White Dwarf Arvind Kejriwal

Finally the much awaited results of Indian General Elections are out. The agility of world’s largest democracy has taken the world by awe. India shows the world how to decide the fate of a nation in most peaceful and perhaps most constructive way.

While the elections have sprung many surprises; none compares the fate of the newly formed AAP (Aam Admit Party) and its founder Mr. Arvind Kejriwal. To many, he was the youngest star born on the horizons of Indian Politics. His rise was unconventional and for a good time he gave all those veteran seasoned politicians a good run for their money. His guerilla warfare antics kept all on their toes.

The pinnacle of his popularity and success was the point where AAP made its debut in Delhi Assembly elections. Kejriwal humbled the Goliath in Congress and BJP to claim the top seat in Delhi Elections.

Kejriwal had two choices here.

Choice 1:
Toil as Delhi Chief Minister and attempt to fulfill all the utopian promises made to win the elections. Grow from strength to strength. Show sincerity in accomplishing the claims made in the state elections manifesto. At the same time; grow organically as a national party; perhaps focus on PHD (Punjab, Haryana, Delhi) in the upcoming National Elections.   

Choice 2:
Takht ya Taboot

Go all out for whole of India. Delhi Chief Minster seat is too small to fulfill the ambitions of Kejriwal. It is not possible to do justice to the seat of Chief Minister in Delhi and follow the national dream. Dump the CM seat and go back to the streets and take all the bigwigs head on. The risk is to lose whatever is at hand and the reward is the top post of the nation.

I am no political pundit or psephologist but what gives me liberty to make my own version of audacious analysis and hindsight is that probability of me being right or wrong is same as of those who are doing this for a living:-  50%.

We all know that Kejriwal led AAP went for Choice 2 and now we all know the consequences of it.
Let’s try to muse a bit on what would have happened if AAP went for the first choice.

Simulation, if AAP went for Choice 1;

Both Congress and BJP would be too happy to keep Kejriwal contained in Delhi region and would have conceded to a number of his eccentric demands. After Delhi results; there was a fear psychosis in BJP and Congress circles about Kejriwal’s ability to churn out unpredictable results in national elections.
Kejriwal could have shown off his moral and character superiority on BJP and Congress and perhaps would have won 20 odd seats in PHD region. There was a clear BJP wave this time. BJP had a set of staunch supporters who were adamant to vote him to power. AAP and Congress divided amongst themselves the votes of people who were anti BJP/Narendra Modi. If AAP had not fielded its candidates from all the constituencies; due to vote consolidation; perhaps UPA could have won 30-40 more seats at national level. In that scenario; BJP would have to seek alliances from other regional parties to form Government.

It is said that behind every successful man there is a woman and behind every unsuccessful man; there are two! Narendra Modi attributes his success to one woman; his mother. Imagine the situation where BJP did not have clear majority and Narendra Modi would have to depend on two women; Mamata Didi and Jayalalitha Amma! NDA might still have gone ahead and claimed the power at centre but it would have been a much humbled and limited in capacity.

I feel very thankful to Kejriwal that he went all out at national level. This allowed BJP to have clear majority. In my opinion; the growth vision of Congress and BJP are more or less the same. It is only the limitation of working under the control of irritant and demanding allies that slows down the progress and materialization of all the progressive projects.
I am sure; NaMo will do a sterling job in taking the growth of Indian nation to a new height. Congress could also have done similar things if they had clear mandate. Also job rotation is good as it helps flow of out of the box ideas that have incubated all this while. So, I expect more from BJP at this point of time.

Coming to the fate of rising star, Arvind Kejriwal; I am tempted to draw an analogy from a branch of Astronomy, Formation of stars. It is said that the new stars like our own sun undergo fusion reaction under the force of gravity where Hydrogen atoms combine to form Helium; releasing tremendous amount of energy in the process. When all the Hydrogen exhausts; under constant gravitational pull; the Helium atoms undergo further fusion to form Carbon atoms and thus goes the formation of heavier elements. This does not go on forever for all the stars!.  The big stars, which are 8 times or more massive to our own Sun explode in a spectacular Supernova. If the mass of the star is similar to our own sun; the most probable fate of the star is to become white dwarf. After all the Hydrogen has converted into Helium; the smaller stars swell into a red giant stage and eventually shed off the outer layers. What remains is the corpse of the star; a dim remnant where no Hydrogen fusion occurs. No fireworks come out of them.

Kejriwal attempted to explode like a Supernova but has shrunk to a white dwarf. He and his Aam Admi Party may remain there for a good long time but I do not expect any spectacular rise of his party again. The novelty of AAP antics has turned into predictability and an all-powerful Modi Sarkar will crush his road side agitations with brutal force if he tries them again. He is also expected to lose much of his red-giant layers of supporters as people have got disillusioned in masses and have their doubts in ability of this man to deliver anything tangible apart from dharnas.

So, I take the liberty to write off Mr. Arvind Kejriwal.
R.I.P AAP 

Should India continue with Caste based reservation?

Caste based differentiation of people in India remains an enigma and a tricky topic to deal with socio-politically. At times I get surprised by the simplistic view some of the westerners have about the evil of caste system in India. I understand their situation. It needs first-hand experience of living and growing in the Indian society intimately and mere fancy spiritual and adventurous sojourns do not offer the right insight into this complex social system of India.

A quick recap of the caste system:

Among the loosely coupled group of people in the south east Asia, who call themselves Hindus; the society is believed to be divided into 4 class of people or the 4 castes: The Brahmins, or the ones who derive their livelihood by rituals, worships, priesthood etc. acting as a channel of communication between human and divine; the Kshatriyas or the ruler and the warrior class; the Vysyas or business community and lastly, the shudras or the lowest rung of people meant for doing the menial jobs.

Though it is seen as a parallel to apartheid, the basis was different. People were categorized based on their profession rather than colour or creed. They had flexibility to change their caste by switching the profession; however, over the time the practice became degenerated, oppressive and disgusting. The lower caste people in India were oppressed for generations. They had little opportunity to excel and were out rightly downtrodden. They were considered untouchable; did not have access to temples, place of worship, public amenities and education.

Provisions for quota or Reservation System:

When India got independence and its constitution was written, many progressive leaders felt the need for upliftment and inclusiveness of this section of the society. It was felt necessary to make provisions for rapid progression of this society. It was agreed that this was a temporary measure and the need for reservation should be reviewed periodically and should be abolished in a period.

This led to the reservation system in India. Though it differs from state to state; roughly the reservations as they stand are:

Scheduled caste               = 15%
Scheduled Tribe               = 7.5%
Other Backward Caste     = 27% (This was added later on recommendations of Mandal Commission)

Apart from these broad categories which account for nearly 50% of the seats; there are some more provisions for Defense personnel and their dependents, women, minority communities like Sikhs, Muslims, Christians and now Jains. These quotas apply to all the educational institutions, government jobs, promotions in jobs and there are electoral seats reserved for people from reserved category to ensure representation in the parliament. From a reserved seat, only people from reserved category can contest elections. Scheduled Caste and Scheduled tribe people are also protected by very strict legislation against exploitation.

Though started for a noble cause; the Reservation system soon became a tool for the corrupt Populist politics in India. It has become clear now that the maximum benefit of reservation system is being reaped by the rich and affluent people of the reserved category. The poor people under reserved category are still not able to get suitably benefitted by the reservation provisions as those are consumed by more resourceful rich people under reserved categories. Reservation in technical higher education and promotion in jobs raises a serious question on negligence of merit in the field of technology, life sciences, research, governance and policy making. A very large number of people below poverty line also belong to the so called upper class castes. They remain deprived of these provisions of reservation for the weaker section of the society. This also creates lots of frustration and rebellion in the heart and mind of underprivileged upper caste poor people. The hatred and the chasm between castes remain wide open.

Arguments given in favour of continuing with the current provisions of caste based reservations:

Most of the political leaders from backward classes vehemently support the caste based reservations and are equivocal on when these provisions should be resolved or if they should be resolved at all.

Ram Vilas Paswan, president of Lok Janshakti Party who used to hold records in Guinness Book of World records for winning Parliamentary elections with largest vote margins is of the opinion that caste based discrimination prevailed in India for thousands of years so the caste based reservation should remain for a very,  very long time. The solution as per him is that all the boys and girls from upper caste should willingly marry the girls and boys from lower caste. This way, the social stigma of caste will be abolished and everyone will get similar benefits.

Mayawati, head of Bahujan samaj party and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh has based her carrier on the dalit or oppressed card. She wants to be seen and remembered as the epitome of dalit empowerment. To prove a point, she loves to splurge the government money on commissioning hundreds of statues of her own self, public parks and gardens dedicated to herself; all carved out of tax payers’ money. She accepts donations and buys palatial houses for herself costing billions, likes to be weighed in gold at public ceremonies. During her regime, she built a road from her residence to the CM office which would be shut for public. The road used to be dusted and sprinkled with water before her trip to the CM office and the road would be hurriedly closed after her caravan of vehicles would have passed. She would move around with Z+ level of personal security with scores of commandoes; had half a dozen food tasters who would consume the food prepared for her before she would take the plunge. Her take on caste based reservation is not very clear. Lately she seems to agree in principle to consider the poor people from upper castes as well to be considered for the reservation benefits. The details are not clear.

Lalu Prasad, supremo of RJD has been a champion of Mandal Commission implementation and had been a hard player of caste based politics.

Congress Party has been speaking about this for some time and now the rhetoric is getting louder that they want to implement the caste based reservation to the private sector jobs as well. This step looks inspired by populist politics more than any larger ideology. Congress Party seems to be out of game in these upcoming national elections and they are struggling to make a last moment impact.

I am not very aware of what AAPs vision on caste based reservations is. Probably they are yet to include this on their election agenda.

What I make out:

“Moving on” is the need of the hour. Indian politicians and people of some communities should stop lobbying for things for personal advantage and should not differentiate between the needy people. We are a country of limited resources and unlimited asks; let us spare a thought for all the needy people irrespective of the castes and help them come out of it and participate in the all-inclusive growth of the nation. Seeing the political situation in the country; looks highly improbable in the near future.