Backbenchers

A young couple of boy and girl have long sweet dreams after getting married. Honeymoon gets over as soon as they have a baby. The tussle to tutor the toddler from the very tender age keeps them on tenterhooks. They start bombarding the young mind with alphabets, birds and animal pictures, nursery rhymes etc to face the interview for admission to the best school in town at kindergarten level. After the admission, they always desire their kids to be seated in front rows of the class. Since all can’t be seated in front rows, the teacher keeps them rotating at regular intervals. No parent wants his child to become backbencher. But the big question is, do all the backbenchers end up as failures in life? Let us try to dig deep.

Once they reach higher classes, several groups of students of common mindset evolve. One group likes to be seated in front rows. Another group is little shy, and wants to settle in the middle part. And then we have some students who wish to have their own life even when the teacher is very seriously taking the class. These last row sitting students are busy discussing movies seen previous day, or the soccer match between Arsenal & Liverpool, or planning something nasty to perturb the teacher, or hatching a conspiracy to teach a lesson to the front row sitting topper student.

After leaving the school and entering a college or university, these backbencher students develop into boss or leaders. Even some of the front benchers, who were good at studies under strict control of their parents, become backbenchers after reaching hostels. These backbenchers enter from back door of the class and love to exit from same gate at their will and wish. They form group of like minded rascals and plan to disturb the class, bunk the class en-mass, arrange demonstrations, shut the door of hostel bathroom from outside when someone is inside getting late for the class. Some of them are even looking out to pick fights with others and prefer to flash knives or if possible pistols to portray a macho image. They don’t like studies, neither do they like others to study.

Let me narrate some of the pranks of my college days. We were at the ground floor and our one year senior batch of Engg College was housed on the upper floor of hostel. It was around 01 am midnight. The light of one room on upper floor was lit as the student was merged in deep studies. Our group of henchmen didn’t tolerate this. One friend soaked white chalk and pasted on his forearm. Then he fixed some thin wood chips on the fingers as long nails. He colored some part of his white forearm and long nails with red paint to look like blood. He climbed the concreted shade of his window to reach out to the upper window which was flung wide open. With a loud shout he banged his forearm on the book that the senior was studying. In great horror and fear that senior student rose up, cried and ran to reach out to the exit-door of his room. In an attempt to cover just few feet, he fell twice.

They approach the toppers for the syllabus when exams are round the corner. Some of them even try to connect with the professors who did set the exam papers and/or expected to check the answer sheets. Few of them become sincere only during the exams and study only the few important topics. Some indulge in preparing chits. Some even form groups to observe demonstration for postponing the exam date. Few do visit temples and churches to please God.

Like that the time flies and four year period of engineering course comes to its final phase (let me take the case of engg). Companies from the corporate world come to recruit students through campus placement. Mostly the toppers get placed first but not necessarily so. The job placement criterion for each company is different. Some test your course knowledge but some check only the general aptitude. Now onwards the career life starts. What one achieves in this career life depicts one’s success story. That entire long struggle from the time of Kindergarten school to the last day in college was primarily aimed at achieving a successful career.

Less than 25% of engg students get a career of their core branch. That means if he has studied electrical or civil engg, he joins a firm engaged in doing business in the fields of electrical or civil engg. Even for these core students, not more than 5 or 10% of what they studied in engg course comes to help in the job career. For Electronics Telecommunications and Computer science branches, the advancement is so fast that whatever one studies today becomes obsolete tomorrow after couple of years.

Remaining 75% students don’t join their core companies. They either go to IT field where jobs are enormous employing civil mechanical any branch, or financial firms, or administrative & management with or without MBA, or consulting company, and so on and so forth. All this boils down to give a very nasty conclusion. Why did we all burn midnight oil to study so hard, when nothing much of what we studied is utilized in career life? Why did our parents run from post to pillar to give us the best possible education in top of the town school?

So we have concluded successfully that hardly anything that we studied all through our lives is of much help in our job career. What matters is ones administrative and management capability, the power to convince others, the ability to dominate the proceedings in a meeting, the leadership qualities, over and above all – the common sense, which is actually not so common. As and when the time passes and one climbs the career ladder, the job requirement becomes more and more administrative and managerial. The job of a successful manager is not to do the job, but to get the job done by others. He has to build social network to grab the business. After bringing business he has to then find resources, man or machinery, to accomplish the work. At this point, that very successful brilliant scholar student bagging close to 100% marks may or may not succeed. But the other nasty vagabond of college backbencher having dominating capability is poised to shine. He was driving the group of students, bossing over them, leading a procession, arguing with professors and principal. He is also likely to have wider social networking and the flair to expand it more.

While reaching close to four decades of post student career life, when I seriously take a close look at the current status and achievements of all my engg college friends, shocking revelations emerge. Many backbenchers and not so good students of those campus days have overtaken the toppers. Some of them are heading companies as CEOs and even commanding those toppers. Some of the toppers went out for higher studies. After achieving higher qualifications like M.Tech or PhD, they found the career doors of corporate and industry closed for them. They were declared over-qualified for the job. The only option left for them was to go for R&D or teaching. In developing nations, R&D doesn’t have much scope and salary. And the teaching faculty has mix of talent. It has either very talented toppers who missed the corporate bus in the zeal of higher studies, or those who could not find a job in the industry and finally settled for teaching. Off-course there are, but very few, who were really interested in making ‘teaching’ as their career from the beginning.

Today when we visit our alma-mater, the old professors who taught us remember the backbenchers more than the toppers, “Oh, you are that nasty fellow who created unrest and institute was closed for a week”. Another remark may come like,” You are Rajesh who set ablaze the sports room in protest”?  While organizing get-together of batchmate alumni, I find these backbenchers taking deep interest. They are the ones who volunteer to host such gatherings. They are also more active on social platforms like facebook and whatsapp groups. Due to them being more active, happy, agile, smiling, laughing, trying to live every moment of life, they are found to live longer.

So dear parents; don’t lose heart if your kid is not the front bencher and not the topper. The world doesn’t end here.

Citizenship Amendment Act in India, The real facts

I believe almost 70% of people living in Mauritius are Indian descendants, called Girmitiya. So it is very natural for them to remain emotionally attached to India, and keep a tab on the events unfolding on Indian soil. They always want to keep firmly connected to their roots for the simple reason that nothing happens to a tree even if the branches or leaves are cut provided the roots are left intact.

Over the last few days, the Indian media and the world media covering Indian news had been agog with one big news item ‘CAA’, the Citizenship Amendment Act. This act was democratically passed in both the houses of Indian parliament. But there has been lot of talks and protests for and against this act, on the streets, in the media and social media. An attempt is being made in this article to dig out the real facts.

Before we embark on the real facts about CAA, let’s have a quick look on the historical background of Indian subcontinent. The cultural richness of India or Bharat dates back to 7000 BC or even more, when Indus Valley civilization was unearthed in Harappa. This region had the world’s highest peak ‘Mt Everest’ and one of the deep seas Indian Ocean. It has the dry ‘Thar desserts of Rajasthan’ and wet ‘Cherapunji of Meghalaya’ recording one of the world’s highest railfalls. It has the vast fertile plain lands of Ganga-Jamuna belt and five rivers belt in Punjab. It has 22 officially recognized languages most of which have different scripts too whereas entire Europe has just one Roman script. Bhojpuri, widely spoken and having status of a language in Mauritius and Nepal, doesn’t find a place in the above list of 22 languages. It is just a dialect. Awadhi language in which great poet Tulsidas wrote famous epic ‘Ramcharitmanas’, too doesn’t find a place in this 22. The country has 28 states and 9 Union Territories, each having their own large number of dishes and delicacies.

Now coming to religion. If we traverse back to Ramayan and Mahabharata period, it was called ‘dharma’ in India. This dharma was a set of rules to govern Indian society. Translating literal meaning of religion into ‘dharma’ is misleading. Whereas other religions on earth are not subject to amendments, this dharma was flexible and subject to regular amendments suiting need of the hour. If you think Hinduism to be a religion, then in this same religion a north Indian near Delhi doesn’t eat non-veg or even onion-garlic during holy 9-days period of ‘navaratri’. But if you go to Bengal or Nepal or Assam, same Hindus eat only non-veg but even sacrifice animals to goddess Durga/Kali. So this dharma (not religion) is different and very tolerant, compassionate, flexible, adjusting and changeable. This dharma allowed many social reformers like Nanak, Kabir, Mahavir, Buddha, Gandhi, Raja Rammohan Rai to keep suggesting changes in the rules. They drew many followers who later became sects within Hinduism, like Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Aryasamaji etc. In real sense they were not different religions. Marriages were taking place among them. The eldest son of Hindu family was donated to the cause of Sikkhism. But later on with the induction of other religions in India like Islam and Christianity, the word ‘dharma’ took the Hindi meaning of religion. And later on, all these sects became known as religion.

In ancient time, this Hindu dharma society was spread out up to the foothills of Himalaya and Hindukush mountains in north covering Pakistan & Afghanistan, and up to the coastal belt of three oceans in the south. Gandhar king ‘Shakuni’ in Mahabharat epic was from present Kandhar in Afghanistan. Maharaja Ranajit Singh and other kings rule upto Kabul further brought in many Sikh and Hindu settlers. In the seventeenth century, British reached India and ruled for over two centuries. Their rule ended in 1947.

In 1947 when India was gaining independence, many Muslims demanded separate land for them. There was lot of violence and bloodshed. Finally the leaders decided to give part of land to Muslims. West Pakistan and East Pakistan became Islamic states whereas India continued as a secular state (East Pakistan later separated and became Bangladesh). However in India, Muslims were given the option to leave or stay back whatever they wished. Large scale migration took place from both sides. Still many minorities on both sides opted not to leave their soil.

In India, all the minorities including Muslims were enjoying equal status and constitutional rights. In fact Muslims were given special status in constitution in the form of Muslim Personal law. A separate ministry ‘minority affairs’ was formed to look after them. All Muslims were enjoying and growing. But their counterpart minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were not so lucky. Their life soon became like living in a hell. They faced lot of violence and attacks. They were not allowed to freely practice their religious rites. Their women were kidnapped, raped and converted to Islam. Men were forced to grow beard and women to wear burqua. Minorities were forced not to eat or drink in public places during Ramadan fasting. The famous world heritage Buddha statues of Bamyan in Afghanistan were blasted away into pieces by Taliban using tanks and cannons, as the entire world community watched in horrified silence.

After partition of India in 1947, the minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh were 23% each. This got reduced to around 8% in Bangladesh and 3% in Pakistan in 2011. On the contrary, the minority Muslims in India grew from 9% to 14% in same period. Large scale atrocities and violence forced the minorities in these 3 theocratic countries to either convert to Islam or run away to safer countries. India being closest, many of them illegally migrated and crossed over. They started living illegally and unwilling to go back. They say,” we will not go back to that hell again even if you kill us”.

They continued to stay on but were deprived of basic rights. This could not secure essential ingredients of life like education, jobs or property. So the govt thought of bringing in a legislation to grant them regular citizenship, only for the people who came before 2014. Since there was no reason for Muslims to face torture in these Islamic nations and then come to India, only non-Muslim minorities were covered under this act CAA. The 6 religions to be covered are Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christians, Jain, Parsi. That makes sense. Then where is the problem and why all this brouhaha?

A false narrative is being created unnecessarily by some vested interests working against India. Some political parties eying on the minority vote bank are spreading false rumors. Here are some of the rumors and their answers.

Q: why should there be any act based on religion?

A: because the victims suffering is based on religion.

Q: it will deprive the Muslim citizens of India.

A: no, it covers only the outside immigrant non-citizens. It has nothing to do with those who are already citizens of India.

Q: India is already over populated. We don’t need immigrants to burden our economy.

A: according to intelligence bureau records, only 31,313 people will be covered under this act. This is mere 0.002% of current Indian population.

Q: Why not include Tamil and Rohingya refugees of Srilanka and Myanmar respectively?

A: Unlike Pakistan Bangladesh and Afghanistan theocratic countries, Myanmar and Srilanka are secular. So there is little chance of religious persecution. In fact the problems were created by minority communities themselves, and what followed was majority backlash in retaliation. Tamils created LTTE and fought long guerilla war demanding separate land which no sovereign country could agree to. Now after the annihilation of LTTE, Srilanka has no problem in taking back Tamilians of their origin. Most of them have already gone back. Those staying back even now have no reason to stay. Rohingyas too tried to follow LTTE path. But their attempt was nipped in the bud by Myanmar which considers them to be the immigrant from Arab nations. When Myanmar doesn’t consider them to be citizens of their country, why should India which has no historical bond with Rohingyas?

All said and done, the truth is that the CAA does not shut the door on anyone from anywhere who wants to apply for Indian citizenship. It is only defining an expedited path for some specified categories of applicants. Anyone can apply for Indian citizenship after having stayed in India for 12 years. For the specified group of immigrants (non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan) who entered India before 2014, the condition of stay has been reduced from 12 years to 5 years. Essentially this means that they can all apply now (doesn't mean that they will be granted citizenship) while others may have to wait. The fast track is being made for the people who are illegal immigrants on account of religious persecution.