Freedom of Speech, did you say ?

Yes, the oft repeated freedom of speech has come back to haunt us - this time with Viswaroopam, the tamil film.

It is strange that the freedom of expression comes out into the public domain once in a while that too when ever it is convenient for the stake holders. Now that Kamal Hasan, a progressive actor, has been disadvantaged, this has come out in full force and is being espoused with great vigor.

This freedom of expression, FoE henceforth, has currently found favour with the political parties in Tamil Nadu and the 'intellectuals' in particular.

Let us see how this FoE has been treated in the past.

Arun Shourie wrote a book by name "Worshipping False Gods", critical of Ambedkar's role in India's freedom struggle. His FoE was not respected by the 'intellectuals' and he was manhandled, heckled and cases were filed asking that the book be banned. Shourie said in court that he has written only what Ambedkar had said earlier and that if the book had to be banned, then Ambedkar's works needed to be banned. The case was dismissed.

T.N.Seshan, in his memoirs, had mentioned about the anti-hindi agitation of Tamil Nadu and had mentioned not-so-praiseworthy comments about Anna Durai and there were cases filed against him by Karunanidhi, Vaiko and AIADMK as well. So did not T.N.Seshan have his FoE ?

Of course, we have the case of Salman Rushdie and the ban on his book 'Satanic Verses' in India. So does he not have the proverbial FoE ?

Innumerable cases can be sighted like the ones above. Taslima Nasreen - she was hounded out of Calcutta ( where she had sought asylum from Bangladesh ). She is currently in Switzerland. So did she not have her FoE ?

The film "Dam 999"  was banned in Tamil Nadu. All political parties supported the ban. So did not the Malayalee director have the proverbial FoE ?

The film "Ore Oru Gramathile" - a tamil film critical of the reservation policy was banned by the TN Govt. It appealed against censor certificate to the film. But it was eventually cleared by the Supreme Court. Did not the producers of teh film have their FoE ?

Or is this 'Paguththarivu' in other words ?

Thought for the day :
Sir.Winston Churchill said ," An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping that the crocodile would eat him last".

Damn the Grandpa, Damn the Grandson

A grand father and his grand son have had the same opinion on a pertinent issue that has been plaguing the nation for a very long time. They have even expressed the very same opinion not anywhere else but once in front of the chief ministers of the different states of India and another time in the parliament of the democratic socialist secular sovereign republic that is India.

The grand father had opposed communal and caste based reservation to the core and same was one by his grand son too.

The grand father said:

"The recent meeting we held here, at which the Chief Ministers were present, to consider national integration, laid down that help should be given on economic considerations and not on caste. It is true that we are tied up with certain rules and conventions about helping the schedules castes and tribes. They deserve help but, even so I dislike any kind of reservation, more particularly in Services. I react strongly against anything which leads to inefficiency and second-rate standards. I want my country to be a first class country in everything. The moment we encourage the second-rate, we are lost.

.. But if we go in for reservations on communal and caste basis, we swamp the bright and able people and remain second-rate and third-rate ? I am grieved to learn how far this business of reservation has gone based on communal considerations. It has amazed me to learn that even promotions are based sometimes on communal or caste considerations. This way lies not only folly, but disaster. Let us help the backward groups by all means, but never at the cost of efficiency. How are we going to build the public sector or indeed any sector with second-rate people? "

The grand son echoed similar feelings some thirty years later in the parliament of India thus:

“Does the government subscribe to the Mandal Commission view that political constituencies should be carved out on a caste basis? Are we going back to the Round Table Conference for having separate electorates? That was designed to break our country”.

“The concept of "Other Backward Castes" has always been a joke. I know for a fact that Reddys are included, Vokkaligas are included, Kammas are included, Lingayats are included, Gounders are included, Chettiyars are included. Are these Backward Castes? Do they need help?”

"Do we want the benefit that the Government is giving to be cornered by the Ministers or the sons of Ministers or the families thereof? Do we want the benefits that are being given by the Government to be cornered by big landlords and people who have a lot of property? Why do we not exclude the people with a certain number of properties from such benefits? Do we want these benefits to go to high senior Government officers who have already got that privilege? The Government is aiming these benefits at a particularly privileged group and not looking at the really poor".

"This government is creating a vested interest in casteism and the country is going to pay a very high price for it".

The grand father spoken about here is none other than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. He wrote a letter to the Chief Ministers of India on 27th July 1961.

And the grand son is none other than Rajiv Gandhi. He made the said speech in Parliament on 6^th September 1990.

Now we have a different set of Congress men who want to behave like the British. Britain wanted to create serious divisions in the Indian society and hence drafted the “Poona Pact’ of 1932. The said pact was to carve out separate electorates for the Scheduled Castes. Mahatma Gandhi went on a fast unto death to force the British to withdraw the said pact. That was taking the concern of the country seriously.

You can’t blame the current breed of Congress stalwarts too. They are headed by an European and probably because of that they want to entertain similar divisive strategies as were enacted by the earlier British regime.

Earlier we had the Sachchar committee report that wanted special privileges to the minorities. Then came the new messiah called Arjun Singh who supported reservation for minorities in State funded universities. Currently after the Supreme Court has stayed the implementation of the OBC quota order, Arjun Singh said that the government would do everything constitutionally and legally to ensure reservation. The irony is that this reservation project is neither constitutional nor legal.

Now that we have seen that Nehru and Rajiv had opposed reservations, is it not time for the Congress to dis-own the duo and remove them from the Congress pantheon?

( I had written this article in 2006 for another magazine. I have reproduced the same and find that the situation has not changed since .. )

Earlier Link :

http://indiainteracts.in/members/2007/03/30/Paguththarivu-and-Reservations-you-must-be-kidding/

Cattle, Insect and other classes and the eternal food chain

Let me declare this at the outset. I belong to the cattle class not only during travel by any mode but even by birth, treatment by the authorities, amenities provided by the institutions and what not. My realization that I belong to the 'cattle class' not only means that I understand what cattle class is all about but also that I have increasingly begun to realize that I belong to another more prevalent class, the Insect Class as well. Henceforth let me call this Cattle Class as CC and Insect Class as IC. How many times have I been herded like cattle in the suburban trains ? Let me not talk about the way I am treated during elections - either have I been treated as belonging to the euphemistic 'minority cattle class' and herded as cattle with visual largesse being showered on me or have I been treated as belonging to the 'majority cattle class' and treated as untouchable. Even inside this "MCC" classification, I have been subdivided further into "FCC" ( Forward CC) or "BCC" ( Backward CC ). If I am an FCC, I am an untouchable and hence would need to be despised, looked upon with hatred as though the entire world's problems emanated from me. If I am a BCC, then I am the one group that needs to be showered all the attention until the elections get over. In the latter case, I have had the feeling of being made ready for the sacrifice at the altar of Indian elections. And what are the other CCs that wander in this grand nation ? First comes the Chameleon Class (Ch-C). Yes, you guessed it right. This is the Ch-C that takes part in elections, seeks to 'serve' the people and after the elections, actually 'severe' the people of their basic needs. This class never differentiates any other class as long as the other class provides it with regular 'income'. This group takes care of its own siblings, fights for their share of the 'prey' even if it means to travel by airplane in a wheel chair right from a hospital and come back to the same hospital in the same wheel chair after the 'prey-sharing' is completed. This group talks about democracy every time so much so that the other common classes have begun to forget what 'democracy' really meant. Then comes the 'Rowdy Class' - RC in short. Let the real 'rowdies' of the world forgive the author for he means no verbal harm to them. The RC comes next to the Chameleon Class. It works for the Ch-C -- to serve the Ch-C's interests as well as its own interests. In case of any clash of ideas, the Ch-C would move ( read : transfer) the RC to un-watered-locations ( "Thanni Illa Kaadu"- for the un-initiated ). Hence the RC ensures that it stays in the Right Side of the Ch-C even if it means to break all rules with impunity. By now you should have understood what RC means - the educated Ch-Cs. Yes the Ch-Cs are not educated and the RCs are educated and the latter works for the former. The RCs are, in common parlance, known as 'bureaucrats'. Then comes the Insect Class. This IC gets beaten up every time there is some incident that happens in the nation / state / town / village / street. This IC comprises of all those beings which work for their daily living. This IC can be identified by a group of people that run from pillar to post just to accomplish a single task be it getting a Ration Card or getting its Election Commission Card or for that matter anything that needs to be done with the RC. This class pays its income taxes on time, tries to follow traffic rules to the extent possible, wants to get its children educated in a decent school and get a better livelihood. Its ultimate target is to get hold of a piece of land in the distant outskirts of the city and build a house ( a 2 or 3 room tenement ) where it could spend its final years in relative peace. But to accomplish that it has to be subjected to all kinds of assaults by the RCs and hence by the Ch-Cs all through its prime lifetime from 01 to 58 years of age. Then comes the PC, the Parasite Class. Yes, you guessed it right - the one species that wears a white overcoat and a stethoscope and hides its RC attributes. The PC normally is headed by a Head PC in the roles of a Dean. The H-PC normally has a medical background and by its association with the RCs and Ch-Cs, gets hold of large tracts of land in prime areas in the guise of 'service to humanity' - euphemism for 'blood sucking'. Then it goes ahead and establishes many institutions where juvenile PCs are trained to become master PCs. The credibility of the PC is represented in the ostentation of the PC institution. The more the front office opulence, the better the PC's blood sucking capabilities. Any juvenile PC that has the ability to satiate the H-PCs thirst for money shall be granted admission in the PC training institutes. So, the moot question is : How does a juvenile PC become a declared PC ? - when the J-PC develops the capability to extract large amounts of flesh from skeletons, then you know that the master PC has arrived on the scene.

Note : PC can also be called as 'VC'- Vampire Class. Both are conjoined twins just separated at birth. If this reminds of Vice-Chancellors, then I am not to be blamed. Probably they are Chancellors who are embodiments of the different vices. The ICs exist so that the RCs and PCs exist and flourish. The RCs and PCs exist so that the Ch-Cs exist and flourish. And this eternal food chain continues !