The whole drama about reservations for Muslims and its politics – primarily in Uttar Pradesh
For the past few days, in addition to the many caste calculations going on in the UP electoral scene, there is another twist that has been added to the whole discourse. This is related to political parties trying to attract the Muslim vote and what they can do for it. Now, getting support from a community is not a problem, but doing it only for electoral purposes and at the time of elections continues to be a problem, especially when it is so blatant.
A series of reports over the years have concluded that Indian muslims over the years have a level of development which is lower than that of the general population, and nobody can really doubt these conclusions. Further, over the years, a number of trades that had traditionally a higher proportion of Muslims (such as weavers) were affected by economic movements, further reducing the economic growth of the community. These were items that the Governments of the day should have handled, with targeted economic and development measures that laid a lot of emphasis on economic development that would increase the empowerment level of Muslims in the country.
Read more…
Categories: Accountable, BJP, BSP, Caste, Citizen, Congress, Controversy, Corruption, Development, Discrimination, Election, Growth, Minority, Muslim, Policy, Politics, Uttar Pradesh Tags: Backward classes, BJP, BSP, Caste politics, Congress, Controversy, Development, Election, Elections, Muslim Quota, Muslims, Reservations, Salman Khursheed, Samajwadi Party, State Assembly, Uttar Pradesh
Caste in census: Quick to act, and then slowly starting to realize the full impact of this on their own political future
Caste politics have been taking a major move up in the last few years, with more movements towards caste based reservations (such as adding caste based reservations in educational colleges and the push to add caste based reservations in private colleges and in private companies). As a part of this, it is also politically difficult for any current party to make any kind of opposition to caste based demands or such politics. After all, for parties such as the Congress and the BJP, it is very hard for them to accept caste based politics since they look at getting votes across castes and groups (which is slightly different from the caste based groups which are based on getting acceptance from certain caste groups and increasing the caste based politics); the Congress and BJP cannot easily fight such battles, all the more so since they are national parties and any projection with caste based groups in one state can be taken negatively in another state.
The Supreme Court has set a cap on the total amount of reservations, with a total of 50% reservations allowed. This is a limit that caste based parties are not very happy about, with the their projection being that the total number of downtrodden would be much more than 50% of India’s population. However, since the last caste based census was in the census of 1931, there are no accurate figures, and over the years, the Governments have moved away from doing caste based census since that seems like a very regressive measure, given that the aim of the Government is to move away from caste based development, and the development of a casteless society.
Read more…
Categories: Allies, BJP, Caste, Congress, Discrimination, Policy, Politics, Reservations Tags: BJP, Caste, Caste based Census, Caste based politics, Census, Congress, Decision, Delay, Divisive, Group of Ministers, India, Parliament, Politics, Population
Delhi High Court rules that gay sex is legal
The world over, different countries have different concepts revolving around homosexuality. There are states in the United States that have made marriage between homosexuals as having the same legal sanctity as that between a man and a woman, there are other states where this is a matter of huge debate and controversy (with the Catholic and Protestant churches being against it), countries in parts of Europe are liberal while those where the Church has a stronger influence are less likely, and there are the Islamic countries where the concept is abhorrent – forget marriage between homosexuals, even the concept of a relationship was unacceptable (for example, in Iraq, insurgents would target homosexuals for murder).
What about the thought of homosexuality in a country such as India, which has a long history, and where there is a lot of debate even among historians about whether homosexuality was prevalent in the past. India, till today, had a law called Section 377, that made homosexuality a crime (even among consenting adults). This law meant that even among groups with a higher risk pattern for AIDS (such as gays), it was difficult to really follow anti-AIDS programs since a number of people would hide their homosexuality, or not be open about it.
