No chicken games please !
Rewrite constitution – TN governors opening address
Let me ask a question. In what way could you rewrite the constitution that does not place equality of all its citizens as the centrepiece. It is impossible in a democracy. If any detours need to be taken from the right to equality in the name of social justice – it must be backed with compelling data of backwardness. You only have a right to social justice – not to caste justice. The moment of truth for the entire dravidian movement appears to be near. I hope better sense prevails upon the current UPA government to talk sense into the parties concerned.
I am afraid that we are playing a game of chicken on a scale never seen in this country. For those not familiar with the game, it works like this. Two guys drive cars at full speed directly at each other on a narrow road. If both guys maintain their course, a fatal collision is sure to happen. If one of them swerves away from the road into the dirt, the other guy wins and get to shout “chicken”. Read here for more.
This sounds like a simple game, but there are a whole lot of war games and international strategy based on it. Say you are playing this game against another guy. You both have revved your engines and are ready to go. Now, say the other guy comes out , strips naked, plucks out the brake cables, empties a quart of cheap liquor into this throat, then throws up and rolls in the vomit and then gets back behind the wheel of his car yelling crazy stuff. You have seen his crazy behaviour. Clearly this dude does not care about shit ! Is he really crazy (or) is he just acting crazy in order to win the chicken game ? What do you do ? If you stay your course and the guy really was crazy, then you may die. Maybe you should also act crazy, perhaps even more outrageously.
The recent Ninth Schedule ruling is turning out to be a chicken game. The government must step in NOW and defuse the situation. Once the cars are on the way and the accelerator is floored the game is on. The innocent bystanders must not be affected.
Reality Check India 
Hope better sense prevails upon UPA? oodles of luck to you.
I did predict this in my post earlier. Now that we have gotten started, the possibilities are endless. Just one for sample – right to religion. Christians and Muslims are bound by their faith to convert others. Shouldn’t that be their fundamental right in the new constitution, not to be negated?
Reason,
Neither Christians nor Muslims have asked for a new constitution. It is the hindus (or hindu origin atheists) from the state of TN. Why drag others into this ?
what if tamils are not crazy. They mean what they say.If they are different from other indians.Then what?
What they want is a constitutional amendment that puts legislature above judiciary. I am guessing this will be accomplished in a decade or so, perhaps sooner.
Already many socialist bloggers have hinted that they like the idea. If you check the nanopolitan blog, he is delighted that a judge has expressed a novel idea about contempt of court.
>> What they want is a constitutional amendment that puts legislature above judiciary >>
Barb, they already have a constitutional amendment (the TN reservations act).
We have moved beyond mere constitutional amendments now. We want a new constitution that allows social justice without data. Data (the truth) is the enemy here. This is realitychecks observation from day one.
In the state of TN, assume data was available that the 4.6% of the population had such a stranglehold on forces of production, education, and economy – that pushed 95.4% into social and educational backwardness. They would have little trouble defending the 69% quota in the SC. They can make a strong case for exempting the 50% cap for TN alone due to the unique backwardness of that state. The constitutional amendment as well as its position in the 9th schedule will stand. No sweat.
The constitution is above everything – atleast in a constitutional form of government like India. As long as the constitution exists, there needs to be someone to be the final interpreter of the constitution.
You cannot have the legislature be the final arbiter because it is only for 5 years or less. What if the BJP comes into power tomorrow, and amended the constitution to restrict christians to control only 5% of schools in proportion to their population. Will that be ok ?
We are plumbing the depths of nation building 101.
I just read his blog entry.
Blogger Nanopolitan just cut-n-pasted parts of J Katjus article.
What everyone should realize is contempt of court is critical in a country like India. People have already lost respect in the legislature. They are only voting on special benefits being conferred upon groups of people (vote banks). In this scenario, if people are allowed to sling mud at judges, this will have disastrous consequences for India.
I am a bit confused about Nanopolitians views. Surely he understands that at the root of all the social issues today – is the selection of groups for social justice. This single issue can be solved by collecting data (caste census) and verifying it with admissions records (cross check reporting). This single issue , specifically in a single state of TN, cannot be used to overthrow carefully built contempt laws or to rewrite the entire constitution.
Again, data is truth, this is the real enemy of vested interests. Satyameva Jayate, truth will win – eventually.
>>If they are different from other indians.Then what? >>
xyz,
What if they are really not different from other indians but just acting to be so in order to win the chicken game ?
My comment about conversion rights was not because of any grudge towards other religions. I was merely trying to think ahead. A few thousand crore extravaganza for ‘OBC justice’ is followed up with making banks’ loan disbursement a communal affair, and even makes the later look legitimate in comparison to the former. Rewriting the constitution for ‘OBC justice’ can also legitimize ‘conversion rights’ as a fundamental right.
And I suggested that just as a sample – people can think up other possibilities in this new ‘game of chicken’. They probably are, already…. so wait until they unroll constitution, version 2.0.
RC,
I have a question for you.It is something which has been disturbing me for a long time.I admire your (and Barb’s) style.There are others who contribute here,who write with felicity and wit.
On the other hand, rarely do tamil non-brahmins write in english. They express themselves clearly in tamil blogs.The tamil prose is of high order.They write even good poetry.There is a psychological-linguistic gap between the two communities.
Today language is not a factor in the entrance exams.Yet there is a gap in the intellectual perceptions of the two communities.
This handicap is faced by obcs in other states as well.But in TN,we have to contend with tamil patriotism extending back to millenia.Add to this the unique tamil literary idiom,the penchant of tamil scholars to hark back to “pure” tamil classicism,protect ‘tamil culture’ from outsiders,growing literacy,the increasing lure of tamil nationalism to semi-literate persons,make TN different from other states.Most tamils have little knowledge of the oldest tamil literature.yet it is given more than a divine status in TN.Also tamil scholars,in general,have a marked antipathy to sanskrit and other pan indian institutions.
What is your take on this?
have
xyz,
Good question.
At the root of your confusion is this. To me everything is acceptable. Yes this includes targeted ridicule, social boycott of brahmans, denying political space for a group, inventing divisions in society, playing down achievements, hyping up some other achievements, baiting. What is not acceptable is using any of the above as grounds for abridging the right to equality under law for a group ? This is where the dravidan movement has run into the recent 9th schedule wall.
This means I have no problems with the dravidian movement as long as it is not used to (a) deny equality to a group (the poor 4.6% forward) and to (b) deny social justice to another (really backward). By classifying advanced communities along with really backward without any creamy layer exclusion is NOT social justice.
The very divide of ‘brahmin vs non-brahmin’ is meaningless for the purposes of social justice. It may be a necessary condition but it is not sufficient to be a ‘non-brahmin’ to qualify as ‘backward’. This is the root of the issue. This is the difference between social justice (for backward communities) vs caste justice (for a given set of castes without backwardness data).
I do not think any community has better english writers or tamil writers. It is an individual trait. There is and can never be any correlation, because the divide itself is bogus.
Reason,
I didnt mean to chide you 🙂 I was merely pointing out the minorities are merely bystanders in this game, perhaps egging on one of the players. They surely do not get to call the shots. Just watch the muslims squirm with the sachar report. Do you think they will get a subquota ? Muslims in TN have been crying for years for a subquota.
[…] Posted in Uncategorized by realitycheck on the July 24th, 2007 It seems the quota chicken game is in on, plunging headlong into a wholly avoidable and decisive face off. Will the judiciary or the […]
zmersh