Human Chain in Mumbai 23 July : A GRAND SUCCESS

Sunday, July 23, 2006 : Human Chain in Mumbai from Bandra to Andheri on 23rd July.
Human chain in mumbai from Bandra to Andheri was a huge success despite all the efforts of administration to sabotage it.As a matter of fact more than 2000 citizens of Mumbai took active part in this endeavour.
People forming the human chain had banners and balloons in their hands which looked really beautiful. Some volunteers also distributed pamphlets at the signals which were eagerly accepted by the commuters. This event has really boosted the confidence of yfemumbai.

YFE Mumbai organised a human chain on 23rd July as part of the nation-wide protests against the Govt's reservation policy. The police in order to sabotage the protest at the last moment refused to allow the human chain on S.V. Road from Bandra to Andheri from 5-6pm.
Instead they gave written permission to have it at 1 pm.

FOR FURTHER DETAILS CONTACT:-YFE MUMBAI HELP LINE:- 9833158385

LANDMARKS FROM
ANDHERI STATION
MERWANS
SHOPPERS STOP
FIRE BRIGADE
KALPANA AUTO
IRLA NURSING HOME
SONY MONY
St. JOSEPH SCHOOL
ASHOKA HALL
NANAVATI HOSPITAL
LIC QUARTERS
VIP SHOWROOM
KHIRA NAGAR
MEJWANI HOSPITAL
STAN CHART (S CRUZ)ASIAD PLAZA
YOKOS
DYNASTY
KHAR SUBWAY
SACRED HEART SCHOOL
MADNESS DISCO
G-7
BANDRA TALAO
LUCY HOTEL

Pukar - The call

This is it. The D-Day. The final battle.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have sunk into everyone yet. The Monsoon session of Parliament begins on 24th of July, i.e., next Monday, and ends on the 10th of August. The Bill can be passed anytime in between. It may be passed on Monday itself. So next week is the last possible day to spread YFE. And then its going to be the big battle.

Let us all realize this very clearly. IT IS NOW OR NEVER. Now is the time to leave everything else and devote this one week of your life entirely to your country and your cause. No excuse can be given for not working now; that is unpardonable. It is rare that someone gets a chance to do something for his country; we are not going to squander it. YFE was formed for a definite purpose, and it is not going to rest without achieving it.

And for that to happen we need each and every one of you to work his hardest.
So for one week, sacrifice all your serials and movies, sacrifice all your sports, stop discussing Zidane and Materazzi, stop spending hours on Orkut, stop gossiping hours on the phone, and DO SOMETHING FOR YOR COUNTRY FULLY AND WHOLE-HEARTEDLY. For one week do what is given below and then see how together we make the difference.

What has happened since the SC order?
A lot. YFE has been busy strengthening its roots and organizational base. A short recap for those who were out of it.
The engineers got into the act as soon as their exams got over, as promised, and organized a human-chain outside Vashi station. It had a great response.
YFE volunteers went to all the college line of 10th students seeking admission in JCs. The response was encouraging in most places.
YFE T-shirts printed. They are available for Rs. 125 each. All those who want them, please contact the helpline.
On 1st April – Doctors day – YFE members went wearing aprons and spread awareness in all localities from Andheri to Shivaji Park along SV Road and thereafter.
The above activity was also done to get people to participate in the human chain organized along that route on 5th of June. Unfortunately, that could not be done successfully due to the rains.
On 15th of June, Saturday, YFE held a peace march from Haji Ali to Shivaji Park for religious harmony and peace in wake of the bomb blasts and to protest against Maharashtra government surreptitiously passing the bill allowing 50% reservations in all medical and engineering colleges in the state the day after the blasts.
The first National Coordination Committee (NCC) meeting was held on 16 to18th of June to have a uniform stand, demands and coordination. Currently, the second meeting is going on (15-16th of July) at Delhi to decide on the strategy for the monsoon session. The minutes will be put up on the website as soon as everything gets decided.
A music video has been made by Ashok Pandit, lyrics Sameer, singer Roop Kumar Rathod, and is going to be released on either Wednesday or Thursday as per availability of the hall. You will be informed of that when it gets fixed. It will be aired on all music channels.

Plan of Action:
The plan is very simple. We have to spread YFE from a students’ to a mass movement. And for that, we need to go to the people personally. Media coverage alone is not going to help. So whom we need to target include –
Engineering colleges are restarting on Monday, the 17th. We need to talk to all these eng students and get them actively involved. So, each and every engineering student who reads this, please do as follows –
Book a lecture theatre/classroom of your college (or any specific meeting place) on Monday or Tuesday, get all the students of all batches there and talk to them about this. For all willing to volunteer, assign them specific areas or tasks to cover there and then and give them the material for the same. There is no time to waste.
Junior colleges will be restarting this week too. The same has to be done there. This will be better handled if the senior students (degree or 12th std students) of the same college, or atleast ex-students, handle it. Those who had already gone to JCs during the 10th lines, please get in touch with us for the same too.
Degree colleges need to be handled similarly. PLEASE, degree college students, help out the country now.
Railway stations – In order to make this a public movement, this is the most essential thing possible. The above steps are all student specific again. Targeting the masses is a must. It will make people realize that YFE is still alive and will stimulate discussions in the trains and homes of all of them. Plus, when we give one a pamphlet and he has nothing to do during his/her half hour train journey, they are bound to read it. This is the only way to spread YFE in the community.
Specific colonies and housing societies – Everyone needs to put up our pamphlets on the notice board and lifts of their buildings and offices. Plus, they need to cover buildings in their vicinity, as also specific middle class housing societies where people mostly support us.
Malls and theatres – This needs to be done atleast on weekends, when the crowd is more.

If we do this next week, we are sure to win. So please, volunteer for whichever of these suits you for this one week. We have pamphlets ready for all of this. We will arrange to reach it to you at your college or station.

Note the following
People often ask why are you still doing this and what have you achieved till now. Tell them that what we have achieved till now is unprecedented. If the number of seats in IITs are being increased from 5000 to 7500, it is because of us. If the govt is spending 8000 crores on higher education, it is because of us. If the Veerapa Moily committee has been formed, it is because of us. If for the first time in the hiosrtory of India since indepence, Delhi had a 40000 string non-political non-religious rally, it is because of us. Tell them we are now a registered Association and have become a platform for all future batches and generations. And if the reservation will ultimately be foiled, it will be because of us and because their support to us.
They ask you what can you do if they pass the bill. Explain that this fight is not a selfish one you are fighting only for yourselves. It is for all future batches too, so that they don’t have to face any such struggles again. Tell them that you intend to ensure that any govt which passes such a divisive bill will never be voted to power again. We need to have foresight. The Congress today has about 170 seats in Parliament. Imagine if it wins 270 in next elections. No party will think twice before imposing more reservations. Now imagine if it gets only 70!! No party will have the guts to put any more reservations. And that is what we intend to ensure, starting with the BMC elections of Mumbai the upcoming year.
DO NOT WASTE TIME ARGUING OR FIGHTING WITH PRO-QUOTA PEOPLE. Everyone is bound to face them sometime during this activity. Just say that everyone is entitled to their opinion and that you are neither against reservations nor the reserved category, you just want a new commission and an informed decision. You are just there to spread awareness about what you consider to be right and about your organisation, and that is your right. Do not take any panga with anyone.
Read up all statistics about reservations and Mandal on our site. And see our powerpoint presentation. You should be aware before you try and convince others.


Upcoming Events:
The exact dates will be finalized by Monday, but they will include the music video release, a human chain on SV road and probably a rally. Dates to be put up on the site.

IT’S THE TIME TO ACT. ITS NOW OR NEVER. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE IN WHATEVER WAY YOU CAN. CALL US UP AND WE WILL IMMEDIATELY GIVE YOU ALL MATERIAL YOU NEED.
Mail in all your suggestions to the yfemumbai@gmail.com

Call up
Dr. Gunjan: 9224460881
Dr. Abbas: 9819605432
Akshay: 9869900455
YFE helpline: 9833158385

SAMAANTHA YATRA BUS WILL START FROM MUMBAI ON JULY 19 AND REACH DELHI ON JULY 24

Save your nation board the bus. This bus will take our voice to the capital.

Mandal Bandal

In the past few weeks, the Mandal Commission has been put through a tight scrutiny by many experts. Unfortunately, the comments and criticisms have all been in many different articles; so unless one is an avid reader with an extremely sharp memory, not much is retained. Here is a composite picture.

The Mandal Commission is a 1980 report. In other words, it is 26 years old.

Its statistics are based on the 1931 census and 1891 cost indexing. Thus, its populations statistics are 75 years old and the economic criteria on based on which it has defined OBCs are 115 years old!!

It puts the total number of OBCs at 52%, while the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), a government body, puts it at 36%, which is the latest statistic available. A statistical fallacy of about 30%! If you extrapolate this to its other stats and the recommendations based on these, you will realize why a review is essential.

The only Dalit member of the Mandal Commission, L R Naik, did not sign it. He predicted that its benefits will be reaped only by the creamy layer (the Intermediate Backward Classes), who anyway does not need reservations, and will never reach those who actually need it (the Most Backward Classes), and this is exactly what has happened.

The three sociologists of the Mandal Commission - Professors Roy Burman, Srinivas and Jogendra Singh, specifically stated that ‘they were denied any real opportunity to participate in the findings’!!!

The report is based on the work of a research and planning team ‘which met only for 3 days’ and a second panel (Srinivas panel – who anyway stated that he hasn’t contributed) which met for 5 days. And both these meetings were to discuss how to obtain data. There was no meeting at all to evaluate the data gathered. Thus, no specialist was involved in the Commission for more than 8 days.

In order to obtain some current data, the Mandal Commission carried out a survey in 810 of the then 500000 villages (that’s about 0.001%)This was performed by junior Government officials without supervision or validation by any sociologist.

The Commission’s concluding paragraph on its own work states: ‘In the end, it may be emphasized that the survey has no pretensions to being a piece of academic research’!!!

Pandit Nehru opposed reservations. Rajiv Gandhi opposed Mandal. The Knowledge Commission, S S Gill (Mandal Commission secretary), Kapil Sibal, the honourable Supreme Court, lakhs of Indians have all questioned the Mandal Report based on these very facts. It is the duty of a democratically elected Government to pay heed to all these valid objections to the further implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations without any review and proof of their effects.

The Government must follow what is the basis of good governance, that is, to make an informed decision. Any change in the reservation policy must be made based on today’s facts, today’s statistics and today’s scenario, and not on the basis of a 1980 Mandal Commission. Any decision regarding spending Rs. 8000 crores of tax-payers hard-earned money can be made only after careful consideration and objective review by an independent non-political commission.

--Akshay Baheti, Youth For Equality

Neo-Brahmins Neo-Kshatriyas and the true OBCs

Although the policy of extended reservations has been projected as furthering the cause of “affirmative action”, its most likely beneficiaries are unlikely to be the struggling children of poor villagers that the champions of this policy claim to speak for.

Contrary to the impression created by the votaries of reservations, caste has not been an entirely rigid construct in India. Going back 2000 years in Indian history, one can find numerous instances of royal families (such as the Nandas and the Mauryas) who were neither Brahmin nor Kshatriya nor Bania.

In more recent history, it may be worth mentioning that as Mughal rule collapsed in Northern and Western India, Jats assumed royal power in parts of Haryana, Northern Rajasthan and Western UP. In Maharashtra, Gujarat and MP, upwardly-mobile sections of agriculturists (i.e. the Marathas) assumed royal power.

Prior to that, during Mughal rule, Yadav chieftains ruled minor principalities as subordinates to the Mughals.

Yet today, all these aggressive neo-Kshatriya groupings claim OBC status.

Likewise, the Patels of Gujarat, who were once agriculturists, have come to play a significant role in the world of commerce. However, in spite of their neo-Bania existence, they mostly prefer to claim OBC status.

Thanks to the numerous schemes for small businesses instituted since independence, individuals from all manner of agricultural and other castes have acquired successful trades and small businesses. Yet, none will give up their OBC status for the purpose of reservations.

In Southern India, all manner of castes that are (or were) in practice equivalent to the North Indian Kshatriya or Bania castes have instead, very craftily acquired OBC status.
Since the Dravidian movement’s exclusive focus was on isolating Brahmins, other forward castes have happily escaped any censure and instead were able to utilize reservations to further strengthen their hold on power.

Although the exclusion of the creamy layer may in principle prevent these neo-Kshatriyas and neo-Banias from monopolizing the benefits of reservations, in practice, exclusion of the creamy layer may not work as desired, since hiding incomes in India is hardly a difficult thing.

It is thus likely, that any extension of the policy of reservations to OBCs will be garnered almost exclusively by the neo-Kshatriyas and neo-Banias, although sections of India’s glib media will showcase the few genuinely deserving cases that benefit to mask the actual reality of reservations.

Of course, there is nothing in this policy for the SC/ST categories who are yet to take proper advantage of even the existing reservations.

There should be no illusions about this. The Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Arjun team along with its pseudo-Marxist allies is batting for the neo-Kshatriyas and neo-Banias. Everyone else who has joined their bandwagon for opportunistic reasons will be duped, but most will not find that out till many years from now.

However, if brand India is adversely affected by such moves (which is not unlikely), then even the South will suffer in a big way, because it could entirely derail the outsourcing gravy train. The neo-Kshatriyas and neo-Banias who are aggressively pushing this policy may then discover that they have won nothing but a pyrrhic victory.

India’s near future is inextricably linked to the quality of its graduating intellectuals. If such a policy exacerbates the brain drain, or if international perceptions about Indian talent change adversely, the neo-Kshatriyas and the neo-Banias (who may succeed in grabbing college seats from more deserving aspirants) will not be guaranteed the lucrative jobs that they currently envy.

In a globalized economy, there is no room for petty entitlements. If the beneficiaries of reservations fail to meet stringent international norms, they (along with India as a whole) will be dumped for some other nation, such as China or Vietnam.

Notwithstanding the tall claims made by the reservation hawks, the policy could end up being a lose-lose policy for the nation as a whole.

But India’s progress seems to be the very last thing on the minds of India’s highly duplicitous political elite