The unseen Class

          By Pamarty Venkataramana

India is a proud nation. Proud of being a survivor of many conquests by invaders from foreign soils and a wee bit prouder too because of the fact of it being a society of equals where reservations are earmarked in the shade of a robust constitution with a view to make good the wrongs perpetrated by dead and gone generations of local oppressors.

The poor have their set lifestyle. No compunctions at prostrating before local or national leaders and bureaucrats to obtain land holdings or housing accommodation or jobs and food supplies. Even health cover. The Government too proudly publicizes the several social security schemes it has unveiled for the poor and ‘marginalized’ in our society. All State Governments follow suit in garnering credit for such acts of ‘good governance ‘. Of course,there is never any knowing about the actual beneficiaries under such generic schemes in a population of a billion and half plus souls.

Wealthy folks have their heavenly stay while on the good Earth . They have neither a need of knowing anything classified under subject of ‘general knowledge ‘ nor a necessity of leading life under a cloud of uncertainty over daily subsistence or living in the edge of sanity and devotion to a multitude of unseen Gods. Yes,both the Government and Gods are invisible entities.

None has access to public servants nor the elected representatives of the people excepting those who eye the posts of power or pose to be devotees of the corrupted systems in vogue. A mad hatter ‘s world ? A mid summer day’s dream ? A wintry night’s tale? Choose as you please.

India is also proud of possessing its strongest class of spine-like people – the ‘middle classes’ . They comprise of the lower middle class,the upper middle class and the middle ‘middle-class’. Who are these people?

These people go out to labor hard from dawn to dusk or night shifts for their masters who run these factories of call center workers from offshore centers ; they go out to vote en masses to whichever actor on the political arena enamors them with his or her oratory skills or shed copious tears in public at their travails ; worship the Almighty cutting across poverty,hardships and age brackets.

This class holds the key to dubbing the land as being a ‘developing nation’ and prevents the downgrading by firangi Demi-Gods to being labeled as an ‘under-developed’ country. Ironically,it is this very class of sheep-grade mentality which also prevents the country to join the league of ‘developed nations’. More by their blind adherence to old-fangled notions of hope,faith and trust towards apes and donkeys in the political circuit.

Having said this,who exactly are the marginalized and outcastes of current era in our avowed land of diversity ?

Those who are well educated,meritorious and yet fail to get a gainful employment in the unjust system of caste-based cum minority-led reservation system.

Those who are too proud to beg-borrow-steal and yet cannot douse their feelings for a failing cultural cauldron.

Those who are honest to the core and almost mule-headed to compromise upon personal principles and value death by starvation over kow-towing to lowly insect-like human-beings that torture helpless,poorer sections of society whose only secret to existence is their command over knowledge by virtue of sound educational qualifications.

Those who pray to the Almighty they believe who rules the whole universe and would somehow and in some manner,mysteriously send an angel or messenger to endow them with the necessities of life they lack,deserve and so much want.

To some of this category of law-abiding,peace-loving citizens,basic health facilities is all they would seek.

To many,a dwelling house is the wish they would like to see fulfilled. Most members of this class,however,need a decent two square meals a day too- without losing sleep at nights about how they are going to fetch a meal for themselves the next day.

All of this may sound as a far-fetched state attributed to a ‘developing ‘ or ‘under-developed’ society by those in older contemporary societies that take pride in being most advanced and ‘developed’ societies but dependent heavily on foreign labour as well as manpower resources.

To the fat cats of native nation,this might sound again as a fairy-tale of karmic results meter out to the suffering masses.

Many who gloat on voting for one propped-up messiah after another , and generation upon generation, would merely resort to docility and flattery to meet their ends.

The anointed ministers would scream from rooftops of spending enormous sums on poverty-alleviation programs but whither the attention towards the educated and the honest who remain unemployed due to bane of caste/minority-based reservation or rampant corrupt practices in recruitment to all levels and types of job offerings?

How does one tackle the ever-growing problem of unemployment?

It is not sufficient to declare ‘one-window’ schemes for start-ups and assuming all of society is ‘money-minded’ or mercenary in outlook towards life.

There still exist teeming millions who take pride in services sectors including teaching,medicine,law,engineering and research fields.

Who will provide a ‘social security’ to these classes ?

There are D.Litt. folks whose plight is worse than so-called Dalits whose ancestors were exploited under zamindari system of bonded labour and there are still quite a few being ostracized by mischievous elements enjoying pelf and power.

Where lies the solution to all this messy situation? Who will remedy the maladies?

This ‘other class’ is the segment of society who are voiceless in the real sense of the term. It is high time for any well-meaning,progressive Government to design a structure whereby each and every graduate will be allotted a plot or a flat  to have a house and stay there and attend to a suitable job or vocational activity assigned by the State.

In the result,brain-drain is thrown out of the window rather than applications for visas getting rejected by foreign embassies and,more significantly, satellite towns would get developed showing how a ‘smart city’ springs up in a pollution-free region rather than being a mere signboard amidst a rotting or bursting-at-seams metropolis which is already over-crowded.

The biggest boon will be the end of law & order problems in such a township. Self-regulation and cleanliness become stamped. To match any orderly foreign city of ambition.

This by itself will be a booster to include this marginalized section of our society into nation-building as well as happy society structuring.

More and more positive actions are the need of the times instead of brow-beating the honest and hapless people with a bombardment of populist schemes.

The economy will rise with the right social engineering and not by playing second fiddle to imported semi-desi,fully foreign nationals as governor of central bank or economic and political advisers to the headman of the big,little village-nation called India that is BHARAT!

Until we see this done,we are befooling ourselves into believing that we are ‘developing‘ on par with other societies,across the continent or planet.

Jai Hind!

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