Place: Jalsa, Mumbai
It got late last night ! The film ZNMD, and then the blog and the twitter and a very early morning call. Went to bed by 3 am and up again at 4:30 am to start the day. The entire day has been filled with media interactions, live interviews with Taran Adarsh and print. Editor for the day with DNA and several overseas calls to radio stations in New Zealand, Australia, USA, UAE, South Africa and the BBC London. In between all this trying to make efforts on taking up the offer of Komal Nahata for his Rajasthani film that he had proposed somedays ago. Language, is where I shall have to work most seriously - the Rajasthani language ! Will make effort. Lets see !!
Most of the media interactions on the film ‘Aarakshan’ have been educative and of obvious sense - the subject making it so. And during these meetings there has been effort to determine what our personal views are on the reservation policy of the country, knowing fully well that this is a sensitive and often controversial subject, which when conflagrated by the flames of personal opinion, would provide them with sufficient fodder on channels and print headlines.
But, may I ask does anyone in the country have a justified opinion on the subject. A social order that has been with us through generations and centuries, cannot suddenly be separated from our system. There has been a caste based society and one that has caused enough debate and argument through the many formal and informal channels of our system, through ages. It has been a part of our moral and social structure ever since. Its sensitivity has had its presence felt in many walks of our lives. And keeping this in mind it has now found an important and most prominent representation in our Constitution, our democratic Parliamentary process, and the Supreme Court Justices of Law. Reservation is now a Constitutional truth. To remove it would tantamount to correcting the very basis of our democracy and our revered Constitution. I hope someday we can do it. But for the present it is a reality and will have to be adhered to.
For me individually it has meant the discrimination against certain sections of society based on caste and creed. I have never been a believer in the caste system and quite frankly have never been either exposed to it, or had sufficient knowledge of it. But this much I do know, that the caste has always been determined by the surname of an individual. A Sharma will be a Brahmin or a higher caste, a Singh a Kshatriya, a Mathur or Srivastav a Kayasth … and so on ..
So I ask those that question me, can you tell me my caste by reading my surname. Its Bachchan ! And what caste does that represent ? I shall tell you ! It will not indicate any. Because Bachchan is my Father’s non de plume, his pen name. And I am most proud of the fact that I am the first bearer of that title. When I was to be admitted to my very first School in Allahabad, the teachers asked what my name in the register should be written. My Father a kayasth, a Srivastav should have mentioned Srivastav, but he did not. He was a non believer in the caste system. He broke many social norms of the times then, when he married my Mother a Sikh. It was perhaps the first inter caste marriage for the city, and so naturally it created great rumblings in middle class India, steeped as it was in a conservative world.
So my Father made his non de plume my surname - Bachchan ! And started a generation since and after, of a family that one could not decipher the caste of, by reading the surname. I am proud and privileged that he chose to do so and feel honored to have been the creator of the first generation of Bachchans. When the Government authorities came around to take in the information on the Census of the country and asked me to fill in the form, I specifically put down INDIAN against the bracket called ‘caste’. The authorities insisted I mention my caste and I insisted on sticking to what I believed in. And that is how it has remained.
For me then to comment my personal views on the reservation issue is really redundant and immaterial. As the Principal of a private educational institution in the film, Dr Prabhakar Anand, is an erudite, idealist that even though has to succumb to the norms of the trust that runs the College, does believe in the equal opportunity required for those that do not have the means or the facility to educate themselves. And so in his own backyard he conducts teaching classes for those underprivileged children that have been deprived basic education because either they could not afford it, or were subjected to caste classifications and hence never had opportunity. He believes in a principled life. He does respect the upper class and caste and their academic qualifications as a result of them getting the desired education, but he also feels terrible for those who have not had the means or the facility to enter educational institutions because they belonged to backward classes, or did not have the economic strength to fill in the exorbitant fees required. The process of education, instead of becoming an individual right, has unfortunately, become a flourishing business venture, where capitation fees and high end coaching institutes have sprung up into a 40,000 crore ‘industry’ almost. What then and where to, those that cannot afford high monetary deposits, those that have been kept back purely because they had been stamped by birth to remain in a disadvantaged position throughout their lives, because they belonged to a caste that was either ’scheduled’ or ‘backward’ !!
That is the crux of the fight for equality, for providing opportunity and then on merit to be judged fairly without caste deprivation. The fight for Dr Prabhakar Anand is one where he accepts that two India’s exist in this one land. And that in the truest sense, if we were to seek the betterment of our society, then the distance or gap between the two India’s must be wiped out.
To say that this a phenomena that exists only in our part of the world would not be entirely correct. Discrimination because of caste creed color religion has been a factor that has had predominance in every society of the world. And it still prevails. Some blatantly without any remorse, some more discreetly. There is an ‘Aarakshan’ taking place in every corner of the world each day. A harsh, yet true fact.
Merit must be respected. That should be the consideration. Yet providing opportunity to all sections of society is also pertinent.
They ask me if I have ever faced discrimination because of ‘reservation’. No ! I have not. If and when I have failed it has been because I was inadequate in my qualifications, not because I belonged to a particular caste. And, so long as I live this is what the generation of Bachchans started by my Father, shall believe and respect …
Amitabh Bachchan
It got late last night ! The film ZNMD, and then the blog and the twitter and a very early morning call. Went to bed by 3 am and up again at 4:30 am to start the day. The entire day has been filled with media interactions, live interviews with Taran Adarsh and print. Editor for the day with DNA and several overseas calls to radio stations in New Zealand, Australia, USA, UAE, South Africa and the BBC London. In between all this trying to make efforts on taking up the offer of Komal Nahata for his Rajasthani film that he had proposed somedays ago. Language, is where I shall have to work most seriously - the Rajasthani language ! Will make effort. Lets see !!
Most of the media interactions on the film ‘Aarakshan’ have been educative and of obvious sense - the subject making it so. And during these meetings there has been effort to determine what our personal views are on the reservation policy of the country, knowing fully well that this is a sensitive and often controversial subject, which when conflagrated by the flames of personal opinion, would provide them with sufficient fodder on channels and print headlines.
But, may I ask does anyone in the country have a justified opinion on the subject. A social order that has been with us through generations and centuries, cannot suddenly be separated from our system. There has been a caste based society and one that has caused enough debate and argument through the many formal and informal channels of our system, through ages. It has been a part of our moral and social structure ever since. Its sensitivity has had its presence felt in many walks of our lives. And keeping this in mind it has now found an important and most prominent representation in our Constitution, our democratic Parliamentary process, and the Supreme Court Justices of Law. Reservation is now a Constitutional truth. To remove it would tantamount to correcting the very basis of our democracy and our revered Constitution. I hope someday we can do it. But for the present it is a reality and will have to be adhered to.
For me individually it has meant the discrimination against certain sections of society based on caste and creed. I have never been a believer in the caste system and quite frankly have never been either exposed to it, or had sufficient knowledge of it. But this much I do know, that the caste has always been determined by the surname of an individual. A Sharma will be a Brahmin or a higher caste, a Singh a Kshatriya, a Mathur or Srivastav a Kayasth … and so on ..
So I ask those that question me, can you tell me my caste by reading my surname. Its Bachchan ! And what caste does that represent ? I shall tell you ! It will not indicate any. Because Bachchan is my Father’s non de plume, his pen name. And I am most proud of the fact that I am the first bearer of that title. When I was to be admitted to my very first School in Allahabad, the teachers asked what my name in the register should be written. My Father a kayasth, a Srivastav should have mentioned Srivastav, but he did not. He was a non believer in the caste system. He broke many social norms of the times then, when he married my Mother a Sikh. It was perhaps the first inter caste marriage for the city, and so naturally it created great rumblings in middle class India, steeped as it was in a conservative world.
So my Father made his non de plume my surname - Bachchan ! And started a generation since and after, of a family that one could not decipher the caste of, by reading the surname. I am proud and privileged that he chose to do so and feel honored to have been the creator of the first generation of Bachchans. When the Government authorities came around to take in the information on the Census of the country and asked me to fill in the form, I specifically put down INDIAN against the bracket called ‘caste’. The authorities insisted I mention my caste and I insisted on sticking to what I believed in. And that is how it has remained.
For me then to comment my personal views on the reservation issue is really redundant and immaterial. As the Principal of a private educational institution in the film, Dr Prabhakar Anand, is an erudite, idealist that even though has to succumb to the norms of the trust that runs the College, does believe in the equal opportunity required for those that do not have the means or the facility to educate themselves. And so in his own backyard he conducts teaching classes for those underprivileged children that have been deprived basic education because either they could not afford it, or were subjected to caste classifications and hence never had opportunity. He believes in a principled life. He does respect the upper class and caste and their academic qualifications as a result of them getting the desired education, but he also feels terrible for those who have not had the means or the facility to enter educational institutions because they belonged to backward classes, or did not have the economic strength to fill in the exorbitant fees required. The process of education, instead of becoming an individual right, has unfortunately, become a flourishing business venture, where capitation fees and high end coaching institutes have sprung up into a 40,000 crore ‘industry’ almost. What then and where to, those that cannot afford high monetary deposits, those that have been kept back purely because they had been stamped by birth to remain in a disadvantaged position throughout their lives, because they belonged to a caste that was either ’scheduled’ or ‘backward’ !!
That is the crux of the fight for equality, for providing opportunity and then on merit to be judged fairly without caste deprivation. The fight for Dr Prabhakar Anand is one where he accepts that two India’s exist in this one land. And that in the truest sense, if we were to seek the betterment of our society, then the distance or gap between the two India’s must be wiped out.
To say that this a phenomena that exists only in our part of the world would not be entirely correct. Discrimination because of caste creed color religion has been a factor that has had predominance in every society of the world. And it still prevails. Some blatantly without any remorse, some more discreetly. There is an ‘Aarakshan’ taking place in every corner of the world each day. A harsh, yet true fact.
Merit must be respected. That should be the consideration. Yet providing opportunity to all sections of society is also pertinent.
They ask me if I have ever faced discrimination because of ‘reservation’. No ! I have not. If and when I have failed it has been because I was inadequate in my qualifications, not because I belonged to a particular caste. And, so long as I live this is what the generation of Bachchans started by my Father, shall believe and respect …
Amitabh Bachchan
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