A Ship Called India
Reservation: A simple analogy
I was at lunch on sunday at my friends and the discussion drifted to reservations in India. My friends daughter a 15 year old born and brought up in Sydney asked me what is caste ? why are the police beating even girls in India ? What do you mean by reservation ?
I felt like I had been stumped but had my foot on the crease and was safe "Not out says the leg umpire"
Where was I to start ? how was I going to put it all in a nut shell ? I took the easy option out saying that it will take a lot of time and that I will sit down and explain it all to her one day...
To give an explanation to a youngster and be able to get the message across it is always best to find some analogy. so what was I going to use as an analogy for explaining the caste system and the current reservation saga in India.
Here is a simple analogy that I came up with and believe is quite close.
There was one very old but big passenger ship called HMS India. The captain was Mount Batten and all his Officers were English. In 1947 this ship was taken over by Indians with Nehru as the captain. This ship has been carrying for example let us say 2000 passengers on board for the last 59 years..
This ship has so many classes of people travelling.. VIP class of passengers were the officers of the ship about 20 in number ( politicians). Then there was the 1st class with luxurious air conditioned cabins for about 300 very high class people. ( FC/UC) .
The next class was the second class ordinary cabins for the average men and women (OBC) Second class cabins could accomodate about 1200 passenegers.
Then there was this 3rd class or deck class for all the poor people and they had berths below the deck for about 500 of them all crammed up dingy and dirty.
Caste system explained simply is based on how rich a man is in India. The richer you are the higher up on the ship your cabin is and the poorest are located in the hull of the ship with very little ventilation just awful food and people sick all over the place with no medical treatment etc. As you go down from the top to the bottom of the ship the education level drops too. simply because you need money to educate your self. so the poorer you are the less scope you have to be educated.. Because the people in the deck class were poor they wore the same clothes and as there were no showers they were all smelly and dirty and the posh people in the first class would not touch them as they were dirty. The second class passengers were different. The richer ones mixed with the 1st class travellers and the poorer ones socialised more with the deck passengers..
Now how do I explain Reservations to a child ??
It occurred to me that the ship drifts into a storm and is taking in a lot of water . It has sprung a leak and is sinking fast..
May Day May Day the captain yells and sends out an SOS seeking help from ships nearby. Now the ship is fitted with one speed boat meant for the captain and his crew ( politicians ). Other than that there are 20 life boats each of which can safely carry about 15 passengers That means 300 passengers can use life boats. But the ship has got 2000 passengers. The first class passengers believe they have paid a fortune to make the trip and as such they should be the first to get into these boats.. Captain says no that is not fair as I have a duty to be fair to all passengers on board. He declares 50% reservation that means 10 boats will be for 1st Class and 10 boats will be for the second class and deck passengers. Not happy that he will be leaving 1700 passengers to die at sea, the captain orders to double the capacity in each life boat and take 30 people per boat. This is a dangerous move to overload a life boat in a rough sea. As the ship is sinking we have 2000 passengers arguing and fighting as to who will get into these life boats.
The ship is India, captain is Arjun Singh, 1st class pasengers are UC/FC, second class passengers are OBC and deck passengers are SC/ST. and the twenty life boats are IITs, IIMs, AIMs
The ship is listing badly and the captain is not going to go down with the ship as that happens only in the movies. He is getting ready to take off with his crew in his speed boat and leave all the passengers to save themselves..
While all the passengers fight to save themselves by getting into life boats, a small but dedicated group of men have been pumping out the water from the ship putting out the fires and seriously hoping they can fix the leak and save the ship.
Will the ship called India be saved or will it sink ? how many life boats will stay afloat with the overload and how many will sink with its passengers is what no one is sure of as yet
Reservation: A simple analogy
I was at lunch on sunday at my friends and the discussion drifted to reservations in India. My friends daughter a 15 year old born and brought up in Sydney asked me what is caste ? why are the police beating even girls in India ? What do you mean by reservation ?
I felt like I had been stumped but had my foot on the crease and was safe "Not out says the leg umpire"
Where was I to start ? how was I going to put it all in a nut shell ? I took the easy option out saying that it will take a lot of time and that I will sit down and explain it all to her one day...
To give an explanation to a youngster and be able to get the message across it is always best to find some analogy. so what was I going to use as an analogy for explaining the caste system and the current reservation saga in India.
Here is a simple analogy that I came up with and believe is quite close.
There was one very old but big passenger ship called HMS India. The captain was Mount Batten and all his Officers were English. In 1947 this ship was taken over by Indians with Nehru as the captain. This ship has been carrying for example let us say 2000 passengers on board for the last 59 years..
This ship has so many classes of people travelling.. VIP class of passengers were the officers of the ship about 20 in number ( politicians). Then there was the 1st class with luxurious air conditioned cabins for about 300 very high class people. ( FC/UC) .
The next class was the second class ordinary cabins for the average men and women (OBC) Second class cabins could accomodate about 1200 passenegers.
Then there was this 3rd class or deck class for all the poor people and they had berths below the deck for about 500 of them all crammed up dingy and dirty.
Caste system explained simply is based on how rich a man is in India. The richer you are the higher up on the ship your cabin is and the poorest are located in the hull of the ship with very little ventilation just awful food and people sick all over the place with no medical treatment etc. As you go down from the top to the bottom of the ship the education level drops too. simply because you need money to educate your self. so the poorer you are the less scope you have to be educated.. Because the people in the deck class were poor they wore the same clothes and as there were no showers they were all smelly and dirty and the posh people in the first class would not touch them as they were dirty. The second class passengers were different. The richer ones mixed with the 1st class travellers and the poorer ones socialised more with the deck passengers..
Now how do I explain Reservations to a child ??
It occurred to me that the ship drifts into a storm and is taking in a lot of water . It has sprung a leak and is sinking fast..
May Day May Day the captain yells and sends out an SOS seeking help from ships nearby. Now the ship is fitted with one speed boat meant for the captain and his crew ( politicians ). Other than that there are 20 life boats each of which can safely carry about 15 passengers That means 300 passengers can use life boats. But the ship has got 2000 passengers. The first class passengers believe they have paid a fortune to make the trip and as such they should be the first to get into these boats.. Captain says no that is not fair as I have a duty to be fair to all passengers on board. He declares 50% reservation that means 10 boats will be for 1st Class and 10 boats will be for the second class and deck passengers. Not happy that he will be leaving 1700 passengers to die at sea, the captain orders to double the capacity in each life boat and take 30 people per boat. This is a dangerous move to overload a life boat in a rough sea. As the ship is sinking we have 2000 passengers arguing and fighting as to who will get into these life boats.
The ship is India, captain is Arjun Singh, 1st class pasengers are UC/FC, second class passengers are OBC and deck passengers are SC/ST. and the twenty life boats are IITs, IIMs, AIMs
The ship is listing badly and the captain is not going to go down with the ship as that happens only in the movies. He is getting ready to take off with his crew in his speed boat and leave all the passengers to save themselves..
While all the passengers fight to save themselves by getting into life boats, a small but dedicated group of men have been pumping out the water from the ship putting out the fires and seriously hoping they can fix the leak and save the ship.
Will the ship called India be saved or will it sink ? how many life boats will stay afloat with the overload and how many will sink with its passengers is what no one is sure of as yet
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