Incredible India and its primitive politics

The Sachar Committee report tabled in Parliament last week, Dalit violence in Maharashtra and the vandalism we saw from Mamata Bannerji’s legislators in the W. Bengal Assembly all fit into my category of primitive politics.

We like to blame the British Raj for our divisions but those of us who disregard political correctness know that blame must rest on the broad shoulders of the Congress Party. It was this party that came up with the idea of uniting voters under it by playing up divisions. Dalits in one ballot box, Muslims in another, upper caste Hindus lured into the fold by giving Brahmins high positions in government, and thereby keeping the caste system intact. All under the billowing umbrella of Congress.

Sadly, little has changed since because no political party has come up with a new idea in more than 50 years. From the centrist ‘secular’ parties to the supposedly rightist Hindutva BJP, we are offered a combination of doddering old leaders and their baba log.

The Marxist parties have so far not offered us dynastic democracy, but they do worse by offering us Stalin and now Saddam Hussain as their heroes.

Since the Sachar report has been widely welcomed by more politically correct analysts as a giant liberal, secular leap forward I am going to begin by explaining why I see it as a dangerous and divisive document.

Its main message is that Muslims have fallen off the development and education map of India and it blames this on discrimination and a lack of access to good schools. One of the solutions it suggests is high-quality Government schools in Muslim areas since nearly 70 per cent of Muslim children rely on the public education system.

Why not high quality government schools for everyone? As someone who has travelled the country in such of good government schools, may I say that I have not seen one that would be considered a good school by modern, 21st century standards. To recommend that good schools be built only in Muslim areas is as retrograde and divisive a suggestion as possible.

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