At the time of independence a provision was made to provide some help to the people from Schedule cast and tribes. There was a reservation for them in schools, educational institutes and government jobs to give them an opportunity that has so far been denied.

On the 50th death anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar, the man who worked for the upliftment of so called untouchables; I am forced to think about the motive behind these benefits in today's world. Not just continuing the benefits, the government decided to offer the same to a host of other people called the Other Backward Classes (OBC). Any one can see the motive is not the welfare of nation or people benefiting from such policies, the motive is to divide people. “If we do this, we can make sure that all the people who benefit for this scheme will vote for us in the next election”. Great you have found out a way that will win the next election for your party but will make the country pay the price forever in the form of incompetent professionals it has produced. What will you do in the next elections? Divide us further?

Actually the British came up with this policy of “Divide and rule” and this policy has been used quite effectively by the politicians even today. We are divided in Shiv Sainiks who will burn buses, smash shops and malls, throw stones on Police if someone defaces the statue of Bal Thakare's wife and we are divided into Dalits who will do what I just mentioned for Shiv Sena if the statue of Dr. Ambedkar is defaced. We are divided into political parties, in regional communities, in castes, in class that we are not united as Indian anymore. We will call ourselves “Indian” only when we are overseas, when we come back to India; we are Punjabi, Gujrati, Marathi.

I feel that is why we get so upset when the smallest of things happen that affects our community but we don't respond to the biggest thing affecting our nation as whole. None of the people burning buses or throwing stones at Police has the inclination to go Pakistan or Bangladesh and do the same for the bomb blasts in Bombay and the torture of Indian soldiers in Bangladesh. That becomes the liability of the government and all we can do is criticize it for being ineffective.

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