Arunachal – ours or theirs?

The Chinese are engaging us in a diplomatic boxing bout like never before over our border issues and specifically their reservations & claims over Arunachal Pradesh. As I attempted to understand what exactly is bothering the two nations, I was relatively shocked to see that the dispute is actually a century old & was an original creation of the British Empire, because we were under their rule then.

However, this post is not intended to expose the British or drill down to the bottom to find out the truth about who is right or wrong. It is intended to express my absolute disgust at the hypocrisy of the Indian state when they emphatically claim that ‘Arunachal is an integral part of India’. Almost every power corridor in Delhi right up to the Prime Minister has gone on record to state this claim & counter the Chinese allegations.

But on what moral grounds?

• We club Arunachal with the rest of the region and simply categorise it as North-East, even though every state in that part of India is different from each other in all respects. Much like the way, once upon a time, North Indian’s thought that every person hailing from the South was a ‘Madrasi’ who only fed on 'Idly & Dosa' in spite of the fact that every South Indian state is linguistically & culturally different from each other.
• Can we name all the states in North-East along with their Capitals? Leave aside North-East, how many of us can name the capital of Arunachal or its Chief Minister?
• What have we done for Arunachal as a state? Has the Govt provided any separate financial assistance to develop & uplift it? Does the Govt recognise that Arunachal being a separate entity could have its own share of problems which might be different from its neighbouring states and hence needs to be addressed independently? The answer is No. Our Prime Minister only has the time to announce a Rs. 24000 Crore combined package for the entire North-East territory (only announce, not disburse).
• Why is it that every female with small eyes & typical North-Eastern features is called a ‘chinki’, and the youth cross all limits when they assume that every chinki is a hooker?
• Why alienate the students from the North East by abusing & mocking them?

• As far as development is concerned, don’t you think Arunachalis would be better off with the Chinese considering the pace at which they are rapidly uplifting their border areas & the quality of life for their people?

All this is a stark reminder to us that we ourselves are responsible for the grim situation faced by this section of the people of India. Although, we leave no stone unturned in merely showcasing to the world that these people are with us and we care for them, but the fact is they are treated as second rung citizens in their own country.

If we believe that Arunachal is a part of India, we must believe that the people of Arunachal are also a part of India. They are as much Indians as we are. They deserve the same amount of respect as we do. We have to make them believe that they are one of us.

Kapil Sibal’s IIT stunt

Our dynamic Human Resources Development (HRD) Minister, Mr. Kapil Sibal is hell bent on reforming the education system of our country. It is a good move because its high time someone takes the onus of changing our shammed educational pattern. But the thought process & the think tank behind it is not entirely right. I say this on the basis of the comment by Sibal that the min marks required in class XII for taking an IIT entrance exam should be raised to 80% from the existing 60%.

Why? To curb the growing influence of coaching centres? To reduce the influx of Bihari’s into IITs because they generally fare low in their class XII boards but manage to crack the IIT-JEE? Or to ensure that only those who are excellent muggers can aim for these exams, defying all logic?

This would be a very futile move, specially because it would rob the thousands of brilliant students, who for some reason do not fare well in board exams, the opportunity to take a shot at the big leagues. And an opportunity lost for life. We commonly hear students preparing for entrance exams by dropping 1-2 yrs after school, but rarely does any student retake the Class XII boards in case of low marks. Also, the coaching centres are a source of livelihood for many retired Professors and school teachers. They actually nurture raw talent by helping candidates sharpen their basics first, rather than propagating the ‘learn by-heart’ technique adopted by teachers in most schools these days.

Moving further, Mr. Sibal could apply the same funda to the IIMs as well. The minimum cut off at graduation required to take the CAT could be raised between 75-80%. One can only imagine what would happen if this bar is raised. On the one hand, students would actually start taking their graduation studies seriously, just like the way they did at school. This would result in a spurt in the attendance levels at Colleges. But on the other hand, I can bet that this would dip the number of CAT aspirants each year, because every institution/college/university has their own unique marking/grading scheme which is not a unified pattern centrally. Hence the best of students would not be able to score the cut-off average, for no fault of theirs. (For eg, in Pune University, the marking is so strict, the University topper only scores around 70-72%. On the contrary, at Bangalore University, the topper scores anywhere between 85-90%).

But we need not worry. None of this is going to happen. Because unconfirmed reports doing the rounds in New Delhi have suggested that coaching centres have collectively bribed Mr. Sibal to the tune of Rs. 122 Crore to leave the pattern untouched and retract his statement, which he has already done. As always, its only about money, honey!