Arjun Singh’s quota bluff

In the 1980s, when Sam Pitroda was pushing to take India’s telecom digital from its analog antiquity, Arjun Singh was the telecom minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government. As a person who was intimately involved with Rajiv’s thrust to modernisation, I know that Singh tried to put a spoke in Pitroda’s plans. I can remember a meeting at the Akbar Hotel in Chanakyapuri, where Singh sat in attendance with Pitroda and his team. He said nothing at all then but went off and spoke to various journalists, questioning the whole exercise.

 

I first set eyes on Arjun Singh in November 1981 at Rajiv Gandhi’s office on Akbar Road. He was sitting in the outer office along with his fellow Thakur, VP Singh or Weepy, my friend Jug Suraiya’s name for him. Well, Weepy, who eventually slimed his way to the prime minister’s office, was then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh while Arjun Singh was  chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. Like Weepy, who set the nation aflame by championing the recommendations of the Mandal Commission, Arjun Singh has touched off civil violence by championing quotas for other backward castes. I did not know either of them until Rajiv told me who they were. He also made observations about the two Thakurs that are best left unquoted; suffice it to say Rajiv did not think that either of them took after Mahatma Gandhi.

 

Weepy is pretty much irrelevant today but his fellow feudal Arjun Singh is playing the slime game in the hope that Sonia Gandhi will dismiss Manmohan Singh and name him prime minister. Singh’s grandiose fantasy has as much chance of coming to fruition as a snowball has of surviving in Hell. But the feudal lord bashes on regardless.

 

There is violence spreading across major cities and towns in the country, and health services are paralysed. But Arjun Singh remains unfazed. He has done precious little to make his human resource development ministry useful; done nothing to stem the corruption and sloth within it. But on the OBC issue, he has come alive. His intemperate attacks on Pitroda and the knowledge commission; his wily attempt to provoke a backward caste backlash against the protesters and his Machiavellian reference to the 104th amendment…all smack of low cunning masquerading as political savvy.

 

Consider the 104th Amendment. It was passed in December last year with huge majorities in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha. That to Arjun Singh’s feudal mind is representative of the people’s will; but we all know that the 104th amendment like the 23rd, 45th, 62nd and 79th Amendments before it, represent a failure of political will. Our founding fathers included quotas in educational institutions under Article 334 with a view to “righting a historical wrong”. The provision was to remain in force for 20 years after which such quotas were to be abolished. However, politicians resorted to rank populism and extended the quota regime to hide their ineptitude and perpetuate their feudal hold over narrow constituencies.

 

In persisting with the quota regime, the political class admitted to its failure to address the issues of poverty and prejudice. Today, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team have pushed economic growth to a level that the world holds in awe, feudal lords like Arjun Singh and Natwar Singh have banded together with Leftists and Luddites in a futile bid to depose the prime minister. They keep muttering about the need for equitable distribution. But poverty and prejudice are not new in India; what is new is the economic resurgence. Feudal politics is on notice. When Article 334 comes up for review in 2010, the feudal overlords will not have the clout to extend the quota regime.

 

In harping on 104th Amendment, Arjun Singh made some gratuitous remarks about Sam Pitroda. He should have known better. Sam is one of the pioneers of India’s opening to the world. He comes from a tribal area in Orissa and made his career by the sheer dint of effort and integrity, values that obviously Singh does not understand. Sam knows more about poverty and prejudice than the HRD minister; he succeeded in the highly competitive global arena where Singh has failed even in his narrow world of cunning politics. Mr HRD minister, Sam Pitroda is a friend of mine and let me tell you, he is a man of ideas. His efforts from the 1980s onwards have made a significant dent in India’s poverty. All you have managed to do is to divide our country along caste lines.

 

Email: rdesai@comma.in