by Balbir K. Punj

The recent events in Rajasthan are a grim reminder of where the country is being taken by Mandalisation. The Meena-Gujjar bloody conflict which had engulfed most of North India has ended for the moment, but a long term solution will not be easy. The logjam is the result of Mandalisation, the dragon seed that V.P. Singh as Prime Minister had sowed in 1990 in his bid to counter Devi Lal's challenge to his power. Once Mandalisation's floodgates were opened, many castes exerted their muscle power and crept into the category of OBCs.

As the recent Supreme Court discussions on the quota issue have revealed, OBC categorisation has been made without any credible data, except for the 1931 census, deliberately overlooking that India of 2001 is not the India of 1931. The result is incongruity in classification. Are the Jats of Haryana - the ruling class - backward? Haryana is one of the richest states in the country, agriculturally and industrially. Can the Yadavs of Uttar Pradesh be classified as backward, considering their economic status and political power?

The Catch-22 situation in which the Rajasthan government found itself, was only one manifestation of Mandalisation gone mad. The extension of reservation and job privileges to so-called OBCs was the result of the political class thus discovering a vote catching device by making wild promises to include anybody and everybody under this privileged category. The whole approach betrayed ignorance of the basic social structure and the philosophy of India. How could those who were dieting on Marx understand India's social structure? They tried to apply Marxian analysis of 19th century Europe to the Indian situation.

It is no surprise that the earliest Mandalites were the socialists who sought to ride to power on OBC support. And now the Congress has adopted this sloganeering and threatens to widen the reservation net to include Muslims and "other minorities." From caste to religion, dividing society continues unabated.

When reservation was introduced in the Constitution, it was strictly restricted to the so-called Dalits and tribals. Pre-Independence social reformers and political leaders recognised "untouchability" as a blot on Hindu society and declared its practice as punishable. On this there was total unanimity among Constitution makers. It was a means to break down caste barriers. But it was the "secular" pack that converted it to a bait offered to depressed communities to get their support for the party in power.

Instead of a national movement to make caste irrelevant, the "secularists" (read Congress and Communists) turned reservation into a permanent privilege given to these castes. This in turn helped the congealing of caste distinctions. By this subterfuge the "secularists" drained the reformist juice out of the reservation provision and ended all hopes of social reforms that could make our society casteless. No wonder soon every caste was clamouring to gain access to this privilege.

The Dalits were kept economically poor and socially ostracised. However, the other castes had their own distinct identities and took pride in their traditional skills. These skills gave them access to employment, mostly self-employment. After Independence, obsession with reservation and the elevation of government jobs as the ultimate goal, turned these skill-based castes into supplicants for government jobs.

The licence-quota raj of the Congress-Communists made the getting of government jobs the ultimate goal. In the South, the communities that traditionally used to engage in trade, commerce, small scale industry, self-employment as artisans, etc., became eager to get government jobs and were the first to divide jobs and professional courses on the basis of caste. The glass ceiling of 50 per cent reservation as per the Constitution was shattered and almost 70 per cent reservation was introduced in the name of "fairness."

Then the disease travelled north and we see the results today with the entire society riven in the name of caste, with the castes moving from self-employment and business to government service - not because they have the qualifications, but because they think it is a matter of privilege.

Social analysts who thought they were "progressive" in applying Marxian analysis to the Indian situation did not bother to consider how in Hindu society each caste was proud of itself and did not suffer from any inferiority complex. But now in a populous country as ours we have a huge scarcity of skilled labour, and a huge surplus seeking to gatecrash into sarkari naukri. Gujjars and Yadavs could have been skilled agriculturists and cattle breeders, but they want to be file pushers.

Moreover, despite reservation in government jobs, communities do not progress either vertically or horizontally as such. Does anybody ask a successful entrepreneur's caste or religion? When N.R. Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji set up their IT companies they brought wealth and fame to the country and they have, between them, lifted some 300,000 young people. Verghese Kurien turned an entire district of Gujarat into a milk oasis benefiting lakhs of milkmen; he gave the entire country a model to emulate. Neither caste nor religion was mentioned in the business processes they established.

It may not be fashionable to analyse the problem in these terms. But the developments in Rajasthan have brought to a climax what has been simmering across the country ever since the OBC debate has been re-stirred by HRD minister Arjun Singh's plan of widening his political space by resurrecting the Mandal agenda. What if the agenda does not tally with the Constitution? Change the Constitution, says DMK supremo and Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi!

To prove their backwardness, agitating Gujjar leaders show their lack of numbers in the IAS and other government jobs. But they are not counting all the opportunities they are losing in other sectors of the economy in their obsession with babudom.

Worst of all, the whole debate ignores what proper development of talent and its application can bring in terms of wealth and prestige to whole communities. Are the Bohras wealthy because they have reservations in government jobs (they don't)? No Parsi has ever claimed any reservation, but that small community has the best of businessmen, lawyers, doctors, engineers and scientists.

But development through self-help is not fashionable. Further, Leftist rhetoric ensures that enterprise is socially looked down on, risk taking is discouraged and jobs are "cushy" - that is an eight-hour stretch with a set pattern. The tragedy is that in a modern 24x7 economy, all this is irrelevant and good times are reserved only for the innovator and the resourceful.

It is the socialist-secular rhetoric that has no relevance in modern economy. Today it might be the Gujjars and Meenas fighting each other. Tomorrow it will be the others. It could be in other states where the feeling of overcrowding in reservation space becomes acuter as more communities are compressed into it and benefits shrink. Rajasthan's events are a tocsin for the country, forget Vasundhara Raje.

Courtesy: www.asianage.com, October 08, 2007