India Political Blog

What happens when a Government is so taken up by populism that it won’t listen to reason ? Well, now is a good time to find out. The Andhra Pradesh Government of Y. Rajsekhar Reddy has been trying to implement a separate reservation quota for Muslims in state colleges. Now reservation vs. merit has been a tricky subject currently, with plenty of impassioned speech for and against the subject. However, most debaters seem to agree that trying to implement reservations with a religious agenda is just not on; it smacks too much of a populist move (not bad by itself if it works for public good), it goes against the concept of the state not discriminating between against religions (sacrosanct in the Indian system), it militates against the concept of targeted reservations where reservations are only meant for those people who have been denied or suppressed for a historically long time (and you just cannot say that about the Muslim community in Andhra Pradesh) and is against the concept of judicial review where the ultimate correctness of a Government action is viewed against the intention of the constitution by the courts (and in this case, this particular stand is being reviewed by the Supreme Court).
Read the rest of this entry »