CAUVERY ISSUE AND THE NEED TO FORGET MAY-1991

Hello World,

I think I need to share this with you and right now. 

The southern-most state of India is experiencing a whole lot of citizen unrest. People are not happy and the reason is we’re citizens from the southern end of India and apparently the current administration at the center is not very southern-friendly so to speak. I can use any other term and that would be absolutely right, but I’ll just choose to go with ‘not-so-southern-friendly’ for now.

To begin with, apparently there is a river that our state shares along with a few other states in the southern region. And that means you know we get to share the water that flows through the river.

However, thanks to climate change, irregular rainfall, rising population and then the subsequent rise in demand for water. The supply has reduced and then the sharing agreement that used to exist among these states went null and void operationally. It's still live on paper, but that's all it is. The result is that citizens  are not receiving their due volume of water from the dams and those who control the dams, based out of the state from where the river originates get to say ‘NO’ to releasing the water. And from their perspective, the river has very little water to meet their demand and therefore they might not be doing justice to the citizens in their state if they release the water for others. 

The problem is, by denying that share of water as per the agreement a whole lot of rights for the other states which depend on that water are being violated. This issue has been going on for decades now and this has gone from court to court and it still persists.  However, right now the situation is this issue went all up to the Supreme Court, the apex court. There’s no judiciary above this and the Supreme Court gave a ruling that a management board/scheme [there is still a debate on which word was used in the ruling] must be constituted which in essence would be a collaborative administrative board involving members of all the states that have to share the water from this river.

However, this not-so-southern-friendly government at the center just ignored that Supreme Court ruling and there was a deadline which we passed a few days ago and the management board/scheme hasn't been constituted yet. The state that is responsible to release the water is just enjoying the delay and the states who are looking for their right share of water are unhappy to say the least and the people are irritated. A supreme court ruling has been violated by the ruling central government in a democracy and that is being considered ok by everyone involved. The political parties as usual have taken to the roads, they're conducting protests, but that's just Vote Bank politics. 

Apparently the state from where the river originates is looking at elections in the next few weeks and so the political party which runs the government at the center is contesting there and its looking to win. So if it does anything that goes against the interest of that state then they might lose that election so they're just delaying this on purpose without bothering how this delay is impacting the states which depend on that water.

As it turns out many farmers are out of business because the water supply is not there and the rains are not regular. Their crops have failed back to back and some of them are reeling in poverty and some of them are stuck with huge loans. They rely on agriculture and agriculture relies on water. They're not asking for everything, they're just asking for their rightful share, but even that is being denied. by a democratically elected government against the ruling of the supreme court of the democracy. The government at the center is refusing to hear the cry of the people from the south and it's unsettling. Some farmers have committed suicide owing to their back-to-back failures and the subsequent pressures to settle the loans they took to coverup the loss. 

When I look back in time, what I see is the last time when people in the south realised that someone is trying to kill their Ex-Prime Minister, they gave the killers food and shelter. And at that time it wasn’t even in their problem. In fact, it was a problem in a different country; maybe close to us but then it was a problem in a different country. The Ex-Prime Minister authorised a peace-keeping force to help end a civil conflict in a foreign nation and the peace-keeping force took the foreign country’s side as opposed to their originally announced neutral stance and this caused an uprising against the Ex-Prime Minister. However, as for the people of the south here, all they heard was that someone is trying to kill the Ex-Prime Minister when he would be visiting their state and they just gladly helped those who ended up assassinating the guy with a human bomb attack. The irony was that at that time, the problem wasn't even their own. They just identified themselves close those who suffered as a result of the peace-keeping force in a foreign nation and took the side of The Avengers who successfully avenged the death of their people, in the foreign country. But fast forward to now and this time the problem is very much that of the people of the southern state and they are at the receiving end of the problem. 

I sincerely hope the members of the current central administration don't make it down south, at least not until this problem is resolved or at least for the next 3 months. We don't want to tarnish ourselves with such an accusation one more time. If people could do that in the past, they could very well do it now and they have a much stronger reason and that's the reason for my fear. Back in 1991 those who helped The Avengers from the foreign country, had to do it fairly secretly as not all of it was publicly agreeable in concept. We, just like many other humans, detest crime and violence. However, some of us at that time wanted to support and they did that discreetly. 

This time, based on the honking and angry stares I see during my daily commute to and from my office, I can clearly see that each household will step out and make a public contribution, should such an idea be floated around by any ‘Avengers’ group. 

The fact is out: The current administration doesn't look at all citizens the same way and apparently we from the southern-most state are the step children and our step father doesn't care. 

I sincerely hope this river water issue is resolved. But what I want to happen more importantly is that those from the administration at the center should not make it to our state, at least, not for the next three to four months. We won’t know how people would react and we can never say who would end up doing what. Not all of that would be legally right, should those unforeseen circumstances pan out in an unprecedented fashion, much to the agony of everyone across the nation. And touching base on the history again, the last time people here learned about someone trying to kill the Ex-Prime-Minister, they gave them food and shelter, just because they believed in that idea and logic behind that act of crime. And this time those people who agreed to such a weird logic in the past have a direct problem and they have seen their own dying in poverty in the recent past and they are angry. Not unhappy but plain angry.

So I beg with everyone from the central administration: Please don't come down to south. It’s okay that you don’t care about us and you don't want to care about us. We get that and you're not going to be there forever and someone else is going to replace you soon. Even if you continue, you're not going to be there for ever and we understand that as well. We don't want to insult ourselves by becoming responsible for such crazy things as that happened during May, 1991. 

We would gladly fight our enemies who challenge our territory, who challenge our country, but that is a matter of our sovereignty and we will standup for that even when being treated as 15th-class citizens. However, if something bad happens to our administrators when they visit our state, that’s an insult to us. We are culturally designed to tolerate and treat our adversaries with humanity and respect. We are also culturally groomed to follow the principles of social justice, and above all, we have groomed ourselves to respect the concept of logic and reason. With that as the basis, we don't want to be responsible for accommodating the killing of nasty mosquitoes [one can refer to the Dengue outbreak as well but that will be besides the point].

That would be all. Thank you.

Best regards,

NEET PROTESTS: BLIND GOATS WATCHING 3D FILM DURING POWER CUT

Hello World,

Image Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/rf/image_size_960x540/HT/p2/2017/02/06/Pictures/parents-protests-against-neet-examination_ff51c318-ec94-11e6-90af-e8d3e91f500c.JPG

With NEET protests gaining attention from the media and the public, I think, it is about time we discussed this issue in a relatively fair perspective than the ones being vomited into the public mind.

The administration at the centre has revised the entrance mechanism for medical courses and this has brought a new entrance exam based on a syllabus only a section of TN students study. Unfortunately, most of those who would otherwise qualify for a medical seat now stand disqualified because they failed the NEET exam. Clearly, what they studied for a year did not match what they were tested on the NEET exam.

The issue took a sharp left turn when Anitha, a 17 year old student from Ariyalur district here committed suicide. She had a good chance of securing a medical seat through the older system but with NEET in place, her scores were far too low and so went her chances of getting a medical seat.

As usual, the dumb ducks of this region started screaming and some have managed to coerce people into taking it to the streets in the name of protests. 

Some are screaming NEET should go. Some are screaming the administration at the state and centre must change.

What is appalling is the state of ignorance this community has been forced into, be it any social issue for that matter.

Here are the key questions that need to be answered before any solution for the NEET issue be designed:

1. When was the first NEET circular sent to the state administration from the centre?
2. Who received it [in the secretariat]?
3. Who was the NEET circular circulated/notified about [those who received a copy of it from the secretariat]?
4. Who gave the order to ignore the NEET circular based on which no action was taken until when the NEET protests started?

The central government is not the problem. The state government is also not the problem. However, the officers who received the NEET circular and the elected officials [ministers] who authorised the ignorance of the NEET circular are responsible for all the issues related to NEET.

As for the death of Anitha, the responsibility has to be shared by all of us in Tamilnadu as we had created a fake-protest atmosphere where not-protesting is seen as a shameful act and those who choose not to participate in protests are ridiculed for their disregard for social justice and democracy. She was a regular 17 year old girl. She was portrayed in front of the media and courts as ‘The Poor Dalit Girl from Ariyalur’. She was not part of a protesting group but she was made to be the front face of multiple protesting groups. The consciousness of being in the public eye and subsequent failure in the NEET exam [she scored around 76 out of 700, if I am not wrong] made her embarrassment many folds bigger than what it should ideally be. This is what pushed her to the unfortunate decision to end her life, not the central government or state government.

Dalits/Scheduled caste candidates have always been perceived and portrayed as freeloaders who gain out of reservations alone but when it came to NEET, where everyone gains, the ‘Poor Dalit Girl from Ariyalur’ became the symbol of fight against oppression. Out of the blue, all castes and communities went out the window and in came the fake #Tamilanda propaganda. 

The avenues under the state's control still face caste based discrimination and the NEET Protests are claiming medical admissions to be given to the same administrative set-up that has institutionalised corruption and caste based discrimination. The horrifying fact is that a dalit girl from Ariyalur was used as the protest mascot, the consequences of which forced her to end her own life. 

What frustrates me more is the idea that opposition and new/other political parties can deliver justice which is being vomited into the public’s mind via carefully designed paid news propaganda. All of a sudden, the anger over the ruling political party is turning into the fondness for the opposition or new political parties. 

People start political parties so they can sell their signatures on a ‘pay-per-contract-%’ business model. Be it one seat or the entire 234, each elected member get’s to sign many approvals ranging from contracts, to appointments to transfers and so on. Each signature is used to extort money from the public. This is the only reason they contest in elections, irrespective of their size or political heritage.

My objective with this blog post is more towards helping establish a sense of awareness that is desperately needed for those who are considering to or already acting/thinking upon the NEET issue. The real solution has to address the real problem. Parties and governments are not the problem. Their decision to ignore the NEET circular when it first came is the root cause of this NEET issue. New exams and syllabus changes are very time consuming processes and so they are planned ahead and such programs need collaborative effort both from the state and central administrative bodies.

How to prevent such deliberate ignorance of such circulars and what will enable such a preventive measure? The answer to this twin-pronged question will contain the real solution to the NEET issue.  Transparency in governance is the first step, in my view. 

As for the ongoing protests, well, if students do it, they get smacked and thrown into buses and taken away. However, if it is a ‘All-Party-Gathering’ the entire administration will stand and watch while providing security and free electricity for their bulbs and mikes. This the proof that all ruling and opposition and coalition nonsense, basically are the same nonsense deserving no more attention that that of a rotting rat in a sewer [unless, clogging is an issue of concern].

Feels a lot lighter now. 

What do you think?

Regards,