Battleground India: Nine Major Conflicts Shaping Your Life
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Image: Vivek Shinde for Forbes India
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n 15th century Europe, the Borgias were one of the prominent ruling families. One of the Borgias, Rodrigo, became the Pope. Another, Cesare, wanted to become the king of Italy, but was thwarted by malarial fever sweeping Rome.
The rule of the Borgias is remembered for horrendous things like murder, theft, bribery and palace intrigue. And yet Italy of that time also experienced the Renaissance. There were enormous advancements in art, science, philosophy, literature and technology. Perhaps that’s why Orson Welles, who directed Citizen Kane, once wrote: “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace — and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
India, perhaps not at the centre of a renaissance (not yet!) and surely not like the rule of the Borgias, is still the land of a million mutinies. These feuds look ugly but are essential to the way we are going to live. They will decide what we pay for energy, how we communicate, whether the societally disadvantaged get a job, whether the poor get food to eat and what their children’s future will be. How these fights end will influence our lives in ways that are hard to appreciate today. The year 2011 is going to be a particularly challenging one. The global economy is still in a funk. The Indian reforms agenda seems to have slowed down considerably. The country is deeply divided on some critical technology and policy issues. Among the many battles, we have picked the biggest nine that will reach a decisive moment in 2011 and impact us all.
1 Dial a Quota
Reservation in the Private Sector
by Dinesh Narayanan
In the last week of December, Indian industry got a nasty reminder from the government. In a letter to industry associations, the department of industrial policy and promotion asked why they had not moved ahead on a proposal to appoint ombudsmen for monitoring affirmative action. The government had, a couple of years ago, shocked industry with a plan to introduce job quotas for scheduled castes and tribes in the private sector.
J.J. Irani, who was then a part of the team from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) that had met the Prime Minister, articulated the industry’s opposition to quotas, while advocating voluntary action. “We have made it clear that we are against quotas. We are against reservation. Any move to impose this through legislation will be unfortunate,” Irani had said in an interview in 2006. He went on to head the Affirmative Action Council at CII in 2009-10.
After much debate, it was decided that industry will voluntarily undertake affirmative action. It was also decided that industry chambers will appoint ombudsmen to oversee the efforts. Well, except for the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), nobody else appointed ombudsmen. FICCI chose industrialist Y.K. Modi as its ombudsman, but he quit on December 15.
CII has not appointed an ombudsman, arguing that it does not have a legal mandate to create a position that may need semi-judicial powers. The third big industry body, the Association of Chambers of Commerce in India, has meanwhile nominated heads of its four regional chambers as ombudsmen.
According to a CII survey, its members in the western region employed about 23 lakh people at the end of 2010, of which about 16 percent were SCs and STs. The proportion was the same for South India. The survey found the ratio rising to 22 percent in the North and 24 percent in the East. CII says its affirmative action initiatives — it calls them 4Es, employability, education, entrepreneurship and employment — were well on track.
An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says that industry’s position is that caste never came in the way of jobs in the private sector. “The government is right in saying that SCs and STs should get more chances, but our members are also right in their stand,” the official says.
Many in the industry agree that affirmative action is necessary, but regard the government’s move as a political ploy to get votes as five states will go to polls this year. Besides, Uttar Pradesh, where caste plays a key role in making or breaking governments, will elect a new Assembly next year. Considering the political sensitivities of the issue and industry’s dislike of control, the matter is likely to simmer for a while.
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