Leadership has so far used religion, sectoral baits for power

Time to take out another ‘Dandi’ March to counter ‘trading’ in votes

By Daya Sagar

A Look Through The Mist (Part-III)

It is so painful that many leaders (not only from Indian National Congress) whose elders worked for strengthening the unity of Indian people , are so often seen in the front line talking of some programme in the name of religious minorities (particularly focusing on the Muslims) and Dalits where as the “races” they have been running or are running even today have not been so far yielded much welfare of the target groups since they have been more with an eye on innocent masses as vote bank. Since the Parsis, Jains and sects like Radha Swamies do not form big lots of population , they have not attracted immediate attention of the politicians. So far not even the Christians have been of much concern for those who ‘market, for votes. The ulterior political motives of the ‘agitating’ leadership could well be seen from the fact that protestors have been also talking of `OBCs, Muslims and Christians while calling for 2nd April 2018 Bharat Bandh to protest against 20th March order of SC although The Scheduled Castes And The Scheduled Tribes (Prevention Of Atrocities) Act, 1989 ( amended in 2015) particularly refers only to the Schedule Castes and ST.
The first list of Schedule castes was drawn out by taking out leaves from the list of ‘depressed classes’ from amongst only the Hindu as was drawn by the British India Government in 1930s.Other religious leadership ( other than Sikh) had claimed that there were no educationally and socially backward ( depressed classes like in Hindu ) had claimed their being no castes amongst them.
Inspite of so much of concern shown by the “politician” for Schedule Caste , why the social and educational backwardness has instead further percolated into even the Hindu society after independence? Earlier reservations had been kept for only 10 years , that too only for SC & ST but why more and more demands from reservations from other castes from Hindu are coming day after day , why even the Christian and Muslims too are demanding reservations like SC of Hindu ? Why have not supports like caste based reservations yielded even after 6 decades for Hindus ? The new generation of Indian Muslim and Christian must examine that.
No doubt literacy levels have gone up. But the competitive skills and capabilities have still remained more only in the reach of the elite of the reserved castes and classes ( SC /ST) . So, the common Indian has to be informed for not allowing the politician to exploit the ignorance and innocence in the name of religion and caste..
If reservations in present form have not done good to the Hindu how will any reservation based on religion would benefit the poor Muslim? Indian Politician should not be allowed to divide Indian people as Hindu and Muslim in the name of reservations. The Muslims and Christians must take lessons from the plight of SC/ ST/OBC amongst the Hindu. They should not allow the rich of their class and the leaders of parties like Congress/JD/ JDS/RJD/ DMK/ TDP to exploit them in the name of religion . Power lust has grown so large that the Indian Politicians can this day even dare to play with Constitution. .
Most effective tool for removing economic backwardness is participation of the common man in the affairs of the society at the level of planning & decision making. So the elders drafting the Constitution adopted the caste based and tribe based criteria to identify the remote backward classes.
The term used was educationally and socially backward classes / castes/ tribes. In general the reasons for distress and backwardness were seen more as a result of social backwardness. The Hindu society was more accused for having socially pushed to distress for centuries as a result of the social caste system they practiced.
It was projected that the malice of social neglect based on caste system exists only in the Hindu Society. The Muslims and Christians leaders then felt pride in declaring that no social discrimination existed amongst their sects/ classes.
Where as surely their community too had social discrimination ( educational / professional backwardness ). So, caste based reservations were kept only for the Hindu in the form of Schedule Castes . As regards the Tribes , reservations were kept for the tribes as a whole irrespective of the castes / religion a tribe may comprise of. All Brahmins, Rajputs, Banias and other segments / casts / sects / religions from amongst the tribes were to benefit from the reservation kept for Schedule Tribe.
AS the time passed , the injustice done to the Muslims and Christians by their own elite leadership started surfacing. It was a hard reality that Muslims and Christians too live in same social environments. They too had / have some social / discrimination classification based on the profession/ economic weakness / administrative level. Hence internal protest have now started surfacing from within the weaker sections of Muslim and Christian for their having not been included in the reservations as were kept for the Schedule Caste from amongst the Hindu. But unfortunately , still, some elite socio political leadership of the Muslim and Christian instead of accepting the truth of social discrimination existing in their society too, are now raising demand for constitutional provision for religion based reservation for all Muslims in proportion to their population . It is more damaging approach than what the British had adopted.
Elite of the Muslims and Christians would walk away with the benefits if reservations are kept on the basis of religion as has happened with the SC/ST/OBC amongst the Hindu. The real needy SC/ ST is still at the bottom although the 10 year provision is still there even after 60 years. Instead more classes/ castes have been identified amongst the Hindu in the name of other backward classes.
To be continued
(Daya Sagar is a Sr Journalist and social activist can be reached at dayasagr@yahoo.co.uk