RESERVATION: A SUICIDAL APPROACH
A Positive Approach Required
AFTER India’s partition in 1947, the system of reservation was applied to Government jobs and education, on the grounds, ostensibly, that such a move was essential for the upliftment of the backward classes. The total reservation percentage in India is now about 52% with 27% towards OBC (Other Backward Classes). Muslims have availed this reservation and have been demanding for more. This system, however, has proved counterproductive. It has only led to Muslims becoming more backward, as they no longer had to compete to succeed.
RESERVATION MAKES US LETHARGIC
Such a policy implies ‘achievement without hard work’. This eventually led to Muslim lethargy and the demand for privileged treatment. The Government of India has even approved 50% reservation for Muslim students in the Aligarh Muslim University. The reason? 'To promote the educational advancement of the Muslims of India'.
It is illogical, however, to imagine that reservations will promote advancement. Only if the spirit of hard work is inculcated will this become a reality. In this age of meritocracy, any attempt to succeed through reservations is anachronistic.
COMPETITION LEADS TO PROGRESS
We live in a highly competitive world—a world in which our success, and sometimes our very survival, depends upon superior performance. It is the spirit of competition which is the ladder to human progress and without it, little advancement has been made in the history of mankind. The atomic age would have come much later, had it not been for America’s determination to attain world leadership. The electronic age might not have seen such an exponential growth, had it not been for Japan’s urge to climb to the top of the economic ladder. Imagine the scene if the Japanese had resorted to complaints and protests, instead of taking constructive action. Valuable time and energy would have been wasted and they would ultimately have faced ruination.
Indian Muslims should learn from this. In the last sixty years, on this predominantly Hindu sub-continent, the Indian Muslims, numbering over 175 million, have failed to benefit from being the largest minority group. At the time of partition, they opted to remain in India, but failed to adjust to their new situation. Although they could have become a truly creative minority, they missed the chance to prove their worth. Despite being the largest minority, they have become the most deprived of all the groups across the country.
With their creed, tradition, history and numbers, Muslims definitely had the moral stature to make a major contribution to the new India. The saying, 'in giving we receive', could well have been their motto. However, for this, they needed a period of harmony—a possibility only if they had unilaterally withdrawn all their grudges and complaints against the majority and risen above the reactionary psychology of the times. Unfortunately, however, they lacked dynamic and visionary leaders. As a result, Muslims became known as 'takers', rather than 'givers'.
AWAITING OPPORTUNITIES
Muslims have not yet realized that, from their ‘back seat’ position, they are quite free to exploit their own considerable potential. By putting aside notions of privilege and precedence, they could educate and develop themselves to keep pace with the fast-changing times. It is simply a question of getting their priorities right.
Promod Batra, noted management author, when asked about the secret of success, said - “Starve the problems, feed the opportunities”. This is sound advice for the Muslims as well. History, after all, abounds in examples of peoples who have successfully risen from the ashes of their dead selves. A case in point is modern Japan. Its denizens thought of themselves as ‘children of the sun’, genuinely superior to all other races and well within their rights in attempting to dominate other nations. Their slogan was ‘East Asia for Japan’. Such thinking was responsible for Japanese aggression from 1937 to 1945, during which period they captured Manila, Singapore and Rangoon. However, they were finally crushed militarily with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by America.
On September 2nd 1945, Japan signed a document ratifying America’s supremacy over Japan. Yet Japan’s subsequent success story is one of the greatest of modern times.
STRATEGIC RETREAT
It is only those who accept defeat and then do something positive about it that ultimately succeed. There is nothing to stop an individual, community or nation from working towards regaining, or even bettering its lost position, for a strategic retreat always makes it possible to return to the fray. Such tactics were very well understood by the Muslims 1,400 years ago while drafting up the peace treaty of Hudaibiya. This approach, although apparently over-conciliatory towards the opponent, ultimately facilitated the very positive progress of the Islamic mission.
Sinking into a state of paranoid stagnation will achieve nothing. While there is nothing to be gained from pessimism, there is everything to be gained from a positive approach.
Flowers and Thorns
It is a fact of psychology that no single person can be an amalgam of all good qualities.
It is no simple matter to label a person wholly good or wholly bad. If there is to be harmony within a community, the bad side of its members must be tolerated, while their good side appreciated.
If we want to pluck flowers, we have also to bear the thorns that come with them. There is no way that one who cannot put up with thorns will be able to possess the flowers of this life.
