- Beyond Assam
Manini Chatterjee writes in her column for The Telegraph that the day before the National Register of Citizens in Assam was to be published, the state’s chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, appealed for calm. That a chief minister belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party should make such a sober appeal was remarkable enough. But what was even more remarkable is that the people of Assam heeded it.
Many of us who are rootless by destiny – born far away from our ancestral lands, growing up in teeming metropolises, negotiating differences on a daily basis, drawing sustenance from a myriad diversities – find the very idea of the “native” versus the “outsider” bewildering.
It is to the enormous credit of the people of Assam that in spite of being caught in the pincer grip of conflicting narratives – one decrying the exclusions wrought by the NRC and the other loudly hailing it – they have chosen not to pander to either.
Completely unmindful of the specificity of the NRC to Assam in view of the state’s peculiar history and geography, the BJP has launched a vicious campaign against “Bangladeshi infiltrators” – a thinly veiled attempt at communal polarization across the country ahead of the next general elections.
With the BJP determined to misread the signals from Assam and misuse the NRC to open new cleavages and inflict new wounds on India’s fabric, it is time for us to assert a simple truth. Yes, citizenship is important. But to be human, and humane, matters much more.
- We Shouldn’t Be Blaming the Indian Tourist Alone for Goa’s Troubles
In his column for The Wire, Samir Nazareth says that Tourism in Goa has been in the news recently. Vijai Sardesai, the minister for town and country planning, was quoted calling a section of tourists’ ‘scum of the earth’.Goa is like a veritable pie that everyone wants a piece of. Drawn by its beauty and, the much spoken of laid-back lifestyle, there is a steady influx of people making the state their home. These features attract tourists too.
Many fear Goa is losing its ‘Goaness’ because of the steady influx of people from other states. Not only is there a level of dichotomy in this concern but also a certain amount of disingenuity as it assumes culture is pure and constant while also suggesting that it is susceptible to influence. It is unfortunate that people choose to ignore the crossroads at which culture exists.
No culture is permanent or perfect. The challenge is to draw the tourist and the new resident to Goan culture so they choose to become part of it. The only way to preserve a culture is by not becoming isolationist or xenophobic. Further, it fails to recognise the positive influence that the ‘New Goan’ has on the state’s economy and society. To blame the ‘outsider’ reflects an unwillingness to see the role that the Goan plays in the destruction of the land she so loves.
By playing the victim card, Goans abdicate their responsibility for the self-created mess that they find themselves mired in. The first step in resolving the situation is for them to acknowledge and accept that the problem is of their own making. They will then realise that the solution is, therefore, is in their hands.
- NRC debate: Why Assam’s handling of the exercise will have repercussions for the rest of India
Meenakshi Ganguly writes in an article for Scroll.in that “Indians!” despair many of her friends in Goa, complaining that new settlers there are destroying the very Goan culture that once drew them to the coastal state. In Mumbai, many mourn the constant influx of migrants who they claim have made the city polluted, filthy and unaffordable. Bengaluru and Pune, once havens of trees and ordered life, are now nightmares of traffic snarls and high-rise buildings that long-time residents blame on outsiders.
It is often easier to blame the crush of new settlers for the shortcomings in public services, but in an emerging economy like India, people go where life takes them. ike those four million people in Assam who, after nearly 50 years, have been asked to provide evidence of their Indian provenance and right to remain, many elsewhere in India would perhaps fail if told to prove theirs too.To remedy their situation, those deemed illegal residents in Assam are now expected to produce identity documents of their parents and grandparents dating back to 1971.
The Assam citizen count has been exposed already as arbitrary and flawed. There needs to be a robust and sympathetic system to ensure due process rights in establishing citizenship claims. Longstanding family and community ties to India over five decades should be taken into account. Above all, there should be no discrimination in these efforts. Assam’s handling of the National Register of Citizens will put all this to test. Indian authorities should make every effort to promote rights respecting assimilation. If Assam fails today, tomorrow across the country, there will be many more outsiders who will have nowhere they can return to.
- Why Maharashtra BJP is looking to make peace with violent Maratha protesters
Commenting on the ongoing Martha quota agitation, Kiran Tare writes in his column for DailyO that the government is likely to agree that the Maharashtra Backward Class Commission, which is studying whether the Marathas are socially and educationally backward or not, should be urged to release its work-related data at a regular interval.
The energetic outcome of elections to two municipal corporations – Jalgaon and Sangli – has already boosted the BJP’s confidence. The party secured a majority in these corporations by its own for the first time. The voters have refused to hold the BJP responsible for delaying the Maratha reservation. In Sangli, the BJP dented the Congress-NCP’s stronghold sugar belt, which is a big blow to the Opposition. The BJP think tank, however, thinks in a different way.
For them, the success in Jalgaon and Sangli is a result of polarisation and consolidation of votes on the caste basis. When the opponents backed the Marathas the non-Maratha voters rallied behind the BJP in a symbolic unity against the Maratha aggression. It also indicates that whenever there will be a triangular fight BJP will emerge as the winner cutting across the Opposition votes.
- We need a better understanding of intra-caste inequalities
Roshan Kishore, in his column for Hindustan Times says that from the Marathas in Maharashtra to the Patidars and Jats in Gujarat and Haryana, caste-based agitations by what have been dominant caste groups have emerged as stark fault lines in India’s politics. Most of these agitations demand reservations, which don’t seem to make much sense in reality given that a Supreme Court order prohibits more than 50% reservations, and growth in public sector jobs — which is where reservations are valid — have been decelerating with a shrinking of the government’s role in the economy.
A recent World Bank research paper, which is based on a field survey of 9000 poor households in Bihar shows that intra-caste divisions can play a bigger role in creation of inequality than inter-caste factors. The paper applies statistical techniques to arrive at the conclusion that contribution of intra-caste or jati based inequality to total inequality is more than four times the contribution of inter-caste inequality to overall inequality.
To be sure, it will be erroneous to generalise the empirical findings of the paper, given its limited coverage both in terms of geography and class. At the same time, these statistics also underline the need for better understanding of intra-caste dynamics in the policy battle against inequality and poverty in our country. The first prerequisite of making such policies better informed is to initiate a process of collecting the required information at the jati level across the country.