00:00 Namaskar. Welcome to another episode of Editorial. Today is a very auspicious day.
00:07 Two great men, two great sons of India were born today. One is Mahatma Gandhi and the second is
00:15 Lal Bahadur Shastri. Two great sons of India. Two people I admire a lot and two people I think,
00:20 if some young people are watching this, two people you should read about. A lot of good things,
00:27 a lot of things to learn from their lives. So anyway, on Gandhi Jayanti, Bihar became
00:33 the first state in India to have released a caste based survey data.
00:42 They conducted a caste based survey and they released the data today.
00:46 Now, the country is divided in their opinion. A lot of people say, "Kyun kar rahe ho?"
00:52 "Yaar, we are anyway polarized. We are anyway dividing everything on caste, creed, community.
00:57 Aur kya divide kar rahe ho yaar? Why more? Why divide more on caste and creed and community
01:03 and all of that?" A lot of others say, "No." They say, "Listen, you know what? Division
01:10 and understanding various castes, communities, backward class, other backward class, extremely
01:16 backward class, all this helps A, get them representation in the power, in administration.
01:23 B, it also helps upliftment of these people. So both ways it's important. So, theek hai.
01:30 So, what I am going to do is, I am going to put both the arguments in front of you. Of course,
01:34 as always, you decide what is right and what is wrong and we will take it up from there. Theek
01:40 hai? So, let us get right into the show. So, like I said, Bihar has become the first state
01:49 to release data from caste based survey. And the data looks something like this. 36 percent
01:58 of the population are from extremely backward class in Bihar, 36 percent. 27.1 percent are
02:08 from backward class, 19.7 percent are from scheduled caste and 1.7 percent are from
02:17 scheduled tribe. This is how the caste data of Bihar looks. Now, 15.5 percent are general
02:26 population. Mind you, the total population of the state of Bihar is 13.1 crore. So, this is
02:36 what the math looks. Now, also the largest subgroup accounting for 14.27 percent of all
02:44 OBCs are Yadavs. So, Yadavs are the largest subgroup. Yadav, where Tejaswini Yadav and
02:53 Lalu Prasad Yadav and all belong to. So, this is the data that has come out.
03:00 Now, like I said, a lot of people would ask you, why? Why would you want to talk about this data?
03:06 Why now? Are you going to play politics with this? Are you going to use it against the ruling party
03:12 or against the party in the centre or against the party in the state? Or are you going to polarise
03:17 more? Why do you require data? Now, the fact is, one cannot completely deny that these datas are
03:24 not used to polarise. For instance, this OBC data that has just come through, it is definitely going
03:30 to ensure that there will be a call for more reservation for OBC because currently OBC is
03:37 capped now at 27 percent. The OBC reservation is capped at 27 percent. People may ask for
03:42 more reservation because the OBC numbers, the percentages are very high now. So, this could be
03:49 used for political reasons. The party that can offer more reservation may get power. So, that is,
03:54 it is not entirely wrong when they say that such data are used for political benefits.
04:00 But when you look at it from another perspective, from an administrative perspective and purely from
04:06 an administrative perspective and also from a democratic perspective, these data are important.
04:13 And I will tell you how. You see, the concept of politics and the concept of democracy is
04:19 representation. So, every caste, creed, community, gender, like I told you during the women
04:25 reservation, every caste, creed, community, gender should get equal representation. Equal when I say,
04:31 it is equal to the percentage, their percentage in the society. So, it should be at least close
04:36 to that. So, good representation is imperative in a healthy democracy. Why good representation
04:44 is important? Because if a community is represented well, then the growth of that
04:48 community is imminent. So, that is the principle in which it goes. So, therefore, representation
04:53 is very, very important. And data, such data gives you some kind of a methodology to have
05:00 fair representation in the assembly, stroke Lok Sabha later on and so on and so forth.
05:06 So, that is the first point. Now, representation. Second is when these communities, various
05:12 communities are represented well, then it is also ensure that from the nation s wealth,
05:19 they get a part of it, which means they become part of the nation growth. So, it is not that
05:26 one community may just grow or another community may grow or one caste may grow, another caste may
05:31 grow. If there is participation, if there is some kind of a reservation, if there is some kind of a
05:36 of a methodology where these people are included into the growth story of our nation, then all the
05:43 entire community, entire nation will grow together. And that is precisely why we have a democracy.
05:49 And that is precisely how growth should be. Growth is not about your growth and mine. Growth is
05:54 about, like I always say, growth is about the growth of that last common denominator in our
05:59 country. I will call our country prosperous, developed, growing, great and all, if there is
06:06 not a single person in this country who sleeps empty stomach. Till such time that there is that
06:10 one person who sleeps empty stomach in our country, we should not be calling ourselves
06:14 a developed country or growing and all that. It does no sense. I have made all these statements
06:19 before. I am repeating myself. But the point is at the cost of repeating myself, the point that I am
06:24 trying to make is, therefore, these kinds of representations, these kinds of figures does
06:30 add value to administration, does add value to ensure that various communities are incorporated
06:35 in our parliament and in our assembly, various communities are part of the power, various
06:41 communities are part of the growth story, which includes jobs, which includes education, which
06:45 includes everything. They are part of the growth story and it ensures that the country grows.
06:50 And when the country grows, all the communities grow together. So, A, this is as far as the
06:56 numbers are concerned. This is as far as why it is imperative that we are aware of what these
07:03 numbers are. Now, unfortunately, in our system, in our political system, now this is the other side.
07:09 Unfortunately, in our political system and our polity, our country, we vote, we do not cast our
07:17 vote, we vote for our caste and that's the problem with us. So, when the entire politics is based on
07:23 caste and appeasing one caste, appeasing one community, appeasing one group, then all that,
07:30 all what I said before goes down the drain. All what I said before goes down the drain.
07:35 Because it doesn't work both ways. Neither does the community as a whole gets developed because
07:40 the community remains where it is. Only the people who are into politics and who get power,
07:46 they grow, but the community remains as is because once they are in power, they don't look at,
07:50 look out for their community. So, that is one end of the story. Secondly, it brings about
07:54 imbalance in the society. When you have one community getting more reservation,
08:01 when you have one community getting more attention, when you have one community getting
08:04 more representation in the political system and all that, there develops imbalance.
08:10 So, somewhere down the line, when it is used, when anything good used by politicians whose
08:16 intentions are not good, then the answer is that it may harm the society. And that's the problem.
08:22 That's the problem that we face and that they are going to be facing here also. Now, it's already
08:27 begun. BJP has called it. I watch the, I am sure since Tejaswi Yadav comes from the Yadav community,
08:35 he has a huge support of the Yadav community. He is going to use it to his advantage when it
08:40 comes to, he could use it, I am just saying he could use it to his advantage when it comes to
08:45 votes, when it comes to elections and so on and so forth. So, all of this would happen.
08:51 Finally, with all this, will the extreme backward class get benefited? Will the other backward class
08:59 get benefited? Will the schedule car, schedule tribe get benefited? That's the question we need
09:04 to wait and watch. Last but not the least, before I end this editorial, I would like to talk about
09:08 another segment, which is economically backward class. Economically backward class exists in
09:17 every caste in our country. While a lot of people talk about, a lot of politicians talk about a lot
09:25 of impetus, a lot of help for the economically backward class, somewhere down the line,
09:29 it does not seem to be percolating. And what makes me say that? Because like I always quote,
09:34 the Oxfam research, which says that 1% of the Indian society has 40% of its wealth.
09:40 So, if 1% has 40% of its wealth, that means there are huge amount of economically backward class
09:46 which still exist in our country. What are we going to do for them? What are we going to sit
09:52 and how, when are we going to sit and talk for them? When are we going to do a census for them?
09:56 When are we going to draw a plan for them? When are we going to ensure that that is one thing
10:01 that we as a country, we say, okay, we take this up and we ensure that our economic backward class
10:06 is also uplifted. Now, I will tell you why a politician will not talk about it.
10:10 You see, appeasement is the easiest form of administration, easiest form of administration.
10:17 I will tell you what I mean by that. What I mean is, for instance, in Maharashtra, we see this.
10:21 Close to elections, there are political parties, especially some political parties that will go
10:26 talk about farmers and then give loan mafi. Loan mafi is, they will tell the banks not to take back
10:33 the money from the farmers. Farmers who cannot pay, they need not pay the loans. This happens,
10:38 appeasement, just near to the elections. Just near to the elections, you talk about reservation of a
10:46 particular community, just near the elections. Just near the elections, you say this free,
10:50 that free, this free, that free, the other free. So, these appeasement techniques are the easiest
10:55 to do. I tell you, they are the easiest to do. Because, what is it? End of the day what? They
11:01 will do it for some time. Sometimes they do not do it at all after promising. Sometimes they do it
11:06 and then what they say, what actually happens are two different things. And after some time,
11:12 when it comes to a stage where there is tremendous pressure on the state treasury or the country's
11:16 treasury, they discontinue it. This happens and it is easy and nobody bothers. Our memory is like a
11:22 goldfish. Our memory is very, very short. We forget it and then the party next year again,
11:27 next election again says the same thing, gets their vote. So, that is what happens.
11:31 But you see, if a political party sits in front of you and says that, listen, I am going to ensure
11:38 my economically backward class is developed, then there has to be a robust economic plan.
11:44 There has to be an economic plan. There has to be a business model. There has to be a plan for
11:50 crying out loud that helps to actually ensure that there are more jobs available, there are
11:57 more demands created, the economy boosts, there are more FDIs bought into the country, there are
12:03 more investments put into the country, we promote people to invest more in our country, we ensure
12:10 that we create wealth for people who are investing so that they invest more. When they invest more,
12:15 there is more jobs. When there is more jobs, there are more people who are coming and working.
12:18 When there are more people who are coming and working, then there is more demand. And therefore,
12:23 what really happens is the country as a overall, the country grows.
12:28 And this happens when you have multiple wealth creators. It is not that your wealth creation
12:35 policies are focused on few people or few groups. It is thrown open to all. Everybody is given a
12:42 fair chance to be a wealth creator. They go out there, they create wealth, things become easy for
12:48 them other than having compliance over compliance over compliance over compliance on that person's
12:52 head. You give them a comfortable working environment where they create wealth and more
12:59 and more and more and more and more people create wealth. And if more and more and more people
13:03 create wealth, then that difference between the top, the 1 percent and that who owns the 40 percent
13:10 wealth of this country, that wedge will reduce. And that wedge will reduce, number one, and that
13:17 will also ensure that the country will grow as in totality. Now, that is what will happen if you
13:26 actually go out, if you actually go out and make an election promise where they say that I will
13:31 ensure that I will uplift the economically backward class. Chances are politicians will not do it.
13:37 Because, noona, that is a very difficult proposition.
13:41 That is the point I wanted to make. Till I see you next time, that is tomorrow at 10. Namaskar.
13:47 [Music]
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