities) and several other kinds of organisations, institutions etc., and we do not have reliable figures for any of them. the total employee strength of the public sector (excluding the central & state governments and the railways and the armed forces) is around 6 million, according to estimates thrown up by recent economic surveys. of these, as i said earlier, we have reliable figures for only the central public sector undertakings. and even these are hotly disputed by many dalit groups. the banks, according to them, are the worst offenders and the number of dalits/ adivasis in banks and pses/institutions other than cpsus couldn't be more than 3-6% (of the total employee strength) according to these dalit groups. and most of the non-compliance in the public sector enterprises isn't as rigorously scrutinised and questioned as it is in, say, the government itself. and i don't even have to talk about the obcs in the public sector, i think. i'd touched upon that subject earlier, but let me repeat my earlier stand: the representation of the obcs hasn't improved significantly (perhaps i should say 'improved even marginally'?) since the disinterment of the mandal commission report. and the sachar report has told us about the invisible muslim in the public sector. no, the public sector doesn't shoulder any significant social burden- and it is more than adequately compensated for doing whatever little it grudgingly does.

i've always felt that the public sector in india is a largely private affair, and the left in the country had always maintained that the organized private sector in the country is a largely public affair (because of the various sops, in the form of cheap land, subsidized power or water and other public resources, grants, loans, tax breaks and other incentives that it receives from the government- why doesn't the left ever enumerate/calculate the sops the public sector in the country received/s from the government?). considering all those facts, does a public debate on such private issues as the performance of the public sector or the private sector in the country have any real public significance? aren't 'debates' on the doings of popular film stars more entertaining? 'public sector' trains run late often, 'private sector' cellphones go out of coverage areas often. the only things you can truly depend on in this country, are street corner panwallahs and suchlike sundry institutions who/which deliver most of the time you need them. now, where should you start a truly public debate on excellence?

'left nukes deal'

that's a headline on a television channel. why was the deal 'nuked'? national sovereignty, security, blah blah are the reasons cited. i read somewhere that enrollment in primary schools in the country in '96-97 was 77%. 60% of those 'students' dropped out by class 10. so the nation worked for roughly 30% of them. what's the point in protecting a nation that works for only 30% of its people 60 years after becoming a nation, mr.karat?

off

you!
scarf off the head
eyes off the ground
lines off the line.

shorn off
peeled off
told off
us.

lay off
stay away
move on
be gone!

your kinsmen, your banks, your revolution

So in the social banking philosophy that India adopted when it nationalized the banking industry in the late 1960s, banks did significant amount of lending to farmers, recognizing that these are the people who place the food on your table, on the nation’s table. Once we went into the brave new world of economic reforms, the banks progressively stopped lending money to farmers, so much so that something like 3,800 to 4,000 bank branches in rural India closed during the reform years.

a revolution is a tea party. you can organize it on your own, think up sweet little fictions like the first line in the above paragraph, garnish them with half-truths, like in the second line. and like the rishis of old, go on yatras around the countryside, 300 days a year (nothing establishes one's authenticity more than such severe penances- it's an old trick in this country)....and come back chanting those two lines to a still-in-university-at-dad's-expense-and-mother-india's and never-really-left-university-or-gave-up-on-che-or-charu crowd waiting for your musa-esque arrival in the city. to clutch you to their progressive breast and hand you over to other progressive breasts across the world. that's how you do a revolution.

or you could learn from your kinsmen in the non-fiction world, those progressive workers in the nationalized banks who never lent a paisa more than ten (of each rupee) to the peasants you discovered, on how to plan an indefinite strike that would cripple the banks whose original and only purpose, perhaps, was to provide them with employment.

this news has died

you know, of course, the man waving in the first picture is dr.y.s.rajashekhar reddy, chief minister of andhra pradesh. he's also in the second picture, shaking hands with a top oracle executive. but who's the man with the grey, tousled mop of hair who appears in both the pictures? doesn't he seem a little out of place? he seems too old to be a security guard, too small-built, non-athletic. he seems too much like r.k.laxman's common man, right? and in such august company, what's he doing there?

until a few months ago, most news-consuming people in andhra pradesh didn't know who he was - he seemed to accompany the chief minister everywhere, you saw him on television and in pictures, a little behind the chief minister, never more than a few feet, five feet or so to be precise, from him. and then he emerged from the shadows and became a news story himself.

he's been identified as a key figure in a scam involving the siphoning away of government funds to the tune of rs.150 crores. a major portion of the funds were meant for the sarva shiksha abhiyan/dpep programme. no, he's not been arrested - some associates 'voluntarily' gave themselves up. an investigation is on - which will no doubt try to establish that those who gave themselves up are guilty- and no one else is.

yes, scams bore me too - but this one still manages to disgust me. money meant to provide basic literacy skills to children, who already are victims several times over, has been stolen.

it tells me: the poor count for nothing in this country (which is not news) and therefore, their children count for less than nothing. which, sadly, isn't news either. so what is it about this piece of non-news that has me all churned up inside? well, it's not those kind souls in yojana bhavan or wherever who knew, beforehand, when they were drawing up this programme, that this'd happen. or the experts from academia or the think tanks who helped in both the conception and the development of the idea. or the activists who drummed it into the slow heads of politicians over the years. or the politicians who bided their time, sexied it up and introduced it at the right poll opportunity with a bang.

it is this: that rajashekhar reddy should submit to his inherited obligation to distribute largesse among his inherited constituency. to consider that, as a pedda ( the equivalent term in hindi is bada) reddy (as reddies of certain sub-castes or those owning large landholdings are considered in rayalaseema) it is his duty to look after the well-being of those who serve him. and condone their mideeds and actively try to protect them and deflect any criticism directed against them. this inherited duty superseded the duty to serve those who elected him. as it does so often in india.

it is this: that the chief actor in this drama should also submit to to his inherited obligation as a lower ranking clansman to follow and serve his inherited betters- that is how you get to fulfill your own needs. you could see he was following the historic script faithfully when you occasionally saw him on television actually serving food, to the leader as he is talking to the '24-hours-with-so-and-so' interviewer. you saw his role in the relationship, and that of his master- the chief minister had appointed him his 'personal assistant' after assuming office, but that didn't mean his role had changed. or his master. he still remained someone who held the leader's bags, his files and looked after his personal needs..a man friday, saturday, sunday...everyday. everywhere.

it is also this: that the media should also look at this from their inherited positions - as mouthpieces of dominant competing communities or of aiming-to-regain-or-gain-a-vantage-position communities. that the political parties, also representing competing, communal interests, should seek to not look beyond, or let you look beyond, the bare, titillating details of who and how much - at how easy it is to steal from poor children... and how unimportant that is to everyone.

note: i'd started this post on may 22nd, a few months after the news of the scam actually made it to the media. i'd expected, and i guess most of the players involved did too, that it'd die in a few months and it has.

why bring up caste?

randomly picked, these two articles refer to the 'yadavisation' process in u.p., and bihar. what's yadavisation? the reporters, you'll notice, offer the barest explanation. the underlying message is that - it's such a well known phenomenon, don't you know about it? where were you? you'd be too naive to ask- well, so is the loch ness monster, tell me what does yadavisation look like? somebody tell me- what does yadavisation look like? does it look anything like this:

A quick head-count reveals that right from the present cabinet secretary to other key positions like secretary, RAW, defence research and development, agriculture and cooperation, economic affairs, revenue and legal affairs, Brahmins hold key jobs. As many as 37 top officials in the list of secretaries and officers of equivalent rank in the present administrative set-up are Brahmins. Going by figures quoted by the Backward Classes Commission, Brahmins account for 37.17 per cent of the bureaucracy. Other forward castes too constitute a substantial chunk.

that's the face of the central government- do i hear anyone whispering, forget shouting across the national media, brahminisation? notice that the magazine calls the article, oh so indulgently (as if the writer was describing interesting peculiarities of some species of fauna and not outlining the contours of an ugly man-made monstrosity called the indian government), 'the durbar hall pundits'. and don't miss the note of hope at the end:

But the winds of change are blowing. This year 144 candidates who cleared the civil services examinations are from other backward classes. Even the candidate who topped was an OBC. As a senior official remarked, perhaps 2010 may throw up an altogether different bureaucracy—one that is more inclusive and representative. Till then, it’s Brahmins who will dominate.

if anyone seriously believes that 'an altogether different bureaucracy' (the magazine has done another story, pushing forth the same happy idea, recently called the 'backwoods babus' - do you see the pattern?) would emerge even by the year 2110 leave alone 2010, i'd definitely advise him/her to get his/her head examined. some minor changes in some rungs are possible, but the truth is: the size of the indian public sector, which means the central and state governments and the psus, has remained the same since 1990, more or less. and given the size of the current wage and pension bill of these employees, and also imminent hikes and further hikes in the future, any massive new recruitment that would substantially change the composition of the entities listed...wouldn't be possible until the year 2030 or 2035 or so. and given also the history of determined and successful opposition to the entry of the lower castes into the bureaucracy (unless if it's in the lowest echelons) in the last sixty years, i don't think any restructuring would happen even in 2030. or for sixty more years or so.

this is my response to readers who didn't agree with the tone of my last post (was the media trying to point out an 'against all odds' success or was it trying to convey the subliminal message that the lower caste aspirants who want reservations are no-good-idlers?)- when the media and the articulate classes in india can call dirt dirt, even if most possibly it isn't, why can't they call a spade a spade? why don't they see, (possibly irreversible, in my view) the brahminisation/rajputisation etc., of india?

brahmin journalist bags magsaysay award

a brahmin journalist is one of the seven winners, announced yesterday, of the magsaysay award this year. read also: obc candidate tops ias exam.

the mater of all expectations

i am so often disappointed by people who prove to be nothing more than kayasth or kamma or brahmin or reddy that i should have given up trying by now. but i am what those folks expect me to be: dumb. if only they raised their expectations of me! if a nair thinks i am as good as a nair, and a bhumihar thinks i am as good as him - wouldn't i have to be as good as a nair or a bhumihar? my parents would have to be as 'good' as theirs, their friends and associates as nice and the things they buy/give me as good. and my average performance at school or wherever would be as good. but, wait a second. what comes first? raised expectations or better performance? they wouldn't think better of me if i didn't perform better, right? but how can i perform better if they don't think better of me?

well, i'll perform better if the government gets out of the business of education. the government would give me vouchers and my folks would 'encash' these at a school which would provide me with 'education'. but the school my parents first take me to may not want me - they may have very low expectations of me, considering the performance of people like me had always been poor. and the next school may have the same reservations and so on...until my parents find a school for me where no khatri, bania, brahmin or maratha would ever go.or my parents, being illiterate, take me to the wrong kind of school. so, i live upto the low expectations and perform poorly. i am misjudging the market? the first school would accept me? does that matter really? i would do poorly there as well because of low expectations - look at the americans of african origin who go to the same schools, mostly, as the whites. the africans are different? look at how poorly the lower castes are expected to do at all levels, from schools to the most elite of colleges- 'the only quota candidates that actually do well are those from the upper middle class'. so except for a thin layer at the top, all quota candidates are expected to do badly- wouldn't you say the same thing about the africans in america? so the expectations are the key, right?

but 'imagine that somehow our expectations were raised'. and we kicked out the bad guys in high office and brought in 'good guys' who would have the 'leadership, courage, vision, and heaps of chutzpah' to raise the expectations of the people 'far above the prevalent average'. in short, leadership of a quality beyond expectations. but, here's the rub: given the condition that the leadership be of exceptional quality, the good guys can only be those 'expected to be good at whatever they do, whether scholarship or the arts', so they can only be brahmins and rajputs and so on because the 'bad guys'/guys like me 'are expected to generally drop out of school, engage in crime and end up in jail'.. now, when the good guys get into office, things would change?

i don't think so. because the good guys are already in high office - in a majority of the states from gujarat to jharkhand and kashmir to kerala, they already are the chief ministers. if they aren't the chief ministers, they hold all the key cabinet positions and play leadership roles in all political parties. they constitute 90% of the key secretary-level babus in the central government and occupy over 70% of the rest of the posts. and their clout extends to the state governments and the public sector enterprises. and they own the best, most influential companies in the private sector. and they're the media and the judiciary. and all the prime ministers until now have been uniformly 'good', unless you consider the jats and the vokkaligas 'bad'.

and they all have low expectations of me. how do i know? because they provide me with less all the time - access to public goods, for instance, among other things (why should they waste precious resources on someone like me who's going to perform poorly anyway? so they steal as much of it as they can). and more importantly, they treat me with less attention (because that's what i deserved...according to the historic 'script', right?). and therefore i perform poorly. the new good guys would be different? how?

the problem is not that they... you expect less of me. the problem is that you think less of me.. whether i am an african in america or a low caste individual in india. you think i am only 'sufficiently poor' even when you acknowledge that i am 'disadvantaged'. in 1947, when you were sufficiently poor it didn't stop you from giving yourselves schools that actually worked, elite colleges and universities (whether we needed them or not) that only you went to, building factories (whether we needed them or not), with my money and yours, that would employ only you, and installing institutions and offices, with largely my vote and yours, where only you could work and wield power. you 'assured yourself that both equality of opportunity and equality of outcome were mandated'. you gave your opportunism a grandiose name too- socialism.

forget equality of outcomes, you don't even want to assure us that equality of opportunities is mandated- 'here kid, take this anna and go buy yourself a good education. i don't have the time to make sure you get a good deal. or even whether you get any deal.' and even if i managed to scrape through school, despite an uncertain deal, you want to make sure that i still wouldn't get into any college that'd offer me a good deal. which, of course, would mean that i would probably get the kind of job my kind of people were always expected to get. would my kid brother even go to school if i told him - this is the best you can get? and i guess you have a grandiose name for this new kind of opportunism too. to tell us that it is nothing like socialism. in my view, the objectives and the script, of course, remain the same.

the problem is not socialism or whatever-ism: in your hands, everything will turn into your-ism. in 1947 and 1955 and 1968 and 1980 and 1986 and 1990 and whenever you were laying down education policy or trying to distort positive discrimination policy, you always maintained that equalizing of opportunities is essential. that we needed good schools more than reservations. but you never delivered. now you come back and tell me 'you need good schools more than reservations' with the complete confidence that i'd never have thought of that original idea on my own. or heard it earlier. you must think me stupid.

you think so little of me- that is the problem. you think so little of me that you feel i don't even deserve political freedom (because 'poor, illiterate people cannot meaningfully use their political freedom'- don't you mean 'sufficiently poor' people like me?). political freedom that would help me influence the way people like you look at people like me, no matter how you think of me. am i wrong if i say you make me think of other, more famous, worthies who had very similar ideas about who deserved political freedom and who did not?

i repeat, the problem is not that you expect less of me but that you think less of me. and as long as you carry this contempt, much like you carry your cherished surname, across centuries and continents and careers, you'd always have low expectations of me.

gossipy debate

i've more drafts than posts in my dashboard - so i've decided to publish this slightly old draft even though i haven't said half of what i intended to say through it. my hope - publishing it might get me interested in the subject again.

an article in The Financial Express reviews three years of UPA rule:

At the same time, I have yet to see the senior minister or his compatriots in the National Advisory Council (NAC), or even the keepers of the Marxist faith to which he has professed sudden allegiance, come up with a coherent development strategy that will secure the welfare of the aam admi. Because, as West Bengal after three decades and China since 1978 have demonstrated in different ways, there is no simple alternative strategy or a short-cut that can address the trade-off between growth and equity. Rapid growth remains the necessary condition for reducing poverty and improving the aam aadmi’s condition.

the writer is being unfair to mr.aiyer - he actually does have a development policy. let's look at the relevant parts of his now famous speech to the cii:

In these circumstances, when a proposal came before the government to spend Rs 648 crore on the Gram Nyaya department, we were solemnly informed by one of the most influential ministers in the government to remember that we are a poor country. I was delighted when the next day he was with me in a group of ministers and I reminded him of his remark and said in that case can we stop spending the Rs 7000 crore on the Commonwealth Games and he said, “No, no, that is an international commitment and a matter of national pride.” This national pride will of course blow up if you spend Rs 7000 crore on the Commonwealth Games. We will be on the cover of Time and Newsweek.

isn't that interesting? the 1982 asian games were promoted by the gandhi family fan club in the congress, which means most of the congress, as a shining example of india's national pride and their 'success' was offered as incontrovertible proof that the then heir apparent, rajiv gandhi, who was the prime driving force behind the decision to hold the games, had what it takes to be the leader of a nearly hundred year old party. and mr.aiyer had shortly after that inveigled his way into rajiv ('hope of the nation') gandhi's innermost circle of 'smart friends and aides'. even though he was still a member of the indian foreign service. so why does mr.aiyer inveigh against wasteful expenditure now? here's the answer:

I was always something of a leftist. But I became a complete Marxist only after the economic reforms. Because I see the extent to which the most important conception of Marx — that the relationship of any given class with the means of production determines the superstructure — holds.

he's a chamcha, just as narendra modi's guru is indira gandhi more than golwalkar. he was always something of a gandhi loyalist. but he became a full blown chamcha much before rajiv gandhi's death. because that's the family which determines the superstructure of the congress, more than anything else. that's what the congress had steadily become over the years, and completely so since the advent of the indira gandhi reign. so it was okay when rajiv gandhi chanted the technology+growth mantra twenty years ago, even though the marxists, those righteous pals of mr.aiyer's, had opposed the introduction of even computers in banks and in government for a good decade or so, around the same period. and now that the current head of the family, aiyer's new master, feels a vaam-panthi posture is vital to dissociate the party, and more importantly, the family, from all things that spell narasimha rao, except, of course, from whatever gratuitous credit that comes its way because of the economic upturn engendered by policy initiatives undertaken during that usurper's era, mr.aiyer suddenly finds that he too had always travelled along the same road as the marxists. going back to the article:

Three years of UPA rule is testimony to this ongoing tussle between two schools within the Congress. This is also well in keeping with the party’s traditions. One school subscribes to high GDP growth. But, as I argued in this column a fortnight ago, this has to be supplemented with an expanded coverage and better delivery of public goods and services through administrative reforms. The other school seems to believe that growth-inducing policies per se are inimical to the interests of the poor. Therefore, they focus their entire attention on increasing public spending on welfare or so-called poverty reduction measures. The underlying logic (sic) of this school is that if by some means purchasing power can be put in the hands of the aam admi, the demand impetus so created will induce the needed supply response and generate growth.

analysts attach too much significance to whatever the congress does, attribute non-existent lines of thinking, leanings etc., to whatever congressmen do. the congress, right from the ward level, hasn't had a proper election within its organisation in the last forty years or so - if the party itself doesn't care for what its members have to say, and if the partymen themselves have long given up their right to expression, why do the pundits care? i find it very amusing that mr.aiyer's speech is being quoted in the media and the blogworld as proof of conscious dissent, of the existence of two schools of thought etc., within the congress. who's mr.aiyer dissenting against anyway? his prime minister? well, he's in good company because the prime minister himself seems to disagree with what his government is doing - helping the rich (according to him). in all the over-analysis of both these statements, and of all 'assertions' of congressmen, the critical lesson that is often missed is that none of them indicate any dissent against the house of gandhi. congressmen make those statements because they are allowed to make them. like all good courtiers, they can sense the mood of the ruling family. and the mood of the family has swung leftwards, in the last few years, as a reaction to the short reign of the modern day sher shah i had referred to earlier.

i am dredging up an old bugbear? dragging in the family into a debate on critical national issues? let's see what a wise man, dr.subroto roy, who claims to have authored the script for india's liberalisatiom program at rajiv gandhi's behest has to say on this issue:

All such questions would be ones of feminine gossip or TV-soap operas in case of any ordinary woman but assume political significance for Indians because of the inordinate impact she, her father, her sons and their widows have had on India’s modern history. Why all of India’s national-level politics have acquired a gossipy joint-family tone about them is because she projected onto them no high and universally known political principles whatsoever, but merely her own personal experiences and desire for popularity.

he is talking about indira gandhi and her family. she projected onto them no high and universally known political principles whatsoever, but merely her own personal experiences and desire for popularity. replace the word she with they and you could be talking about any political party in the country. or at least, most political parties. that's what the family has done to one institution, political parties, that is required to play one of the most important roles in the functioning of our democracy. any democracy.

a dole, in other words

Citing the reasons of ‘price rise’ and ‘globalisation and liberalisation’, the Left-backed UPA government has spelled out terms of references for the sixth pay commission. Nearly 42 lakh central government employees and two crore state government employees will receive a salary bonanza that will cost the state exchequer more than Rs 1,00,000 crore a year. However, for the 11 crore farming families, all that is being promised is more credit—doubling farm credit in the next three years.

What remains unexplained is that why is the farmer expected to live on credit while the rest of the society is blessed with a fixed monthly income?

great idea, in my view. like i had said earlier, a fixed monthly dole for all rural families would be much more efficient than a hundered different varieties of schemes and price support mechanisms. but what'd all the babus do? where'd they go, is the next question. and most of the 'voulntary' sector, and the 'alleviate poverty' brigade, and the 'globalized dissenters'?

indian bushmen in amreeka

Alexandra Tseitlin, who represents Mahender Sabhnani, described the couple as "law-abiding citizens." Where at, in the 1800's in India, where their heritage goes back to local bushmen? Do they own a time machine? Don't they reside in a Northern "anti-slavery state? I say revoke their citizenships, deport them to whatever slimy they climbed out from under and distribute a good portion of their "US banked $1.8 million" to the tortured women and donate the rest to hurricane victims or another worthy cause.

from here.

was this written yesterday?

All the past experience shows that at the point of planning policy, the greatest stress is laid on universal mass education: education of women, of scheduled castes and tribes, and in rural areas. At the point of fixing quantitative targets, proportionate expansion of all sectors takes over. At the point of performance, the highest achievements are all in the field of urban education, in secondary education, upper caste education and so on. The sectors of priority in policy, including adult literacy, are the laggards in performance: this is in line with, a consequence of, and a reinforcer of the pattern of distribution of political and economic power.

that's from a book i've been reading. those lines were written in 1975.

reality check

a comment i'd posted here (which is awaiting approval... i guess):

scared of data now, rc? the whole truth, the complete picture?
in post after post you were very explicit about who opposed collection of data, why or how it was done. why are you scared of naming them, now? why are you scared of telling us why the data was suppressed and how it was suppressed, now?
1) let's look at a summary of the hints you dropped in your arguments, in your earlier posts, when you were quite sure about who was doing it :
question: who were/are suppressing data?
reality check: politicians who were scared of the 'truth'. obc politicians in particular. dravidian politicians specifically. (http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2006/06/12/politicians-vs-data-1-0/)
q: and who did they want to please by suppressing data?
rc: the obcs. because 'Unlike SC/STs, OBCs are powerful politically, economically, and socially.' (http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2006/05/16/the-usual-suspect-implementation/). 'The OBCs are the most powerful people in India today. They were also powerful yesterday, 50years back, 100 years, 200 years back.'(http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2006/04/11/another-article-mandal-redux/).
q: is there any evidence that the obcs 'are powerful politically, economically, and socially', and in fact so powerful that they are 'the most powerful people in india today'?
rc: oh yes. they own hundreds of acres of land, paddy fields, banana plantations, skodas, bungalows, businesses. look at their children! 'They go to the best of the best schools. A vast majority of them have highly educated parents like doctors, lawyers, engineers. Many of the richest families including the Tamil Bill Gates are from OBC communities.'
q: where's the *data* that records their wealth?
rc: you have to take reality check's word on that. that should be enough to tell you that they're the 'most powerful people in india today'. '..the Mudaliars, Gounders, Naickers. These communities are the powerful landownding zamins on TN.''In TN, the OBCs are Mudaliars, Pillais, Gounders, and Thevars, at least these are the dominant ones.'
q: those are a handful of caste groups from tamil nadu. they are the 'most powerful people in india today?'
rc: 'That my friend is the key. Once you start studying the actual positons in society of these OBCs, you will be amazed. The same families from ciommunities, that were not backward to begin with, are cornering most of the benefits of reservation.' (http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2006/04/11/another-article-mandal-redux/)
q: and what's the actual position?
rc: 'Everyone knows, any increase in the number of seats reserved to OBCs will instantly be cornered by wealthy and educated OBCs like Mudaliars, Lingayats, Pillais, and others. This is because these communities have really smart students who can easily beat the Forward castes exams and in the university proper. Why would they not ? They attend the best schools, are well respected in society, have both parents and grandparents who are educated, have access to the best tuition classes, and so forth.' (http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2006/04/16/the-obc-script/)
q: mudaliars, gounders, pillais...again? how about thousands of the other backward castes in india?
rc: others? india? 'OBCs from other states can never compete with OBCs from Tamilnadu. THis is one of the biggest issues that will render the nationwide reservation useless. Do you really think a Kurmi from Bihar can compete with the Pillais and Mudaliars of Tamilnadu (who are into their 4th generation medical professions) ?' (http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2006/05/15/tn-defies-national-trend/)
rc: so this issue is all about mudaliars, gounders, pillais, naickers... and how they are stopping the collection of data in all states in india to corner all the seats at the national level?
q: no, they're stopping collection of data only in tamil nadu - 'That is the reason TN has never done a study of individual classes unlike almost all other states.' (http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2006/05/22/obcs-are-52-give-or-take-230-million/).
q: so this issue is really about mudaliars, gounders, pillais, naickers.. and how they're trying to stop the collection of data in tamil nadu because they wish to corner all the seats at the national level?
rc: no. it looks like students from andhra pradesh are going to corner all the seats at the national level. ('For every AP candidate who made it, there are plenty who “just missed out”. It is anyones guess that AP will project its dominance further by monopolizing the new OBC quota as well.' http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/the-iit-coaching-centre-riddle/ ).
q: so this issue is really about how mudaliars, gounders, pillais, naickers are trying to stop collection of data in tamil nadu so that students from andhra pradesh can corner all the seats at the national level?
rc: no. the issue is all about how 'Only one community is paying for the sins of all.' (http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2006/04/12/what-about-standards/).
from the earliest posts on your blog you'd started reducing the 'most serious issue confronting us', all of us in india who bother about such things, into a virtual war against the 'mudaliars, pillais, gounders, naickers, thevars'. into a vast conspiracy to make 'only one community' pay for 'the sins of all'.
is that a 'caste-neutral' position that reflects a 'non-frivolous attitude'? and is it 'logical' in your view?
2) i'm glad you admit that your concerns are mostly about 'only one community'. i also regard that as an admission that this whole issue is about communities/castes - let's not pretend it's otherwise.
i wish you had the courage tell us 'who' actually were responsible for stopping collection of any kind of information on the obcs. i wish you'd admitted it was people like you. people who are asking 'where's the data', now. people, classes, castes, who occupied all the positions of power in all institutions comprising the indian establishment since independence. people who were wrongly taken to be 'caste-neutral' and objective for a long, long time by the indian masses. for a long time, the very issue of reservations would be dismissed by saying 'we don't to build a second-rate, third-rate nation', now opposition has taken more sophisticated forms - it pretends to understand 'the need for reservations for the truly needy' but its objective remains the same as earlier. you don't need to question the whole idea, you just need to pick one 'inconsistency' and the courts, or some other pillar of our democracy would do the job of stalling the whole process (for decades, if possible), right?
you're scared to admit who actually, consistently, opposed collection of any kind of information on the obcs because you've consistently led your 'caste-neutral' audiences to believe that it was politicians, obc politicians acting at the behest of 'powerful obcs' who were responsible for opposing any collection of 'data'.
actually, how 'powerful' are the 'powerful' obcs?
in one of your very first posts, you'd said - 'Luckily most northern states and other southern states will escape this uniquely Tamil accident of history'(http://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2006/04/12/what-about-standards/). your implication was that the rest of the country wasn't a victim of 'this uniquely tamil accident of history'. meaning this phenomenon was 'uniquely tamil'. meaning the obcs weren't as 'powerful' elsewhere as they are in tn.
and in every post after that you drop enough generalised hints to convey the impression that it is perhaps a 'uniquely pan-indian' phenomenon.
you've no evidence to claim that obcs are 'powerful politically, economically, socially' and 'are the most powerful people in India today. They were also powerful yesterday, 50 years back, 100 years, 200 years back.'
but you do it - and only sometimes add the qualifier ' obcs from tn', 'some obcs' etc.,
you've no evidence to claim that obcs were ever 'powerful politically' to influence/oppose or otherwise distort formulation of policy at the national level, leave alone subverting implementation of policy. on the contrary, there's enough evidence to justify the conclusion that the obcs have been a 'uniquely powerless' group of castes in india throughout history, and specially so after independence. we need to go back just 50 years ((not 100 years,not 200 years) to realize the extent of this 'powerlessness':
let's look at the broad categories of political actors at the national/state level after independence, and the role of obc politicians and interests in moulding policy:
* the congress occupied the largest and most crucial space in the nation's politics, and for the longest period of time, and in the version of undifferentiated 'nationalism' that they advocated, only differences that were considered significant were differences between rival upper caste groups on who got the top political jobs. over sixty percent of legislators in all the big states like uttar pradesh, bihar, madhya pradesh, west bengal, andhra pradesh, maharashtra etc., were from a few castes like brahmins, rajputs, bhumihars, kayasths, reddies, kammas, marathas etc., the parliament reflected the same kind of picture. if you check how many non-upper caste politicians were chief ministers of any state, including tamil nadu, during this period, you'll come up with not more than a handful of names. the obcs, together with muslims and all other minorities shared around 15-20% of legislative, or policy making space (the balance left after the dalits and the tribals had occupied their seats). that was the 'congress system of politics'.
* the communists and other so-called left parties, and the left within the congress did not want any part in the formulation of such policy - in true marxian analysis, the obcs, composed as they're of mostly small peasants, tradesmen, craftsmen, landless labourers, constituted 'the scum' of the earth, pre-capitalist classes who had to 'decay and die' in order that an undifferentiated proletariat could emerge. any special efforts to help them to survive would be 'reactionary' and conservative. most of these 'leftists' were again from the upper castes and the intermediate castes.
* the right, as represented by the jan sangh and to some extent by the swatantra party and others weren't interested in the issue of positive discrimination at all. their composition was almost exclusively upper caste.
that was the composition of india's political parties, elected public fora, the ruling classes, with minor changes in some states like tamil nadu, from 1947 to 1977. almost totally upper caste, the parties had no space for any obc representation at any decision-making level within their parties. and no space in their policy agendas for the obcs. in fact, most of them actually worked towards thwarting attempts to bring obc issues onto the mainstream agenda. this lopsided distribution of political power was fuelled to a large extent by historical social and economic inequalities - and in turn, it sustained and further widened these divisions. let's look at how it affected policy and thought on reservations:
* the formulation of the term 'other backward classes' itself represents a failure to correctly identify divisions within society. nehru didn't like the name 'caste' and wanted to brush away the historical, as he considered it, baggage associated with it,
* the census data of 1951, which had compiled information on castes, was suppressed,
* the kalelkar commission report, which had highlighted the continuing divisions within society, was brushed aside too in 1956,
* pre-independence policy of reservations, including those for the scheduled castes, were subjected to a barrage of litigation in the courts,
* many state governments succeeded in 'reviewing' and diluting or scrapping altogether existing (pre-independence) policy, and continuous efforts were made to rationalize 'reservations' by introducing 'economic criteria' etc., (like in bihar and andhra pradesh),
* except for a few states in the south etc., most states in the north and the west didn't really have any definite reservations policy, and policies were formulated only after the mandal commission,
* the second backward classes commission, mandal, had to be sneaked in during a brief interval during which the party divinely 'ordained' the party of governance since independence had been voted out,
* the commission's report was ignored for more than ten years, and it's not been implemented fully after twenty seven years, (an aside: how long did the govt take to decide not a single seat 'open' to upper caste students would be taken away in the iits/iims and other central institutions? twenty seven days? twenty seven minutes?)
* kalelkar and mandal had both asked for introduction of caste in at least one census, and they were both refused,
this means reservations for the obcs effectively took off, nationwide, less than two decades ago. which also means that they had started after all large-scale recruitment in the public sector had effectively dried up, and so had recruitment in government, at the state and central level. which , in effect, means that reservations for obcs were just so much hot air.
yes, you know most of the above history, but i don't think you know how the obcs interpret it. it highlights their utter 'powerlessness', their insignificance, so how can they interpret it without any resentment?
3) now i'll tell you why the mandal rulebook is more important to you, upper caste anti-reservationists, than to the obcs.
socialism as practised in india, as barbarindian says, was immoral. it stole from the many and served the interests of a select few. so when you say the select few have made 'sacrifices' or are making 'sacrifices', what can one say? you must be joking, right? the mandal commission points out quite clearly who were making sacrifices.
and this is why the question 'who' becomes important - who benefitted? who lost? the mandal commission doesn't just tell us, at a very basic level, who lost. it also tells us who gained. for the obcs, it identifies the victors. by caste. the obcs know now who the victors are, they see them everywhere, in all institutions of government and civil society, holding the reins. so time-tested starategems of questioning the legality of this act or that act, or any other methods to stop, delay or dilute reservations are recognized for what they are - pure dramebaazi. the questions the obcs want to ask are much more basic - what is the nature of indian nation? can it be called a 'nation'?
you're essentially having a debate with yourselves, rc, the obcs aren't interested in it. you read history selectively just as you choose data selectively. fifty years ago, there were two unequal sides. there still are two unequal sides...but fifty years ago no political party/group was willing to recognize the fact there were obcs in the country. now, none of them can afford to look away - each one of them recognizes the intensity of the resentment and anger, that i had talked about earlier, among the obcs. they can't hide behind any 'modern' rhetoric anymore. mandal changed all that.
obc organizations have been demanding a caste census for over twenty five years, if i remember correctly...("Do you actually know what a caste census entails ?" rc, i wish you'd be unrestrained as this in expressing your contempt for the lower castes all the time. like barbarindian who admits "i don't read books written by shudras". makes for refreshingly honest writing). ever since the mandal commission was formed. if anti-reservationists do not like the data that the ncbc has to offer, they should forget the 'illusion' that the government would go get the kind of data they want- that has been the norm for the last sixty years, when it was considered the bounden duty of the government to dance to whatever silly objections, grouses etc., the litigating upper castes nursed. no government can do that now- they've to listen to the other side too. so any 'study' that seeks to be 'selective' will naturally be opposed by the obcs.
census data on the backward castes can be collected just as data on the scheduled castes is (this is how it is collected: respondents are asked two questions: 1) does a respondent belong to a scheduled caste, 2) what caste does he/she belong to). the second question (the first question needn't be asked) would naturally be asked of all castes, not just the obcs. the obcs are defined by social/educational/economic markers. censuses already collect some socio-economic data, more information can be collected in the fresh census. and the castes can be identified as 'backward' only after all data is tabulated. don't nurse the 'illusion' that some politicians nurse the 'illusion' that a census can be selective.
so if such a census were held, and it yielded reasonably accurate numbers of each caste and if these castes were measured against the criteria for 'social and educational bakwardness' folks like you assume that a lot of castes would be excluded, right? you especially would be interested in the exclusion of certain tamil castes. now on what basis are you assuming that this'd happen?
there haven't been any marked changes in the overall development of those castes which were identified as backward by the mandal commission since it submitted its report - even the nsso has produced evidence that the backward classes are in the same position they were in in 1978. the mandal commission has said that they occupied less than 12% of lower class jobs in govt and the public sector and around 4% higher class jobs. the nsso says that they occupy less than 12% jobs in the 'formal sector', which is more damning than the mandal figure because it means the obcs share of the best jobs in the country, jobs in the organized public sector, the government and the organized private sector is less than 12% ! the nsso says the obcs score less than the average in education too. you might assume their position is better in employment in the state governments but even there the nsso says they are underrepresented. or do you, like barbarindian, believe that the obcs have grown fat on the subsidies they receive from the government and made millions from working in programmes like the nrega? talking of subsidies - do you know that an upper caste individual travlling in a car for 30 minutes probably consumes 10 times more subsidy than a lower caste individual, buying food stuffs from a fair price shop, does in 30 days? that's what a study implies - it says the total benefit to any individual from the pds works out to rs.2.50 per month. as for pro-weaker sections scams like the nrega, do you know that they usually constitute less than 3% of the centre's total budget, and out of this 3% is usually spent and out of that more than 85% goes to upper caste babus, contractors and babus? or do you think obc farmers have grown so disgusted of the surpluses they have made from subsidised inputs like fertilizer (which mostly go to support inefficient upper-caste run companies)... that they are committing suicide in droves?
instead of the number of castes/population of the castes going down there is every possibility that it'd go up. you think the tn list will go down - but look at bengal, andhra, orissa, gujarat and other states. the numbers would go up in those states. the numbers that'd come up would surprise everyone, in my view. and if a few castes which were identified as backward by mandal are excluded by this 'census' please don't assume that they'd simply step down without a whimper. the whole parameters of 'backwardness' would change. the benchmark could become 'others' instead of 'all'. 'backwardness' would be measured against 'others', the upper castes, rather than 'all'. even the '50% open category' dictum would be questioned. and ugly questions like which are the castes who benefitted the most from the existence of the government of india since independence would be asked. and the answers would provide all the evidence of the 'discrimination the obcs never faced' (according to you). for instance, consider this minor detail - before the mandal commission's recommendations were implemented, in the late eighties, the government recruitment would run to more than 2,00,000 jobs a year. it was much more in the 70s, sixties and fifties. it was going down steadily and by the time the the courts actually let the govt implement reservations in central govt jobs, it had come down drastically. do you know that the number of jobs the obcs actually got because of mandal runs to not more than 39,000 until now? compare this against recruitment of upper caste individuals, in millions, during our best 'socialist' years. and do you know that even in average yearly recruitment, the number of obcs recruited, falls much below the 27% figure? and at the current rate of recruitment obcs would probably reach the figure 27% (as a precentage of obcs in overall jobs), hopefully, in another hundred years or so?
so that's what i mean when i say the 'mandal rulebook', which has been haunting this country for twenty seven years (but which doesn't warrant ten minutes of your scrutiny), could become more important to you than to the obcs. so start praying that the obcs remember the 'mandal rulebook' in the eventuality that a census is held. and also start praying that such an eventuality doesn't arise. i realize you're already doing that...and covering that up by assuming a mask of 'objectivity' and ' caste-neutrality' and warning your readers about 'dreams of casteless society' etc., good luck.

rss/cpm

'I would dub the CPI (M) party as being the equivalent of the RSS for the Congress. They are anti-reform and completely xenophobic. What the country needs is a secular-reform combination; the Left is secular but not pro-reform. They do not give a monkey about the poor. Their concern is limited to public sector employees. They are interested in promoting a dole culture. The problem here is that the middle class receives a lot of dole. The poor do not receive dole and so the Left is caught up in the rhetoric of redistribution. They are using the poor to protect the privileges of the middle class. Everyone knows that the whole public distribution system does not help the poor. The money is not percolating down; rather it is reinforcing a self-serving state apparatus.'

meghnad desai has lived abroad too long - the cpm is the rss. and the rss is the cpm.

sweetheart deal

mr.yechury on the centaur hotel sale: “It confirms our fears that a lot of underhand deals were struck. It is a classic sweetheart deal, where public property was sold at a low price to a person close to the ruling establishment”.

the marxists are big on notional losses. they still reel out figures on how much 'revenues' the 'people of india' have lost because of the reduction in tax rates since the good old seventies. so who should feel the sting of these notional losses? except for a few hundred people from the top 1-5% of india's castes and a miniscule number of dalits, i don't think anyone from any other community ever worked there. or were offered discounts when they visited or stayed at the place because they owned that 'public property'.

so the real 'sweetheart deal' happened when the 'public' of india, the bottom 95% communities, were not even told that investments being made in their name in this particular enterprise, long ago, would actually benefit 'people close to the ruling establishment'.

so who are stauncher hindutvavadis - the marxists or the bjp? the original 'classic sweetheart deal' mr.yechury, was/is the republic of india.

the name-callers

in the last line of my previous post i had said- 'marxists and others'. who are the others? these are the rishis of our age: these are the people who identify the demons for us, the rakshasas. you know, the world bank, mncs, capitalists.

they create 'awareness' among the people about these evil forces - those demons would take over this country and starve you! and they call you strange names if you don't agree with them. and that is how they shame the lower castes into doing the right thing - fighting for the protection of upper caste jobs and privileges.

they're very clever people.

inclusive growth

one of the upa govt's refrains has been 'inclusive growth'. one way of interpreting this mantra : there would be no disinvestment. which means all the upper caste jobs in the public sector would be saved.

and what about the lower castes? they have the nrega. when in doubt about what the manusmriti has to say on certain issues, the upa government consults the marxists and others.

sainath's gayatri

this short quiz is not an alternative version of this quiz.

1) which do you think are more efficient- public sector banks because they employ more brahmins or private sector banks because they employ more brahmins?

2) when do you think the govt was more pro-poor- before 1990 when the poor stood long hours in front of fair price shops and got no rations or post-1990 when the poor stand in front of fps and get no rations?

3) who were more sympathetic to the lower castes - the central and most state governments before 1990 when they ignored their demands for jobs or the same govts after 1990 when they continue to ignore their demands for jobs?

the mess in education-watching

i came across an article (in business standard) by ajay shah titled 'the mess in education'. ajay shah blogs here. and he also writes here. he is a writer i admire..but i'm not sure i agree with what he says in the very beginning of the article i mentioned:

'Everyone thinks the government should do more on education. But the case for State involvement in education is not that clear. Education is actually mostly a private good and not a public good. I study, I benefit.'

i study, i benefit. i differ with that view: i study, my parents benefit, my wife benefits, my children benefit, my neighbours benefit, my employees benefit, my co-workers benefit, my employers benefit, my community benefits, my village benefits, my country benefits. and i benefit, of course. only the degree to which all those beneficiaries ..benefit differs. if one goes by the old saying- 'a wise enemy is better than a foolish friend'- not just my friends, even my enemies would benefit. rustic logic?

then what should one call the certitude that seems to envelop many people who write on education in india- a deep trust in the market as the only solution..make that the only right solution, to all problems affecting education? and on what evidence does their confidence rest? in india, on a few studies, mostly conducted in urban districts, that you'd find here and much confidence that the markets would work the same magic in the field of education that they have worked elsewhere. backed by 'knowledge' of how many countries in the west had already achieved universal education before the states over there had decided to intervene. very flimsy evidence in my view.

is there actually a market for education in india? if yes, how large is that market? the government lies, blatantly, that 93% of all children, starting from the age six, are enrolled in schools. and you'll find evidence in the government's own records, elsewhere, that more than 50% of the children drop out before they reach age 10. in fact, if we go by absolute numbers, the available evidence suggests that the number of parents who find education useless has actually gone up since 1947.

i repeat: how large is the market? we know it's large and attractive enough for the private sector to set up seemingly non-profit study tanks to lobby for deregulation. we know many other non-profit organizations find it profitably large to focus their selfless energies on it. we know a great number of succesful players who are already in the market have, at times, made supernormal profits. and we know it's large enough for bureaucrats in the government to have a vested interest in protecting the control apparatus in education. Hasn't that been a great avenue for extracting a steady, juicy share from the rent extracted by the providers in this nebulous market?

so, how does one estimate the size of this market? is it as large as the number of students now actually enrolled in private plus government run schools? if the government, let's assume for a moment, withdraws totally from this 'business' - would all the students now in government and private schools still remain buyers in this market (assuming further of course that enough private players would step in, in time, to fill the gap)? i don't think anybody seriously thinks that would happen. but let's explore this question and attempt to find out how many kids would still remain in the market. obviously, students who are already in private schools shouldn't be a cause for worry - those dependent on the subsidised/free education offered by the government definitely are. because they'd need to 'buy' education now. how many would be able to afford it? how many parents would actually send their kids to school even if they can actually afford it? the second question is important too because of the low enrollment figures in some places and high drop-out rates in many places. bad schools are possibly one of the reasons.. but they constitute only one reason. the other reasons would perhaps provide more vital clues as to why we still haven't been able to achieve a higher literacy rate in this country.

how many kids would be able to buy education? that'd depend on the 'price' per child, which'd again depend on the cost to the private provider, of course. this survey report, made available on the ccs india site, helps us figure out some costs. the survey was conducted in low income neighbourhoods in delhi - they might provide a good indicator of the situation in delhi but one can't be sure they provide a fair measure of what could be the costs across the country. the report tells you it costs the government rs.800 per month to educate each child in a government school. elsewhere, on the same site, you learn that the govt spends around 1000-1700 per month on every child in a government school. and on another page you come across the figure of rs.2008 (reportedly the cost per child to the uttar pradesh government). let's settle for the figure of rs.1400 per child (the average of the two extreme figures), per month.

but we know the private sector can be considerably more efficient than the govt in producing and delivering most goods and services so let's assume private schools can educate each child at around one fifth that amount - say, rs.280. the survey says that private schools catering to low income households in delhi charge around rs.240 per child, on an average. so the cost per child i arrived at wasn't way off the mark. i shall finally, finally settle for rs.250 as a reasonable estimate of what could be the average monthly fee private schools could possibly charge (inclusive of profit) each child, across the country. so how many households can afford to spend rs.250 per month on educating a child? or a sum of around rs.3000 plus a year?

technically, if we look at these figures, every family in india can spend that sum. but it'd mean that a family falling in the bottom quartile of india's population would be spending anything between one quarter to two-thirds of its earnings (if it has more than one-two children) and a family falling in the quartile above this category would be spending not less than one-fifth of its income. these are the people who make less than a dollar a day on an average and spend more than fifty cents of that on food. they're definitely not in the market for education.

30% of india's population earn a little more than this bottom half - less than one dollar and a half a day, on an average. the survey i mentioned earlier studies this class ('the climbers'). the survey tells you that around 86% of households in the areas studied send their children to government schools. around 45% of these families also spend on private tutions for their kids. you could say that roughly 30% of these children (that's around 10% of the total population) could be potential buyers in the hypothetical no-government-involvement-in-education scenario.and only because they live in a city, an environment that values education.

the top 20% ('the consumers' and 'the rich') of india's population would continue to spend more than 3000+ a year on each child's education.that'd mean around one third (the rich + the consumers + 30% of the climbers) of all kids in india would be potential 'consumers' in the new education scenario. this rougly matches the size, as estimated by many pundits, of the indian middle class of around 350 million. i believe they're both very optimistic estimates.

even this 'wealthier' top one-third of the indian population , directly or indirectly, are recipients of government largesse. one form of education vouchers, education as a tax deductible expense, benefits a large section of this class. grants and other forms of aid, subsidised/cheaper access to utilities and resources such as land to private schools etc., constitute other forms of public assistance to the production and delivery of these 'private' goods. so what kind of impact would complete withdrawal of government from education have on the strength of this market? it would definitely reduce the size of the market, i'm sure.

but the proponents of 'liberation/liberalization' of education are quite aware of all these facts. they know the bottomline: the education market in india can neither survive nor expand without the support of the government. isn't that the reason why the idea of vouchers, essentially government handouts, is being promoted? in my view, the campaign for parental choice, being spearheaded by ccs india, is a tacit admission that education is a 'public good' in india because it seeks continuation of state support, albeit in a different form.

that isn't the only dichotomy in the thinking of those seeking reform in the field of education in india. until now, in this post, i've focussed on primary education which i believe should be regarded as a public good, but i've noticed an ill-advised one-size-fits-all approach towards higher education and schools among 'reformers'. how can one formula address the different probems affecting education in urban and rural india and a vast variety of socio-economic classes in the country? this refusal to recognize the variety of factors involved is dangerous - it tends to underestimate the gravity of the situation.

what does ccs india want? it advocates, it says, parental choice. a large majority of parents in rural india and a section of urban india have time and again demonstrated their choice - they'd rather send their kids to work than to school. why? the answer, as i've implied earlier while commenting on low enrollment and high drop-out rates in india, is rather complex. but i've found this explanation on the faqs page of the mv foundation website rather enlightening:

"Q: If it is all so simple then why do children get to be sent to work at all? Why are all children not in schools?
A:Only some aspects of the issue are simple. Parents are willing and capable of sending their children to school. That is the simple part but there are a whole lot of complex issues as well. In the first place to poor parents, especially those belonging to the communities traditionally engaged in agricultural labour who by and large are
illiterate, the very task of sending their child to school instead of to work is in itself a major revolutionary step. For generations they have been led to believe that the best thing for them is to initiate their child into work at the earliest and education was never a part of their economic agenda. This is exactly the opposite of what a middle class urban parent believes. Just as in the latter case it never occurs to the parents that their child should be sent to work, to a parent in the rural area who is essentially an agricultural labourer and an illiterate to boot, sending a child to work is the most natural thing in the world."

seen in that light, one can understand how diificult it is for a rural parent, or even for an urban parent who falls in the bottom two income quartiles, to send a child to school - it is akin to participating in a revolution! so the choice before such parents is primarily between the natural inclination to send a child to work and the heterodox idea of sending it to school. and these parents form the overwhelming majority of parents who have children of schoolgoing age in india.

is ccs india interested in those children? i'm not sure. it seeks to promote choice, it says, because competition would improve standards. would it also improve enrollment? that doesn't seem to be the focus of ccs india. one does sense, however, a growing interest in a growing market. but the market, as i've pointed out above, is very limited. hence the campaign to 'create' one. do i have a problem with that?