I was not wanting to blog on this topic. But I guess specially to the variety of responses I got. It all started with forwarding this brilliant analogy of India as a developing nation, from the view of and ANT and a GRASSHOPPER. Which One am I? Am not sure yet, or rather I think I know which one I am, but letting time to decide and choose. Ok so here goes the story,
Once there was an ANT and a GRASSHOPPER, and they did not live happily together ever after! Why? Read the following...other can hop to MORAL OF THE STORY..
Ant & Grasshopper
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances plays the summer away. Come winter,the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
Modern Version
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of
the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house.
Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be
relocated to warmer climates during winter.
Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticizes the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.
The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).
Opposition MPs stage a walkout.
Left parties call for 'Bharat Bandh' in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.
CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers.
Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.
Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the 'Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act' [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter.
Arjun Singh makes ' Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.
The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, it's home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.
Arundhati Roy calls it 'A Triumph of Justice'.
Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice '.
CPM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden'
Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.
Many years later...
The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley .
100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India...
Moral of the story :
As a result of loosing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers, they never lived together and India still continues to be a developing country!!!
ANT and GRASSHOPPER part - 2
In the generation of part 2 and part 3, created at bollywood (Dhoom 2, Don 2 etc..) and hollywood (Shrek 2, Spiderman 2, Ice age 2 etc..) I thought I would present it on the same lines
Ok, so I had forwarded this email to many ants, grasshoppers, antlings and grasslings too :).. more than 80% of the invisible lot (bcc) did not respond. I don't blame them, specially in the days of forwards of those stupid chain of emails claiming to full filing your hidden dreams and wishes if you forward it to 10 people!! And 80% of the visible lot actually DID...what prediction, women :) !
However am sure, anybody who eventually manages to read this forward after meeting their immediate deadlines in life is bound to respond if not anything but the art of presenting the story behind the rise of India (!!!), in such a humorous way. To me this piece was like a diamond ring thrown in the garbage, by mistake. I appreciate the authors creativity, crispness and humorous writing style. Would love to interact with its creator some day! But I got some really interesting responses (names have been concealed to maintain privacy). Each of them are potential ants or a grasshoppers.. I am just presenting their opinions as G/A 1, 2, 3......n, without being judgmental
G/A - 1
Wrong analogy.
Just the haves patting their backs looking at have-nots. So u seem to agree that lower castes didnt work? or were they not allowed to work?, So all ppl going out of india are brilliant ppl, who have given up something?? or contributed heavily to india but did not get anything back? What about Mughal looting and Colonial looting that made india drop from 40% of world GDP to less than 1 % ?
Just the haves patting their backs looking at have-nots. So u seem to agree that lower castes didnt work? or were they not allowed to work?, So all ppl going out of india are brilliant ppl, who have given up something?? or contributed heavily to india but did not get anything back? What about Mughal looting and Colonial looting that made india drop from 40% of world GDP to less than 1 % ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
G/A -2
aiiiooo too much heavy stuff.. neway...i dont agree that ppl who have moved out are brilliant... or something.. in they are hte worst :) but just complaining and not doing what one is supposed to do...IS NOT GOING TO LEAD ANYWHERE either... so being a grasshopper does not help for sure.. IF every GRASSHOPPER did their assigned job THEN we would not have still be A DEVELOPING country ! Even after how many years of INDEPENDENCE... we are nation of only complains...AND POINTING fingers at other.. and APPNA kaam maat karro.. :))
neway... heavy stuff.. lot of argument in favor or against.. will remain unresolved... till then next huge globalization wave :))
oh yes, to add we are a nation of only TALKING and NO ACTION and HYPOCRISY......is our pride :)) long live we as Indians :)) sorry Grasshoppers !!!!
just some action in IT sector cannot be used to equate or translate it to economic upliftment !!
G/A 3 - (my favorite response, which gave the title, for sure)
Funny Sad and True...
But so is the fact that there are Many Ants going BACK To India..
Some with a Sense of determination of making things better..
and some with a Wild sense of becoming an Antshoppers..
G/A 4 - Hilarious but true. Loved the US angle
G/A 5 -the forward u sent me I felt was unfair with current economic boom me: ok :), Ant worked hard so got.. yeah but not all ants are in US :)me: yep, yep but mostly ANTs make it to US, Grasshoppers never but yaaar abhi India is booming like hell
me: neway chod.. yah if one considers Grass hopper from IT !! yeah chodo
me: i talk from NON-IT sector :) so its different or I know about species of ANTs and GRASSHOPPERs which other's don't !
G/A 6 - good good!! he hee
G/A 6 - good good!! he hee
2 comments:
hmm... as some of your friends said, its a wrong analogy, and the US angle is yet another addition that does not fit in.
The analogy is the result of perceived socalled ill effects of reservation.
As your friends said, not all people who migrate to US/developed countries are from general merit category. People who migrate, do so for a better way of life in general, and not due to reservation issue. Moreover, reservations are mainly for govt jobs, and the govt jobs constitute very less percentage in the job market and the people who are negatively affected by reservations constitute probably less than 10 percent in the population. The maximum reservation is about 50 percent. So here the 10 percent of the population still has about 50 percent opportunities (that to for only a small portion of the job market).
In this regard, one has to remember that even in US, according to my knowledge, there are some reservations in some govt depts that each race, etc should be equally represented.
On the other hand, the debate is between social efficiency (merit) and social justice (reservation).
In addition, one has to think between current efficiency or future efficiency of the society.
The history of india is marred with varnasharm and caste system, which made it impossible for many communities to assimilate with the current educational system. That is certain castes were relatively ready to pick up and socalled excel in british education system and some were not. To correct this one needs reservation. Due to this, a person with merit might miss out on some opportunities. But it will be only for sometime. That is the reservation won't be there forever. May be for few more decades. When compared to centuries of suffering some communities went through, one can accept few decades of reservation.
Its about what one chooses. Its social justice, then reservation is good (one don't have to really bother about society being negatively affected by reservation, coz, many govt jobs doesn't require too much of merit, and despite having reservation, india is slowly coming up or 'developing').
If one chooses social efficiency, then reservation is bad. But current efficiency may not guarantee the future efficiency. Current efficiency might create a great divide between haves and have-nots, which is not good for the society.
Other thing, which one can think is that, reservation has helped woman a lot. A study reported that woman who are college educated have more say in their family matters and have lesser children compared to less educated or not-literates.
.....
hmmm..agree.. but my interpretation of the above fwd was more in context to US migration trend..
I was not aware of the application of this concept to Reservation issue...
BUT point taken :)
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