Geese Extermination

There was a goose that lay golden eggs - one egg per day. The owner of the goose got greedy and killed the goose to get all the eggs out in one day. The goose died and owner could do nothing but repent. This is the story all of us have read and memorized. And we are expected to learn from this story such that we do not find ourselves in a similar situation.

But the Government of India does not seem to have learnt anything from this old tale. It kills one golden goose after another and would probably continue to do so till such geese are extinct in India.

After India became independent, it killed the aspirations of people. Ordinary people like your and my grandfather were expected to be like saints - don't ask, don't question and don't aspire. A very negative connotation was applied to word ambition and if someone became successful, they tried to tell the common man that it would only be through wrongdoing and corruption.

The second goose the government killed comprised of the industries and public sector units. There was no global competition and complacency gripped these PSUs through and through. The recruitment procedure in all these industries became a way of money making by corrupt with a tacit support of local MLAs and MPs. There were no rewards and no recognitions for the real hardworkers. Promotions happened only based on time and sifarish. The more well connected you are, the smoother would be the path to the top.

In late 80s and early 90s, something happened that the goverment had absolutely no control over. Inspite of the over regulation, some enterprising people brought a technical knowledge based revolution to India. A lot of jobs were created and hardworking and talented people brought a lot of name and much needed foreign currency to India, in short became a goose that is laying golden eggs. This, along with the educational system is the latest set of geese that the government intends to kill by bringing in reservation for SC/ST/OBCs.

The intention behind reservation is utopian, but the implementation is draconian. The government is trying to hide its utter failure in bringing the downtrodden to the mainstream of Indian society. Now it is trying to forego its responsibility of social justice by trying to push reservation down the throat of Indian industry.

Reservation was meant to be in place only for the first 10 years after independence, but it has not been able to achieve the goal of social justice even after 55 years. Do we not need to look back and try to see why we failed so badly? Does failure not call for a review of this system? How long are we, as a society, going to carry this baggage only because our government is not honest about bringing in true social justice?

These decisions are totally one sided. Few days back there were voices within the government about taking care of the general category of students and improving infrastructure in educational institutions. Today, nothing, nada, zilch. The proclamation just said that the reservation in educational institutions will happen from June 2007. If you read between the lines, it means that there would be no new IITs, no new AIIMSs, no new law colleges and nothing will be done at the level of primary schools because the goverment has neither any intention nor any money for doing so. The bright students who belong to general category can go to hell, or to the US if their parents have sufficient money.

If reservation has not worked for the last 55 years, there is no guarantee that it will work in next 355 years. If we do not do something about it now, it will be too late. The story of India is just becoming interesting. The goverment is trying to end it here by bringing in an anticlimax.