yaarukkaaga, ithu yaarukkaga?

Today, Tamil Nadu "celebrated" State sponsored bandh (ironical that of all parties, "tamil breathing" dravidian parties, using a hindi word). To what end? Just to prove to themselves and to the Center, of the "power" that the ruling party wields.

All because Supreme Court has stayed the case against bill for Reservation for OBC. The court has stayed the case asking for the validity of the data used, which was based on the Census of 1931. And the judgment is not yet out, it is pretty far off in time. However, with reservation being a "sure fire" ammunition for elections, all the parties are vying with each other to get their own share of the pie - the claim to be the beacons of "social justice and equity". After all, caste politics pays rich dividends.

Is the bandh right in any way? Would getting thousands of train passengers stranded outside the borders of TN achieve social justice? Indians take pride in resorting to bandh/dharnas/fast etc, all in the name of practising the "Gandhigiri". What Gandhi did through his bandhs had a reason: by stalling economic activity, which is essentially detrimental to the interests of the British, he tried to attract attention. It was essentially a weak minority (in terms of power) trying to make its powerful "masters" hear its voice. But, now, what does the ruling party wants to achieve by calling for a bandh, discomforting so many of its own people? Why stall all the activity when it has so much power to do a lot for education of the unfortunate lot, which it never seems to really care to think about? Whose attention does it want to attract? Is it like a third standard school teacher who terrifies her class into silence just to "show off" to the Principal? Probably, with every party going for the kill, the "telecom operator" wanted to differentiate his party from the rest by being "louder and clearer". After all, action speaks a lot louder than words.

The apparent reason for this is to call the people of the state to "unanimously voice their support for social justice". All for 27% reservation in higher-education for the OBC and other unfortunate sections of the society. But not many seems to care about providing primary education to them.

Sensationalism is the mantra: be it selling a "cheap" newspaper or weekly, by throwing in a lof freebies that are got through arm-twisting, or capturing the state, through shameless promises of "free" TVs. Probably the highlights (esp the promised TVs) of the manifesto for the last election were "inspired" by the success of "puthusu kanna puthusu". Kottainaalum kumkumamnaalum gameplan onnu thaan.

The government spent crores of tax payer's money on distributing "free" TVs (romba theva naattukku!!! how else can you increase scv cable revenues? and more than anything, what better way to keep the stupidity quotient of tamilians on the high levels than the idiot box itself?). Why can't it spent a portion of that money on providing primary education to the unfortunate sections? That already a lot of the money spent on education goes to the "loyal" party people is another issue anyway. Recently, government shcools in TN were provided with scrap in the name of desks and benches, from the furniture godowns of close aides of the "commander".

What these unfortunate sections need is not just "muttai" and "sathunavu". The opportunity cost of sending a child to school is pretty high i.e. the loss to the family by sending one of its child to school and not to a mechanic shop or a hotel is high. Going/not going to work can mean whether they do/don't get to eat today while education bears economic fruits a lot later. Unless, this opportunity cost is paid, bringing those unfortunate kids to school is almost impossible. Probably something like school vouchers can be a solution like Milton Friedman said. While school vouchers are essentially like prepaid cards to buy education for your kids, what we need here is essentially payment to study - come to school, get paid. Though it sounds like scholarships, the essential difference is that the payment to the student is over and above the education expenses, which is again met by the government. Again, administering school vouchers wouldn't be easy, given how "safe" stocks in our ration shops are. But, is there any other way to bring those unfortunate kids to take up the "reserved" seats? All that we would end up doing with this reservation is to make the kids of the so-called creamy layer in the OBC even lazier.

The problem is how to increase the pie rather than just fighting mindlessly over the existing insufficient one.