That said, the bar was set too low, with straight up traitors sitting on the highest seats, jeopardizing our economic, defense, international relations growth. 12 years later, there is absolutely no reason for the new republic to be held to those archaic standards. That we had widespread corruption, paper leaks, mismanagement of public property, subversion of India's cultural heritage -- is no justification of why it continues today. And it does. The people who rule now are to be held accountable for it, not Jawaharlal Nehru, not even Sonia Gandhi, and it is very annoying that you have to hear what the mughals did, what the british did, what the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty did as explanation for unmet needs of today. Or the other great excuse, foreign interference. If Chanakya or Machiavelli (both heavily misunderstood people) were watching this, they would scoff at this stupidity. Any sane political entity is SUPPOSED TO undermine its national and international opponents through sabotage and narrative warfare. Once you recognize your antagonists, like (imo) USA, Pakistan Aand forces, INC, Political abrahamicism etc, while it is useful to keep pointing them out, much larger scale narrative and ground work is needed to keep your system ready to counter such efforts.
Now, one of the great structural issue India continues to face is restricted upward mobility in a very unequal society. A narrow escape route from the talchhat (I once read a Hindi translation of a Maksim Gorky story with that title, I am such an intallackchual) are these ridiculous entrance examinations which are supposed to find meritorious students, but mostly work like a "oont ke muh me zeera" lottery system. Somehow, they have convinced a billion people that the familial traditions, expertise and blue collar jobs are benign in front of this route that anyways funnels kids into a poorly designed, insufficiently padded education system which then ends into a blind, dark alley of unemployment. It should be no surprise that roughly a quarter of India's STEM graduates and 90% of STEM PhDs leave India. Even doctors leave (~20%). If India's medical system is more accessible than a developed country like Canada, it is no thanks to India's government, it is the doctors that work themselves to death serving the patients. The remarkable failure of India's engineering and research sectors is for the world to see and the medical system can not take on even a seasonal epidemic. For these things to work, a system of merit based selection, proper hands on education based on Indian scenario and a route directly to the trained individuals interfacing with public is a must. Governments since independence have repeatedly failed to create that pipeline because Indian governance is fundamentally disconnected from the people. Ascendance into power in India directly means cutting communications with the people and looking down at them. The present government is no exception.
Already, caste based reservation is a very aggressive affirmative action scheme, which normally should work on ~10-15% of a nation's population, taking from a taxpayer base of ~70% of the population (10% might be sitting at the margin and should not have to pay income tax). India, it caters to ~60% of India's population and takes income tax from ~5% of India's population (notwithstanding the indirect taxes that everyone pays). And in terms of tax, we have actually increased our reliance on taxing private initiative and reduced the reliance on indirect taxes.. The corporate income tax will only be justified if Indian state actively protects its corporates from external competition and internal sabotage. the personal income tax is justified only if the Indian state provides the taxpayers a good quality of life -- on both accounts, the performance remains iffy and has improved only marginally. Even this astoundingly aggressive system exploitative of the taxpayer, does not really benefit people who have been kept poor by social and fiscal hierarchies, a large amount of it is hogged by communities that historically have been landowners and traditional professions that fell on tough times because of heavy drainage of India's surplus wealth and societal foundations by the British. A much smaller segment of the Hindu community was deemed untouchable before that (judging from the 12-13th century interpretations of the most extreme regional Hindu codes) -- today both the people who were treated as untouchables and those who treated them as untouchables are covered under the same reservation bracket and continue their historical animosities over the second decimal percentage margins, losing dozens of individuals to violent clashes. In addition, continuous harping on this issue has led to formulation of a toxic eugenicist narrative that implicates a population level traces of a supposed (one big supposition there) genetic group from 5000 years ago and justification of violence against people who are assumed to bear the cursed trace (de aaaaadyans). The actual people who were treated as untouchables do not necessarily overlap with the caste groups deemed criminal by the british. The benefit of reservations barely reach the people it is supposed to cater to, for India to become a better and more equitable place. Instead, in the name of "unity" they are lumped with all these other landed and professioned groups -- still left underrepresented among the .... wait for it.... "de dadavidians". Already both these hypothetical identities have found their place in global white-black sob stories (another big leap there).
Start of this year saw an effort to legitimize this toxic eugenicist narrative through a draconian law that basically criminalized being the perceived aaaaadyans. The people opposing this law formulated a comprehensive criticism of the general problems with the education and selection system, including the NEET issue. A number of them also talked about this problem on national television. However, the proposal quickly found itself buried under the noise made by international events, although some work on the injustice dealt by the NEET exam paper leak started through justice and legislative system. It was this groundwork that "cockroach janta party" hijacked and merged the student movement with all kinds of devious and unholy disruptive elements that turn up at every damn protest in India and make noise about same tired point that Indian populace has already rejected. Meanwhile, the students that protested against the NEET fiasco and the eugenics type campus regulations were not allowed by the government to protest, and were summarily kicked out of the protest premises. It shows how opportunistic the apparatus of Modi government is. The same government is then seen to be bowing, compromising in front of violent protesters during protests against CAA-NRC, farm laws etc -- including but limited to the present protests. The education ministers and his incompetent Babu aide should have been sacked in January. But back then, the white hot rod of slander, vandalism, violence and international bejjati was not inserted up the Bhajpa government's ass -- they had no reason to listen. Finally, when they have been properly served the much deserved rod, they readily complied. Not just bent but crawled on all fours, as Advani would say; the prime minister himself came groveling to Instagram. They would eventually return to their own policy, as they did for CAA and farm laws but a greater damage has been done. Not only did they act late to deliver justice to the students, they also created a new precedent: street violence will supercede Delhi's decision-making (remember Harsh Mander's declaration?) -- a feat that even congress didn't manage to land.
All I wanted from these fuckers was a clear cut conclusion to Pakistan, stopping that express freight train of real mass murder that ails the Indian subcontinent, because I became a bit hopeful after operation sindoor, which remains a pipe dream btw. Meanwhile, the state's democratic mandate based power is being distributed among vandals and criminals and hypocrites for fucking footi kaudis. Bravo Modiji, bravo.
I do think that eventually, the examination systems will get better by the groundwork that has been laid now, common sense and merit will prevail in sectors that are indispensable for India's growth (these protests padded by Bhim Army had the fucking gall to talk about merit, apparently). Recently, I met a very bright African STEM researcher who spent ~2 years in Hyderabad expressed his disappointment with the strange and aggressive reservation system and mentioned how damaging it is for India -- trying to compensate for a history we haven't even investigated fully. It really changed my outlook. If anything should come out of the peaceful component of the recent leaderless student protest, it is this: we cannot afford corruption in how we select people for such key functions, and reservation, an instrument and not a remedy of caste based discrimination, is one such corruption.
