On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 7:34 AM, Kiran K Karthikeyan<[email protected]> wrote: > 2009/7/17 Thaths <[email protected]> >> Could you list the top 3 such concerns?
<snip> > 1. The feeling that Hindus are in some ways second class citizens who have > had their way of life changed (land reforms which overnight left many high > caste Hindus in Kerala penniless overnight is one example) significantly, > but Muslims still retain their privileges and rights (polygamy, > madrassas, etc.). Has there any research been conducted on the average household income of people by religion and how it has changed over the last 60 years? > 2. The reservations given to Muslims in Kerala. It would have been OK if it > was the poorer and disadvantaged students who took advantage of this, but > more often than not it was those who already had a few relatives in the > Gulf, were reasonably well off, and could have easily afforded > private/payment seats. Basically the entire "creamy layer" argument. On the > other hand, many Hindus don't make the cut, and are forced to study in other > states where the fees are 20-100X (my entire fees was around Rs. 8K for 4 > years) and then there were only 7 engg colleges in the whole state. Coming from a state with the highest levels of reservation in the country (even more than what the Mandal commission recommended) I did not see a disproportionately large percentage of muslims in my college classroom. In fact, it was the opposite. There were a disproportionately low percentage of muslims in my class both accounting for reservation and not. > Before the debate starts, let me state that there is really no point to > establishing whether these are right or wrong. The point is that they work > in practice because it somehow resonates with Hindu youth, even those who > have had a decent education and come from educated families. I find is fascinating that an argument can be made that a segment that accounts for 82.4%[1] of the population is under threat. Also, I was not sure that reservations played such a big part of the Hindutva plank. Does the BJP (or Shiv Sena) election manifesto talk about how they are going to address any reservation imbalances? I too don't want to debate the rights or wrongs of these arguments. I am curious as to how these arguments (right or wrong) presented to/by Hindus could be addressed without brushing them off. Don't you agree that the first step is to dispassionately assess whether there is any merit to these arguments? Thaths [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India#Religious_demographics -- "You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel." -- Homer J. Simpson
