Outsourcing Responsibility

What if someone gatecrashes your house and demands to sleep with your wife? What if after your resistance he asks to settle the issue by his generous 'just for weekends' offer? What if your neighbors also urge the 'two sides' to negotiate and strike a medium?

What a suffocating thought! Isnt? More than that, I expect a sane man to be appalled by its absurdity. But absurdity is everywhere. It was in Soviet regime and it will be, thanks to Manmohan Singh, in India before we realized it is not impossible.

Manmohan Singh (the helpless man, who is otherwise a genius, is forced to forget his concepts of economics coz the bad people have kidnapped his kids and they want his notes as ransom) has requested the 'socially responsible' corporate sector to 'think over' the issue and suggest an alternative. Suggest or perish! Suggest an alternative cunning enough to afford his party a comfortable next 5 years. Every 5 years, for the next 5 years!

Alas! As if life was not hard enough before this! As if booking a reservation in railways was easy, as if getting a green signal at crossroads was easy, as if anything was easy! As if we haven't had enough of this caste business! Now reservation, in premier institutes, in private companies, in selection, in promotion, in expectation, in reaction against corruption, in every sphere conceivable by any sick swine!

Who all this is for? L R Naik, the only Dalit member of the Mandal Commission, had refused to sign the Mandal recommendations. And read this - Quota for OBCs in higher education?

First of all it is a non-issue, like banning smoking on screen or banning dance bars in Mumbai. Creating an issue of a non-issue is a corruption of thought. Our politicians have convinced us that they are incapable of anything better than caste and vote based politics. Expecting vision and leadership from these jokers is a waste of expectation. They are groping for their roles in modern India after the collapse of system in virtually every field, be it foreign policy, law and order or anything else. Government has completely failed to coordinate infrastructural development with the industrial growth expedited by private sector. Cities look infernally chaotic and villages are apathetically left to their fate. But fortunately, economy is thriving despite them and their unbelievably incompetent ministers and beaurocrats. And they are there to grab the credit.

Secondly, it is NOT negotiable. Just as it was in Socialist Soviet Regime, government is sending homeless people to your house. Why? Because building house takes will and effort, and above all money. And because you are weak. Your consent is incidental to the choice they make. In case you protest, they make it an issue. Now as soon as something is made an issue, you will find people supporting and opposing it despite the merits of the arguments that make a conclusion reasonable. Then you are forced to negotiate and make a compromise that is acceptable to 'both the sides'. And these phonies try to look intellectual and civilized when they say - Baatcheet se hi har samasya ka samadhan ho sakta hai.

Thirdly, are we asking the right questions? Is this right to ask how much quota should be allowed in private sector? Is this not tacitly accepting the corrupt proposition that quota system should be allowed in private sector? Is this not taking the bait? Asking questions is an art. It expresses your assumptions and your values. Does government have any right to do what it is doing? Can government compel us to share our home with other people? Why would anyone build house for?

A person is being penalised not for his sloth but for his enterprise. If a man squanders his money in gambling then he is not made the quarry of governmental policies. On the other hand, if a man saves and invests, employs his resources and applies his skills, he is asked to pay for it. And he is robbed not not only of his eggs, but also of his chicken!

Where is the confusion? Corporate seeks profit and in pursuit of that it indirectly benifits the society. Welfare is not the direct duty of business. It never was. It never can be. Government must remember its rights and obligations. What is the government doing? Why this overlap of duties? How can it outsource its fundamental responsibilities to private sector without conceding its inability to govern?

This reservation is not for dalits, or OBC, or any poor Indian who needs some encouragement to honourably rise in life. It is actually a ploy to reserve power for Congress at center. Dalits are just the means, power is the ends.

God! Save India from her leaders.

Asking right questions

My memory goes back to my IITD days. A horrendous incident had shook Delhi to its roots. At least the newspapers reflected so (duly discounting the inherent 'spice quotient' of the 'story', or 'scoop').

Was rape a news anymore? Delhi, being the crime capital of India, had regularly witnessed such assaults on women. But the news of a medical student (details not required here) being dishonored in broad daylight was too uncomfortable to be ignored. This was not like watching 'Border' on TV. This was rather like a bullet brushing and burning our own skin. The shock was palpable. Fiction was beginning to intrude upon reality. All who were capable of feeling, felt the heat.

We were sharing our collective shame over the scattered pages of newspapers. Suddenly someone said, "But why at the first place she went through that deadly place? Didn't she realize it was dangerous?"

I don't know how would you feel after reading this line. But I felt a searing rage within me. I smothered my outburst with a violent restraint. Perhaps I overreacted, though invisibly. But even now, when I am emotionally calm, I think that that was an outrageous question.

On second thoughts, that question was not a question. It was rather a comment. It was a verdict. The verdict that pronounced the victim, at least partially, culpable for the crime and made her an accomplice. And this verdict was inspired not the least by a sense of justice but by a frustration engendered by impotent sympathy. The impotence that runs in the water of our rivers, that runs in the blood in our veins; the characteristically great Indian 'tolerance' that shows itself only when someone stronger is around. A pop-legend claims that British couldn't tolerate our collective tolerance and so they had to leave India. They were disgracefully out-tolerated by us. How easy it is for us to tolerate other's pain! We are expert in that. History witnesses that we not only tolerated but also celebrated 'Sutti', for years. Otherwise we are no less valiant than anyone. We have proved our valor time and again, in 1984, and recently in Gujarat.

But I realized that I shouldn't hold grudges against the guy as he simply articulated the hidden belief of our society. This is what we have been conditioned to believe. We pass judgments incriminating those who dare to trespass the conventional. We detest any sort of 'misadventures' and resent lack of fear in others. We feel a secret satisfaction when their defying boldness is 'disciplined' by a stray bully.

Some of us are not ridden by complex or cowardice, they are genuinely idiots. They fail to see that just because someone chooses to take a stroll in night, he doesn't deserve to be looted. They fail to see that a walk in night is not an offense in itself, it is at most unwise. And that is so because our judicial system has collapsed and is incapable of providing security and justice to poor and weak.

I believe that asking right question is vital. Right questions lead us to right destination. Wrong questions lead to wrong destination. And a wrong destination is no destination. I was offended by that question because it attempted to place the responsibility on the bruised shoulders of the victim. It was something like this - You are driving in your lane. A madman hits your car and runs away. You are left with your broken car and bleeding body. And now you are to share the guilt with the madman - because you must have done something. Nothing happens for nothing.

What a shameful logic!

Most of us don't believe in the existence of ghosts but some say they have seen them. They have seen the ghost of jungle hovering over our wonderful civilization. Time and again, we are made to realize that, in jungle, wisdom is superior to truth.