Backwardpeople

'OBCs outscore general merit student

BANGALORE: The great OBC myth has been busted. The biggest concern of
the anti-reservation activists that introduction of castebased
reservations in higher education institutes would deteriorate the
quality of education has been debunked.

The final report of the Oversight Committee headed by M Veerappa Moily
to be submitted to PM Manmohan Singh will be backed by strong case
studies from southern states, including Karnataka, to establish how
OBC students have been consistently outscoring general category and
SC/ST students.

Sample this study on the performance of OBC students in Karnataka's
engineering colleges. The study pertained to the admission and
performance of four batches of students in Visvesvaraya Technological
University between 1998-2002 and 2001-2005.

While OBC students have a pass percentage of 93.01 to 97.4, general
merit students recorded just 66.09 to 94.77 from the 1998-2000 batch
to 2001-2005 batch.

The percentage of first class with distinction among OBC students was
between 37.7 and 42.38,while among SC/ST students it was between 9.32
and 11.90 in the same period.

An exclusive study by Bangalore University former vice-chancellor N R
Shetty at the behest of the Oversight Committee has concluded that
there has been no reduction or loss of performance due to introduction
of OBC candidates.

The study has only proved that given a chance, the so-called Backward
Classes can also perform. "In fact, OBC students have done better than
general category and SC/ST students. With the increasing
representation for the backward classes their performance may be
expected to improve," Shetty told The Times of India.

The study shows engineering colleges have been able to fill up the OBC
quota more easily than the SC/ST category. Against 32% reservation for
OBC students in Karnataka, the enrolment has been in the range of
21.17% to 29.69%, while intake of SC/ST students has been a paltry
5.35% to 6.66% against the recommended 18%.

"We don't want to stop just with engineering students. Shortly we will
study the performance of OBC students in medical and dental courses as
well. The aspect of excellence in terms of ranks in the Common
Entrance Test obtained by the OBC students will be explored," Shetty
added.

Moily committee has commissioned similar studies in Andhra Pradesh,
Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which have been implementing reservation
policies favouring OBCs.

No review of OBC reservation, says Moily panel member

NEW DELHI, SEPT 28: Fissures within the oversight committee on quota
appear to have cropped up with a senior panel member questioning
chairman Veerappa Moily's assertion that the committee had recommended
a periodic review of the quota policy.
Planning Commission member BL Mungekar, senior member of the quota
panel, on Thursday maintained that the panel had only recommended a
review of the implementation, not the policy itself.


Briefing newspersons after an eight-hour long final meeting of the
committee on Wednesday, Moily had said they have recommended the
government review the quota policy every five to ten years.

Correcting Moily's assertions, Mungekar on Thursday told FE the
committee had only recommended a yearly review of the implementation.
"Media reports that we recommended a review of the policy are
incorrect. We want the government to make sure that institutions
implement the quota as per directions," Mungekar said.

The panel, significantly, has decided not to make any mention of
creamy layer as demanded by some parties. Tamil parties such as DMK
and PMK were against including the creamy layer criterion in the quota
structure. The PMK had even issued a "fatwa" against Moily entering
Tamil Nadu, if he dissallowed rich OBCs from getting reservation
benefits.

"Creamy layer was never under the purview of our committee. The panel
unanimously decided not mention it. Reports that I objected are
wrong," Mungekar said.

Mungekar, refuting reports that he had questioned giving autonomy to
higher education institutions, said "We cannot avoid introducing
changes with respect to autonomy in the higher education sector. The
issue, however, should be first discussed and debated," Mungekar told
FE.

To buttress his argument, he said that during his term as vice
chancellor of Mumbai University he had granted autonomy to two premier
institutes. "I favour giving autonomy to these institutes," he said.

Mungekar added that there was a consensus that issues not part of the
committee's terms of reference should be avoided. "We did not suggest
a view on creamy layer and quota in private educational institutes."

37 killed as 3 blasts rock Malegaon

A crime against humanity, the terrorists have killed innocent people and this is shameful act.

CNN-IBN

GRIM TASK: An elderly man searches for the body of his relative among the bodies of people killed.
New Delhi/ Mumbai/ Nashik: At least 37 people were killed and 56 were seriously injured when three bombs concealed on cycles went off near a mosque in Maharashtra’s Malegaon town when people were coming out after Friday afternoon prayers.
The blasts occurred near the Hamidia Mosque in the Bada Kabristan area of the communally sensitive town just after Friday prayers.

Thousands of people were out on the streets on Friday for Shab-e-Barat, a festival during which people offer prayers to dead relatives.
The first blast occurred at 1345 hours IST and two more explosions follow in two minutes. Police suspect a timer device could have been used to trigger off the explosions.
A curfew was imposed in the textile town after the blasts.
Maharashtra Police sounded a statewide alert and had mobile networks jammed in the town to prevent rumours.
"The situation in Malegaon is tense but under control," said Maharashtra Director General of Police P S Pasricha. ''The motive appears to be to create panic and make people fight with each other,” he said.

Reservation buttresses social justice: Expert

MADURAI: Reservation is not an isolated issue and it should been seen
against the backdrop of the larger plan of imparting social justice,
said P S Krishnan, former member secretary of National Backward
Classes Commission and National SC/ST Commission. He was delivering
the inaugural address at a seminar on reservation organised by the
Doctors' Forum for the People here, on Sunday.

"Reservation is only one of the means to attain social justice. So the
question, 'what has Tamil Nadu achieved from its reservation policy?'
does not hold water," he asserted. Elaborating on the need to continue
with reservation policy, Krishnan said, though social inequality is
prevailing in many countries across the world, India's case attracts
special mention because of caste-based segregation pursued in the
nation.

The oppressed people, he said, are also there among the upper castes,
but their number is comparatively very small. Reeling out statistics,
he pointed out that the reservation is a much needed measure in the
state while taking the national average on several criteria including
agricultural labourers in rural area and casual labourers in urban
area.

He also insisted for reservation in private sector as many of the new
employment opportunities are emerging there and not in the public
sector as was the case earlier. He also suggested that the term
'creamy layer' is deceptive and the better alternative is 'socially
advanced persons/section'.

Speaking on the occasion, CMD of Tamilnadu Urban Finance and
Infrastructure Development Corporation, Christhudoss Gandhi, said that
though Tamil Nadu is the forerunner in the reservation issue, there
are around 300 schools in the state that have no single SC/ST student
in their roll.

"Chennai alone has 150 such schools and if this is the situation in
Tamil Nadu, what would be the situation in other states," he wondered.

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Varadharajan asserted that reservation
issue should not be viewed on caste basis and urged the oppressed
classes including SC, ST and OBC to lead a combined fight.

The seminar dealt with several topics related to reservation including
'Women and Reservation', 'Dravidian Movement and Reservation', 'Law
and Reservation' and 'Cultural Aspects to Reservation'.

The seminar was attended by ex-MLC and former principal of Mannar
Thirumalai Naickar College B Parthasarathy, general secretary of
Periyar Dravida Kazhagam Viduthalai Rajendran and head of the
Sociology department at MKU L Dharabhai.

Making right an obligation

Making right an obligation

SANJAY PULIPAKA

Given an appropriate space, every student has a distinct possibility
of becoming a `meritorious student'


IN THE recent past, the Centre's decision to implement reservation for
Other Backward Castes (OBCs) in various institutes of `excellence'
prompted many to reflect on the necessity of having reservation to
address the problems associated with caste discrimination. Some
scholars have pointed out that reservation has become the only
paradigm of social justice in India. And they have argued that such
one-dimensional approach to social justice might in the long run
hamper the cause of social justice.
However, the question we need to ask is how come one-dimensional
approach dominates the discourse on social justice in India? Is the
political class solely responsible for this? If the politicians are
able to determine and define the discourse on social justice for their
partisan political ends, it is precisely because the space was vacated
by other segments of society. The failure in implementing multiple
approaches to ensure social equality was largely a consequence of
indifference displayed by the privileged towards the prevailing
inequalities and discrimination in society. Let me illustrate this
with an example.

Support centre

Currently, I am studying at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding,
Eastern Mennonite University, in the U.S. Many students with diverse
backgrounds come to the university to pursue their degrees. Given
their diverse backgrounds there is disparity in the communication
skills of the students. Instead of indulging in deprecatory statements
about the alleged low standards of in-coming students, the university
runs an academic support centre where the students are provided with
various services such as proof-reading and editing of their
term-papers.
Students visiting the academic support centre tend to build healthy
relationships with the professionals providing such services, and over
a span of time their communication skills tend to register a
remarkable improvement. All the students have access to employment
counsellors who help them in drafting their resumes apart from
providing employment counselling.
Persistent efforts are made to make the classroom space democratic.
The faculty and the students sit in a circle in the classroom to
negate the notion of hierarchy. Acknowledging the fact that there are
multiple levels of intelligence, students are given the option to
submit their assignments by using various methods such as role-plays
and other audio-visual mediums. All these measures are based on the
premise that given an appropriate space every student has a distinct
possibility of becoming a `meritorious student.'
This prompts me to raise a few important questions. How many
universities in India can claim that they are running academic support
centres that foster `excellence' among all students? How many
universities have made sincere efforts to make their classroom space
more democratic? Does all this require constitutional amendments by
Parliament? Can't a group of professionals committed to "fostering
merit" ensure that such changes are ushered in?
Language improvement sessions, employment counselling, and diverse
evaluation procedures might appear mundane for some. But such small
measures go a long way in building camaraderie among the members of
the campus community. And more importantly such an approach recognises
that merit is a consequence of interplay of social factors and has
many forms.

Greater malaise

The absence of such mechanisms in many Indian universities is
symptomatic of a greater malaise afflicting Indian society — a
persistent reluctance to think innovatively to address the problems
associated with social inequality and discrimination. There is very
little desire to foster merit in our institutions. The word `merit' is
thrown around flippantly only when there is a move to ensure
legitimate representation of disadvantaged sections.
I am not singing paeans of an American university. Rather, I am only
pointing out that there are various ways by which social equality can
be ensured and if there is yearning in society, even we can come up
with our own approaches/mechanisms for ensuring social equality. In
this context it is pertinent to note that many international
educational foundations in India, supported by big businesses from
outside, are making conscious efforts to ensure that the socially
disadvantaged are adequately represented in the fellowships they are
offering.
The anti-reservationists apart from their "nay-saying" do not have a
clearly defined agenda for a positive social change. Given the apathy
towards social inequality and discrimination, giving up reservation
would be the last thing to do. We should move away from this
"nay-saying" and explore the various measures that we need to take,
along with reservation, for ushering in social equality at a rapid
pace.

(The writer is a Fulbright Fellow in Conflict Transformation
Programme, Eastern Mennonite University. He can be reached at
pulipaka.sanjay@...)

Does the Irani panel report mean affirmative action by the private

It's a deliberate move to prevent legislation

Udit Raj

Point 7 of the CII-Assocham Action Plan under the title 'Preamble'
says "Private sector industry is against any legislation that would
compromise the sanctity of its non-negotiable freedom of choice in
employment." Do we need more to question the timing, intention and
mindset of this Action Plan brought out by our big businesses? There
was tremendous pressure on Indian industry from the government,
political parties, civil society and the public after it was seen that
all along, industry has shirked its social responsibility. The Action
Plan is a deliberate move to pre-empt the intended legislation
proposed by none other than the ruling regime.

The Action Plan, under the title 'Entrepreneurship Development', says
"Larger companies to mentor and create at least one entrepreneur from
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes a year. To begin with 100
entrepreneurs will be created in the first year." But, how they will
do it is not explained when the entrepreneurial base of deprived
communities is missing. Dalit businessmen will have to be created from
scratch and this will take years. What industry can do instead is to
start employing SCs and STs who, at present, find its doors shut to
them.

Moreover, there are over five lakh inter-racial marriages in the US
whereas Indian business communities marry within themselves. Only if
they start marrying in Dalit communities will we see Dalit
entrepreneurs and not by merely drawing up Action Plans.

JJ Irani's report may be trying to show that affirmative action, as is
practiced in the US, is being pursued. But the situation there is
different; the mindset and motives there are exemplary. IBM provided
reservations to African-Americans way back in 1930. In the US, they
bear the social responsibility for bringing ethnic minorities like the
Hispanics, African-Americans, into the mainstream out of their love
for an inclusive society. For they believe that a nation within a
nation and a society within a society can't work for the happiness of
all. Their charities are unparallelled and unprecedented. Take, for
instance, the recent donation by Warren Buffett. Or the fact that a
white American industrialist founded the Mississippi Medical College
for African-Americans.

In 2003, an African-American student got admission into the Law School of

Michigan University. A white American student challenged this
'affirmative action' which denied him admission even though he had
secured more marks than the African-American student. The case was
heard in the Supreme Court and about 75 industrialists defended the
affirmative action. Please give me some examples on these lines in
India. Rather, there have been indications in newspapers that the
recent anti-reservation protests were funded by corporate money.

In India, R&D is done by public-funded government institutions. On the
other hand, in the US private business does all the research in
science and technology. The public funds the budget of the IITs, IIMs
and AIIMS which provide very subsidised education. But the alumni of
such institutions contribute to the profits of big businesses; this
fact is never recognised and appreciated by our industry. If it can
take the help of government-funded education to grow and reap profits,
then why does it shirk its social responsibility to be an equal
partner in a common destiny and pitch in with some help. If the
government were all-powerful and all- resourceful, the likes of JRD
Tata, Jamnalal Bajaj, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett would not be
needed.

In India, we have legislation providing for reservations for SCs and
STs in government jobs and educational institutions, yet it is not
properly implemented.

The DOPT and the UPSC have taken unreserved seats as 'reserved' for
the so-called upper castes. My belief is that the Action Plan is an
eyewash. But, if the private sector really means it, then we are game
for it. However, without any stringent laws in place I don't see any
obligation falling on industrialists.

—The writer is founder- president of the Indian Justice Party

Moily Committe: For or against quota

The Moily Committee which has been formed to formulate a policy for the implementation of the quota scheme, appears to have been packed with the anti-quota quota people. Every pronouncment made by the committe whether it is regarding to quota in IIMs or R&D institution has been attached with a number of suffixes and prefixes.

The Moily committee with a subtle backing from some congress Ministers is bent upon diluting the constitutional amendment regarding the quotas to OBCs. Basically, the upper caste lobby which has been unable to stop the quota brigade in the parliament is now trying to do the same through the Supreme Court which is no doubt filled by meritorious judges but all belong to the upper castes.
Somewhere down the line the caste becomes too strong a connection for any Indian to get beyond or above it, while making an important decision.
In addition, the upper caste media primarily led by Indian Express is hellbent on proving that there is a major rift in the government ranks on this issue and Congress is a house divided on implementing quota.
Even today, while no other newspaper has reported regarding any differences in the Indian government regarding quota, Indian Express has given this story the lead space.

Elite institutions will determine their own threshold: committee

Anita Joshua

Admissions must be decided by the institutions




Cut-off for OBCs to be somewhere midway between those for SC/STs
Preparatory courses suggested to bring OBC candidates on a par with
fellow students


NEW DELHI: Merit will not necessarily become a casualty once the
Government's reservation policy for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) is
in place; at least not in top-of-the-line institutions such as the
Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the Indian Institutes of
Technology (IITs), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the
All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

The Oversight Committee — entrusted with preparing a roadmap for
implementing 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in Central educational
institutions — says the threshold for admissions to these institutions
should be determined by themselves, as is done today, commensurate
with the level of its excellence.

In its interim report submitted to the Government last week, the
Committee justified this hands-off strategy vis-a-vis the admission
criteria as an acknowledgement of the fact that the IITs, IIMs, IISc
and AIIMS and other such "exceptional quality institutions" which have
established a global reputation can maintain that standard only if the
highest quality in both faculty and students is ensured.

Even in the case of the other Central educational institutions, the
Committee has suggested that cut-off for OBCs be placed somewhere
"midway between those for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes and the
unreserved category, carefully calibrated so that the principles of
both equity and excellence can be maintained." These recommendations
are based on inputs gathered by the five sub-committees from the
various Central educational institutions.

The sub-committee for management education institutions reported to
the Oversight Committee that the IIMs were very keen on their position
that "High standards and quality must be maintained and assured in the
whole process of expansion. There must be no unjustifiable demands on
the institutes to lower admission standards in order to accommodate
the enhanced intake." Also, the IIMs are clear that OBC reservation
should be confined to the post-graduate diploma and equivalent
programmes as is the case with SC/ST candidates.

Similarly, the sub-group for engineering institutions told the
Oversight Committee that admission criteria and cut-off "may be left
to the Joint Advisory Board of the IITs or the respective Board of
Governors." According to the sub-group, the cut-off figures should not
be lowered to fill the reserved seats. Like the management sub-group,
the engineering sub-group has suggested remedial preparatory courses
to bring OBC candidates on a competitive level with fellow students.

IITs, IISc seek Rs 5,520 cr to double seats

Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi August 03, 2006



The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the IITs will double their
student intake from 38,500 to 60,600 in five years at a cost of Rs
5,520 crore.

This is being done to comply with the annexures to the interim report
of the Veerappa Moily committee on reservation in higher education.

The report projects a total requirement of Rs 9,640 crore for all
technical educational institutions and seeks a three-year time frame
to implement the 54 per cent seat expansion.

The figure for IITs, IIMs, medical colleges and central and
agricultural universities put together touches Rs 16,000 crore. Except
medical colleges and agricultural universities, which will bring in
the changes in two years, all other institutes want a 3-5-year
time-frame.

The IITs and IISc have said their total approved intake for 2006-2007
was 12,813 which would increase by 7,390. But it is silent on the
exact number of additional students to be admitted next year.

However it gives a break up of the number of teachers who are to be
recruited over a period of five years. The estimated total additional
faculty requirement spread over five years is 3,200.

Similarly, in the case of the National Institutes of Technology (NIT),
the total cost requirement has been put at Rs 3,385 crore, with the
student intake to increase from the present 49,185 to 76,000 in five
years.

The report says 2,000 additional faculty members would be required
over the period. Other central government technical educational
institutions have asked for about Rs 735 crore and 500 additional
faculty members.

The report recommends relaxation of retirement of the faculty to 65
years, re-employing retired faculty up to 70 years, securing services
of ad hoc and visiting faculty, adopting large classrooms with
tutorial sections, utilising the services of senior research scholars
for assistance in teaching and tutorials, establishing virtual
classrooms and starting e-learning facilities .

IIMs: IIMs, on their part, have asked for Rs 611.46 crore spread over
four years to effect 54 per cent expansion in seats. They have also
asked for full freedom to fill faculty positions based on a teacher to
student ratio of 1:7. The interim report of the committee has
incorporated these demands in its recommendations.

Central universities: About Rs 2,000 crore has been demanded for 54
per cent expansion in seats in 17 central universities.

Medical colleges: The central medical colleges have asked for Rs
2,442.05 crore to implement expansion over two years. With the
expansion, seats in medical colleges will increase from the present
355 seats to 546. Post graduate seats will rise from 1,173 to 1,771.

Agricultural universities: The four colleges under the Central
Agricultural University, Imphal, and the IARI New Delhi, IVRI
Izatnagar, NDRI Karnal and CIFE Mumbai have projected expansion in
seats over a period of three years. The total fund requirement sought
is Rs 194.6 crore.

While Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, has agreed to
increase 18 per cent seats in the first year for PG and PhD, 36 per
cent would be increased in the second year.

IVRI, Izatnagar, and NDRI, Karnal, have also made similar commitments.
The latter, however, is to increase 54 per cent seats at the
undergraduate level from next year itself.

Devil doctors are meritwallahs

Doctors hack off medical ethics

CNN-IBN
Posted Saturday , July 29, 2006 at 20:16
Updated Saturday , July 29, 2006 at 20:41 Email Print
New Delhi: Ajay Agarwal, senior orthopaedic surgeon at the Ghaziabad and Noida district hospitals, was not only willing to amputate beggar’s limbs for money but when promised more cash, he even introduced the CNN-IBN and DIG team to his partners in crime.


DIG: Dr Saheb ek cheez aur. Jo aapse phone per baat ki thi. Hum log is kam ke expand kar rahai hai, not only Ghaziabad. (Dr we are expanding our work and not only in Ghaziabad).


Dr Agarwal: Har district main ek ek de de ta hoon (I will give you one in each district).


DIG: Mujhe char dijiye, ek to mujhe apne Panipat bataya tha, Jaipur bataya tha (Give me four. You said one was in Panipat and the other in Jaipur)


Dr Agarwal: As pass ilake me kar lo (Do your work in nearby areas).


DIG: Kahan (Where?)


Dr. Agarwal: Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur.


Dr Agarwal quickly made a series of phone calls revealing a network of doctors who would agree to chop hands, arms, legs and in fact any limb for a price.


Dr Agarwal: Hello Arvind. Dr Ajay Agarwal Ghaziabad se. Aur kya haal hain, kaise chal raha hai kam dham. Ek kuch sansatha hain Goa ki, to jisse beggar ka ya diseased person, ka kuch amputation ke cases Bareilly mein karne ki cha rahee hai.. To tum kar dooge? (Hello Arvind. I am Dr Ajay Agarwal from Ghaziabad. How are you and how is the work? There is an organisation from Goa and it wants some beggars and diseased persons to be amputated in Bareilly. Will you do it?)


His sales pitch exposed his familiarity with the horrific practice of amputation.


Dr Agarwal: Bakaida patient consent de rehe hai. Aapko surgeon charges de rahe hai. Aapko kahin dikkat hain, aur yeh bahut moti si baat mano. Do beggar tumhare saamne khade hain, ek ka pair kata hai tumari jeb main ek sikka hai kis ko doge? Jiska amputation hai (The patient is giving his consent. You have to pay only the fee for the surgery. Believe me if there are two beggars before you and one of them is lame you will give the give money to the lame beggar.)


Dr Agarwal: Vohi consent dega patient ka, aur yeh surgeon ko surgeon charges pura denge, to tum kar paoge? Beggars ki earning badh jaati hai. (He will give the consent for the patient and will pay the surgeon’s fee. So will you do it? The earning of the beggar increases).

The Devil doctors are Meritwallahs

The devil doctors exposed by the IBN-CNN raise a number of questions?

Are these doctors meritwallahs or from depressed classes?
Why the so-called upper caste merit wallahs doctors turned out to be devils ? We dont say depressed people cant do it, but till date none has been found in this racket.
This racket clearly shows why the doctors dont want to expand medical education ?
There is huge money in this profession which has become synonymous with dalali, anything can be fixed for money?



The IMA must tell why merit wallahs were found doing this, as it feels that they are the upholders of hippocrates oath in this country. The IMA itself is is battleground of corruption and sleaze, and there are many more skeletons in the cupboard.


Hacker docs in the dock, IMA promises action

CNN-IBN
Posted Saturday , July 29, 2006 at 21:17
Updated Sunday , July 30, 2006 at 10:59 Email Print
New Delhi: After CNN-IBN and DIG exposed doctors who cut off beggars' limbs for a price to help the beggar mafia the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has promised to prosecute the erring doctors.


Dr Ajay Kumar, National President Elect of the Indian Medical Association has said that the doctors will be arrested immediately.


"If they are registered with the IMA then their medical license will be immediately suspended," he said.

The police have already taken Dr P K Bansal for questioning. He runs a clinic named Orthomat in Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar locality.


Dr Bansal had agreed to amputate the limbs of a beggar despite knowing that the law prohibits amputation by will.


Another doctor, Ghaziabad-based Ajay Agarwal took money to amputate healthy limbs of a DIG investigator who posed as a prospective beggar.


People entered Agarwal's house in Ghaziabad and demanded action against the erring doctor.


In a sting operation, a team of CNN-IBN reporters exposed orthopaedic surgeon Ajay Agarwal's unethical practice.


Dr Agarwal put the fake beggar through a series of medical tests at his nursing home.


The surgeon pocketed Rs 4,000 as advance for the operation from the team while also giving advice on how the amputation could be made to look legal.


When CNN-IBN reached Dr Ajay Agarwal at the Noida Civil Hospital, the cameraperson was pushed and abused.


It was in fact Dr Ajay Agarwal who had referred Dr P K Bansal to the investigative team as part of amputation nexus.


Dr Ajay Agarwal is absconding and the police are trying to track him down.

CNN-IBN had also exposed Dr Arvind Agarwal of Bareilly.


Dr Agarwal, who is also the Secretary of the Orthopaedic Association of Bareilly is now absconding.


His wife says he has not returned since Saturday afternoon.


When questioned about Dr Agarwal, his wife, Dr Neera Agarwal said,”If he has not come then how can I tell you?”


The police are now looking out for him. The Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Bareilly, Anand Swaroop said, "We are looking for him and have contacted IMA for cooperation."

Divide over reservation deepens

Priyam Bhasin

Sunday, July 23, 2006 (New Delhi):


The debate over reservation may seem to have toned down for people but
at medical colleges it still continues and is very much alive at
AIIMS.

The recent agitation has only underlined and fuelled the divide that
already existed between the pro-quota and anti-quota lobbies.

Not all doctors are happy with the Supreme Court's decision to pay
doctors who'd struck work.

Doctors, who were working during the three weeks of reservation row,
say the court was being discriminatory.

The SC's decision to pay has strengthened the anti-quota lobby.

"In the court it was said, that release the salaries, and do not make
it a precedent, which means that the judiciary was biased towards
those protesting against quotas," said Dr Anoop Saraya, senior doctor,
AIIMS.

On Saturday, senior doctors including the vice dean students and
workers demonstrated at AIIMS.

Caste-based discrimination

The pro-quota lobby says it is also fighting caste-based
discrimination and the insults and abuse faced by reserved category
students during the recent strike.

"We, the SC/ST doctors' association, have filed a PIL in the Delhi
high court. Doctors from reserved categories were harassed, and not
allowed to work, but the authorities failed to take action," said Dr
Rathore, Maulana Azad Medical College.

The doctors who oppose reservation say there was never any discrimination.

"These allegations are baseless, they oppose Dr Venugopal. It's all
being done because they are against him," said Dr Anil Sharma,
Spokesperson, Youth for Equality.

On one side of the AIIMS campus there were the anti quota protest
which went on for three weeks. But on the opposite side, protests are
still on against discrimination faced by students belonging to
reserved categories.

This deep and bitter divide within the medical community along caste
lines has further deepened with the Supreme Court's orders.

What's worrying is that what happens here sets a precedent elsewhere
in the country.

College seats, double shifts

S.S. Gill

Whether we like it or not, 27 per cent reservations for the OBCs is here to stay. The big question exercising most people is whether we have the infrastructure to accommodate the increased intake. The problem is that we are looking for solutions within the existing parameters, instead of searching for alternatives.


Advertisment We should look at how the southern states addressed the issue. At one point, there are only 14 government engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, eight in Andhra Pradesh and one in Karnataka. Today there are 252 engineering colleges in TN, 250 in AP, and 125 in Karnataka. How did this happen? The governments of these states realised that they just did not have the resources to set up new institutions to meet the demand. Either they could keep sticking to the ‘principled’ approach of not allowing the intrusion of private technical institutions on to the hallowed turf of professional education, or adopt a pragmatic approach and permit private parties to establish engineering, medical and management colleges. They adopted the latter course.

Of course, a number of these institutions do not maintain high standards of teaching; they charge exorbitant capitation fees and indulge in other malpractices. But the best should not be made an enemy of the good. These institutions have also made a notable contribution in enabling these states to lead the country in the field of technical and professional education. Suitable regulatory mechanisms can be devised to rectify some of the malpractices. Other steps would include prescribing minimum standards of teaching and making suitable provision for labs and libraries.

There is no reason why the southern model cannot be replicated in other states to overcome the infrastructure crunch resulting from additional reservations. Most of the northern states are woefully deficient in this regard, and no serious thought has been given to establishing a slew of new technical and professional colleges in association with the private sector. Also, there need be no problem in introducing double shifts in most schools and colleges. As the buildings, libraries, laboratories, and other infrastructure already exists on the ground, all you need to do to double existing capacity is to double the teaching and administrative staff.

When it comes to medical education, things get a bit more complicated. Here, much more important than increasing the existing capacities of professional institutions is the problem of providing reasonable healthcare to 65 per cent of our population living in the villages. Thousands of primary health centres remain unmanned because MBBS degree holders do not want to live in villages and work in these centres. In an earlier, post-revolutionary phase, China solved this problem by introducing the concept of ‘barefoot doctors’. These men and women were given rudimentary training in treating the most common ailments afflicting the villagers.

Before independence, India had a more professional corps of qualified physicians, who were put through a much shorter course of medical education than the MBBS. They were fairly well-acquainted with the principles of modern medicine, and could treat almost all the simple ailments of their patients. They were awarded a ‘Licentiate of Medicine’, and were eligible to practise as physicians. But medical professionals ganged up and abolished this system on the ground that these half-baked doctors were actually a health hazard. Today, the better qualified doctors have a monopoly of the profession but the poor villager is left at the mercy of quacks, who fleece them and indiscriminately prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics and steroids to produce quick results.

There is a very urgent need to review the present system of medical education and re-introduce the earlier practice of short-duration medical courses for doctors qualified to treat simple ailments like fever, cold, cough, diarrhoea and headache. After all, most illnesses people suffer from are quite simple and do not require the service of a specialist.

As for the infrastructure required to accommodate more students, nearly half the medical colleges can be run in two shifts for MBBS students, and the other half for short-term courses, thus more than doubling the output of qualified doctors. There is bound to be lot of resistance from the entrenched medical fraternity to such reform. But given the failure to send MBBS degree holders to the countryside all these years, it is time the community came around to the view that it should not prevent the setting up of a system that could deliver basic healthcare for villagers and liberate them from the clutches of local quacks.

The writer was secretary, Mandal Commission

India Inc pens 4-part job plan

Priti Bajaj




NEW DELHI: The joint task force of CII and Assocham has prepared a
draft report in four parts laying out the industry's response to the
prime minister's proposal for greater social diversity in private
sector jobs.

The draft, according to industry sources, recommends a legislation on
the lines of the US equal-opportunity employment law.

The US law - Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII)— prohibits
employment discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex or
national origin. Also, since 1965, the Federal government runs a
contract compliance programme under which government contractors are
required to comply with the equal employment opportunity and
affirmative action provisions of their contracts.

Private contractors are required to draw up a written programme giving
out the problems and solution for affirmative action in their
employment.

The draft report also contains a detailed code of conduct to be
followed by the member companies of the two apex chambers of commerce
and industry to ensure higher representation of scheduled caste and
scheduled tribes and other backward classes in private sector
employment.

The draft drawn up by a committee headed by JJ Irani and with members
like Subodh Bhargava, proposes the setting up of an office of
ombudsman to oversee the implementation of affirmative action in
private sector.

Caste, genes and Anthropology

Half a century ago, Dr. Ambedkar surveyed the existing data on the physical anthropology of the different castes in his book The Untouchables. He found that the received wisdom of a racial basis of caste was not supported by the data, e.g.: “The table for Bengal shows that the Chandal who stands sixth in the scheme of social precedence and whose touch pollutes, is not much differentiated from the Brahmin (…) In Bombay the Deshastha Brahmin bears a closer affinity to the Son-Koli, a fisherman caste, than to his own compeer, the Chitpavan Brahmin. The Mahar, the Untouchable of the Maratha region, comes next together with the Kunbi, the peasant. They follow in order the Shenvi Brahmin, the Nagar Brahmin and the high-caste Maratha. These results (…) mean that there is no correspondence between social gradation and physical differentiation in Bombay.”70


A remarkable case of differentiation in skull and nose indexes, noted by Dr. Ambedkar, was found to exist between the Brahmin and the (untouchable) Chamar of Uttar Pradesh.71 But this does not prove that Brahmins are foreigners, because the data for the U.P. Brahmin were found to be very close to those for the Khattri and the untouchable Chuhra of Panjab. If the U.P. Brahmin is indeed “foreign” to U.P., he is by no mean . s foreign to India, at least not more than the Panjab untouchables. This confirms the scenario which we can derive from the Vedic and ItihAsa-PurANa literature: the Vedic tradition was brought east from the Vedic heartland by Brahmins who were physically indistinguishable from the lower castes there, when the heartland in Panjab-Haryana at its apogee exported its culture to the whole Aryavarta (comparable to the planned importation of Brahmins into Bengal and the South around the turn of the Christian era). These were just two of the numerous intra-Indian migrations of caste groups.


Recent research has not refuted Ambedkar’s views. A press report on a recent anthropological survey led by Kumar Suresh Singh explains: “English anthropologists contended that the upper castes of India belonged to the Caucasian race and the rest drew their origin from Australoid types. The survey has revealed this to be a myth. ‘Biologically and linguistically, we are very mixed’, says Suresh Singh (…) The report says that the people of India have more genes in common, and also share a large number of morphological traits. ‘There is much greater homogenization in terms of morphological and genetic traits at the regional level’, says the report. For example, the Brahmins of Tamil Nadu (esp. Iyengars) share more traits with non-Brahmins in the state than with fellow Brahmins in western or northern India. (…) The sons-of-the-soil theory also stands demolished. The Anthropological Survey of India has found no community in India that can’t remember having migrated from some other part of the country.”72 Internal migration accounts for much of India’s complex ethnic landscape, while there is no evidence of a separate or foreign origin for the upper castes.


Among other scientists who reject the identification of caste (varNa) with race on physical-anthropological grounds, we may cite Kailash C. Malhotra:


“Detailed anthropometric surveys carried out among the people of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bengal and Tamil Nadu revealed significant regional differences within a caste and a closer resemblance between castes of different varnas within a region than between sub-populations of the caste from different regions. On the basis of analysis of stature, cephalic and nasal index, H.K. Rakshit (1966) concludes that ‘the Brahmins of India are heterogeneous and suggest incorporation of more than one physical type involving more than one migration of people’.


“A more detailed study among eight Brahmin castes in Maharashtra on whom 18 metric, 16 scopic and 8 genetic markers were studied, revealed not only a great heterogeneity in both morphological and genetic characteristics but also showed that 3 Brahmin castes were closer to non-Brahmin castes than [to the] other Brahmin castes. P.P. Majumdar and K.C. Malhotra (1974) observed a great deal of heterogeneity with respect to OAB blood group system among 50 Brahmin samples spread over 11 Indian states. The evidence thus suggests that varna is a sociological and not a homogeneous biological entity.”73

4.9.2 Family traits


This general rejection of the racial basis of caste does not exclude that specific castes stand out in their environment by their phenotypical or genotypical characteristics. Firstly, any group that goes on breeding endogamously for generations will have “family traits” recognizable to the regular and sharp observer, at least to a statistically significant extent. This does not mean that these family traits (rarely distinctive enough to be called “racial” traits) are in any way the reason why one caste refuses to intermarry with another caste, as you would have in the case of racial discrimination.


Secondly, intra-Indian migrations have taken place so that certain caste groups stand out by retaining the physical characteristics of their source region’s population for quite a few generations. Thus, the Muslim invasions chased some Rajput castes from western India to the Nepalese borderland, and some Saraswat Brahmins from Kashmir to the Konkan region; geneticists ought to be able to find traces of that history.


It is well-known that the Brahmin communities of Bengal and South India originated in the physical importation of Brahmin families by kings who sought accession to the prestigious Vedic civilization and wanted to give extra religious legitimacy to their thrones. These Brahmin families were brought in from northwestern India where, for obvious geographical reason, people are whiter and closer to the European physical type than in Bengal or the South. (Even so, due to intermarriage and the incorporation of local priesthoods, numerous Brahmins in South India are simply black.) Apart from Brahmins, numerous other caste groups throughout India have histories of immigration, putting them in environments where they differed in genetic profile from their neighbours, e.g. the Dravidian-speaking Oraon tribals of Chotanagpur recall having migrated from Maharashtra along the Narmada river.


The Chitpavan Brahmins of Maharashtra are often mentioned as a caste that stands out by its physical type. Their slightly more “Nordic” build and the occurrence of blue eyes among them look like the perfect evidence for the theory that the Brahmins are the descendents of the Nordic Aryans who invaded India in 1500 BC. In fact, it is only during the initial Islamic onslaught that the Chitpavans migrated from the Afghan borderland to their present habitat.


Nevertheless, the Chitpavan case shows that sometimes, such distinctive family traits do coincide with the difference between the higher or lower incidence of the distinctive traits of the white race, esp. the low pigmentation of the skin or, in this case, the eyes. The difference between castes can in some cases be expressed in terms of the respective distances between their average characteristics and those of the European type. And this is only to be expected given the basic fact that India is a large country with great variation in physical type and lying in the border zone between the major races. The rich biological variety in the Indian chapter of the human species is due to many factors, but so far the Aryan Invasion has not been shown to be one of them.

4.9.3. Mixing of castes


The genetic differential between castes has recently been confirmed in a survey in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.74 The main finding of the survey, conducted by human-geneticists Lynn B. Jorde (University of Utah) and Bhaskara B. Rao and J.M. Naidu (both with Andhra University), concerned the role of inter-caste marriages: men stay in their castes, while women sometimes go and live with a man from another, mostly higher caste. In spite of the definition of caste as an “endogamous group”, the fact is that there has always been a marginal mixing of castes as well. Likewise, even outside the marital framework, upper-class employers (in any society) have made passes at their maid-servants, while prostitutes got impregnated by their higher-class clients, all producing mixed offspring.


Factoring all these marginal mixed-caste births in, the cumulative effect over centuries is that the castes have mixed much more than the theory of caste would lead you to expect. Over many generations, this mixing had to lead to a thorough genetic kinship even between castes of very divergent origins. Given these known sociological facts, the scientists naturally found that genetic traits in the male line (Y chromosome) are stable, those in the female line (mitochondrial DNA) considerably less so. Because inter-caste marriages are mostly between “neighbouring” castes in the hierarchy, the genetic distance between highest and lowest is about one and a half times greater than that between high and middle or between middle and low.


However, none of this requires a policy of racial discrimination nor an Aryan invasion into India: the known history of internal migrations and the general facts about relations between higher and lower classes in all societies can easily account for it.75 Moreover, the observed differences between Indian communities are much smaller than those between Indians collectively and Europeans (or Africans etc.) collectively. A provisional table of the genetic distance between populations shows that North-Indians and South-Indians are indeed very close, much closer than “Aryan” North-Indians and “Aryan” Iranians are to each other.76


Both sides in the debate should realize that this evidence can cut both ways. If an Aryan or other invasion is assumed, this evidence shows that all castes are biologically the progeny of both invaders and natives, though perhaps in different proportions. Conversely, if the genetic distance between two castes is small, this still leaves open the possibility that the castes or their communal identities can nonetheless have divergent origins, even foreign versus native, although these are obscured to the geneticist by centuries of caste mixing.

4.9.4. Tribals and “Caucasians”


The one important general difference between two parts of the population is that between a number of tribes on the one hand, and some other tribes plus the non-tribals on the other. V. Bhalla’s mapping of genetic traits shows that the latter category roughly belongs to the Mediterranean subgroup of the Caucasian race (though by the superficial criterion of skin colour, it can differ widely from the type found in Italy or Greece). incidentally, the term Caucasian as meaning the white race was coined in 1795 by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who believed that the Caucasus region, particularly Georgia, “produces the most beautiful human race”, and that it was the most likely habitat of “the autochthonous, most original forms of mankind”.77 Thus, the typically Caucasian Rhesus-negative factor is “conspicuous by its absence” in the Mongoloid populations of India’s northeast, but the non-tribal populations “show a moderately high frequency of 15% to 20% but not as high as in Europe” of this genetic trait.78


Bhalla lists a number of specific genes which are characteristically strong or weak in given racial types, and finds that they do define certain ethnic sub-groups of India, esp. the Mongoloid tribals of the northeast, the Negritos of the Andaman Islands, and the Australoids in the remaining tribal pockets of the south. Everywhere else, including in many tribal areas, the Mediterranean type is predominant, but the present battery of genetic markers was not able to distinguish between subtypes within this population, much less to indicate different waves of entry.


In fact, no “entry” of these Mediterranean Caucasians can be derived from the data, certainly not for the post-Harappan period. According to an older study, they were present even in South India in 2,000 BC at the latest: “The evidence of two racial types, the Mediterranean and the Autochthonous proto-Australoid, recognized in the study of the skeletal remains from the neolithic levels at Brahmagiri, Piklihal, Tekkalakota, Nevasa etc., seems to suggest that there was a thick population consisting mainly of these two races in South India around 2000 BC.”79


The Caucasian race was present in India (like in Europe and the Kurgan area) since hoary antiquity. Kailash Malhotra reports, starting with their geographical spread today: “The Caucasoids are found practically all over the country, though the preferred habitats have been river valleys and plains.”80


In the past, the Caucasian presence was also in evidence: “Although a large number of prehistoric sites have been excavated in India, only a few of them have yielded human osseous remains (…) None of the pre-Mesolithic sites have yielded skeletal material; the earliest remains are around 8,000 years old. An examination of the morphological features of skeletons from sites of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and iron age periods reveals the presence of Australoids and Caucasoids in all the periods, the absence of Mongoloids, and the existence of at least two types of Caucasoids, the dolichocephals and the brachycephals (…) The skeletal evidence thus clearly establishes the presence of Australoids and Caucasoids in India for at least 8,000 years.”81


All that can be said, is that the population of India’s northeast is akin to that of areas to India’s north and east, that of the southeast to that of countries further southeast, and the bulk of the Indian population to that of areas to India’s west. Probably a large demographic expansion from India’s northwest to the east and south took place during and at the end of the Harappan period (2,000 BC). It is logical to infer that the populations of the Mediterranean type were more concentrated in the northwest prior to that time; but it does not follow that they came from the outside. India’s northwest simply happened to be the easternmost area of Caucasian habitation, just like India’s northeast happens to be the frontier of the Mongoloid type’s habitat.


For politically correct support in denying the racial divide between tribals and non-tribals, we may cite the Marxist scholar S.K. Chatterjee, who dismissed the notion of distinct races in India, be they Aryan, Dravidian, Mongoloid or Austro-Asiatic. He called the Indian people a “mixed people, in blood, in speech and in culture”.82


Though the Christian missionaries have been the champions of tribal distinctness, Christian author P.A. Augustine writes about the Bhil tribals: “The Bhils have long ceased to be a homogeneous people. In the course of millennia, various elements have fused to shape the community. During their long and tortuous history, other aboriginal groups which came under their sway have probably merged with them, losing their identity. One can see a wide range of physical types and complexion. The variation in complexion is very striking indeed, ranging between fair to quite dark-skinned (…) There is no consensus among scholars on the exact ethnic character of the Bhils, They have been alternatively described as proto-Australoid, Dravidian or Veddoid.”83 The same racial “impurity” counts for most Indians, tribal as well as non-tribal. While not by itself disproving the Aryan invasion, it should prove even to invasionists that all Indians are descendents of both indigenous and so-called invader populations.

4.9.5. Language and genetics


While it is wrong to identify a speech community with a physical type, it is also wrong to discard physical anthropology completely as a source of information on human migrations in pre-literate times. Lately, findings have been published which suggest that, for all the racial mingling that has taken place, there is still a broad statistical correlation between certain physical characteristics and nations, even language groups.


Thus, the percentage of individuals with the Rhesus-negative factor is the highest (over 25%) among the Basques, a nation in the French-Spanish borderland which has preserved a pre-IE language. Other pockets of high incidence of Rh-neg. (which is nearly non-existent among the Bantus, Austroloids and Mongoloids) are in the same part of the world: western Morocco, Scotland and, strangely, the Baltic area, or apparently those backwater regions least affected by immigrations of the first Neolithic farmers (from the Balkans and Anatolia), the Indo-Europeans, and in Morocco also the Arabs.


Another European nation which stands out, at least to the discerning eye of the population geneticist, is the Sami (Lapp) population of northern Scandinavia: when contrasted genetically with the surrounding populations, the Sami genetic make-up “points to kinship with the peoples of North Siberia” eventhough they now resemble the Europeans more than the native Siberians.84 This confirms the suspicion of an Asian origin for the Uralic-speaking peoples of which the Sami people is one.


Where a small group of people have spread out over a vast area and lived in isolation ever since, as has happened in large parts of America in the past 20,000 years, genetic differentiation and linguistic differentiation have gone hand in hand, and the borderline between genetic types usually coincides with a linguistic borderline: “Joseph Greenberg distinguishes three language families among the Native Americans: Amerind, Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut. (…) According to Christy Turner of Arizona University, Native American dental morphology indicates three groups, which coincide with Greenberg’s. Luigi Cavalli-Sforza from Stanford investigated a variegated set of human genes. His results equally point in the direction of Greenberg’s classification.”85


Linguistic difference between populations may coincide with genetic differences; and likewise, linguistic mixing may coincide with genetic mixing. A perfect illustration is provided by Nelson Mandela, leader of the anti-Apartheid struggle and belonging to the Xhosa nation. His facial features are more Khoi (Hottentot) than Bantu, and his language, Xhosa, happens to be a Bantu language strongly influenced by the Khoi-San (Hottentot-Bushman) languages, most strikingly by adopting the click sounds. In this case, genetic mixing and linguistic mixing have gone hand in hand.


However, in and around the area of IE expansion, a notorious crossroads of migrating peoples, the remaining statistical correlation between genetic traits and language groups is less important than the evidence for the opposite phenomenon: languages spreading across genetic frontiers. In India, the only neat racial division which coincides with a linguistic borderline is between the mainland and the Andamans: though so-called Negrito features are dimly visible in the population of Orissa and surrounding areas, the pure Negrito type is confined to the Andamans, along with the Andamanese language group. For the rest, in India, like in Central Asia or Europe, i.e. in areas with lots of migration and interaction between diverse peoples, genetic and linguistic divisions only coincide by exception.


Thus, the Altaic languages are spoken by the Mongolians, eponymous members of the Mongoloid race, and by the Turks, who have mixed so thoroughly with their Persian, Armenian, Greek and Slavic neighbours that they now belong to the Caucasian race. The Hungarians are genetically closer to their Slavic and German neighbours than to their linguistic cousins in the Urals. India being the meeting-place (or rather, mixing-place) of Mongoloid, Caucasian and Austroloid racial strands, it is naturally impossible to identify the speakers of the different Indian language-groups with different races.


Asked whether there are “concordances between genetic data and languages”, L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, the world’s leading population geneticist, explains: “Yes, very much so. Our genealogical tree [of genetic traits] corresponds remarkably well with the table of linguistic families. There are a few exceptions e.g. the Lapps, genetically rather European, have preserved the language they spoke in their Siberian-Uralic homeland. The Hungarians, similarly, speak an Uralic language while being predominantly European. In the late 9th century AD, the Magyar invaders in Hungary, then called Pannonia, imposed their language on the natives. (…) What counts from a genetic viewpoint, is the number of invaders relative to the natives. As the Hungarians were not very numerous, they left only a feeble genetic imprint on the population.”86 So, the replacement of native languages by those of less civilized but stronger invaders is a real possibility (it is also what the Greeks did to the Old Europeans), though it becomes less probable in proportion to the size and the cultural superiority of the native population.


The reason why the replacement of native languages by the languages of genetically distinguishable invaders remains relatively exceptional, is this: “In a traditional culture, language is transmitted vertically from parents to children, just like the genes. But in some conquests or in civilizations with schools, there is also horizontal transmission and substitution of languages. The Romans organized schools in their part of Europe and thereby managed to replace the native languages by their own. But this type of phenomenon is relatively recent. In 90% of its history, mankind consisted of hunter-gatherers speaking tribal languages. That is why the genetic tree has preserved a strong concordance with the linguistic tree.”87


A typical example are the Basques: “The Basque language is the direct descendent of a language which must have arrived along with modem mankind, say 30,000 years ago. It is [in Europe] the only pre-Indo-European language which has been preserved. Why? Probably because the Basque people had a very strong social cohesion. Genetically too, the Basques are different. They have mixed very little. All the other Europeans have lost their original language and adopted an Indo-European language.”88


So, the Basques are both biologically and linguistically the straight descendants of Old Europeans. Most other Europeans are biologically the progeny of the non-IE-speaking Old Europeans, with some admixture of the Asian tribes who originally brought the IE languages into Europe. These immigrants may have differed somewhat from the average European type, into which their smaller number got genetically drowned over the centuries. Linguistically, most non-Basque (and non-Uralic) Europeans are the progeny, through adoption, of the IE-speaking invaders.

4.9.6. The original “Aryan race”


Is there anything we can say about the ethnic identity of the nomads or migrants who spread the early IE languages, if only to help physical-anthropologists to recognize them when found at archaeological sites? Competent authorities have warned against the “semi-conscious prejudices on original genetic characteristics of the Indo-Europeans: they are supposed to be blond and blue-eyed”.89 This prejudice has even been reinforced recently by the discovery of blond-haired mummies of presumably IE-speaking people in the Xinjiang province of China.90


The fact that the IE speech community includes people of diverse race, from the dark-skinned Sinhalese to the white-skinned Scandinavians, definitely implies that the spread of the language cannot be equated with the spread of a racial type. Languages can and do migrate across racial boundaries. That the IE languages crossed racial frontiers during their expansion accords well with established perspectives on the spread of IE, e.g. by I.M. Diakonov:


“These expanding tribes met local, poor and hungry sparser populations, often consisting of hunters and cattle-breeders. The migrants started to merge with the local population, giving them their language and cultural achievements. But in some cases, the local population may have been larger in numbers than the migrants. In some historical situations the language of the minority, if it was widely used and understandable on a vast territory, could be accepted as lingua franca, and later as the common language, particularly if it was a language of cattle-breeders (cf. the examples of the Semites and the Turks). The area of the newly created population became itself a centre of population spread, and so on. Bloody conquests could take place in some instances; in others it was not the case, but the important thing to realize is that what migrated were languages, not peoples, although there had to be at least a handful of users of the languages, though not necessarily native speakers.”91


On the other hand, the fact that the PIE-speaking community must have been a fairly small ethnic group, living together and marrying mostly within the community, implies that they must have belonged collectively to a fairly precisely circumscribed physical type. Even if you throw together people from all races, after a few generations of interbreeding they will develop a common and distinctive physical type, with atavistic births of people resembling the pure type of one of the ancestral races becoming rarer and rarer. Therefore, in the days before intercontinental travel and migrations, a speech community was normally also a. kinship group (or, in strict caste societies, a conglomerate of kinship groups) presenting a fairly homogeneous physical type.


During the heyday of the racial theories, a handful of words in Greek sources were taken to mean that the ancient Indo-Europeans were fair-haired and had a tall Nordic-looking build. In Homer’s description, the Greek heroes besieging Troy were fair-haired. The Egyptians described the “Sea Peoples” from the Aegean region (and even their Libyan co-invaders, presumably Berber-speaking) as fair-haired. The Chinese described the Western (Tokharic) barbarians likewise.


However, the incidence of Nordic looks was not necessarily overwhelming. In classical Greek writings, the Thracians and Macedonians (most notably Alexander the Great), whose language belonged to an extinct Balkanic branch of the IE family, are mentioned as being fair-haired; apparently most Greeks were by then dark enough to notice this fair colour as a trait typical of their “barbaric” northern neighbours. The Armenians have a legend of their own king Ara the Blond and his eventful personal relationship with the Assyrian queen Sammuramat/Semiramis (about 810 BC), who is known to have fought Urartu (the pre-IE name of Armenia, preserved in the Biblical mountain name Ararat). The use of “the blond” as a distinctive epithet confirms the existence of fair-haired people in Armenia, but also their conspicuousness and relative rarity.


All this testimony, along with the Xinjiang mummies and the presence of Nordic looks in the IE-speaking (Dardic/Kafiri) tribes in the Subcontinent’s northwestern valleys, does suggest a long-standing association between some branches of the IE family and the genes which program their carriers to have fair hair and blue eyes. These traits give a comparative advantage for survival in cold latitudes: just as melanine protects against the excessive intake of ultraviolet rays in sunny latitudes, lack of melanine favours the intake of ultraviolet. This segment of the sunrays is needed in the production of vitamin D, which in turn is needed in shaping the bones; its deficiency causes rachitis and makes it difficult for women to birth - a decisive handicap in the struggle for life. The link between northern latitudes and the light colour of skin, hair and eyes in many IE-speaking communities only proves what we already knew: IE is spoken in fairly northern latitudes including Europe and Central Asia. Yet, none of this proves the fair-haired and blue-eyed point about the speakers of the original proto-language PIE.


Suppose, with the non-invasion theorists, that the original speakers of IE had been Indians with dark eyes and dark hair; then, according to I.M. Diakonov: “if this population had migrated together with the languages, blue-eyed Balts could not have originated from it. Blue eyes, as a recessive characteristic, are met everywhere from Europe to the Hindu Kush. But nobody can be blue-eyed if neither of his/her parents had blue-eyed ancestors, and a predominantly blue-eyed population cannot originate from ancestors with predominantly black eyes.”92


This allows for two possible scenarios. Either the PIE speakers were indeed blue-eyed and fair-haired: that is the old explanation, preferred by the Nazis.93 Or the blue-eyed people of Europe have not inherited their IE languages from their biological ancestors, but changed language at some point along the genealogical line, abandoning the pre-IE Old European language of their fair ancestors in favour of Proto-Germanic, Proto-Baltic, Proto-Slavic etc., based on the language of the invaders from Asia. The latter scenario would agree with I.M. Diakonov’s observation: “The biological situation among the speakers of modern Indo-European languages can only be explained through a transfer of languages like a baton, as it were, in a relay race, but not by several thousand miles’ migration of the tribes themselves.”94


That this is far from impossible is demonstrated by the Turks who, after centuries of mixing with subdued natives of West Asia and the Balkans, have effectively crossed the racial borderline from yellow to white. But against using this Turkish scenario as a simile for the story of IE dispersal, one could point out that some eastern Turkic people, such as the Kirghiz and the Yakut, are still very much Mongoloids. However, far from forming a contrast with the IE state of affairs, this makes the simile more splendid: if IE spread from a non-white to a white population, it also remained the language of numerous non-whites (though technically “Caucasians”), viz. the Indians. On the Eurasian continent, South-Asians still constitute more than half of the wider IE speech community; the Indian Republic alone has more IE speakers than the whole of Europe.


It is perfectly possible that the PIE language and culture were developed after a non-white group of colonists from elsewhere settled among and got racially immersed in a larger whitish population. As we saw in our speculations about IE-Austronesian kinship and about Puranic history, it is at least conceivable that Aryan culture in India started after “Manu” and his dark-skinned cohorts fled the rising sea level by moving up the Ganga and settling high and dry in the upper Ganga basin, whence their progeny conquered areas to the northwest with ever whiter-skinned and lighter-haired populations: the Saraswati basin, the upper Indus basin, the Oxus riverside, the peri-Caspian region. By the time these Indian colonists settled in eastern Europe with their Kurgans, their blackness had been washed off by generations of intermarriage with white people of the type attested by the Xinjiang mummies. (Likewise, their material culture had been thoroughly adapted to their new habitat, hence de-indianized.)


So, it is perfectly possible that the Aryan heartland lay farther to the southeast, and that, like eastern Europe in the later 5th millennium BC, the Panjab area a few centuries earlier was already a first area of colonization, bringing people of a new and whiter physical type into the expanding Aryan speech community which was originally darker. While the Panjabi is physically very similar to the European, the Bihari, Oriya or Nepali is markedly less so, and yet it is possible that he represents more closely the ultimate Proto-Indo-European.

4.9.7. The race of the Vedic Aryans


As for the Vedas, the only ones whom they describe as “golden-haired” are the resplendent lightning gods Indra and Rudra and the sun-god Savitar; not the Aryans or Brahmins. At the same time, several passages explicitly mention black hair when referring to Brahmins.95 These texts are considerably earlier than the enigmatic passage in Patanjali describing Brahmins as golden- or tawny-haired (piNgala and kapisha).96 Already one of Patanjali’s early commentators dismissed this line as absurd. To the passage from the grammarian Panini which describes Brahmins as “brown-haired”, A.A. Macdonnell notes (apparently against contemporary claims to the contrary): “All we can say is that the above-mentioned expressions do not give evidence of blonde characteristics of the ancient Brahmans.”97 Considering that Patanjali was elaborating upon the work of Panini, could it have anything to do with Panini’s location in the far northwest, where lighter hair must have been fairly common?


On the other hand, demons or Rakshasas, so often equated with the “dark-skinned aboriginals”, have on occasion been described as red- or tawny-haired (also piNgala or kapisha, the same as Patanjali’s Brahmins).98 Deviating from the usual Indian line that all these demon creatures are but supernatural entities, let us for once assume that they do represent hostile tribals racially distinct from the Vedic Aryans. In that case, reference can only be to certain northwestern tribals, among whom fair and red hair are found till today, indicating that they at least partly descended from a fair-haired population. If the Vedic Aryans were dark-haired and migrated from inside India to the northwest, these odd coloured hairs may have struck them as distinctive.


In modern Anglo-Hindu publications, such as the Amar Chitra KathA religious comics, Rakshasas are always depicted as dark-skinned, a faithful application of the AIT. Yet, there are instances in Vedic literature where “blackness” is imputed to people whom we know to have had the same (if not a lighter) skin colour than the Vedic Aryans: the Dasas and Dasyus, as Asko Parpola has shown, were the Iranian cousins and neighbours of the Vedic Aryans. Physical (as opposed to metaphorical) blackness or more generally skin colour was never a criterion by which the Vedic Aryans classified their neighbours and enemies; that precisely is why we have no direct testimony on the Vedic Aryans’ own skin or hair colour except through a few ambiguous, indirect and passing references.

4.9.8. Evidence of immigration?


A very recent study, not on crude skull types but on the far more precise genetic traits, confirms the absence of an immigration from Central Asia in the second millennium BC. Brian E. Hemphill and Alexander F. Christensen report on their study of the migration of genetic traits (with reference to AIT advocate Asko Parpola): “Parpola’s suggestion of movement of Proto-Rg-Vedic Aryan speakers into the Indus Valley by 1800 BC is not supported by our data. Gene flow from Bactria occurs much later, and does not impact Indus Valley gene pools until the dawn of the Christian era.”99 The inflow which they do find, around the turn of the Christian era, is apparently that of the well-known Shaka and Kushana invasions.


Kenneth A.R. Kennedy reaches similar conclusions from his physical-anthropological data: “Evidence of demographic discontinuities is present in our study, but the first occurs between 6000 and 4500 BC (a separation of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic populations of Mehrgarh) and the second is after 800 BC, the discontinuity being between the peoples of Harappa, Chalcolithic Mehrgarh and post-Harappan Timargarha on the one hand and the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age inhabitants of Sarai Khola on the other. In short, there is no evidence of demographic disruptions in the northwestern sector of the subcontinent during and immediately after the decline of the Harappan culture. If Vedic Aryans were a biological entity represented by the skeletons from Timargarha, then their biological features of cranial and dental anatomy were not distinct to a marked degree from what we encountered in the ancient Harappans.”100


Kennedy also notes the anthropological continuity between the Harappan population and that of the contemporaneous Gandhara (eastern Afghanistan)101 culture, which in an Aryan invasion scenario should be the Indo-Aryan settlement just prior to the Aryan invasion of India: “Our multivariate approach does not define the biological identity of an ancient Aryan population, but it does indicate that the Indus Valley and Gandhara peoples shared a number of craniometric, odontometric and discrete traits that point to a high degree of biological affinity.”102


And so, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, one of the great pioneers of the AIT, may be right after all. Indeed, even he had remarked that “the anthropologists who have recently described the skeletons from Harappa remark that there, as at Lothal, the population would appear, on the available evidence, to have remained more or less stable to the present day.”103 If anything Aryan really invaded, it was at any rate not an Aryan race.


There are no indications that the racial composition and distribution of the Indian population has substantially changed since the start of the IE dispersal, which cannot reasonably be placed much earlier than 6,000 BC. This means that even if the IE language is imported, as claimed by the AIT, the IE-speaking people in India are nevertheless biologically native to India. Or in practice: the use of the terms “aboriginal” and “indigenous” (AdivAsI) as designating India’s tribals, with the implication that the non-tribals are the non-indigenous progeny of invaders, has to be rejected and terminated, even if the Urheimat of the IE languages is found to lie outside India.


One of the ironies of Indian identity politics is that those most vocal in claiming an “aboriginal” identity may well be the only ones whose foreign origin has been securely established. The Adivasi movement is strongest in the areas where Christian missionaries were numerously present since the mid-19th century to nourish it, viz. in Chotanagpur and the North-East. Most tribals there speak languages belonging to the Austro-Asiatic and Sino-Tibetan families. Their geographical origin, unlike that of IE which is still being debated, is definitely outside India, viz. in Southeast Asia c.q. in northern China.


The Tibeto-Burmese tribals of Nagaland and other northeastern statelets are among India’s most recent immigrants. Many of those tribes have entered during the last millennium, which is very late by Indian standards. As for the Munda tribes in Chotanagpur, it is not even certain that the ancestors of the present tribes are the authors of the attested Neolithic cultures in their present habitat. In H.D. Sankalia’s words: “It is an unanswered but interesting question whether any of the Aboriginal tribes of these regions were the authors of the Neolithic culture.”104 Those who want to give the Austro-Asiatic peoples of India a proud heritage, will find more of it in China and Indochina than in India, e.g. in the Bronze age culture of 2300 BC in Thailand.


On the other hand, biologically the Indian Austro-Asiatics (unlike the Nagas) are much closer to the other Indians than to their linguistic cousins in the east. Exactly like the Indo-Aryans in the Aryan invasion hypothesis, they are predominantly Indian people speaking a foreign-originated language: “Whereas the now Dravidian-speaking tribals of Central and South India can be considered to be descendents of the original inhabitants of India, who gave up their original languages in favour of Dravidian, Tibeto-Chinese speaking tribals (Northeast India) and Austro-Asiatic speaking ones (East India) immigrated into India since ancient historical times. Most likely they came in several waves from Southern China (Tibeto-Chinese speakers) and from Southeast Asia (Austro-Asiatic speakers) respectively. Without doubt these immigrating groups met with ancient Indian populations, which were living already on their migration routes, and thus one cannot exclude some cultural and also genetic contacts between immigrants and original inhabitants of India, at least at some places.”105


In the case of Indo-Aryan, by contrast, its speakers have obviously also mixed with other communities, but its foreign origin has not been firmly established.

4.9.9. Conclusion


We may conclude with a recent status quaestionis by archaeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer of Wisconsin University at Madison: “Although the overall socioeconomic organization changed, continuities in technology, subsistence practices, settlement organization, and some regional symbols show that the indigenous population was not displaced by invading hordes of Indo-Aryan speaking people. For many years, the ‘invasions’ or ‘migrations’ of these Indo-Aryan-speaking Vedic/Aryan tribes explained the decline of the Indus civilization and the sudden rise of urbanization in the Ganga-Yamuna valley. This was based on simplistic models of culture change and an uncritical reading of Vedic texts. Current evidence does not support a pre- or proto-historic Indo-Aryan invasion of southern Asia. Instead, there was an overlap between Late Harappan and post-Harappan communities, with no biological evidence for major new populations.”106


We repeat that physical anthropology is going through rapid developments due to the availability of new techniques, and we don't want to jump to conclusions in this moving field. But we notice that whatever new technique is applied and from whichever new angle the question is approached, it has so far consistently failed to yield evidence of the fabled Aryan Invasion..

Who is perpetuating reservation in jobs?

Sharad Yadav

In a bizarre turn, the Union Public Service Commission and the Department of Personnel and Training have transformed the policy of reservation into a policy of communal awards. They have treated general seats as seats reserved for people belonging to non-reserved categories.




WHENEVER THERE is talk about reservation, the bogey of merit is raised by opponents of this policy. But the question arises: do the opponents respect the merit of candidates from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs)? Empirical studies suggest they do not. Almost six decades have passed since Independence but all important institutions of India, barring Parliament and Legislative Assemblies and Councils, have been under the strong command of these self-styled votaries of merit. With some exceptions, they have abused their position to denigrate the merit of the people who have been given the constitutional right of reservation — so that privileges enjoyed by some people under the caste system are de-reserved.

The Union Public Service Commission provides glaring examples of how the merit of candidates belonging to SCs, STs, and OBCs is denigrated. The UPSC is a constitutional body. It commands high respect in India but in collusion with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), it has been denying the rights of meritorious candidates belonging to reserved categories. It has been indulging in unconstitutional activities despite the clear-cut policy of the Government of India on reservation. The Supreme Court and High Courts have interpreted the policy in many judgments. There is no scope for any ambiguity regarding this policy, but the UPSC has continued to deny meritorious candidates of reserved categories the right to join the civil services as general category candidates.

This has resulted in a denial of jobs to hundreds of successful candidates belonging to reserved categories; and almost the same number of candidates belonging to the non-reserved category has got jobs, without being declared successful by the UPSC at the time of declaration of results. This is happening despite many judgments of the higher judiciary against the practice. People controlling the UPSC and DoPT are so strongly motivated against the candidates of reserved categories that they can go to any extent in their adventure to block the entry of reserved categories in the civil services.

Under the reservation policy, 49.50 per cent of the seats is reserved. The remaining 50.50 per cent is open to all. Candidates who qualify for the civil services by dint of their merit alone should be enlisted in general open categories. After all, there is no bar on SC and ST candidates fighting elections for general seats. Many leaders, including Kansi Ram and B.P. Maurya, have fought and won from general seats. General seats do not mean seats reserved for people belonging to non-reserved categories. Similarly, general open seats in the civil services are not reserved for people belonging to non-reserved categories. The Government of India has not reserved hundred per cent of the seats of the civil services. In fact, it cannot do so. There is a 50 per cent ceiling placed on reservation by the Supreme Court. But in effect, the UPSC and the DOPT are implementing reservation policy to ensure 50.50 per cent reservation for the unreserved categories that are supposed to form just 15 per cent of the Indian population.

For the last civil services examination, around 214 of 425 seats were general open merit seats. Out of the first 214 candidates, 50 were from reserved categories. Forty of them were from OBCs. But the UPSC refused to allow reserved category candidates to enlist themselves as general candidates. Twenty seven per cent of 425 is 117: this is the exact number of candidates belonging to OBCs who were declared successful. Even those in the top 10 were classified as reserved category candidates!

By doing this, the UPSC has denigrated meritorious candidates from the reserved categories. It has also denied jobs in the civil services to an equal number of reserved category candidates. In fact, 157 candidates from OBC categories should have been selected: 40 on the basis of merit and 117 on the basis of the 27 per cent reservation extended to them.

People belonging to SCs and STs in the early days of the Republic lacked education. Their number was not sufficient to fill the vacancies declared for them. Later on they picked up but there were all-out efforts to deny them their right to reservation under one pretext or another. If we analyse the data on successful ST and SC candidates, we discover they have done better in the written test, where the examiner does not know their caste. In the interviews they have been given fewer marks because people in the interview board know their caste.

It is shocking that candidates belonging to reserved categories are interviewed separately. They sit for the written examinations alongside non-reserved category candidates, but when the time of interview comes, they are segregated. The interview board is well aware of their social background and discriminates against them while giving them interview marks. An analysis of the results reveals a big gap between the average interview marks given to reserved category candidates and non-reserved category candidates. One successful candidate of the 1996 civil service examinations, who was denied a job, has calculated these averages on the basis of information available with him. Since he fought for his job in the Supreme Court and won, the data he offers can be relied upon in the absence of authoritative data provided by the UPSC. According to this candidate, the average interview mark in the non-reserved category is around 200, while the average for reserved categories candidates is 140. I believe that if there were no caste discrimination, the number of successful OBC candidates in the general merit category would have been much higher than 40. Unfortunately, even these 40 candidates were not declared successful in the general merit category.

The concept of excluding the creamy layer sounds progressive. Indeed the benefit of reservation should be made available to people from less privileged OBC families. In principle this is all right. But the design of those opposed to OBC reservation is to keep the creamy layer out of the reservation ambit and deny the benefits of reservation to less privileged individuals. These individuals have no means of fighting the might of the UPSC and the DoPT. They have no money to engage lawyers to fight legal battles. It is quite easy to deny them their right. So they are denied jobs despite getting letters from the UPSC informing them of their success. My information is that thus far 390 successful candidates have been denied jobs in the civil services. Some of them, who have had resources thanks to being in other services, have challenged the DoPT successfully. But what about those who have not moved the courts? Why can't the courts take suo motu notice of such gross denial of justice?

Babasahib Bhim Rao Ambedkar was for separate electorates for Dalits. He wanted proportionate reservation for them but also demanded that their representatives should be elected from an electoral college comprising Dalits exclusively. Separate electorates for Dalits were termed the communal award. Gandhiji and many other leaders thought such an arrangement would divide India; he went on a fast and Dr. Ambedkar withdrew his demand. The policy of reservation was put in place so that those hailing from reserved categories could contest elections from unreserved seats also.

The same rule applies to jobs. But the UPSC has turned the policy of reservation into a policy of communal awards. I cite below some judgments of Indian courts that are being consistently violated by the UPSC and the DOPT:

(a) India Shawnee v. Union of India, 1992 Supp. (3) SCC 217

"In this connection it is well to remember that the reservation under Article 16(4) does not operate like a communal reservation. It may well happen, that some members belonging to, say, Scheduled Castes get selected in the open competition field on the basis of their own merit; they will not be counted against the quota reserved for Scheduled Castes; they will be treated as open competition candidates."

(b) Union of India vs. Virpal Singh Chauhan (1995) 6 SCC 684

"While determining the number of posts reserved for SCs and STs, the candidates belonging to the reserved category but selected on the rule of merit (and not by virtue of rule of reservation) shall not be counted as reserved category candidates."

(c) Rithesh. R. Shah's case (1996) 3 SCC 253

"In other words, while a reserved category candidate entitled to admission on the basis of his merit will have the option of taking admission to the colleges where a specified number of seats have been kept reserved for reserved category ... while computing the percentage of reservation he will be deemed to have been admitted as a open category candidate and not as reserved category candidate."

In a Delhi High Court judgment of April 29, 2003, the division bench made the following observation: "The decision of the Apex Court in Rithesh. R. Shah's case (supra) as also the proviso to rule 16 clearly prohibit deprivation of the benefit of the reservation only because some reserved category candidates had also been selected on merit inasmuch as they were not to be treated as reserved category candidates except for a limited purpose, namely, for the purpose of allocation of service, but thereby OBC candidates cannot be deprived of their right to obtain allocation of any service."

The interesting question arises: who is perpetuating reservation? If people from the SCs, STs, and OBCs get representation according to their population, the scheme of reservation will come to an end. But who is depriving the meritorious from getting jobs as general category candidates?

(The author, a Member of the Rajya Sabha, is president of the Janata Dal (United) and a former Union Minister. He was educated to be an electrical engineer.)

Caste divide in UK Indian communities rampant, claims report

By Hugh Muir


They are communities that live together, look alike and share a common background. To the uninitiated, there is no discernible difference. But a report will today claim that many Indian communities in Britain are blighted by caste discrimination. Researchers detail claims that many of the 50,000 Dalits in the UK - once known as India's lower-caste "untouchables" - suffer discrimination from other castes in terms of jobs, healthcare, politics, education and schools.

In a report likely to provoke bitter controversy, researchers were told how couples who marry outside their own caste face "violence, intimidation and exclusion". The study, No Escape - Caste Discrimination in the UK, focuses on domestic discrimination, although campaigners are also trying to force British firms with commercial interests in India to outlaw practices unfair to Dalits. The government has promised to consider the issue in forthcoming legislation and to look at claims of discrimination against lower-caste Gurkhas in the British army.

David Haslam of the Dalit Solidarity Network, who organised the research, said the group had spoken to 130 people for the study. "Dalits across the UK felt that within the Indian community, their identity was based on caste and that the caste system was very much in operation." He said respondents called for caste discrimination to be addressed in schools as part of the national curriculum and for the establishment of more temples open to worshippers of all castes. Eighty-five per cent urged the UK authorities to "work towards the elimination of caste discrimination".

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North and a Dalit Solidarity Network trustee, said he was aware of caste discrimination abroad but was "horrified" to "realise that caste discrimination has been exported". He added: "This is an issue which the government and all those concerned about good community relations need to address."

The former mayor of Coventry, Ram Lakha, told researchers how he faced discrimination from upper-caste voters when seeking election in a largely Indian ward. "During campaigning I was told that I would not get people's vote as I was a chamar [a derogatory name for Dalits]. So I filed my nomination in a non-Asian constituency and was able to win." He said it was customary for the Indian community to honour each new mayor - yet his achievement had not been recognised in that way. "Everyone in the Indian community knows how things are. It is there, and it will take a long time to die out. I recently discovered from my children that they suffered difficulties at school. It is only now, because the issue is being raised, that they chose to tell me. Given everything that has happened, I am very proud and thankful to God for what I have gained."
Harbans Lal Virde, general secretary of the west London religious association Buddha Dham, said he also faced workplace difficulties. "The non-Dalits in my community objected to my promotion and did not support me in my work. They did not like me as a supervisor. The non-Dalits presume that 'chamars' are good for nothing." One respondent, who asked to remain anonymous, said it was difficult to confront the problem. "At work there is no open discrimination; it is usually discreet. Most of the businesses are small - if you complain, the person who will listen to your complaint is from the higher caste, so no action is taken."
Researchers say some barriers are breaking down. In India, Dalits and non-Dalits rarely eat together, but 81% of those questioned said the restriction did not usually apply here. Piara Khabra, MP for Ealing Southall, accused researchers of exaggerating the extent of problems: "It is a big issue in India, but not here. There is a broader community and different traditions. People live happily together." He said many complainants may claim caste discrimination mistakenly or for political reasons. "I am the MP and people come to me who are from the lowest castes."

In one employment tribunal case alleging discrimination based on caste, a factory worker claimed he had been unfairly disciplined at work and then dismissed because non-Dalits complained about him. In another, a healthcare worker claimed he was victimised when his supervisor, who had been friendly, discovered his caste.

India Inc hints it's now open to quota

India Inc hints it's now open to quota
[ Saturday, July 01, 2006 12:09:14 amTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

NEW DELHI: Indian industry has finally thrown in the towel in its fight against reservations in the private sector. In a clear departure from its previous stand to oppose reservation, India Inc has now promised to work with the government to improve employment opportunities for the backward classes, beginning September.

A CII-Assocham joint task force on affirmative action, set up by the government, has pointed out that the industry is committed to work with the government to formulate an Act that will be designed to ensure that discrimination in the workplace is prohibited by law.

According to a draft prepared by the task force, a Code of Affirmative Action will be formulated for compliance by all affiliate companies of CII and Assocham, starting September 2006. CII and Assocham officials were not available for comment despite repeated attempts.

"Industry commits, in principle, to align the workforce in its companies and units with the diversoty goals for greater representation of targeted communities, starting September 2006 progressively," the draft said.

The industry, it said, will also help in improving the employability of people from the backward classes, besides taking initiatives to foster entrepreneurship.

"CII and Assocham will immediately set up a national level apex body, Councils for Affirmative Action, to promote and co-ordinate the industry's action in this regard," a source said.

The task force, sources said, has pointed out that competitiveness of companies will not be compromised in the exercise to promote employment from backward classes.

"The industry has stated that competitiveness of companies will remain a primary consideration," the source said. Companies will also be encouraged to set goals for executive positions from among applicants of targetted communities.

"For instance, companies could commit to hiring a certain number of graduating engineers from the targeted communities each year... Such policies will be applicable to new recruitment beginning September 2006," the source added.