second opinion - Caste one's lot
Jug Suraiya
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How India marches ahead by going backwards
India is a unique country in many ways. And one of the uniquer ways that it is unique is that in order to get ahead it goes backwards, literally.The National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) has asked the government's permission to sub-categorise OBCs other backward classes into three separate divisions: the merely backward, the even more backward and the most backward.
The reason is that there is growing apprehension that the so-called `creamy layer' among the OBCs are benefiting disproportionately from the 27% job quota reserved for backward castes at the expense of the most backward. So if all goes according to the NCBC's plan, the country will see a multiplication of OBCs: the backward, the backwarder and the backwardest.
Similarly, among dalits there are the regular dalits and then there are the mahadalits, who are supposedly more dalitical than the ordinary dalits. Ever since Mandal, the politics of what might be called competitive backwardness has gained momentum with not only more and more people wanting to claim backwardness, but more and more people claiming even greater backwardness.
Backwardness has become a prized commodity, like gold or diamonds, and everyone wants a chunk of it. For instance, the Jat community which is known for its assertive forwardness in getting its own way in all manner of things is aggressively pressing its demand to be classified under the OBC rubric. Demands have also been raised that Muslims and Christians too should be given backward quotas within their respective folds, which is all the more intriguing in that many converted to these faiths in order to escape the caste system.
With everyone racing in reverse gear to get backward and then even more backward status, India will witness a boom in backwardness, which will become one of the fastest growing industries in the country . Indeed, backwardness has made so much progress that in some places so-called upper castes, like brahmins, are laying claim to be designated as backward.
If this trend continues, we can pride ourselves on having devised the world's only society that is truly back-to-front.
The reason is that there is growing apprehension that the so-called `creamy layer' among the OBCs are benefiting disproportionately from the 27% job quota reserved for backward castes at the expense of the most backward. So if all goes according to the NCBC's plan, the country will see a multiplication of OBCs: the backward, the backwarder and the backwardest.
Similarly, among dalits there are the regular dalits and then there are the mahadalits, who are supposedly more dalitical than the ordinary dalits. Ever since Mandal, the politics of what might be called competitive backwardness has gained momentum with not only more and more people wanting to claim backwardness, but more and more people claiming even greater backwardness.
Backwardness has become a prized commodity, like gold or diamonds, and everyone wants a chunk of it. For instance, the Jat community which is known for its assertive forwardness in getting its own way in all manner of things is aggressively pressing its demand to be classified under the OBC rubric. Demands have also been raised that Muslims and Christians too should be given backward quotas within their respective folds, which is all the more intriguing in that many converted to these faiths in order to escape the caste system.
With everyone racing in reverse gear to get backward and then even more backward status, India will witness a boom in backwardness, which will become one of the fastest growing industries in the country . Indeed, backwardness has made so much progress that in some places so-called upper castes, like brahmins, are laying claim to be designated as backward.
If this trend continues, we can pride ourselves on having devised the world's only society that is truly back-to-front.
