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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Buried Lives

Pimpri-Chinchwad is fond of advertising itself as a model city. Its gleaming roads, industrial estates and ambitious infrastructure projects have helped make the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) one of India’s wealthiest civic bodies. The shocking accident in which eight labourers died after a massive garbage heap collapsed onto the administrative building of the Waste-to-Energy plant at Moshi, exposes the rot beneath PCMC’s outwardly prosperous edifice. The contrast is...

Buried Lives

Pimpri-Chinchwad is fond of advertising itself as a model city. Its gleaming roads, industrial estates and ambitious infrastructure projects have helped make the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) one of India’s wealthiest civic bodies. The shocking accident in which eight labourers died after a massive garbage heap collapsed onto the administrative building of the Waste-to-Energy plant at Moshi, exposes the rot beneath PCMC’s outwardly prosperous edifice. The contrast is impossible to ignore. A civic body flush with resources failed to prevent workers from being buried alive under its own waste. The facility should have been governed by the most basic principles of engineering and workplace safety. The Indian Army, the National Disaster Response Force, firefighters, police and municipal personnel have worked for days in dangerous conditions. Heavy excavators painstakingly removed unstable concrete while specialist teams searched for survivors. But their professionalism has only served to highlight the incompetence that had made their deployment necessary in the first place. Garbage dumps do not collapse without warning. Any administrative building situated in the shadow of such an unstable waste mass should have been subjected to rigorous risk assessment. If those assessments existed, they evidently failed. If they did not, the negligence is even graver. The tragedy also raises uncomfortable questions about the Waste-to-Energy project itself. It was inaugurated with much fanfare as a technological milestone, boasting India’s largest boiler of its kind. International engineering expertise and sophisticated machinery were proudly showcased. Yet impressive technology is meaningless if basic occupational safety is treated as an afterthought. Grand inaugurations make headlines. Routine maintenance rarely does. But it is the latter that determines whether workers return home alive. Municipal administrations have developed an unfortunate habit of measuring success in kilometres of roads laid, flyovers inaugurated and crores spent. The true measure of governance is far simpler. Can the poorest employee leave work safely at the end of the day? At Moshi, the answer is a devastating no. While compensation packages and promises of inquiries will inevitably follow and committees will submit reports, the danger is of responsibility becoming diluted across the chain of contractors, engineers and officials until accountability disappears into bureaucracy. That familiar script must not be allowed to play out again. PCMC cannot plead poverty nor cite a lack of technical expertise. It cannot claim that the dangers of unstable waste dumps were unknowable. A corporation with such financial strength possesses the means and the obligation to enforce the highest safety standards. The dead were casualties of preventable negligence. The wealth of a city is ultimately measured not by the size of its municipal budget, but by the value it places on the lives of those who keep it running. At Moshi, that value proved tragically cheap.

Caste-based Census Sparks Nationwide Debate

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Caste-based Census

Caste-based identities continue to dominate rural India, directly or indirectly shaping electoral outcomes. Many major elections are influenced by specific caste groups. After the Bihar government released the first phase of its caste-based socio-economic survey, the caste census became a hot topic. The results, backed by evidence, showed improvements in the living standards and social status of marginalised communities, both in cities and villages. With parties like the JDU and NCP backing a caste census, there is growing momentum for the government to conduct one. However, every story has two sides—joy and sorrow. Even Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, raised concerns about the caste census.

Rahul Gandhi accused the BJP of being “anti-Bahujan.” The clear meaning is that his father and forefather refused to execute a caste-based census, which might have far-reaching effects and even permanently fracture India’s social fabric. This may be negative for caste-based beneficiaries. The last caste census in India was conducted in 1931 by the British government. Those times were different from the present scenario. The data was made public and became the basis for the Mandal Commission Reports and reservation policies for Other Backward Classes. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has clarified that the caste-based population count data will not be used for core politics. But the agenda for politics is always twisted and expanded.

The Central Government also joined the legal debate by filing an affidavit with the Supreme Court, leaving the matter unresolved. India’s partition, rooted in the divide-and-rule strategy, is frequently cited as a cautionary tale. Including caste in official census data could further deepen social divides. This issue has become a political pressure point, with various states pushing the Centre for action. Although the Constitution uses the term “class” instead of “caste,” the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that caste is a relevant, and at times, sole or dominant criterion for defining a backward class.

After the release of caste-based census data in Bihar, discussions around conducting similar censuses have gained momentum in states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand. Karnataka, which has already conducted its own caste census, may release its data soon as well.

Notably, all these states are governed by anti-BJP parties. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also announced that Congress-ruled states have committed to carrying out caste censuses. Meanwhile, the BJP has remained silent on the matter, creating a significant roadblock.

Caste-based censuses focus on proportional representation in areas like jobs and education, with the argument that this will aid in targeted planning for the disadvantaged. However, the situation remains unclear, much like a foggy winter morning. The BJP’s stance on caste-based censuses and reservations seems different, as they fear the caste-based calculations could fragment their traditional Hindu voter base—an underlying concern for the party.

Professor Sanjay Kumar from The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, says, “Let alone the BJP; no party can openly oppose it; it is not free from danger. BJP gets a large number of votes from the OBC community, their population across the country would be around 52%. Another downside is that the caste-based censuses could disrupt the balance of socio-economic zones. Data theft is a common issue in government systems, and people may feel disconnected from their actual rights.

The moot question is that if the financial status of an ST/SC/OBC or Dalit citizen moves up by a few notches, will his social status change automatically? The lifestyle of any class will only change when the income of a particular class is changed. The actual source of income is employment. The reality is that only metro cities have enough place and space for workers. Aside from the GIDC and IT sectors, less than 30% of industries have their own designated vacancy periods. After a decade, the Jamnagar and Rajkot Corporations have opened their doors to newcomers alongside experienced staff. However, age and caste bias often operate behind the scenes. It’s important to recognise that poverty is also widespread among many upper-caste individuals, and their needs cannot be overlooked. In the overall interests of the nation, terms like SC/ST/OBC, Dalits, etc. must be deleted from the nation’s vocabulary. Every citizen should have only one classification, that of being an ‘Indian’, in the spirit of the constitution.

Last year, when the Bihar government decided to conduct a caste survey in the state, the BJP was also Nitish Kumar’s partner in the state government, and it supported it. Political expert and former professor of Tata Institute of Social Science, Pushpendra Kumar, says, “It is not that the BJP does not talk about caste. It tries to reveal the caste of the Prime Minister as well. For caste politics, the BJP also tried hard to raise the issue of Pasmanda Muslims.”

(The writer is a management professional based in Ahmedabad. Views personal.)

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