While celebrating 77th Independence Anniversary pledge to do what ‘We’ can instead counting what “Elders” could not

Daya Sagar

India is celebrating 77th anniversary of Independence (78th Independence Day) this 15th august. All goods done by our elders need be remembered this day and the tasks unaccomplished so far must be pledged for accomplishment without any more undue extensions in time.Those who drafted constitution of India hadin there members more members from socially & educationally backward sects/ castes / religious minorities/remotely located communities/ women but constitution drafted and adopted in Constituency Assembly on 26th November 1949 had not only intimately & concernedly secured & supported the interests of the socially citizens ,educationally, administratively , politically and resource wise weaker sections in Independent India but had also laid down provisions and directions { principles} in constitution to materially & intellectually support the weaker sections / sects so that they too not only become sel sufficient but also support for others. Target was set to minimize the needs for providing special props / supports to categories like socially and educationally backward classes as well as the administratively & politically backward Indian people with a period of a decade or two. WE need to pledge this day to truthfully evaluate and test the positions on ground as regards the status off the Indian communities / sects that we had identified as Schedule Caste ( Who had socially and educationally fallen back over the years since they suffered under the curse of untouchability in view of the trades /jobs they were to do for survival & very low income from such jobs.
The social discrimination was attributed to Hindu society only and only “Hindu ” (and Sikh” ) were included in SC in 1950 where as others like Christians/ Muslims did not accept any social discrimination in their society. No any backwardness worth providing support on the basis of economic weakness was identified although the economically very poor people were also there in other castes Although Indians had been handed over a very weak economy by the British ut still the Indian elders who had been given the task of drawing the future governing system in independent India Dominion ventured into making India to constitutionally land as Independent Democratic Republic with a socialist order where head on responsibility was taken by the state to equip the common India with adequate education and health through state owned & run education institutions and health care institutions. Surely government has all, these years spent billions of rupees out of state exchequer on health and education infrastructure in public sector. But has the benefits really reached the target classes / masses we must assess this day. How far the social and educational backwardness has reduced over the years for which we had kept the target to nearly end the reservations in the legislature by 1960 and then to have some review for making revised policies to fill any deficiencies left worth support. Similarly how far we have succeeded in providing reservation support in services and higher education institutions to socially & educationally backward masses.
Surely we shall not find the status encouraging since even after 7 decades the provisions have not been made to reach a very large mass of the the targeted beneficiaries.
India has progressed reasonably head economically, in the urban area and seeing the way the the automobile population has swollen one would surely feel that the Indian economy has grown many folds. Worth satisfaction . But position is not like that. If we go by the the disclosures being made by the men who matter in recent years nearly 23 Cr citizens have been brought above poverty line and there are still over 80 cr people who need be supported with free 5 kg ration per month. That means out of 140 population we still have over 100 cr people who very very poor and surely 90 % of these should be educationally backward and reasonably large percentage that of socially also backward class).
So this independence day let us pledge to work for accomplishing the task of removing the educational backwardness of Indian masses for whom we have kept reservations in professional colleges , government services and legislature.
Let us keep the issues and requirements of the backwards classes out of political gamesman ship and truthfully operated the government schools and hospitals to provide competitive schooling and health to our masses where we are already spending huge sums. Social organizations should should take the leads by becoming eyes and years of the political leaderships in providing unbiased feed back and support. Jai Hind
(The writer is a Sr Journalist, analyst J&K affairs and Social Activist)