Commentary/Rajeev Srinivasan

The discreet rage of the bourgeoisie: Are reservations necessary

The US, as a pluralistic society, shares some of the characteristics of India's society: it is widely known that there are large numbers of non-whites in a population composed mostly of white people. What is less well-known is that in some parts of the US, whites will soon be less than 50 per cent of the population.

According to Stanford professor and journalist Dale Maharidge (a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his previous work), California is where this will happen first, as soon as 1998. And California is the place where everything happens first, the bellwether state whose fads, fashions and fancies generally become nationwide trends soon thereafter.

In the US context, the term 'minority' applies to everyone who has been historically disadvantaged in comparison to white males--and this includes blacks, Hispanics (Spanish speakers), Asians, and women of all races. But what is happening to whites is that they will become a numerical minority. To avoid confusion, I shall refer to racial minorities as 'non-whites'.

According to Maharidge, whose book The Coming White Minority in California has received considerable publicity, the paranoias of whites, both the articulated fears and the hidden ones, are driving the US towards a new intolerance. He believes whites are fundamentally acculturated to be unable to deal with being in the position of a numerical minority.

The first victim of this newly fashionable prejudice is the sense of fair play and the philosophy of support for the disadvantaged, which has been a mainstay of American political thought since the 1960s. In other words, the Civil Rights Movement, which gave representation and hope to non-whites, is now under serious attack.

In California, in the last two years, two ballot propositions won handsomely. One was Proposition 187, which essentially barred all sorts of support for illegal immigrants; this was aimed at the large floating population of economic migrants from Mexico and Central America -- Guatemala, El Salvador. Apparently forgotten is the fact that they are the essential agricultural labour for California.

The second, Proposition 209, passed in November 1996, completely negates the concept of civil rights, as propounded by Martin Luther King and others. It argues that any race-based or gender-based positive discrimination is illegal. In one fell swoop, the legislation wipes out any suggestion of a helping hand for those who are disadvantaged, in education or hiring.

The story of Proposition 209 is an ongoing saga. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against it, and a temporary restraining order has been placed on it by a federal judge in San Francisco. Ironically, this judge is a former civil rights lawyer. Incidentally, the US justice department also announced it would oppose the legislation, as it considers it unconstitutional.

What is worrisome about the arguments made in favour of these propositions is that they depend on easily disproved and fallacious axioms: 'merit' should be the only criterion, we have a level playing field, and so nobody should be given any particular help.

Unfortunately, none of these 'axioms' is true. First of all, 'merit' is considerably more complicated than pure grades alone. In fact, if grades were to be the only criterion, almost 70 per cent of the seats at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley, would go to Asians, who are the most studious young people. It is not entirely clear that this is what the proponents of Proposition 209 have in mind.

It is abundantly clear that we do not yet have a level playing field. We have been deluged lately with reports of sexual harassment and rapes in the army: the Pentagon estimates 55 per cent of all women in the armed forces in the US -- more than 100,000 female soldiers--have been subject to harassment. Similarly, large companies, such as Texaco and Shell Oil have recently been found guilty of systematically denying promotions and job advancement to blacks. Texaco settled a class-action suit by paying $170 million in damages and by agreeing to actively increase the number of non-whites and women in management positions.

A report in the San Jose Mercury News alleged recently that the CIA, as part of its Iran-Contra arrangement to supply guns to anti-Communists in Nicaragua, hit upon the ingenious idea of financing this by supplying crack cocaine -- an extremely addictive substance -- to inner-city blacks in Los Angeles and other cities. (Incidentally, the London Times reported recently that Israel had hit upon a similar strategy -- supplying pot -- to keep the Egyptian army and economy off balance!)

Even after decades of affirmative action, the vast majority of top managers in the US are white males. Since hiring managers prefer to hire others like them, we can then imagine the unconscious advantages a white male has in an organisation. The number of women managers has increased a little, but women still only earn 72 cents for every dollar a male in a comparable job earns.

So all this talk about level playing field is pure nonsense. It is especially disturbing that it is not just the average racist who believes it, but even the professionals of Silicon Valley, who have reason more than most others to see multiculturalism in action: The Valley is full of non-whites doing quite well indeed. The discreet rage of the bourgeoisie worries me, because they actually vote.

It must be abundantly clear what all this has to do with India. The very same arguments are put forth by the enraged bourgeoisie of India to attempt to suppress reservations for disadvantaged groups there. And the arguments are equally false; the one true difference with the US is that the disadvantaged groups in India have the strength of numbers.

I am amused whenever I hear a fellow Indian-American holding forth about the evils of reservations. For almost all of us are beneficiaries of the 'reservations' of the Civil Rights Acts, which put an end to the Asian Exclusion Act as recently as 1965. Before that time, an Indian had to be a world-famous scientist or artist to be able to emigrate to the US; and face legal racism once here, as well.

I do believe that some Indians have found their educational and career opportunities somewhat curtailed in India; one of my vehement friends tells me of his fury at this 'discrimination'. This attitude is reflected in the demeanour of the average diaspora Indian. For example, the Rediff Chat with V P Singh, in all honesty, was an electronic lynching, mostly on the issue of Mandal.

The paradox then is that the political forces in India that support egalitarianism and liberalism are also indifferent nationalists; in fact their rhetoric even suggests a belief in that tired, hoary colonial chestnut: 'India is not a single nation, but an uneasy coalition of nations'. On the other hand, the outspoken nationalists are notoriously coy on the issue of equal opportunity.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for a new political ideology altogether: how about an egalitarian nationalist movement? You heard it here first. Whoever manages to pull this positioning off will be guaranteed a plurality.

The fact of the matter is that the US, out of sheer compelling need for competitiveness, will attempt to empower all of its citizens, regardless of race and gender. Similarly, India must also ensure that every one of its citizens is given equal opportunity: the disadvantaged are no longer content to be second class citizens.

Without equal opportunity, the result may be armed struggle, as in South Africa. Nobody wants Maoists like the People's War Group or the equivalent of Peru's Shining Path to set out the agenda for India's future, I daresay. It is a simple calculus of self-preservation for all Indians. Better a V P Singh than a Kondapalli Sitaramaiah or an Abimael Guzman.