The Raman Effect: the beginning and the end of Indian science.

Our Prime Minister addressed the 98th Indian Science Congress on 3 January 2011. While I was looking over its text, I stumbled upon a fact that he pointed out: “While C.V.Raman won the Nobel Prize eighty years ago for the Raman Effect, most of the instruments available in India today using this principle are imported. This is not an isolated example and many of our outstanding scientific discoveries have been converted into marketable products by technologies and firms based abroad.”

This is really appalling and shows how backward we are in the matter of science and technology. Prime Minister has also said that we need more Ramans and Ramanujans. Thanks to our Prime Minister. Someone has finally remembered C.V.Raman, the greatest Indian brain ever in the field of science. It is really important to remember them in the days when personalities like Dr. A.P.J. Abul Kalam and others are unnecessarily given the status of great scientists. They are given the status larger than life. Here I do not want to undermine their contribution. They are eminent personalities, but certainly not great scientists.

The point is why we have only C.V.Raman as a home grown Nobel Prize winner in science. Sir C.V. Raman won the Noble Prize in 1930. So in the eighty years we don’t have a single scientific discovery as great as C.V. Raman’s. We boast of I.I.Ts, but nothing great has happened also in the field of technology, which is clear from the fact that most remarkable Indian scientific discoveries are converted into products outside India. On one hand we do not have great scientific discoveries after the Raman Effect; we have not produced any great technology on the other. Our performance in the field of science and technology is extremely lacklustre. If I am not digressing, I must say that even in the field management, we have not discovered a single management theory which is so great that the world has to emulate it.

We generally tend to blame polity, bureaucracy and education system for our mediocre scientific progress. But this is barking up the wrong tree. We should blame ourselves for the fact that we have never given importance to pure science.

Shyam Manohar, noted Marathi writer’s latest novel has a character who is a software engineer, who happens to read an autobiography of his physics teacher. To his surprise, in the autobiography he does not find even a single mention of pleasure that his teacher finds in anything related to physics. This disturbs him. He wonders why his teacher does not have a single pleasurable experience related to physics to mention in his autobiography. He becomes introspective and starts looking back whether he ever had any moment of happiness during the years of his education. He remembers that when he was in 12th standard class, learning polarisation of light was the moment of happiness. He realises that as India always has given more importance to technology than to pure science, doing career in pure science has never occurred to people like him.

He finds that with the arrival of technology in India, achievements and financial growth became important. The fact that no one has realised the importance of pure science in India strikes him. ‘Nehru met Einstein, but Nehru championed technology in stead of pure science.’

However, our progress in the field of technology is also mediocre. The reason lies in our indifference to pure science. Shyam Manohar once said in an interview that we call physics a subject not a branch of knowledge. This clearly shows our indifference to fundamental questions. We have never looked at pure science as a source of knowledge, in turn as a source of technology. This exists everywhere, in all our Indian unversitites and institutions including our elite institues like Indian Institue Of Technology. Remember they are institues of technology not science. Even the goverment does not want institues of pure science. Great ideas are born in the attempts of solving fundamental and abstract questions. Unless and untill we bring about a change in our attitude to fundamental and abstract questions, we may have hunderds of I.I.Ts., nothing will make a difference. They will simply act as PLACEMENT AGENCIES, the way most parents today simply look at them. They hardly want their child to be the Raman of India today. They simply want him or her to be a technocrat who will be a highly paid 'servant' of some American and European and now Chinese multinational company.

C.V. Raman won the Noble Prize, with a simple instrument barely worth Rs. 300. Today very expensive instruments are needed for inventions. We do not have them, because we do not have technology. And we do not have technology, because we have never given importance to pure science.

It was a great beginning for Indian science, when C.V. Raman discovered the great Raman Effect. Sadly it is also becoming the end of Indian science.

Sculptures are not statues...........

It was a sad moment for art, when the Pune municipal corporation removed the sculpture of Dadoji Kondev. The sculpture was sadly made the symbol of the perception that it is the conspiracy of one caste to show its supremacy over the other to call Dadoji Kondev the guru of Shavaji Maharaj.

The sculpture of Dadoji Kondev was a sculpture, not a statue. Historians may have a dispute over certain historical facts and perceptions, but art is not history and sculptures are not statues.

This may be true that Dadoji Kondev was not the guru of Shivaji Maharaj. It may be a historical mistake of holding him as the guru of Shivaji Maharaj. But interpreting the historical mistake as a conspiracy of a caste to show its supremacy over the other is a perception but not the fact. And using an artist’s sculpture as the symbol of this perception is not only absurd but also deplorable.

Have we lost the intellectual ability to understand the difference between “perceptions” and “facts”, “art” and “history”? Let us assume for a moment that some historians deliberately cooked up the facts as part of the so called conspiracy. But the artist who had made the sculpture was not a historian. So it can not be said that he made the sculpture to support the conspiracy.

There was no need to use the sculpture to symbolise the perceived conspiracy. Without removing the sculpture, the fact could have been brought out to people. In stead of removing the sculpture, the corporation could have placed a written declaration alongside the sculpture: ‘Dadoji Kondev was not the guru of Shivaji Maharaj, therefore Dadoji’s gesture as shown in the sculpture does not have to represent him as the guru of Shivaji Maharaj.

However, those who opposed the statue were not interested in simply bringing out the fact that Dadoji was not the guru of Shivaji Maharaj. They were also interested in making their perception appear as a fact. In the process, the sculpture was made a scapegoat for historians’ mistake showing disrespect to the artist and his art.

Curbing migration is not a solution.

Migration makes emancipation literally possible for the migrants as well as for the natives by helping both get rid of the cluster of customs, set norms and rigid identities. In a way it fulfils an implicit human desire to become indistinguishable. However, the process is not free from conflicts. Migration that is not peaceful in its basic nature leads to an inevitable collision of cultures, which can morph into a placid fusion only if both migrants and natives have a strong urge to be indistinguishable. For a nation like India where the level of diversity and disparity is enormous, the desire to become indistinguishable is essential for peace and harmony. Prohibiting migration or even controlling it restrains people from becoming indistinguishable and it not only incites a temporary unrest but also creates an intolerant society in the long run.

Such thoughts come to my mind when I think of the MNS leader Raj Thackeray’s so called ‘movement’ against the migrants from Uttar Pradesh to Maharashtra. I feel that such ‘movements’ are not against the migration; but against the supremacy or dominance that migrants obtain during the process of cultural amalgamation. The migrants obtain an edge over the native people, which is an obvious and interesting phenomenon. To migrate from one’s native place to a completely different region one requires great courage. Though migrants generally possess such qualities, they can hardly get rid of the feeling of insecurity.

It is because of this constant feeling of insecurity that, in the initial period of settlement, migrants do not discuss the matters of humiliation among their small community members to avoid getting involved in any kind of controversy. From the experiences of my friends in Australia, I have understood how a new migrant ignores the humiliation in the initial period of settlement. Last year when I was in Australia, I met one who emigrated from India to Australia a few years ago. He told me his humiliating experience when he worked with an Australian fast food centre, which he had joined just after he had arrived in Australia. A customer at the fast food centre placed an order using the drive-through phone once. He couldn’t catch what the customer said and requested the customer to come to the customer window. ‘My handset has a problem, so I can’t take your order on phone. Please come to the window directly’, he told the customer the reason. ‘The problem is not with your handset. You can’t understand our English, coz you’re Indian. Better improve next time, otherwise…………’, the customer said belligerently at the window. What he said after ‘otherwise’ are the humiliating ‘fu**’ words that are not worth writing here. My friend was very mortified. However, he kept himself calm and gave the customer what he had ordered. He ignored the whole incident and avoided making an issue which he could have easily raised in his community. But he didn’t speak about it even to his close acquaintances. He didn’t want an attention and wanted to live without getting involved in any kind of controversy. I feel that it is a strategy that a migrant develops during the initial stages of his or her settlement.

Leaving their native place itself is a big risk for migrants; which rather prepares them to face any migratory challenge. The thoughts of failures do not deter their already worried mindset. They work day and night to settle themselves economically. However, even after their economic settlement they feel lonely and isolated, and the sense of security does not develop as strongly as it develops among the native people.

They get away from this feeling of insecurity only after retaining their identity through religious or cultural activities that also help them to build a strong community. And as their communities become stronger, they take humiliations seriously. Once a Sikh in Sydney had his turban ripped from his head. Two young men stole his turban while he was travelling on a public bus. Turban has a great religious significance for Sikhs. He found himself distressed and highly embarrassed when it was stolen. He had to cover his head with a piece of cloth while another passenger laughed. When he reported the assault immediately, the police could not recognize the religious significance of turban. They considered it a minor theft instead of an assault and asked him the worth of turban in monetary terms. For the Sikh it was depressing and annoying. After the matter was upheld by the community who persuaded Ministry to take it seriously, the police upgraded the case to a race hate crime from a minor theft.

This is how migrants, after being able to retain their identities, start influencing the politics in the region where they migrate. With unrelenting hard work they become economically strong; their communities influence the local culture, and for the politicians it gives an opportunity to make it a vote bank. For the native people who have been lethargic because of their feeling that nothing would deter their status quo, the sudden progress of the migrants becomes a matter of great concern. On the one hand migration releases the strong hold of local customs and traditions; on the other hand it slowly generates plenty of opportunities for them to dominate. Migrants are likely to become ‘conquerors’ over the native people.

In Mumbai ‘conquerors’ are those who migrate from other states in a large number. Their culture and language is imposed on the ‘conquered’. In Mumbai Hindi or English (not Marathi) is the language that is used in day to day affairs. Marathi culture is not the common culture among ‘Mumbaikars’. It is this feeling of getting conquered by the migrants is the main cause of the support that the Raj Thackeray’s movement receives. However, the point is that the banning of an Indian’s freedom to choose a place to settle can not be justified on the ground that migrants obtain supremacy or dominance over the native people. It will be in the interest of Marathi people that they accept the dominance of migrants. Such political movements aim to create a sense of insecurity among Marathi people and to attract a vote bank for the political growth. It will hardly benefit the Marathi people. That is why only in the metropolitan cities like Mumbai the Raj Thackeray’s movement is getting strong support compared to the feeble support that it has received in other smaller cities in Maharashtra.

An artilce written by a Hindu ideologist for Shri Ram Sene

Following is an article written by a Hindu ideologist for the organisation: Shri Ram Sene

Sri Ram Sene is Sri Ram Sene

It will be a blunder to ignore what organisations like Sri Ram Sene is fighting for.  There is an easy ingenuousness in calling such organisations antidemocratic or radical or fascist. It is fashionable to call such groups extreme-right groups. Such adjectives exacerbate the process of misunderstanding the implicit and suppressed voice of those who want to oppose the westernisation of Bharat.

Sri Ram Sene attacked a pub. This is antidemocratic. Sri Ram Sene decided to marry off the couples on Valentine’s Day. This is antidemocratic. Sri Ram Sene opposes rising pub culture that encourages the bonhomie fuelled by alcohol. Can this be termed antidemocratic? Sri Ram Sene opposes the celebration of Valentine Day, which is a western way of celebrating love as though this country’s legendary lovers like Radha –Krishna, Hir-Ranza, Laila Majanu, Nal-Damayanti, Bajirao-Mastani, Shah Jahan-Mumtaz are worthless for the cause of the celebration of love , and can we call this antidemocratic? There is little doubt that Shri Ram Sene’s method of opposition is antidemocratic. But can we equally certainly say that the cause that they are employing these methods for is also antidemocratic? Therefore, Sri Ram Sene is Sri Ram Sene.

In order to keep such cultural issues away from the democratic debate, the pseudo intellectuals (controlled by the global market forces) indiscriminately call such organisations antidemocratic. What kind of democracy do we want? Don’t we want a democracy that will pay its attention to the cultural issues that question whether Valentine Day is an Indian way of expressing love or whether dancing at pub is a cultured way of celebrating life? One can not say that these issues are trivial, when this democracy blatantly ignores issues of farmers and poor people. Whose democracy is this? Is this democracy of only Ambanis, Tatas, Birlas, Rajus, corrupt politicians, popular and purely commercial media and Sensex? Our democracy is rapidly becoming the democracy that is dominated only by the global market forces.

Many argue that it is the individual’s matter to decide whether he wants to celebrate the Valentine’s Day. To say that such cultural issues are individual matters is to show egregious apathy to the possibility that an Indian alternative to the western culture can emerge. This is pseudo-secularism, which is clearly visible from the fact that only when there is a strong (maybe violent in some cases) opposition to the westernisation of ‘BHARAT’, a huge outcry that the secular ‘India’ is in danger springs up. Why we want to believe that the western modernism is the only way to be modern and to be secular.

The global market forces have made us blind and pachydermically indifferent. We are unable to see how they use our own democracy for their benefits leaving us deprived of our rights to preserve our own culture. They want us to believe that the western model of progress can make us grow and prosper. They also make us realise that if their model is adopted for the development and progress, the westernisation of our democracy is inevitable. How far is to true that their model will make us achieve all inclusive growth? I do not want Paul Krugman or any other Nobel laureate in Economics to tell me that India’s economic growth is not all-inclusive. Any common Bharatiya will tell this ‘naked’ truth about our economy.

This incomplete economic development that we have had so far is based on the system and technology which is the product of the western models of development. The stories of those who have been kept away from this growth are not brought into the national debate. Which economic and cultural model has made them survive is not the matter of anybody’s concern. Which science and technology they use for their mere survival has been effectively ignored. The concern that has been raised here about avoiding calling the organisations like Sri Ram Sene is not to justify their acts, but to bring out the point that their so called extremist Hinduism needs to be understood as opposition to the one sided globalisation and to the pseudo-secular idea: the western modernism is the one and only form of modernism.  

If we continue to ignore them, and to sideline the cultural issues (in turn economic) by calling Sri Ram Sene and other such orgnisations antidemocratic indiscriminately, we will surely fall prey to the conspiracy of the westernisation of our bharatiya lokshahi.

A letter to Raj Thackeray from his poor and illiterate supporter

(The writer of this blog wrote it down in Marathi as the supporter told him. Then he edited it and finally translated it into English.)

Dear Raj,

                            

You fight for us. You fight for our language: Marathi. And we fight for you. Can we fight to invent a Marathi word that can not be translated into any other language? You may say that there are many such words in Marathi. But most of them may be religious and traditional. I want a modern untranslatable Marathi word.

Your party’s website has given a list of Marathi substitutes for the English words that we are used to. I have not read the list. But someone has told me about it. In the list the Marathi word “Namskar” has been given as a substitute for ‘Hallo’. But “Namskar” can’t be the substitute for ‘Hallo’. There is no substitute for “Hallo” in Marathi. Thus, “Hallo” becomes an untranslatable English word. Similarly, “Hi” is also an untranslatable English word that we are used to. But there is no untranslatable Marathi word that the entire world has been used to.

Can we invent at least one Marathi word which the entire world will have to get used to?

Though I am illiterate, I can speak a little English. I work with an international hotel as a janitor in Mumbai. Ever since a Canadian tourist asked me an untranslatable modern Marathi word, I have become restless to find it.

You insist on using Marathi, but you are not against English. You have never questioned the rapidly increasing English medium schools in Maharashtra. You have never said that the medium of instruction in all schools in Maharashtra should be only Marathi. Marathi medium schools are declining rapidly. The present government is punishing the owners of private Marathi schools. But it is not punishing the owners of private English medium schools.  The fetish of our people for English medium schools is dangerous to the existence of Marathi medium schools. But you have never taken this issue of dying Marathi schools very strongly. In fact your own son studies in an English medium school. The website of your party is in not simply in Marathi, it is also in English.

Thus you know the importance of English. English is the vehicle of knowledge. It is not just an international language but also the language that connects Indians. It is through this language I am reaching you.  English is the vehicle of prestige too. However, only rich Marathi people afford to educate their children in English medium schools. You are rich too. Everything is possible for the rich people in India.

But is it possible for them to find an untranslatable Marathi word? Is it possible for you to find an untranslatable Marathi word? Is it possible for your uncle to find it?

For an untranslatable word, what needs is a great idea. An idea that can be understood only in Marathi! An idea that can really change our lives! It should be so great that everyone in the world will have to need it. Everyone in the world will have to learn Marathi to understand it. Then a new era will emerge – an era in which Marathi will rule the world. The people of Maharashtra will rule the world.

However, I do not know how to invent a great idea. One needs time and money to invent. The most important requirement, perhaps, is a genius mind. Like any other common Maharashtrian, I have plenty of time but I have little money. The fact that my children study in a Marathi medium school is more than enough to prove my poverty. But I am very confident of your philanthropy. You are rich and generous too, right?

But what about the genius mind?

I can’t think of a genius idea because I am poor and on top of that I am illiterate. I am so poor that I can’t send my children to an English medium school.  I want my children to study in an English medium school. I have no money and there are millions of Marathi parents who have no money. Our children are deprived of the English language, so they are deprived of knowledge. Thus our children will remain poor as poor as we are.

While knowledge of English is essential for our survival in the present, an untranslatable idea is essential for our super-long term growth. Sounds ironical, but true.

You insist that you are not against the migrants but you want every migrant to learn Marathi and to respect our culture. Is our culture rich? The richness of any culture depends on great ideas. Is our Marathi rich? Is there an untranslatable Marathi word that the entire word has to learn?

Thousands of migrants have to come to Mumbai. They have to leave their places out of compulsion and out of poverty. They are so poor that I doubt whether they can afford to even educate their children, forget the medium of instruction. Most of them are illiterate. You want them to learn Marathi, if they have to live in Maharashtra. But what is the use of learning Marathi? I know Marathi, but I want to learn English. Marathi has no value. I serve international tourists who easily give me hundreds of rupees if I speak with them in English. They can do so, as they earn in dollars. A dollar is always greater than a rupee. So the more I know English, the more rupees I will earn. What is the using of learning Marathi?

But let me tell you that the Canadian tourist was ready to give me thousands of rupees for just one untranslatable modern Marathi word.

Either let me know an untranslatable Marathi word or teach me English. The one who knows English very well can easily get a good job. I do not know English. My wife does not know English. So we are poor. My children will not know English. So they will remain poor. Poverty grows because of Marathi. And ironically Marathi survives because of poverty.

In the last International Conference on Marathi, Ramadas Futane said, ‘as long as there are poor Marathi people in Maharashtra, the Marathi language will exist.’ But I have no concern for Marathi. Marathi should not be persevered at the cost of poor Maharashtrains like us. I have concern for my survival. I have concern for my poor family. I do not want my children to remain poor like me.

                                                                                                               

It is true that your fight to help us regain our jobs that we lose to the north Indian migrants. But I suggest that you should concentrate on overall poverty eradication in stead of simply trying to save our jobs. Create jobs, do not simply save them. For that a shift in the focus is needed. The focus should be on ‘ingenuity’.

We should understand that we, society as a whole, can’t achieve a long term inclusive growth unless we find at least one genius idea. At the same time we should understand that one can’t invent an idea when one’s survival is at stake. So the first priority should be poverty eradication. And for poverty eradication, knowledge of English (spoken and written both) is essential in today’s world. You can set a mission of making us proficient in English in the next five years. Even a free English coaching can be made available to every poor Maharashtrian on the behalf of your party. I guarantee that such efforts will eradicate poverty and you will deserve all the credit.

Once you have removed poverty, you can bring the question of a genius idea to the fore. This is a vision which focuses ‘ingenuity’. But the vision will become an illusion if you promise us a genius idea. A vision based on ingenuity can not be promised. But a vision based on ingenuity can be shared.

Will you share such vision with all the people of Maharashtra?

-         Your poor and illiterate supporter

P.S. - Though the question of finding a great idea will keep all of us dangling until we really find it, you are smart enough to use the thin line between a vision and an illusion for your long and successful career in politics.

A celebrity’s clumsy sentence….

I read a clumsy sentence on the blog of a celebrity yesterday:

‘They were angry and said things like I’m teaching women wrong things by saying they have the choice to walk out of their husband’s home if they are cheated upon.‘

You can find the above sentence on this link: http://www.itimes.com/public/shabanaazmi/blog/Remembering-Arth

The sentence is a case of spoken English. If this sounds euphemistic, I should directly say that it is a case of clumsy writing.

Following are the errors:

1.   Use of “like” as a conjunction.

The sentence has used “like’” as a conjunction. Using “like” as a conjunction is common in conversation.

“They were angry and said things.”  This is one sentence.

“I am teaching women wrong things by saying they have the choice to walk out of their husband’s home if they are cheated upon.” This is the other sentence.

“Like” has joined these two sentences.

Is this correct?

No. The sophisticated reader may not like the use of “like” as a conjunction.

2.   Use of “things”

The ‘wild’ use of “things” in the sentence is a casual approach towards writing. In stead of “I am teaching women wrong things’, one can say “I am promoting a wrong practice”, which may sound formal but not clumsy.

3.   Use of “they” too many times.

The sentence has used the word “they” three times. The first “they” is referred to the word “men” used in the previous sentence. The second “they” is referred to “women.”  The last “they” is also referred to “women”.  This can confuse the reader. The reader might feel that the second ‘they’ is referred again to the word ‘men’ used in the previous sentence.

An attempt to ‘massage’ the sentence….

They were angry and said that I was promoting a wrong practice by encouraging women to leave their husbands after being cheated on.

Or

They were angry as they felt I was promoting a wrong practice by encouraging women to leave their disloyal husbands.

Can we say no to ‘the caste system’ itself…? Can we go beyond caste?

This is in response to Laltabh’s post ‘say no to the caste based census’ (http://www.lalitabh.blogspot.com/) and also to the article ‘Go beyond caste’ published in The Times of India on Sep. 14.

The fear that 'cast based census' would lead to polarisation is uncalled for, because even without this census we Indians are divided and polarised. The fear that it will help Mandal politicians to further their decisive interests is unnecessary, as they have already done enough damage to our social integrity.

Also the ‘caste base census’ is not at all new in India.  It was first done by the British. The Indian government has been officially recording our castes in various forms for years. The only difference is that the government has no authority to disclose them publicly. The government is trying to seek this authority now.

What difference would this public declaration make to our deeply rooted caste system which is openly followed otherwise?

What difference would the public declaration of the number of Brahmin or Maratha people make, if a Brahmin and Maratha ‘arraigned’ marriage is still a remote or rare possibility?

I am married to my wife of my same caste. I have described my failure to do an inter-caste arranged marriage on my post:‘Dangerously Modern’.

It is a good suggestion of Lalitabh that we should stop using surnames. But it creates problems. When you decide to disown your surname, you stand out and people look at you askance. My wife uses no surname (either mine or her maiden). She is a doctor. Most of her patients doubt her credibility as a doctor, just because they can’t find a surname mentioned after her name. People find it very awkward to call her without her surname. They keep asking her surname.  

At the institute where I teach, I introduce myself only with my name. Once a student came to me and persistently asked my surname saying that he felt very awkward to take my name. I asked him why, he said that calling a teacher only with his name sounds disrespectful. Thus, in India surnames are given more respect than simply names. I bluntly said to him that I do not want respect at all.

I have a daughter of around two years.  I have decided not to give her my surname. However, when my daughter was born, her birth certificate had to have the mention of my caste. Otherwise, I could not have got a birth certificate for my daughter.  A few months ago when a census-taker (a female teacher by profession) came home to take my family details, she said that it was mandatory to register my daughter’s caste though her name could be registered without a surname. So what is the use of not giving my daughter my surname? I am simply avoiding the open manifestation of her caste, but her caste still exits.  So in India you must record your caste. No matter, whether you believe in the caste system or not, you can't disown it practically.  Avoiding the open manifestation of what you actually possess or of what you can’t disown at all is hypocrisy.

Following the caste system and taking its benefits on the one hand while avoiding its open manifestation on the other is one of the pretences that our lives are fraught with.  How this pretence makes you helpless is nicely exposed in a Marathi play called ‘Anandbhog Mall’ written by Ashutosh Potdar. In the play there is a couple where the husband and the wife are from different castes. The husband belongs to the caste of Maratha and the wife is a Brahmin. Though they have done an inter-caste love marriage, they are unable to shed their caste identities. On one hand they criticise the caste system, on the other hand they can’t avoid taking the benefits of their caste identities. Without openly taking the names of ‘castes’, they keep on criticising each other’s castes. When they realise this pretence, they find themselves very helpless. 

Those who have benefited the reservation system based on castes do not have self-dignity, as they know that their achievements will always be looked at doubtfully.  The selection of the chief justice of India does not have any quota system. Still, when Balakrishnan became the chief justice in India, it became a news item that he is the first ‘Dalit’ Chief Justice of India. ‘Dalit’ itself has become a caste now, a caste that ‘castes’ aspersions on the genuine capability of a person who is Dalit.

Most of your relatives are of your own caste and community. You can't disown them though you can't believe in the caste-system. One of my uncles is part of a trust whose members exclusively belong to my caste and community. If I decide to oppose him on the grounds of ‘division and polarisation’, I have to put my relationship with him in jeopardy. You have caste based unions and organisations. You can’t disown them for this or that reason.

Then what is the point in saying no to 'the caste based census'? Why this pretension? Why this shying away?

 Saying no to castes altogether is more important than saying no to 'caste based census'.

In order to uproot the caste system in India, it is not useful simply to say no to ‘caste based census’, we have to say no to the system of reservations based on castes and also to the system of surnames

We should say no to reservations based on castes, and make them only on the basis of ‘economic status’

We should not only say no to the system of surnames but also run a mass movement to force the government pass the bill to abolish the system of surnames once and all. How should I convince my billions of countrymen this? (Most of them are illiterate, and I am expressing my views in English. Only 0.6% of our total population knows English. And out of those who can know English, only 0.002% read serous articles.)

We can even burn all the caste-records. (According to Bhalchandra Nemade, a veteran Marathi writer, the first line of census was written in India by the British and they did it on the basis of castes. The first Maratha conference was organised by a British man. The system of castes became firmly established since then. The caste system was never so firm and severe before the British as it is now even after sixty years of independence, thanks to the British and also to ‘us Indians’ in a way).

Nandan Nilekani, the so-called intellectual is working on a project called ‘Unique Identification Number.’ Is his number given to you going to record your surname and in turn your caste? If yes, he is not doing any great work. Is he leaving out your surname and your caste while recording your personal details for the number? If no, then he is wasting a great opportunity to uproot the caste system in India. Is there no difference between Nandan Nilekani and our politicians?

Certainly, there is no difference between Nanadan Nilekani and me. Both of us can’t get rid of surnames. A surname is a caste.

I can certainly say no to the caste base census. But the question is, can I say no to the caste based system itself? If not, then why this pretence?