Author: Vir Sanghvi
Publication: Sunday
Date: 10-16 December 1995
Introduction: But the Christian
demand for reservation deserves to be condemned. It saddens me that the
Christian community, on whom the Indian middle-class has long depended
for educational guidance, does not seem to care about the damage its demands
will do India. It is even willing to parody the crucifixion in a cheap
stunt.
Last week, I wrote about how disappointed
I was that Mother Teresa had participated in a dharna to secure reservation
for so-called Christian Dalits. "I can only hope that she has been ill-advised
and that she will now recognise that she has acted unwisely and retract
from her stand," I said.
As it turned out, Mother Teresa
disowned the reservation dharna without admitting that she had acted unwisely.
Her position was that she had gone along with the others mistakenly believing
that what was openly advertised as a dharna and a relay fast was actually
an all-faith meeting for religious harmony. At no stage had she realised
that the agenda was political.
Anybody else who offered this explanation
would face a serious credibility problem. How would we react, for instance,
if V. P. Singh told us that when he said that he supported reservation,
he was only trying to book a coupe on the Gaya Express?
But because of Mother Teresa's high
public credibility, we're all inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.
All of us, that is, except for the poor man who actually invited her to
the dharna, a Mr S. Lourduswami, who told The Telegraph, "The Bishop of
Delhi clearly apprised Mother Teresa about the subject of the meeting.
He even gave her a background paper on the reservation issue, and why it
was necessary even for Christian converts. There is no question of having
misled her."
What can one say? Perhaps, Mr Lourduswami
and the National Coordination Committee for Scheduled Caste Christians
of which he is executive secretary spoke very softly and Mother didn't
hear. Perhaps, the Bishop of Delhi mistook another nun for Mother Teresa
and spoke to her instead. Perhaps the background paper on reservation got
lost somewhere in the convent.
But if Mother Teresa says that she
genuinely believed that she was at a prayer meeting-for people of all faiths,
then I think that most of us will take her side and tell Lourduswami and
the unfortunate Bishop that their credibility is not on par with that of
Calcutta's only living Nobel Laureate.
Nevertheless, alert readers will
have noted that Mother Teresa has not said that she is against reservations
for so-called Christian Dalits. Asked again and again what her views on
the subject were, the Reverend Mother retreated into that air of kindly
befuddlement that will be familiar to all those who have ever interviewed
her.
"I do not know these things," she
murmured gently. "My work is to help and love the poorest of the poor."
So, she was misguided, Lourduswami
is either confused or a liar. And the Bishop of Delhi should steer clear
of Mother Teresa because not only does she not understand what he says
but she does not read his background papers.
Nevertheless, the controversy goes
on with or without the involvement of Mother Teresa. Last week, four Christians,
claiming to be Dalits, tied themselves on wooden crosses at Jantar Mantar
to tell the world how desperately they wanted government jobs to be reserved
for them. In a deliberate echo of the crucifixion, one of these women even
placed a crown of thorns on her head while a rather unsavoury looking individual
kept pointing a spear at her for the benefit of press photographers.
I leave it to Christians to judge
whether it is correct to parody the crucifixion in an effort to get media
attention so that you can squeeze more jobs out of the government. But
as far as I know, Jesus Christ did not say, "Father, forgive them, for
they are not giving me my share of the 33 per cent SC/ST quota."
I don't want to go over the ground
covered in last week's column, but surely, it must be obvious to most people
that Christianity does not have a caste system, and that, therefore, it
cannot have Dalits. Moreover, even those Christian institutions that reserve
seats for members of their own faith do not make a distinction between
so-called upper caste and lower caste Christians. So, why expect the government
of India to do so?
Nevertheless, the demand for reservation
is not restricted to a lunatic fringe even if Mother Teresa has now disowned
the dharna. One of the leaders of the agitation is Bishop Vincent Consessao,
auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Delhi, and in Tamil Nadu, churches
will fly black flags until government jobs are reserved for so-called Christian
Dalits.
And if your image of India's Christians
is of a mild-mannered middle-class minority, think again. The agitators
suggest that as many as 60 per cent of all Indian Christians are actually
Dalits in disguise. Their own figure is of 16 million people, all of whom
will expect reservation in jobs and presumably, in educational institutions.
Nor will the agitators give up easily.
Bishop Vincent has already declared to the press: "We are determined that
we won't move until we get what we want."
If you feel I'm being a little unkind
to the Bishop and his fellow agitationists, it is only because I expected
slightly better of what must be India's most educationally distinguished
minority. Somehow, one does not expect the auxiliary Bishop of Delhi to
purloin Laloo Yadav's rhetoric.
But the point goes beyond Christians;
beyond reservations even. One of the things that is most wrong with India
is that we have excessive expectations of the government. These expectations,
combined with a misplaced faith in a Marxist view of the world (that the
church has been only too willing to condemn in every other country) have
led us to push the government into sectors where it has no right to intervene.
Our nationalised industries are
inefficient and over-manned. Our bureaucracy expands even faster than work
can be created for it. And once the government hires somebody, he can never
be fired.
The most worrying aspect of the
demands for reservation is that they are dedicated to the assumption that
the government sector will be allowed to grow and grow until everybody-including
16 million Christians - gets the job he or she feels entitled to. The truth
is that India cannot afford a government that bloats to this extent. Nor
can it afford to be administered by people who owe their jobs to caste
and not to merit.
There is a second cause for concern.
The framers of our Constitution had wanted to create an India in which
caste faded away. Reservation was a short-term measure. And yet, nearly
50 years later, we are heading for a situation in which every child will
need to know his or her caste. As long as this was true of Hindus, it was
bad enough. But now, even Christians want to rediscover the castes they
left behind.
You don't have to be a great philosopher
to see why this is unhealthy. It saddens me that the Christian community,
on whom the Indian middle class has long depended for educational guidance,
does not seem to care about the damage its demands will do India. It is
even willing to parody the crucifixion in a cheap stunt and fly black flags
from places of worship.
Fortunately, Mother Teresa has had
the brains to realise that this is not a cause that any sensible person
can be associated with. What a shame that the Bishop and his pals have
not followed her example.
