Reservoir Dogs - Maya Magic

With the inaugration of the Dalit Memorial in Noida, Mayawati has reiterated on her position as the champion of Dalit advocacy in India. For convenience, let’s just skip the polite words like Dalit/Harijan since that’s more of a forced condition that has been thrust upon the general masses as part of a greater movement to secure votes.

If I want a secure government job or an admission at my regional engineering college – I would proudly write ‘Scheduled Caste’ on the form and easily cut through the bureaucratic red tape, whereas if a colleague happens to refer me with the same – I will drag him to court and call a press conference to highlight these ‘atrocities’ on the oppressed. Isn’t that just super awesome?

An outcast untouchable Bhangi/Chamaar who was constantly subjected to oppression and injustice, has now acquired a newfound taste for power – thanks to the flawed reservation and Dalit appeasement system promoted in India.

Do not mistake my viewpoint with a pseudo sense of superiority or think of me as a flag bearer from an Indian version of the cone hooded men (the closest group being the RSS, funny how these groups work out 3 lettered names across continents).


When an uneducated, money hogging incapable woman becomes the Chief Minister of a state and nurses ambitions to make it to the Prime Minister’s office in the near future, the situation demands nothing short of a collective effort to root out the problem. The Schedule Caste/Lower Caste card has been played too long and by too many.

The part that bothers me is that the average oppressed lower caste individual, who is supposed to be the end beneficiary – is still being pushed around, is still being lynched and is still being expected to survive on 32 Rupees a day. It’s the urban ( ok, semi-urban to be honest) lower castes that are milking the system and occasionally holding the country to ransom by playing the ‘ We were tortured and exploited’ rhetoric ( Kinda reminds me of the Jews sticking to the holocaust for as long as they can milk it, Chamaars/Bhangis are the Indian Zionists eh ? lol)
It beats me how the people of this country or the state in question can be absolute idiots to not see that in spite of the abundant poverty, disease, crime and lack of infrastructure – Mayawati decides to spend Rupees 685 crores on building Statues of herself and her family members (who are uglier than her) rather than utilizing it for the welfare of the people. Even if she decided to spend it solely on the lower castes (Dalits), it would have been a justified move.

The problem lies with the reservation system as it results in nothing but a vicious circle.

You give someone a ‘reservation’ in job/education just because he has a ‘SC/ST’ tag and then expect them to have an opportunity to get mainstream. It’s like handing an athlete a prize even before he has run the race. These people get used to having ‘reservation’ and then want these privileges by default after a certain time. I don’t blame the people, the fault lies in the policy making process.

Now, simultaneously, imagine the plight, frustration and anger that simmers amongst the ‘upper & other castes’ when they see that they have been pushed out and someone else gets a seat without fair play.
How the hell can you expect these people to accept the SC/ST as mainstream??

Fair competition, zero reservation, abolition of privileges is the only way to gradually include the lower castes into mainstream. When the forms will no longer have the section ‘Caste Category’, the Dalit tag will gradually start to dissolve in the absence of repeated usage.

It is not an easy step, and it will not be quick. The whole system is very fragmented and divisions run deep. Upon acknowledging my last name (yes, I am an upper caste Brahmin) – most government officers usually refer to me as ‘Pandit Ji’. I don’t blame them, its their way of expressing brotherhood and venting out frustration against their lesser educated colleague who is 5 years junior but still manages to get promoted based on his ‘Scheduled Caste privileges’ .
But we need to give it a shot, the sick India needs this shot before the disease that Mayawati carries becomes a fatal one.

The day Mayawati becomes the Prime Minister of India – I will renounce my citizenship, burn my passport and head to the mountains in Nepal.

And till the reservation system and benefits for Chamaars are in place, I will refuse to refer to them as Dalits/Harijans.