ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

The Politics of Bungee Jumping

I have nothing against Indian women. I adore them. I admire them. And I (occasionally) marry them. But for the life of me I cannot understand why she needs 33 per cent reservations. The BJP insists she does. So they have brought a bill in Parliament. The Congress, usually spiteful of everything the BJP stands for, has done the perfect flip this time and is backing the bill. So are most other parties, with their own provisos attached.

The reason is simple: Everyone wants to look like Sir Galahad.

But the real question is: Will this bill do any good for the Indian woman? Which leads me to the more basic question: Do reservations do good for anyone?

Must we always see ourselves in terms of our past? Setting right historic wrongs. Empowering the weaker castes. Breaking down disputed religious structures to contest the colonisation of our faith. Enforcing gender equality through legislative measures.

Or is it time we readied ourselves for a new era in which everyone is actually equal, irrespective of caste, creed, religion, gender or sexual preference? In which merit alone determines who surges ahead.

Experience shows us that it is not possible to rewrite history. To correct every historic inequity. To atone for every crime committed in the past by punishing the future. The wages of old sins cannot be paid by new generations. Yet we try.

We try, in our effort to pamper vote banks who are convinced we owe them the future because history has been unfair to them. They want us to set this right by now introducing more and more unrealistic reservation policies, by squandering huge resources in the name of social justice, by pulling back those who are surging ahead and insisting that we all move together as one nation at a pace that all of us can afford.

While this may make good politics and win votes, it does not make for progress. Nor justice. It compels us to slow down; to distort the crucial role of merit and achievement, the twin engines that power the future of any nation. In fact, it destroys the very purpose for which we want to establish equality -- which is to ensure that the best and the brightest among us are able to drive India into the next century.

We must accept the fact that success is always spearheaded by the few. It is they who set the standards for the rest of us. So that we can all eventually move ahead. It is not possible to produce a nation of grandmasters. It is enough to produce one Vishwanathan Anand. When he succeeds, irrespective of his caste, creed, religion or gender, India comes in from nowhere to emerge as a great chess playing nation. It does not matter whether Anand is an ST/SC or an OBC or he belongs to a community that has traditionally benefited from good education and opportunity. What matters is that he is an outstanding player, a world champion who has put India on the chess map of the world.

That is exactly how excellence breeds excellence, how a nation forges ahead.

You can set up hundreds of chess schools in backward areas, give reservations and scholarships to weaker sections, ensure that girls are admitted free and yet end up with a huge army of talentless chess players. This may bring you political accolades but will not set standards of excellence. It will certainly not create players of the genius of Anand.

The reason is simple. What is good in politics is not necessarily good in real life.

And it is certainly not a way to nurture true talent.

True talent claws its way to the top. It does not depend on reservation policies, government largesse, pity and dole. In fact, these are the very factors which kill talent, self confidence and initiative. They produce, instead, nations of pampered dolts.

That is why it is time to reconsider our social empowerment strategies. To ask ourselves if we, as a nation, want doctors, engineers, neurosurgeons, architects, lawyers and judges, civil servants, school teachers, law enforcers and parliamentarians who get jobs not because of their talent or their ability but because of their background. Because of reservations and quotas. Because of special admissions, special marks, special scholarships, special privileges that were given to them to right historic wrongs that neither you nor I were responsible for.

Would you risk handing over your sick wife, your pregnant daughter, your old and ailing father to a surgeon who got the job not because of how good he is with the knife or the laser but because he was born in a lowly caste that entitled him to special treatment, special marks, and eventually a special posting?

We may have been unfair to vast numbers of our people in the past. In the name of caste, community, creed, gender. In fact, these wrongs still continue in parts of India. But that is no excuse to move away from the fundamental principles of right and wrong, good and bad. That is no reason to ignore merit and reward people today for the sins of history.

Nations move ahead because of the spirited efforts of a few, fiercely inspired, fiercely committed people who stand apart from the rest and provide quality leadership. Be it in politics or enterprise or arts or sport. It is their efforts, often against all odds, that eventually set standards for the entire nation. That eventually set standards for the world. We cannot punish them just to set right some imagined (or even real) wrongs committed by history.

You have been watching the World Cup. Do you know the caste, religion or creed of Davor Suker of Croatia or Gabriel Batistuta of Argentina or Christian Vieri of Italy? Do you know the social history of Zinedine Zidane or Emmanuel Petit who won the Cup for France? Does anyone care where they came from? A privileged background or an oppressed community? What matters is that they brought glory and achievement to their teams, their nations, the game they play. Their spirited sportsmanship, their amazing talent, their grit, their obsessive determination to win have made legends out of them. Not the largesse of the state. Nor any special benefits that may have accrued to them because of their background, their history, the wounds inflicted on their forefathers.

It is time we realised this. That the past is dead. We can write it off.

It is time we stopped beating our chests and boasting about our historic achievements -- or crying about the historic injustices inflicted upon us. Instead, it is time to focus on the future; what we can be.

We must also stop worrying about how we can take everyone along with us on the path to growth and prosperity. Instead, we must encourage those who are capable of actually getting ahead on sheer merit and making India strong and powerful. Frontier people who can cut a swathe through the dense undergrowth of mediocrity and trivia to fashion a brave new nation.

Not cringing vote seekers trying to fight the phantoms of history by campaigning for special favours, special reservations.

Change is ushered in by those who can bungee jump into the future.

And the Indian woman is perfectly poised for it. She needs no reservations, no crutches. Just her actual rights. Give her those and watch her conquer the world. On her own terms!

How Readers reacted to Pritish Nandy's recent columns

Pritish Nandy