One of our great triumphs as a nation is that we widely condemn social discrimination. This was demonstrated again on April 11 when the Supreme Court allowed a 27 per cent quota for Other Backward Castes (OBCs) in higher education. I am against all quotas but I support vigorous affirmative action. Our leaders in the future will be next generation OBCs, and if they are not better educated, governance will not improve. Why then do I feel a deep pain in my gut over the court judgement? This case, alas, was not about social justice; nor about legitimate OBC aspirations. It is was about a war between two “creamy layers”--middle class factions of the backwards and forwards-- in which the nation may have lost. I fear this “landmark” judgment will do irreparable damage to our few good institutions.

Girirajsingh Natubha studied up to Class 2 in Jamnagar. All his life he struggled to read simple words. A few years ago, however, he found to his surprise that he had begun to read. It happened quite amazingly after he began watching Chitrageet, a Gujarati television program of film songs, which had sub-titles at the bottom of the screen. Since he knew many of the songs, he could anticipate the next word. When it   appeared he would read it unconsciously and sing along, Karaoke style. Soon he found he was able to recognise words in the bazaar and before long he was reading headlines in the newspaper.

The damage is done. Hit by an exodus of North Indian labour in the past two months following Raj Thackery's Marathi rage, industrialists in Pune, Nashik, and Thane have slowed their expansion plans in Maharashtra and are looking towards other states. They fear a return of the old nightmare when Datta Samant's labour militancy combined with Bal Thackeray's xenophobia drove white collar jobs from Mumbai to Bangalore and blue collar jobs to Gujarat.

Nagoba Khamnakar feels like a fool. Like many farmers in his village of Mahakurla in Chandrapur, Maharashtra, he borrowed money from his bank last year. He repaid it diligently, in installments and on time. Many of his neighbours, however, did not. When the Finance Minister announced last week in his Budget an amnesty against repayment of small farm loans, he said sadly, 'What is the use of being honest?'

My friend, the linguist, Peggy Mohan, likens the evolution of the English language in India to the mobile phone. Just as our masses are leapfrogging to cell phones without going through a landline stage, she thinks that English might evolve in the same way from elite to a mass, second language of the fast growing Indian middle class. If functioning with pre-literate dialects is not to have a phone; and learning a standard regional language, say shudh Hindi, is to acquire a landline; then aspirant wannabe's Indians might actually leapfrog from their pre-literate mother tongues to literacy in functional English.

For the first time an Indian institution of higher education has been ranked among the top twenty in the world. The Indian School of Business (ISB) was ranked 20th in a list of the top100 business schools by the prestigious Financial Times two weeks ago. A Chinese business school was No 11; four European schools came in the top 10, and the rest were from the United States.  

“Until India is able to view itself and its history dispassionately, reject the twin failures of socialism and non-alignment, modernize its Muslim citizens and bring their aspirations in line with those of the Hindu majority, it will likely remain an underachiever” concludes Sadanand Dhume in the latest issue of the influential American journal, Commentary.   I found this irritating, especially now that we are doing so well economically. As I thought some more, however, I had to agree with this unhappy verdict. We all need to acknowledge our past failures publicly. Only then will we stop repeating mistakes or reforming by stealth. Only then will we mature as a nation.

When a celebrity dies one has to put up with a certain amount of media hype, but after Benazir Bhutto's death what struck me most was the singular lack of remorse in Pakistan There was plenty of grief, even some regret, but no remorse. Remorse is different from regret. When a child is accidentally hit by a car, an onlooker may feel regret, but the driver feels remorse even though it was not his fault. The regretful person says 'too bad, it happened'; a remorseful person is scarred, sometimes for life. Nehru expressed remorse when Gandhi died. Yudhishthira's remorse helped reconcile Hastinapur's torn society although he wasn't responsible for the war in the Mahabharata. General Musharraf, I think, lost a fine opportunity to achieve reconciliation in Pakistan.

A few weeks before Narendra Modi's re-election, JS Bandukwalla asked Muslims in Gujarat to forgive the 2002 killings. He said, “Forgiveness will release Muslims from the trauma of the past. It may also touch the conscience of Hindus, since the crimes were committed by a few fanatics in the name of Ram. Most important, it may give Gujarat a chance to close the tragic chapter of 2002 and move on.” Is Professor Bandukwalla's magnanimous gesture a viable alternative to retributive justice? My first reaction is “No, the guilty must be punished”. But something inside me says that forgiveness might actually work better than revenge. Punishment is, after all, revenge sanctioned by the state.

To be able to kill 113 persons in less than 12 months in broad daylight is something of an accomplishment. The distinction belongs to Delhi's Blueline buses. Desperate citizens tend to blame drivers, police, politicians, or transport officials. They are all guilty, of course. The real problem, however, lies elsewhere. A few months ago a prominent public figure even blamed 'privatization'. A staggering comment, I thought, considering that major cities in the world (including in France and England) have excellent, privately run bus services.