So what is “Merit” anyway ?
If the CPI-Mafioso were to have its way it would give constitutional sanction to this new perverse definition according this to PTI report.
?The CPI(M) on Saturday sought withdrawal of the government’s reported decision to set the criteria of 60 per cent marks for scheduled caste and tribe students to get post-metric scholarships, saying it was against the norms of social justice.
So what rationale is the CPI-Mafioso offering for this perversity.
“The Finance Ministry and Planning Commission who are instrumental in pushing for this decision are trying to impose their flawed understanding to cut subsidies, in this instance at the cost of dalit and tribal students,” the party Polit Bureau said in a statement here.
So let us get this right here. According to the CPI-Mafioso the Finance Ministry is trying to impose its “flawed understanding”.
So what would this “flawed understanding” be ?
That merit ought not to be measured by performance. ?Perhaps the flaw in understanding according to the CPI-Mafioso is not about performance being the criteria for merit but that SC/ST students dont perform.
So to all those SC/ST students who have been working hard to perform and realize their aspirations, the message from the CPI-Mafioso is very clear. It does not believe you are good enought to compete. It believes that the majority of you under-perform. Hence it does not want performance to be the criteria to assess merit.
How do you like being stereotyped, undermined in this manner ?
Well thats not all, the CPI-Mafioso wants to go further here.
Observing that the percentage of such students in professional institutions was already “dismally low”, it said such a decision was “against the norms of social justice” and would “lead to further marginalisation” of students belonging to the oppressed sections.
Demanding withdrawal of the decision, the party urged the government to bring an appropriate central legislation to bring private institutions under social control in key areas like fees and admissions.
So to the CPI-Mafioso Social Justice is not about ensuring more opportunities for SC/ST students to realize their aspirations but it is merely about making up numbers.
The CPI-Mafioso’s true intentions become clear with these remarks from Brinda Karat.
“This is part of the government’s drive to enforce subsidy cuts which will be at the cost of the dalit and tribal students. It is highly objectionable,”
This is not about Social Justice anymore. This is about making the SC/ST students dependent on its brand of entitlement so it can use them as a vote bank.
?Offstumped Bottomline: Beware of the Communist bearing entitlements in the name of Social Justice. For these entitlements will lead to a perverse state of affairs where Incompetence becomes the new benchmark for Social Deprivation. The War on Social Justice must continue until the Congress’ brand of Communal Socialism and the Communist Culture of Entitlement have been soundly defeated.
Is the Indian Right upto the challenge ?
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Susan Kishner
[...] Original post by Offstumped [...]
What is your problem, dude? In many boards and universities, 60% is not such a dismissive number. Even if it were, whats the harm in giving scholarships to SC/ST students for the mere the fact that they have made it to the ‘post-metric’ level.
Given the pathetic state of public schools, its an achievement that those students have tolerated the racist hatred/ridicule they invariably endure in schools and colleges, instead of just quitting.
If you haven’t noticed SC/STs still make up a negligible percentage of the graduates in this country. “Upper caste Jealousy” should not be a factor in Public Policy. Atleast not when it comes to SC/STs who thoroughly deserve any assistance they can get from this racist country.
Racist country?
BS.
Troll alert, cleanup in aisle 1, I guess.
Coming to reservations, the creamy layer thing is a bummer. The children of those who’ve previously enjoyed reservations now take up a big majority of the reserved seats in edu and in govt jobs both.
The insincerity of the current political class also manifests abunduntly in this issue.
[...] http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2008/02/02/incompetence-the-new-benchmark-for-social-deprivati... [...]
At the first point, these are not merit based scholarships. This subsidy was cut down to assist the communal budget (15 %).
You are barking at the wrong tree.
Praada – is this a fact or a conjecture ? If this was not based on merit then how can it be called a scholarship. That would make it a plain subsidy is you rightly characterized it. Thats an even worse entitlement. In any case if you have any references to how this subsidy cut contributed to communal budgeting i would be interested to read.
Balaji – i am ok with merit based scholarships with performance as the criteria. That conveys the message that nobody is entitled to anything and encourages a performance culture.
Yes, it is a fact that the scholarships mentioned here are never based on Merit. This is meant to not keep the students of SC/ST away from studies after metric. It has to be paid by the state govts. with the grants from centre. The news about this new criterion has been already in one of the regional news papers of AP a few days back.
My viewpoint on the matter leans mostly right. Reservation based on caste in educational institutions is against democratic norms and makes no sense in the 21st century. The only thing I may accept is 1) These institutes adopt a soft policy of ensuring some diversity in the incoming class by ‘adjustments’, if necessary. 2) Providing financial assistance to persons of ANY caste whose situation requires it, given they are able to meet the standards set by the institute.
Balaji, I am distressed by your sentiment. Entitlement culture is a good chunk of the reason why caste politics is still so prevalent. Examination scores are the basis for ensuring incoming students are able to keep up with the curriculum set by the post-metric institution. What is the point of accepting students who can’t meet the bar, who eventually just flunk out because they can’t keep up?…and yes, this has been the case with many “SC/ST” students who were admitted solely because of entitlement. Should a “Reserved” curriculum be set as well? I am sure the Commies, Lalu, Mayawati, and a set of parasitic elements in the Congress like Arjun Singh and Meira Kumar would LOVE the idea! The next step will be finding these low-performers jobs, as well – oh right, we have private sector reservation coming. Yeh Hai India Baby!
Janpar – whatever Balaji said was true.
You like to set the same bar for the people educated in convents and International schools to the people who study in Govt schools where there are no teachers at all. !!!!!!!!!!!
Actual issue here was that this reservation methods have been abused by a few and everyone holds the whole communities responsible for it. And the lawmakers are from the elite ruling class.
Talking about the low-performers, can anyone here do a class 4 job ??
Reservation in private sector is a strict no no. I don’t think it will be as easy as said to implement.
Pravda,
>>You like to set the same bar for the people educated in convents and International schools to the people who study in Govt schools where there are no teachers at all. !!!!!!!!!!!
Studying in schools where there are no teachers at all should affect all students enrolled in such schools — why a caste criterion for scholarship then? Moreover, the problem we should be addressing is the bettering the lot of such schools. Teachers should be appointed pronto to such schools, and these new hires must have scored at least 60% in _their_ qualifying exams. What do you think? Or do you suppose that students (of whatever caste) who go to government schools do not deserve good teachers?
>>Actual issue here was that this reservation methods have been abused by a few and everyone holds the whole communities responsible for it.
You sound like Comrade Balaji to me. Comrade is the Emperor of the Extremities, and the High-priest of Hyperbole, do not fall into his trap. Where in this thread did you see “whole communities” being held responsible, except by YOU? YOU are the one holding whole communities responsible. YOU believe that students studying in teacherless schools should not be given scholarships if they happen to belong to certain communities!!
Reservation is something which the Hindtutva brigade will never understand. In France, its the right wing Sarkozy who supports Positive Discrimination for Legal Immigrants and their descendants. Not the socialists (Royal’s party).
Even otherwise, Reservation is entirely a rightwing concept. Treating everyone as equal (and stupid!) is a communist idea not a rightwing one. Entitlement is a very dishonorable and mischievous word invented by upper caste hooligans to tarnish a welfare measure. SC/STs are not getting support because they are entitled to. [Entitlement is what Anglo Indians get in legislature, which I disapprove.] SC/STs get reservation precisely because, that status is one of the easiest and failproof way to identify people who have been discriminated by the Indian society.
Calling Dalits as Hindus is also a mischievous propaganda. If Hindu means just “the religion of the people of India”, then its alright. But if it means the Brahmanical hegemony religion as described by Manu Smriti and propagated by Ramayan, then calling Dalits as Hindus is non-sensical.
As per the first definition, Dalits being people discriminated by the rest of the society be it ‘fifth’ varna of the Brahmanical religion or the current day outcastes among Christians, Muslims, Sikhs etc, they all deserve assistance from the government.
We should not confuse OBC reservation or Muslim reservation with SC/STs. To begin with SC/ST reservation has a constitutional sanction. Besides a zillion studies will prove that a SC/ST person even in this day and age remains more likely to be poor and a victim of discrimination. That is not the case with OBCs and Muslims. First there is no consensus on who OBCs are. Even if it were, the creamy layer in such communities is much bigger and deeper than among SC/STs.
An across the board, OBC and Muslim reservation makes no sense and is very unlikely to benefit OBCs and Muslims who actually deserve assistance. Identifying Dalits among Muslims (already done in many states) seems a more practical approach.
@balaji
It’s one think to be genuinely concerned about dalit issues, but to use that issue to propogate lies and hatred for hindus, now that’s the job of a marxist-commie traitor or a self hating hindu. Your arugments seem plagiarized from romila thapar’s who refuses to acknowledge the existence of hinduism to please her marxist masters.
Every relegion has it’s ‘dalits’. The christians have persecuted protestants, jews; muslims have persecuted shias. the Bible and quran legalize slavery, and killing of the infidels. So to single out hinduism, for the evils that are present in all relegions, is retarded. Even the holier then thou commies, persecuted and massacred in thousands the “Bourgeoisie” classes. so why this singular hatred for manu smriti, something that was written 2500 years ago ? why dont u comb through the bible or quran, or das kapital and see clear instances of discrimination and hatred, and please spare us your BS.
all caste based reservations should be banned. Every school child should be given the best education possible. there should be only economic criteria for reservations. all commie/marxists should be either exiled or fumigated =)
>> so why this singular hatred for manu smriti, something that was written 2500 years ago ? why dont u comb through the bible or quran, or das kapital
whoa, who’s supporting sharia or creationism here? if you haven’t read my comment and a related offstumped post, I specifically asked for dalit status for people discriminated by Christians, Muslims, Sikhs etc.
>> all caste based reservations should be banned. Every school child should be given the best education possible. there should be only economic criteria for reservations.
yeah, dream on. If every child could be given the best possible education, who’s gonna demand reservation?
Balaji, all I infer from your commentary is a desire to see some sort of ‘re-distribution’ of wealth, jobs, property, businesses to make up for past abuses against Dalit’s. That is about as socialist-communist as you get…and you comment about “Upper-caste hooligans” makes it that much more difficult to take you seriously. Reverse discrimination is discrimination, nonetheless – no more justified, despite what Lalu or MSY or Mayawati or anyone else tells you.
>> re-distribution’ of wealth, jobs, property, businesses to make up for past abuses against Dalit’s.
nonsense. reservation is about the present. that right wing idea is to identify people who are lagging behind and fast track them on the development path. dalit/tribe status is a fail proof way to identify a significant chunk of such beneficiaries. among others, its fair to use an economic criteria over and above a social criteria like obc, muslim, disabled, girls etc.
>> Reverse discrimination
yeah, you can did this to the list of chic words invented by upper caste hooligans.
>> I specifically asked for dalit status for people discriminated by Christians, Muslims, Sikhs etc.
BAD gone to WORSE!!!!!
Yossarian,
Do you really have to inflict retarded inbreds like Balaji on rest of your readers.
@balaji
dude, you wanna hate hindus, just say that, dont hide behind your ignorant arguments about dalit welfare.
“yeah, dream on. If every child could be given the best possible education, who’s gonna demand reservation?’
thats the whole point, create equal education opportunities for all students, with public private participation, that should be main thrust, that would be the common sense, market based, solution driven approach.
Supporting an inadequate education system, by providing reservations, to the dalit is treating the symptom, not the disease. that is the commie way of dealing with things, incompetent and stupid. No wonder there are no commies anywhere else in the world.
@balaji
“I specifically asked for dalit status for people discriminated by Christians, Muslims, Sikhs etc.”
by that argument, the hindus were discriminated, against for 500 years of mughal rule, and 200 yrs of british christian rule, are we collectively entitled to any ‘reservations’ ? how about some hindu reparations ? haha
Aryan,
>> by that argument, the hindus were discriminated, against for 500 years of mughal rule, and 200 yrs of british christian rule, are we collectively entitled to any ‘reservations’ ?
again missing the point. reservation is not about setting right the wrongs of the past. its about clearing the current mess. dalits needs assistance because they are poor and are discriminated TODAY (and in the recent past).
your payback mantra is the one that led to Babri masjid demolition. “you razed 30000 temples, let me raze 3 of yours!”. but what about the Buddhist/Jain temples (possibly including Tirupati!) taken over by ‘Hindus’? vengeance is a disastrous path. pages of history cannot and should not be retraced and rewritten.
to re-emphasize: reservation is not about the past, its about the present.
Donning his “pro-dalit” avtar which he picked up from early 90’s soc.culture.tamil rhetoric of privileged-caste Lankan Tamils, Comrade Balaji bellowed:
>>Calling Dalits as Hindus is also a mischievous propaganda
Here’s some education for the Comrade. It is precisely because they are Hindus that casteist upper caste Christians don’t want them educated.
Take Goan Christians. The Briganzas, D’Souzas and Rodrigues (what funny names — kinda like white guys calling themselves Motilals and BanarasiDases
. These people are converted upper caste — often Brahmin — Hindus. The North Kannada – Konkan region was (and is) a stronghold of Brahmanist Hinduism, dotted with many holy Hindu sites. The portuguese destroyed many, but some remain, like Gokarn. They also converted Goan brahmins, forced themselves on their women and gave the offspring names like “Briganza”. These guys have nary a shade of pale in them. They are as dark-skinned as the next desi, though names are imported. And as casteist as many desis. There is this Goan catholic guy, now deceased, who went very high up in civil service. People whisper that it was not because of his merit, but because of using his caste and religion card.
These upper caste Indian Christians do NOT want Hindu dalits to be educated. There are upper caste Indian Christians in the US (note that most all India Christians in the US are high caste, not from dalit background, though dalits make up the bulk of Indian Christians): very casteist, and they don’t want SCs and STs to be educated.
Why, you’d ask. Because an educated Hindu (dalit or otherwise) is much less susceptible to conversion games. So that a white-skinned Alan de Lastic, now deceased, can be the head honcho of Indian branch of the Vatican and rule over a largely dalit population. So that a brahmin Nirmala can run the racket called sisters of charity.
So what do these caste Christians do to stop SCs and STs from getting educated? They try and shut down schools meant for them. This is what they attempted:
Some Hindu organizations are running one-teacher schools. This experiment has been hugely successful, because these schools are run at a very low cost, and run at times of day flexible and convenient for the children who have to help their families. The caste christians couldn’t stand this, because lower-caste people were being educated! That makes it difficult for modern day de Nobili’s to sell them snake oil pretending to be “roman brahmins”. So the caste Christians in the US teamed up with commies to run a campaign abroad to try and stop funding to these schools from NRI donors. This hate-filled campaign meant primarily to wreck education initiaves for dalits was named, not very ironically, “a campaign to stop funding hate”.
The campaign backfired. The Bringazas and the Mathews had to slink back into the casteist hole they came from. The Hindu organizations that upper caste Chrsitians targetted came out with flying colours attracting more funds than ever for their school program.
Comrade Balaji reminds of many people; he surely reminds me of commies; but he also reminds me of these caste Chrisitans whose only use for lower castes is to swell the ranks of the church — not to educate them or treat them as equal human beings. Rhetoric on the net; but casteist mischief backstage to keep dalits down.
@BALAJI
“your payback mantra is the one that led to Babri masjid demolition. “you razed 30000 temples, let me raze 3 of yours!”. but what about the Buddhist/Jain temples (possibly including Tirupati!) taken over by ‘Hindus’?”
http://www.bharatvani.org/books/htemples2/ch5.htm
please read an excerpt from this chapter to answer that wacky accusation.
The recent spurt of accusations that Hindus also were bigots and vandals like Christians and Muslims, seems to be an after-thought. Apologists who find it impossible to whitewash Christianity and Islam, are out to redress the balance by blackening Hinduism. Till recently, the Marxists were well-known for compiling inventories of capitalist sins in order to hide away the crimes committed in Communist countries.
“pages of history cannot and should not be retraced and rewritten.”
history will be re-written because indian history does not truly reflect the brutalization of hindus under mughal rule, the macaulayization of the Indian mind, or the marxist historians hatred for all things hindu and Indian. for the real of history of India, read FREE ONLINE voice of India books.
http://www.geocities.com/voi_publishers/Online.htm
Ot,
Excellent piece! You have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that Dalits are Dalits irrespective of their religion. And hence you should also support reservation for Dalits.
Aryan,
can you cut the crap. people like you never read history and blame anyone who does read as marxists!
Well, then the fundamental right to convert religions should be revoked.
I too support reservations for dalits, but never extend to the affliates of foreign cults called as religions of minorities.
@balaji
you should cut the psychotic reasoning, people like you are the marxized, macaulyzied, bastardized version of what some indians have become, after reading marxist history. =) if reading ‘real’ indian history still doesnt help you, there are plenty of newer, more specific drugs that would help with your marxist psychosis.
Comrade Balaji,
>>You have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that Dalits are Dalits irrespective of their religion.
I actually proved that upper castes are upper castes irrespective of religion, and that a name like “Briganza” should not mislead you into believing that the person answering to that name cannot be a casteist bigot. If he is pretending not to have caste, it is because he’s playing to the Church’s agenda of absolving itself of any blame for 1) converting dalit Hindus by selling them lies and snake oil and 2) then subjecting them to caste discrimination and abuse.
>> And hence you should also support reservation for Dalits.
I do. I very much support reservation for dalit Hindus subject to certain conditions to make sure the benefits of reservation are enjoyed by ALL dalit Hindus, not the “creamy layer” among them.
I’d support reservation for dalit Christians too as soon as the Church and the casteist Briganzas admit the following points:
1. That the Church lied to dalit Hindus when it converted them
2. That there is not only caste in the Church, but that there is rampant discrimination and abuse of lower caste Christians in the Church
3. The Church will part-fund the cost of reservation for dalit Christians, as reparation for #1 above.
A statement from CBCI agreeing to the above three points would suffice.
What say, Comrade?
Ot,
And which Hindu organization ‘officially’ recognizes that Dalits are ‘untouchables’? It doesn’t matter whether the CBCI/SGPC/AIMPLB recognize caste in ‘their’ religions. Its the duty of the government to identify and assist groups that are discriminated and hence lag behind in socio-economic development.
Creamy layer concept should not be applicable for SC/STs. Such a layer is very slim and even the most educated and rich SC/STs suffer discrimination. There have been very few people as qualified as K R Narayanan or Justice Balakrishnan to occupy the posts they did or do now. But the media never wastes an opportunity to dismiss them as coming from the Dalit quota.
Now that the discussion is so offtopic you might wanna read this amusing Economist piece which appeared yday.
Commie Balaji needs to get the blast.
You are a brainwashed convert. Maybe you need to rest your soul somewhere else. Barkhas, Sardesais and Thapars are a great deal for you.
Christians too have mastered Al Taquiya.
A simple solution is to provide scholarships / fellowships in return for public / social service. Students who enroll in the Peace Corps in the US get loans deferred in return for about 2 years of service. In India have them agree to work for 2 years in a the army core of engineers or in rural posting or in villages with high SC/ST populations for two years in return for free tuition and living costs. Allow only SCs and STs to compete for these awards. The competition will force SCs and STs to do better for themselves and their community.