Colonial Hangover

During the period of about 200 years British rule, apart from plundering the natural resources of India and making India as a British colonial economy, British did help Indians in some areas. They united India into one single country, infused the modern administration, introduced education reforms, transportation services, etc. Certainly, they had vested interests in many of the policies and practices they adopted in India. They created many of the policies to enhance the imperial power than people's welfare. This non welfare and economic plundering policies subsequently led to the Independence struggle and downfall of British Empire in India. British left India in 1947, leaving their administrative methods, policies and practices.

After independence, India did very little experiment in administrative methods and followed almost the same structure and methods which were followed by its Colonial master. For example, Majority theme of the constitution of India is from Indian Council Act of 1935, which was prepared by British parliament. The basic structure of India resembles almost like Great Briton government structure. There are certain procedures established by British in India, which are being used effectively even today like organized land revenue system. The procedures which are effective were very nominal compared to the ones which exacerbated the administration system.

For example, Indian constitution adapted west minister model (parliament) of Briton and created President and Prime Minister Offices, where Prime Minister Office is given prominent position in the administration. President was given very nominal powers. Briton has same system but instead of president, they have Royal King\Queen office. Briton, Australia, Canada, Japan had to create PM post because they have to respect the imperial palace and they recognize imperial palace as the head of the state. Whereas, there was no need for India to create an additional office that has very less powers. India should have adopted presidential form of government instead of west minister model. The method of electing prime minister in indirect method is also influenced from British. In India, there is a vast diversity in culture, language, religion and region. Not surprisingly, many political parties emerged on these basis and forcing the necessity to firm collision government. Due to this only few states like Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, and Bihar etc are able to get maximum resources from the union government of India. Due to this type of indirect election method of Prime Minister, neither PM is able to function rationally nor is national interest serving.

India's criminal and civil laws, revenue collection system, judicial methods, education system, election system, parliamentary methods, All India services, promotion system in government employees, government protocols, central state relationships, organization structure of government and many more policies and procedures can be traced back to the policies prepared by British. British prepared those policies and procedures according to the scenarios at that time. The policies, procedures and methods should not be static and they need to be updated according to the present situations. Unfortunately, this is not happening in India.

There are some excellent policies and procedures which are adapted from the colonial methods. There is nothing wrong in adopting good things which are suitable to the situation. Even if we adopt good things in a different situation that may not give you desired result and may even worsen the situation. Let us hope India will come out from its colonial hangover and adopt the methods which are suitable to Indian scenario.

Reservations in India

Drafting Committee of Constitution headed by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar provided reservations in Indian constitution to protect vulnerable sections of India from social, economic and political discrimination. They wanted to give opportunities to different sections of society fairly. With that good intention they included reservations in the constitution as Fundamental Rights. Constitution of India came into force on January 26, 1950. During 60 years, India made several amendments to the constitution including reservations. At present India provides for a quota system whereby a percentage of posts are reserved in employment in government and in the public sector units, in all public and private educational institutions and for representation in Parliament of India and Assemblies of States. Furthermore, constitution was amended to extend the reservations in promotions to government and PSU employees.

Reservations give opportunities to the backward communities of society to improve themselves. Because in India the level of regional imbalance is very high, so those who are economically forward they can get resources easily compared to those who relatively poor. Where different sections of people are enjoying different resources than merit only cannot be the factor for jobs and recruitment. Merit based recruitment always favors elite class in the society because they have accessibility to the knowledge at their disposal. Certainly, reservations helped some of the backward sections of India to develop themselves in different areas, where they were not there earlier.

Reservations are provided to the weaker sections of society, so that they can be economically and socially strong. Though reservations are started with very good objectives, there are three problems in implementing it. First, In India, reservations are based on caste. Every caste has economically forward and backward people, so forward people of that caste have an undue advantage over backward people of that caste. Ultimately, proceeds of reservations not optimally reaching the target group. Second, reservations are based on religion. Constitution of India considered only one religion for reservations. Reservations should be based on humanistic approach; it should be applied to all weaker sections of the country irrespective of religion they belong to. Third, reservations in getting jobs and placements are fine but reservations in promotions are not good to the organization they work for. Once they are part of an organization, they should be treated equal and merit should be the criteria. Otherwise, the organization's existence may be in danger.

The concept of reservations is virtuous but the problem is with the implementation. Economic factor should be the criteria for reservations but not caste and religion. As Supreme Court of India said "Every forward cast has backward people, and every backward cast have forward people".

Illusion of Equality

In terms of society, equality means the right of different groups of people to have similar social, economic, political positions and receive the same treatment. In other words, every person should get all rights which are enjoyed by others. But mankind is in the false impression about equality since its civilization started. Equality never possible, it is just a myth. Man built his society in such a manner where equality doesn't exist. There is no society in the world which enjoys the equality. Still men thrive for equality, which is, however, impossible until human society structure remains same.

Individual thinks either other person is greater or lesser to him but never equal to other. When civilization started this mentality influenced the structure of society and equality disappeared completely. Society is in different hierarchical structures, where persons at the top enjoy more benefits compared to the persons at low levels. Though this hierarchy is not rigid i.e. person position in the hierarchy changes according to the situation, group, time etc. However, there are always some persons who enjoy more benefits in the society than others. As the time passed, man started accepting the inequality in the society, perhaps he forgot equality. Men started ignoring the inequalities and gave different excuses to cover his acceptance to inequality. For example, every constitution tells about law of equality and simultaneously it tells about exemptions for that law of equality. Men accepted it. There may be different reasons for those exceptions, but all of them are just excuses to not to implement equality. Men cannot say there is equality when some other is above or below equal.

Men are used to inequality. They don't realize that the society where they are living is no equality zone. Equality is just theoretical, idle and abstract concept, which never exists in society. In simple words, Equality is an illusion.