tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564193898947073548.post827107755081442978..comments2023-08-26T18:14:05.967+05:30Comments on Surprised By Sin: I BourgeoisNirmalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04200668415971332560noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564193898947073548.post-83988791753059893542009-08-01T14:30:45.445+05:302009-08-01T14:30:45.445+05:30Well that's a lot of talk from me :) Aside fro...Well that's a lot of talk from me :) Aside from my ranting please don't assume I actually get off my chair and do anything.Nirmalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04200668415971332560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564193898947073548.post-2288171506405845222009-08-01T14:27:55.427+05:302009-08-01T14:27:55.427+05:30he he. wouldn't call it a competition anyways....he he. wouldn't call it a competition anyways. I completely agree with the requirement for good primary education. That's the first step of course.<br />but consider this - we have a "middle class" of 70 million people (liberal estimate). most of our economy, our "shining india" is centered around this 70. the rest actually subsidise our lives letting us live middle class lives by taking pittances for services. does this 70 million really have the determination to take quality education to 0.9xx billion people? <br />Sure some of the kids from govt. schools might be unable to withstand the rigours of an IIT/IIM. But will they be any less qualified than the non-quota kids that joined these institutions in the 60s, 70s, 80s? didn't the batches that graduated during those decades go on to create the bulwark in our reputation as engineers and managers? the idea is to make our oppressed come up socially and economically. Education is not an end in itself in a developing country. It has to have an agenda.<br /><br />A publicly funded school system can never compete with a DPS or a DAV. These kids can never compete with a Kota class or brilliant tutorials class. They have just as much raw intelligence as any kid from a DAV but however we try, we can't emancipate but a tiny tiny fraction. So we need to design it in such a way that SC/ST/OBC/Muslim people don't completely depend on our ability to provide them "quality" school education. I think the only way to break these millenia old bonds is to proselytise among them that its not their "fate" to be poor. Something of an Indian version of the American dream and then provide them with tools, education, vocation, quotas whichever to try to realise that dream.Nirmalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04200668415971332560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564193898947073548.post-61119222426350677262009-07-22T22:22:40.810+05:302009-07-22T22:22:40.810+05:30True. Of course, one totally agrees that the reser...True. Of course, one totally agrees that the reservation at our institutions will help in bridging perhaps a small fraction of the historical discrimination, but the current system will perhaps work better if the same dalit/tribal is given access to the same kind of high "quality" primary and secondary educaion. An argument that the state seems to think irrelevant to the reservation dialougue. My aunt is the headmistress of the adi dravidar welfare higher sec school in kanchipuram district. I am helping her currently raise funds, and this is abysmall, for building classrooms, for raising a compound wall so that children dont cross over directly and fall across onto a railway track! You send these children to separate "welfare" free schools yes, but who takes care of them? Are you equipping that child to deal with the pressures of a competetive tomorrow even under quota. A lot is being done, thru UNICEF now, but it is a shame that they had to take this initiative. Sarva Siksha Abhiyan is for NGOs to raise funds from international sources.<br />In this day and age when we are pioneering the bottom-up approach across development sectors, i dont know why school-level education is ignored. Kapil Sibal seems to want to do something. I doubt if he will! Singapore, so far, is the only country that has understood the importance as such of holistic, quality education. Every state-sponsored school's classroom is wired up there. And as a result, the best of the talent gets absorbed into various fields, irrespective of social bgs. THAT is what one needs to look at achieving. Deliver quality instruction from the beginning. Where is even a question of resistance to acceptance in the later years? (This is turning into an essay-writing competition now. lol.)Krupa Gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03780787085562834668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564193898947073548.post-10078297194721664312009-07-21T18:50:16.479+05:302009-07-21T18:50:16.479+05:30@ krupa I agree there are lots of knots about the ...@ krupa I agree there are lots of knots about the concept of reservation.<br />I see 2 primary problems that have been dogging it<br />1. Assuming (safely) that the institutions with the mandate of actually implementing the reservations, like the boards of IIMs, IITs, AIIMS, nationalised banks etc. etc.., are populated by people who are loathe to implement it; how can we expect the reservations to show any real benefits? Its like asking conservative white anglo saxons in the Bible belt of the US to help implement voter registration for blacks.<br />2. As you said Dalits, Tribals and C have a problem of identity. A professional Tribal in a urban workplace will still not be comfortable revealing s/he is a tribal because of the stigma of "quota". I've seen it happen and some dalits and tribals have said this to me only because I so obviously support reservation.<br /><br />Now from sociologists to well meaning politicians to AIIMS students in all their righteous anger have discussed alternatives. But till we do come up with a good one, I think whatever we're doing should go on. Even the Dalits who've made a ripple if not a splash like our chief justice don't address their identity in public. If like Condi Rice he could just stand up and say "Yes I got a leg up from reservation in college... but its been all me since then" that would definitely help.<br /><br />We in India are very community based.. whether its a Gujarati supporting another's crashed business or a Tam-Bram showing the ropes to his nephew on how to become a CA or a Bengali sponsoring his brother's friend's nephew's daughter to emigrate to the US, we do it based loosely at least for our communities. I think with even this piddling dishonest implementation of reservation, one day we'll have a critical mass, say 15-20% of any dalit/tribal/OBC community who will be professionals/business owners. We can then give up on reservation and put the onus on that critical mass to pass on the benefits of the leg up they were given to their community.Nirmalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04200668415971332560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564193898947073548.post-25963433310051875242009-07-20T21:45:27.498+05:302009-07-20T21:45:27.498+05:30Hey, just bumped into this post while blogtrotting...Hey, just bumped into this post while blogtrotting, and found it interesting bcos a) i am a sociologist err i studied sociology is more like it, b) i work for mainstream media here (in Madras). I did look around to see if the mainstream indian media covered the event. Looks like they didnt. But i can assure you that it is not, definitely not, bcos the media wants to suppress news or lead the middle class into thinking that Dalits are invisible. In fact, if our media had any access to (i can spk very safely for my publication, not bcos i love who i work for but bcos i know the industry) this information, they would have made a good big noise about it, carried exclusives after exclusives abt it, played it on television a million times. I think it is probably bcos indian media didnt have access to this event (only a guess), maybe their international partners and news agencies didnt cover it. I am not sure. And the media honestly, cares abt only one thing now, from what little i know as a features writer, and that is, exclusivity. It works hard to protect only one identity and that is its own, not anybody else's. <br /><br />While reservation is a very tricky concept that involves centuries of oppression and denied opportunities, and yadyadayada i honestly feel that TN's overlooking of even the "creamy layer" clause is more than obnoxious - as cliched as it sounds 69% reservation AGAINST a minority community sounds rather vengeful to me more than anything else. While i also understood, studying what i did, that reservation is DEFINITELY needed, but that there will be compromises - in terms of achieving equity (not equality, i don see tht happening ever). For many of our country's dalits this reservation is the big catch 22. While this society refuses to acknowledge them for who they r, the state recognises them ONLY bcos of who they r. And when they convert the stigma converts with them, while they also lose out on reservation. So long as out politicians play dirty games, and i am sure that esp in TN, reservation is merely an act of vengeance in the tradition of the on-going dravidian movement, there is no hope for equity! And it is high time the govt engaged qualified social scientists to address this issue, instead of engaging in mindless policies that look good as PSAs right ahead of election! There- my two pence or annas.Krupa Gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03780787085562834668noreply@blogger.com