The Chor-Bharti Bloggers are a lot of fun

The Chor-Bharti guys are a lot of fun. First they link to a post from RealityCheck in their humor section. Then Shivam Vij finds a streak of violence in Reality Check. I suppose Shivam is the most peace-loving guy in the universe.

You have to give it to those guys though, if there is one thing they believe in, it is the idea that the sheer number of posts or links strengthen ones argument. Quite obviously the SC stay on the quotas didn't go down well with the socialist lobby. Apparently questioning the validity of using an almost century old survey makes one racist.

I have always maintained that quotas of any form are a gross aberration. They are immoral by their very design. In any case, the constitution recognizes quotas in its current avatar (what happened to the promised review process every 10 years, God only knows). Like it or not, at some point or other you are going to see rich OBC kids waltzing into our nation's premier institutes.

Apparently the Chor-Bharti folks believe the caste list is valid in its entirety and enough data exists to prove it. It is easy to see that no real data exists, first about the real count of OBCs, second about which ones among them are even eligible. As a matter of fact, there is no objective guideline that exists about the definition of SEBC.

First, a brief comparison of the original Mandal criteria and the current NCBC guidelines:

Mandal Educational:

Castes/classes where the number of children in the age group of 5-15 years who never attended school is at least 25 per cent above the state average. Castes/classes where the rate of student drop-out in the age group of 5-15 years is at least 25 per cent above the state average. Castes/classes amongst whom the proportion of matriculates is at least 25 per cent below the state average.

NCBC Educational:

1. Castes and communities, whose literacy rate is at least 8% less than the State or district average.
2. Castes and communities of which the proportion of matriculates is at least 20% less than the State or district average.
3. Castes and communities, of which the proportion of graduates is at least 20% less than the State or district average.

You can easily see that they diluted the criteria without asking, on the sly. 25% became 20%, while it should have been the other way around. Perhaps the biggest con job is how the various criteria will be applied. Mandal had a point system for social, educational and economic criteria. The current guildelines do not state anything in this regard. The definitions are extremely vague. What does district level average mean? If some dudes are backward in one district, does that make them eligible statewide? How about the disparities between the states? You can not pretend to be backward in one state and claim your share in a national institute.

The current guidelines are grossly inadequate and non-objective. Forget about the current stay, if one OBC dude sues the center for being thrown out of the list while another gets the benefits, the Government does not have a legal leg to stand on. Meanwhile, the Economic criteria fell through the cracks. No one is even talking about that anymore.

Clearly some powerful OBC groups are cornering most of the benefits. For details, please see my next post.