Inclusion of Creamy Layer in Reservations for OBCs Defeats the Purpose of Reservation

There is no democracy in this Banana Republic.

The Intellectuals do not care. They only talk, argue, discuss and no NOTHING.

The Media has other interests.

Its time, a 4th Front (political movement) is created. If 4% of votes can be captured by intellectuals, then they can swing an election and topple a govt.

That will work when everyone goes to vote and carries 10 others along.

"Previously, I believed the UPA was genuinely concerned about the OBCs and genuinely wanted to do justice for the socially and educationally backward among the OBCs, which is why I supported reservation for the OBCs, vociferously. It is now very clear that the whole move - to provide reservations for OBCs in higher education - was intended to please certain groups and certain powerful men in the government or with connections in the government."

Welcome to reality dude. We knew this all along so we opposed it from the word go. Anyway nice to have u with us atleast now :). The UPA is the scum of India and needs to be dealt with in stalinist fashion. I would welcome a military coup right now. Enough with this sham democracy where the views of the people or the rulings of the supreme court are not taken into account by a government full of oligarchs who have no other interest except to hold onto their chairs and loot public money.

RE: "...needs to be dealt with in stalinist fashion. I would welcome a military coup right now."

I would have thought the experience of India's neighbors, as well as our own experience under the "let the trains run on time" Emergency, would have innoculated us against such fever dreams, but I guess was wrong.

If the politicians are corrupt, what makes anyone believe those who would lead and execute a coup would not be, or ultimately become, corrupt? Power corrupts, and where the power is absolute the corruption that much greater.

In my experience, those people/classes support such drastic steps who do not believe they will be at the receiving end of the measures employed. As for me, I'll take our gloriously inefficient, messy, frustrating, often violent, always raucous, corrupt, and vibrant democracy any day over the jackboots of those who promise utopias, efficiency, whatever -- and then lead to God knows where.

@Qalandar
The experience of china is not too bad...may be such a model would work better for us rather than the sham in the name of democracy we have now...
A benevolent dictatorship is better than rotten democracy...

JC: when you cite China I hope you remember the millions dead in the "Great Leap Forward", and the 20 million dead in the "Cultural Revolution"...it's always easy to overlook the fact that Mao is one of the twentieth century's great mass murderers (sadly many so-called "progressives" in Indian politics routinely forget this) when one's near and dear ones aren't part of those murdered.

i.e. I have not seen evidence that China's was a "benevolent dictatorship"; and perhaps more to the point: what makes anyone think that India's "corrupt democracy" would be replaced by a "benevolent dictatorship"? More likely it would be replaced by a corrupt dictatorship, and then we'd have the worst of all worlds wouldn't we?

I think current concept of democracy needs to be revamped and altered.
Once i thought may be the following should be a better model.

1)Let us stop increasing our vote count abruptly at a certain time..may be now.
2) Then From now on only people who currently have votes have the right to pass it on to others may be their heirs e.t.c. No body gets votes as his birth right but as one that he inherits.
That way we will see an impetus to force and control population out burst.
3) Additionally as we move forward we have award voting rights to people who have proved/contributed to society and country in a significant way. May be paid taxes over and above certain limit, achieved a certain very high educational degree e.t.c. Criteria may be debated upon, but yes we may limit awarding these voting rights to only right kind of people. Just like VISA's are awarded.

4) For Some hard core Criminals having committed certain grave offences, these rights may be revoked by the state.

Well I do not know how practical would that appear, but from the angle i am looking at it looks a bit promising.

Hardy,

All of the ideas that you've suggested are quite old and do not have much currency for good reasons.

You points 1) and 2) where you suggest limiting suffrage and then suggest a way to do it are apalling from the point of view of individual liberty and justice. To punish two out of four children of a family by disenfranchising them for no fault of theirs( Its their parents who would've broken your rule, not the children) goes against any notion of justice. Maybe you would want to disenfranchise people who have more than a certain number of children rather than disenfranchising the children themselves(which is what your inheritence policy would amount to).

I think there are simpler ways( compared to the extreme idea of snatching peoples civil rights) to handle population control and all of western europe is proof of that. Educate and empower women! Women who are in control of their destinies seldom choose to spend all their time rearing kids. I am against reservations in general but if reservations were a must, I would only have reservations for women OBC, SC ST candidates. This would go a long way in solving a lot of different Indian problems.

About Part 3) I am not sure why you think education/wealth makes anybody worthy of citizenship or civil rights. Education and/or wealth has little or nothing to do with moral fiber. Lets say, for example, that because of your education and wealth you're chosen as the only person( or perhaps you're a part of an oligarchy) who gets to make all the decisions. There is absolutely no reason for anybody to trust you, there is every reason for everybody to assume that you will act only in your interest. You may be the nicest person in the world and perhaps the only person ever to not be corrupted by power, but there is no reason why at some point in time the system may not be run by people who are driven by very narrow self interest.(History is abound with examples of monarchies and dictatorships which have routinely abused common people) In any event, such an idea goes against any notion of individual liberty.

Pat 4) If your criminal justice system was perfect or even remotely resonable then one could make such an argument. But given the power and the potential of abuse which the police and the powerful have, given how they can and do manupilate the judicial mecahnism, such a provision will play into the hands of the powerful. The police will extort money and favors out of you( as if they don't already) for otherwise they could have you disenfranchised(and jailed) forever. You may be from a well connected family from India or you may be well connected yourself, but just imagine dealing with the police in India without any connections.. just as a common man.It can be a nightmarish ordeal. There are very good reasons why the police are the most hated lot in India.

If the judicial system was perfect. It may be argued that if certain people do not abide by the laws set up in civil society then they should not receive the benefits of it. In modern India(or anywhere else), incarceration effectively establishes that, at least for a certain time period.

Thanks Anshuman...

However, please note that 1) and 2) are proposed not with the intention of robbing one of a civil right, but with the intent that voting right is not one's birth right one could get on platter, but should be the one for which one has to fight out and prove himself that he is worthy of it. As for passing it to heirs, I think it makes it a easy for it to be implemented and give a jumpstart with least of resistance from any quarter. Also we are not robbing any individual of his right to vote. If he is capable enough he can/will earn it by his own contribution to society in whatever way possible. As regards to passing it to heirs(which could be anybody based on the discretion of the owner), i think that passing on will happen only when the people think are they are old enough to pass on this responsibility(a.k.a right) to somebody else. All in all i do not think it is that unfair to anybody if made practical.

As for 3), the idea the society runs on is that let all people prosper educationally (which in turn leads of upliftment in lot of other areas) and also materially. So I do not think it is such a bad idea to categorize people based on that, at least when there is no other yardstick to measure people. I do not think that using proposed mechanism ( 1 till 4) we are in anyway marginalizing a section where that section tends to loose in this bargain.

Also I did not propose that the wealth of a person be made proportional to his rights to votes. All i said the tax paying capability (i.e willingness and compliance to help and contribute towards society) can be made one of the criterion.
I do not feel it is such an bad idea, where you want people who have rights to be accountable to society by paying taxes.

4) Again 4 is just a means to keeping the number of "usable rights" in check. May be we can forego with it. However I am not sure, how does this make system worse. If the criminal justice system is bad it does an equal damage even now.

BTW, was this kind of system ever tried anywhere anytime in the past and if so what were the results. That may give us clues into how bad or how well may the consequences be.

The underlying principle to the above proposal is "Duty comes first, rights later"
as against the current paradigm where
"Rights are given so that one may "if required" perform the duties".

Thanks Apollo but about a military dictatorship, I'm sorry that's not a good idea. Democracy is the only weapon we have to throw these people out of power. Think about it. It is not as if democracy has been tried out completely. The voting percentages in our country still hover around 50%-60%. This must increase. All of us who sit on our butts at home discussing all these things should actually go out and VOTE!

Hey Hardy,

I seem to understand better where you're coming from. I agree that a lot of people don't quite appreciate what a privilige universal adult suffrage it. I agree that people have a tendency to take things for granted and not act responsibly. But any proposal which seeks to incentivize people to act responsibly, must be tested for its potential for abuse. Actually, any public policy or Law must be tested for its potential for abuse.

Athenian democracy allowed the poor and the uneducated to have a vote but not women, slaves or resident aliens. Not all exclusion may have malicious intent but good intentions are not good enough. It might sound absurd to us now but tomorrow people might be excluded from voting on the grounds of their genetic makeup.. belief in religion(any religion... perhaps we will actively discriminate against superstition).. or like you suggested, education.

Men(and women) should have the right to govern their own affairs. By taking away their right to vote, you will take away this most fundamental right. I understand your unhappiness with people's complacency but restricting voting is an entirely too dangerous and counter productive a proposition to deal with the original problem. Its like nuking your home to get rid of the cobwebs. If we agree to qualify universal adult suffrage on some grounds then somebody else will do it on other grounds. I really do think that suffrage cannot be restricted on any grounds. Even if I am the stupidest and laziest person in the world, I have the right to decide the course of my life(given that my decisions don't infringe on someone elses liberty) or atleast have some significant input on it. I don't want some parental state of so called educated wise men telling me how my life should be lived.

There are less dangerous(and perhaps less successful) ways to get people to appreciate their rights and do their duties.

Hi Anshuman...there seems to be some common ground here..As I understand there is an urgent need to qualify what rules and laws are supposed to do...what a republic is meant to be...and so on so forth...before we model a different paradigm.

Currently the way it works is that voting right of one section in lot of cases clearly infringes on the rights of another section...As a result what we see is that a person who gets elected finally to frame laws may get to decide on 10 different issues, but is representative of only 2-3% of the total population that elected him on any of those issues taken individually (one at a time).

What we need to understand is that a republic state is not one single state but a conglomeration of different sections/societies.

I see an urgent need to empower people/social structure on lower level e.g local bodies e.t.c.
Contrarily what currently happens is that, people as a single unit elect/vote for so called govt which then frames laws which are applicable to entire population. What we need to understand is that while we need people contributing to every democratic fashion on lower level e.g panchayats,local bodies e.t.c which govern local issues, However for anything which is beyond local concern i.e ones which is primarily of national interest, we need to see that we should have only the so called selective or responsible people getting to decide on it.
The democratic society has to be stratified and the powers, management, laws and rules all need to be further more uniformly distributed all along this strata.

I see an urgent need to have more and more laws apply locally to a region , section, or part of society. Local laws are currently almost always overridden by national laws.
This may have to do with either less potency of local laws or over generalization of laws made on state/national level. We need to understand and make local laws more potent than national laws and if that is not possible then perhaps look at restricting how laws at national/state level be framed only if they are truly of national character. Currently I see the equation tilted totally on the opposite side, which needs immediate attention and correction.


The point I wanted to mention suffrage should be limited in such a fashion that person's right to vote has limiting and local effect, the one that affects him the most.
For anything to which he is remote, we should not thrust this right to him/her, assuming that it will only contribute to abuse of this right. A common person who is bothered more about his lively hood should not be entrusted with voting right which will decide what a national policy or law should be. His voting right should be limited to decide only upon issues which are of immediate interest to him.
On the similar lines the people higher up(I would not want to call them higher up, but would rather prefer to call them people who deal in domain which is different from local domain) should refrain from framing policies, laws and rules which are of local concerns.

Hi Hardy,

Sorry I was a bit busy. Now we seem to be almost on the same page.

I completely agree that the power sturcture must be a decentralized one. The decision making needs to be more diffused or dispersed. People who have been living in an area should have the right to determine what the future of their town/district(economically, culturally) should look like, not some mandarin or politician in delhi. This system might be more inefficient as it is hard to coordinate and negotiate but it will be a fair system. If all we cared about was efficiency then we could be like china but individual liberty, in my mind, is infinitely more important than efficiency.

There will always be conflict in what the local agencies would call a local interest and the national agencies will call national interest. I think it should be a battle that should be fought bitterly because people and institutions will infringe on your rights if you allow them to. Gandhi, I remember reading somewhere, was strongly in favor of a decentralized system.

So we're basically saying the same thing, except I would not say that suffrage should be limited. I would say that it should be extended. Everybody should have a vote to elect the central government and have an input on central policies while only local bodies should have a vote on what should be done with local resources, or done about local norms. Even if it means a decentralization of corruption.

You wrote:

"common person who is bothered more about his lively hood should not be entrusted with voting right which will decide what a national policy or law should be. His voting right should be limited to decide only upon issues which are of immediate interest to him."

Who is not a common person? As far as I know, except for people who inherit a lot of money and leeches who have 100% job security in a government job, pretty much everyone else has serious job insecurity and needs to work all the time.

I think this is where we have our biggest disagreement. I see absolutely no reason to trust people(especially smart people. because they are smart there is a higher probability that they might fool me, if they so choose. And as far as I know, morality and intelligence are independent of each other). People should be expected to do what is in their best interest and we need to be able to create contracts whereby we can align their interests with ours and if we're delegating some work to them then we make sure to incentivize them so that they do the taks delegated to them. This is Standard Agency Theory followed in Economics and Finance. I cannot rely on the goodwill of the academics or bureaucrats or politicians. They maybe smart and they may have the expertise to make certain decisions but unless we provide them with the right incentives, their decisions will be the ones which benefit them the most. A big part of such an incentive contract is the disutility which comes from being fired. Which is why the ultimate control must be with the common man. We need to be able to get rid of some of these bastards.

It will always be tricky to clearly demarcate what is a national concern and what is a local one, but it is a battle that needs to be fought all the time. I agree that we need to make India a more decentralized state.

Hi Anshuman you said...

> I see absolutely no reason to trust
> people(especially smart people. because
> they are smart there is a higher probability
> that they might fool me, if they so choose.
> And as far as I know, morality and
> intelligence are independent of each other).

I tend to disagree with you here, reason being
I think this is how honesty index(inverse of corruption index is measured).

Corruption Index = (Number of available opportunities) / (Morality Index).

I think that with increase in education morality index indeed increases, but that with increase in education the opportunities increase multi fold which offsets any increase in Morality.

If all the people were well educated, there would be lesser corruption, not necessarily because of increased awareness/vigilance, but also because Morality index would be greater.

I will leave it to you to be critical of my assumptions above. May be your ideas will help me refine my hypothesis.