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Murder by negligence
On Record
Profile
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A Tribune Special Census or not, casteless India ought to be our vision, says Uttam Sengupta
The ground was being prepared for the past several decades. B.P. Mandal of the Mandal Commission fame had persistently raised the demand during the eighties and the nineties while several high courts, among them the Madras High Court as late as last week, have been endorsing the need for a caste count. The Union Social Justice Ministry made a recommendation to this effect last year and pleaded that not only should there be a caste count but there must also be an assessment of their ‘backwardness’. Dramatic changes, argued the Ministry, would have taken place in both the composition of castes as well as conditions of the people. A caste-based census, it felt, would not just furnish authentic numbers but also allow the government to assess the changes welfare schemes and affirmative action have brought about among the people. This, the Ministry had argued, would be a step towards eliminating , not re-affirming, caste identities in the long run. Equal opportunities for all, it hopefully added, would eventually eliminate caste. Similar arguments have been made in the media during the past few days. We must understand and embrace caste first in order to eliminate it, wrote a noted columnist in a leading newspaper. The editor of another newspaper took a swipe at ‘guilt-ridden liberals’ for under-estimating the power of caste; while the convenor of the NDA and president of Janata Dal (U) Sharad Yadav wrote in a newspaper article, “ A caste census gives an opportunity to deprived people to know their numbers and assert their identity…let us remove caste by knowing it more clearly”. The ‘guilt-ridden liberals’ have not been quiet though. Iconic Amitabh Bachchan wrote in his Blog that he did not believe in caste and , if asked, would say that his caste was ‘Indian’. The President of the Centre for Policy Research, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, was eloquent in condemning the demand. “At one stroke, it trivializes all that modern India has stood for, and condemns it to the tyranny of an insidious kind of identity politics,” he wrote while senior defence analyst K Subrahmanyam declared that the demand for a caste census did not stem from the politicians’ desire to improve the living conditions of the disadvantaged but from the design to create vote banks. The debate has just been joined and in the coming weeks one can expect it to intensify further. The caste count has also been obviated by the growing demand from Muslim and Christian communities for extending the benefits of reservation to them. While both religious groups officially claim to be caste-less, in practice there are a large number of Dalits and Backward classes in both the communities. Their argument has been that if a Hindu barber, cobbler or a scavenger is entitled to ‘reservation’, why should there be any discrimination for Muslims or Christians doing the same work and coping with similar prejudices, discrimination and backwardness? The complexities involved in a caste count makes it imperative that we take a dispassionate and detached view of caste. Ironically, even the votaries of a caste census are vocal in condemning the caste system. It is clearly indefensible. Even Sharad Yadav calls caste a ‘bitter reality’ of India and asserts, “ We should get rid of it”. Whoever is the ghost writer of his article in an English newspaper came up with this gem of a sentiment, “ To annihilate it (caste), we have to understand it in its entirety and make an all-out assault on it”. While a caste count does appear to be a fait accompli, there should be no doubt in our mind about our vision of India. Fifty years from now or even earlier, we would all like India to be a caste-less society, a land without any caste discrimination. And it is because of this vision that there is this nagging apprehension that a caste count may inflame passions, strengthen caste divisions and mobilise people on caste lines. It will be a tragedy if this happens and the onus is on the supporters of a caste count to ensure safeguards against the virus. One obvious safeguard is to ensure that a caste count, if at all it takes place, does not take place with every census. It might be a good idea to lay down specific rules that a caste count, if necessary, can be conducted only once in 50 years. The other, and an even more important safeguard, is to ensure electoral reforms. A proportional system of election and the compulsion of a winning candidate to secure at least 50 per cent of the votes polled will go a long way in reducing the impact of caste in securing political power. There could well be other safeguards which require to be debated in the public domain. It is, of course, strange that in this day and age we are still stuck with our obsession with caste because the system and the divisions have lost their logic and relevance. The scriptures, after all, prescribed only four castes and that too on the basis of functionality. Who created the other castes and when? The Mandal Commission listed some 2,300 ‘Other Backward Castes’ alone! But how are they still relevant when Brahmins join the Army and fight, Kayasthas and Vaishyas get into professions like medicine and teaching and the Shudras start trading ? The Census records the age, literacy, address etc. of citizens. And it would certainly be great if the exercise can include their income, education, health details besides the state of litigation, mixed marriages, mental and physical disabilities, number of widows in the family and similar other details. It would have been a progressive move designed to take full advantage out of the decennial exercise. But no political party appears to have spoken out in favour of broad-basing the census on these lines. It is the caste count that politicians clearly favour above everything else. It is not very difficult though to see why. Elections and employment are the two areas where caste constituencies matter. These are the areas where politicians can rouse the rabble, play on their fears, suspicion and insecurities. More the number of castes, more the number of caste leaders and higher the chances to strike deals. Even the Madras High Court, while directing the Centre to hold a caste census across the country, observed that the number of Dalits in the country would have gone up manifold since 1931, when the last caste-based Census was held. The ‘quota’ for the Dalits, however, has remained fixed since the beginning and hence a caste-based census is required to broaden the base and empower the disadvantaged sections, it added. While the argument may not be without merit, it overlooks the reality that job quotas have not led to a dramatic improvement in the lives of Dalits or tribals in this country. At several levels, jobs reserved for them go abegging. A caste-based census of school drop-outs and students going into colleges, or a caste-based census in factories and work places would possibly provide far better insights than a general caste-based census. At the same time, the ‘quotas’ too have failed to deliver. Although jobs in the Central Government were reserved for OBCs way back in 1993, speakers in Parliament agreed that the percentage of OBC employees is nowhere near the ceiling fixed for them. Similar is the case with the SCs and the STs. Also, every year an increasing number of groups raise their voice for inclusion in the list of SCs and STs so that they too can share a piece of the pie. It is illustrative to cite the example of Kurmis in Bihar. They were once considered Scheduled Castes but they themselves claimed to be Kshatriyas and opted out of the list. While they are now deemed to be OBC (Other Backward Caste) in Bihar, in neighbouring Jharkhand they are insisting on being given the status of tribals. It also does not require a great degree of research to conclude that reservation of seats in state legislatures and in Parliament on the basis of caste and ethnicity has actually failed to work. It was a flawed and questionable principle from the beginning because it assumed that only people belonging to the same caste or ethnicity would be able to work for the benefit of their own community; that a man belonging to the Scheduled Castes would be the ideal representative of an SC-dominated constituency and that a member of the Scheduled Tribes must represent a constituency reserved for STs. The constitutional validity of reserving these seats has not yet been tested. But with several reserved seats having just about 50 per cent of SC or ST voters, it is questionable how or why the ‘other’ half can be perpetually denied the privilege of representing the people. A far more rational, if not entirely scientific, recourse would be to leave it to the political parties to nominate ‘X’ per cent of SC and ST candidates to represent either constituencies of their choice or a set of rotational constituencies as is being envisaged in the Women’s Reservation Bill. Much has changed since Bhim Rao Ambedkar, deemed to be untouchable, was asked to sit outside the classroom. But even 62 years after Independence, reservation for Dalits and affirmative action, caste discrimination is yet to end. In many parts of the country, including in Communist-ruled and supposedly progressive West Bengal, Dalit school children continue to sit on bare floors while students from the upper castes occupy the benches. There are schools where children refuse to eat the mid-day meal because the food is cooked by a Dalit. There are villages which refuse to accept a Post Master from a lower caste. Although such acts are liable to be punished, the tolerant ‘soft’ state generally prefers to look the other way. Caste, therefore, must go. What we need is a renewed assault on poverty and caste, not necessarily a caste
count.
What’s wrong with it? l
Caste remains a defining category and deep-rooted Indian reality. l
Enumeration necessary to find out authentic figures. l
Census will indicate the effect of welfare schemes and affirmative action. l
No provision in the Constitution against a caste count l
Caste count was discontinued in 1941 because of the second world war. l
Lower castes lose out if their caste identity is suppressed l
Buddha, Kabir, Vivekananda, Dayanand Saraswati, Guru Nanak, Gandhi and even
Ambedkar failed to break the caste system l
Caste is about kinship and community and not discrimination l
Market forces, urbanisation and globalisation will eventually eliminate caste
It will cost us dear l
Real purpose is vote bank politics l
Condemns people to the tyranny of compulsory group identities l
Universalising education, health, food security, etc. does not require a census. l
Mobilisation will take place on caste lines l
Legitimacy of every institution, say the judiciary, cannot be measured in terms of caste l
Upliftment of the disadvantaged can be done through affirmative action l
Castes are dynamic, change with state boundaries and are insidious l
The energy, effort and the money are not worth it
Dr B.R. Ambedkar had called for annihilation of caste itself. But neither affirmative action nor progressive reservation nor education seem to have made any dent in the
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Murder by negligence
One had earlier hoped that the radioactive material came to the scrap yard from abroad or through the work of a petty thief. The fact that the culprit was Delhi University makes one sad and angry at the same time. Imagine a handful of trained terrorists rounding up radioactive material from the scrap yards, assembling a dirty bomb and detonating it at a time and place of their choosing. (I can very well visualise the national response: India will not be cowed down by such cowardly acts.) The Delhi University Vice-Chancellor has publicly apologised and owned moral responsibility. But moral responsibility makes sense only if it follows fixing of material responsibility and handing out punishment the severity of which is commensurate with the magnitude of the crime. Our response so far has been disappointingly true to type. Whenever a fatal accident occurs, the government announces compensation with a haste bordering on indecency. It is as if payment of death money or offer of government job not only condoles death but condones it also. Of course, one can justify such ex-gratia payments on the ground that they are meant to meet the affected families’ immediate requirements. But then, these moneys should be recovered from the persons found guilty, and not be a charge on the government. Again displaying a knee-jerk reaction, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development has asked the University Grants Commission to frame guidelines for the universities on procurement, use and disposal of hazardous substances. There are already in place such regulations and guidelines, issued by bodies more powerful and credible than the UGC such as the Atomic Energy Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even if the UGC lays down its guidelines, they can only be a paraphrase of extant ones. The first thing to find out is whether extant rules have been followed or not. If it is discovered in the light of actual experience that rules and regulations need to be amended or strengthened, such an exercise should be taken up. Whenever a tragedy occurs, we baulk at finding out what exactly went wrong, who was responsible and how such tragedies can be averted. Instead, our response is a phlegmatic Jo hona tha so ho gaya (What was to happen has come to pass). Whenever any item is purchased with government funds, it is immediately entered into a stock register. The stock entry gives the details of the product, supplier, price, etc. Removing an item from a government stock register is a non-trivial exercise. A committee appointed by the department chairman, headed by a senior faculty member and comprising technical experts must identify items to be disposed off. The proceedings of this committee must be approved by the chairman who is professionally qualified to do so. While a duly appointed enquiry committee will hopefully flesh out the details, prima facie it is clear that the Delhi University Chemistry Department worthies, notwithstanding their doctorates, assumed or prayed for reasons of convenience that four decades would have rendered the radioactive source harmless if not actually benign. It may not be out of place to make a couple of points the importance of which goes beyond the current tragedy. During the Second World War, throughout the world, scientific experts were taken away from the universities and pressed into government war effort. But as soon as the war needs were over, universities were restored. Most regrettably, what was a contingency plan for the West was made into a national policy by independent India. We have precipitously devalued our universities and pumped in all our capital and human resource into national labs. Promotion policies are driven by trade unionism rather than merit. Practical training, school upwards, has been given up. The quality of textbooks and teaching has come down. A hundred years ago when Europe honoured Jagdish Chandra Bose for his pioneering radio wave researches, Rabindranath Tagore with poetic excess declared Bose to be God’s instrument in removing India’s shame. Those were indeed the days when God operated through the West. It would not have crossed Tagore’s or anybody else’s mind to demand why God could not deal directly with India. The Prime Minister, the Science Minister and eminent scientists downwards, we have been concerned with making an impact on the West by publishing research in high-impact, well-cited international journals so that we can pass off as a modern nation. Science education, broad-based pursuit of science, and integration of science into society and economy in general have all been ignored. All our scientific efforts have consistently been directed at contriving the tip of an iceberg except that the rest of the iceberg is not invisible but non-existent. An Indian-born Venki getting Nobel Prize in Chemistry is not India. A university chemistry professor handing over a hazardous radioactive source to an illiterate scrap worker in Delhi is. The 17th century English statesman, George Savile, Marquess of Hastings, justified death penalty for horse thieves in these memorable words: “Men are not hanged for stealing Horses, but that Horses may not be stolen.” Some hangings have long been due in
India. The writer, a former Director of NewDelhi’s National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, is currently CSIR Emeritus Scientist, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali
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On Record Spreading awareness on conservation among children has been an important area for WWF India. Ravi Singh, who was in Dehradun recently, shares his thoughts with The Tribune. Excerpts: Q: There has been no study on the impact of hydro projects on the ecology and wildlife. Why? A: A comprehensive study is imperative. Ecological disturbances on the Ganga could be disastrous and one needs to tread cautiously. WWF-India too has embarked upon a project to identify critical ecological areas that should be protected from hydropower development. Q:
Corbett has been a troubled spot in recent times. The Prime Minister has
expressed concern over rampant tourism in Corbett. A: We must differentiate between tourism and eco-tourism. The Corbett Tiger Reserve is partially ringed by tourism development and this is cutting off wildlife movement in different forest areas. Development in the Gola corridor has almost blocked this area for animal movement. Worse, industrial areas are reportedly coming up in Pawalgarh and Kotabagh. Thus, Corbett may fall into a problematic zone for tigers. Q: Do you support extending the Corbett area following increasing cases of turf war between tigers? A: As for tigers fighting for space, the only solution is the expansion of Corbett area to the east and improving Corbett’s connectivity with Rajaji National Park. Q: What about the Cheetah re-introduction programme? A: Cheetah re-introduction may take another three to four years. Apart from the Cheetah, it will help protect the desert wildlife which is vulnerable. The Cheetah’s reintroduction will sensitise our desert areas’ wildlife and ecology.
Q: What roles do you see for industry in wildife conservation? A: Industry’s initiative to protect wildlife needs to be made stronger. Aircel’s involvement in tiger protection is a beginning and many more corporate houses are expected to follow. While the CII-WII colloquium on the importance of biodiversity and the imperatives of sustainability was first of its kind in Uttarakhand, the business and industry sector has been trying to engage on issues of sustainability and low carbon economy in other parts of the country. All sections and sectors need to help protect our natural heritage. The business and industry employ a number of people many of whom are sensitive and who wish to contribute in some way to conservation. Also intrusions into our protected areas need to be stopped perhaps with a greater degree on sensitisation. The industry sector can itself look for alternatives. Q: What about forest fires engulf ing huge forest wealth in Himalayan states including Uttarakhand? A: The fires are manmade: the dryness of the areas aggravates the problem, leading to soil erosion and reducing the habitat for wildlife. Government funding is not available in time for the fire season. This needs a long-term strategy and an effective collaboration with
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Profile Vandana has been decorated with many awards including the Time “Environment Hero Award”. The most important one was the Right Livelihood Award, which is also said to be the Alternative Nobel Prize. With all her achievements, it will be no surprise if she is considered for the Nobel Prize. Whenever the Nobel Selection Committee meets and goes through the work and achievements of persons considered for the world’s most prestigious award, Vandana’s accomplishments cannot be overlooked. A writer and ‘ecological scientist’, she directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi. Her work centres on biodiversity and sustainable agriculture. The area of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) is yet another area where she contributed immensely through campaigns. Her “Neem Campaign” and “Basmati Campaign” turned out to be role models for many environmentalists. Besides being a physicist, ecologist, activist and author of a number of books, 57-year-old Dr Vandana Shiva is a tireless defender of the environment. Her book, Water Wars: Privatisation, Pollution and Profit, has been acclaimed the world over. The first movement that taught her about importance of water was the Chipko movement in early seventies. Women came out in the Himalayan villages hugging trees and saying, “We won’t let them be logged. You’ll have to kill us before you kill our trees”. They were scoffed at by the government — “logging is a big revenue in regions”. Women remained firm and replied equally forcefully: “The real yield is water, soil conservation and fresh air and not timber”. By early eighties, the forest policy changed to ensure that catchment forest’s first function was water conservation and not revenue through cutting trees and denudating forests. The ban on logging in the high Himalayas was because of the Chipko movement. Dr Shiva says ordinary village women with no formal education taught the world one of the biggest water lessons. To her too, it was her big “water lesson”; cutting the forests means drying of streams and spate of floods and drought. Dr Shiva’s campaign against biotechnology and genetic engineering made her internationally known. She has helped movements in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Ireland, Switzerland and Austria against genetic engineering. As a young girl gazing at the natural wonder of her homeland, the verdant valley of Dehradun and splendid Himalayas, Vandana was inspired not so much to preserve nature as to figure out how it works. Her ambition was neither to follow in the footsteps of her father, a conservator of forests nor emulate her mother, a farmer with a profound love for nature. Vandana wanted to follow her hero, Albert Einstein. Nuclear Physics was her chosen specialty until she realised that the science had a dark side to it. She changed course to become a theoretical physicist and subsequently an environmentalist. She is often asked why she switched to activism. She says it was as late as 1981. She was invited by the Ministry of Environment to study the effect of mining in the Doon Valley. As a result of her report, the Supreme Court banned mining in the Valley in 1983. Contrary to the findings of the Environment Ministry, she believes that Himalayan Glaciers are retreating at a rapid rate. Vandana founded Navdanya in 1991, which has grown over the past decade into a proactive movement for seed saving and organic farming. She has now started Bija Vidyapeth or Seed University at Navdanya farm near Dehradun where month-long courses are being held to disseminate knowledge and initiate dialogue about hosting holistic living. Designed on the lines of the UK-based Schumacher College, the university recently hosted its second course on ‘Gandhi and Globalisation’ and drew participants from around the
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THE
first Home Minister of the country, Vallabhbhai Patel, had firmly declared there would be no caste count in Independent India. But although a formal decision is yet to be taken by the Union Cabinet, indications are that 80 years after the last caste count was done, the decennial census in 2011 will enumerate the castes for the first time in Independent India.
THE world has sat up and taken note of the recent mishap in Delhi where trashed radioactive material — Cobalt 60 — has already killed a person and severally damaged many others. Cobalt 60 is an artificially produced radio isotope which emits extremely energetic radiation. It is routinely used the world over in treatment of cancer as well as in lab research. Accident occurred when a Delhi scrap worker innocently tried to dismantle the protective metal container in which the dangerous isotope came packaged.
Ravi
Singh
Known as one of the top five most powerful persons in Asia, environmentalist Vandana Shiva has won yet another award — the prestigious Sydney Peace Prize in recognition of her works in the field of social justice. Her work on empowerment of women in developing countries, her advocacy of human rights of small farming community and scientific analysis of environmental sustainability has been lauded by Sydney University.