The Statesman, India
Thursday, 21 September 2006
Special Article
Affirmative action-I
Experiments In The Former Soviet Union, Japan &
America
By Dipak Basu
“If our political progress is to be real, the underdogs of our society
must be helped to become men” (Rabindranath Tagore, Letters from
Russia) The debate on affirmative action in India tends to drag and
isn’t always geared to the desired objective: creation of equality of
opportunity. As with secularism, the reservation system in India has
a different political aim ~ to make the system more unequal than what
it is. Secularism, far from making the state independent of religion,
is intended to provide special privileges to certain religious
groups. Similarly, the affirmative system is politically designed to
provide restricted, not equal, rights to some chosen people.
The policy was perhaps started in India by Lord Curzon in 1905 by
banning the employment of Hindu Bengalis in government services. The
official argument was that they were too advanced and others,
particularly Muslims, would be deprived of job opportunities. Later it
was extended to the military services by giving preferential treatment
to Muslims and Sikhs who were branded as martial races.
Divide population
Reservations in government jobs were introduced in 1918 in Mysore
in favour of a number of castes and communities that had little
representation in the administration. In 1909 and in 1919 the system
was introduced for the Muslims in British India. In 1935, political
reasons prompted the government to provide job reservation for the
backward castes.
The real idea was to divide the population of India into several
warring groups along religious, ethnic and caste lines by granting
special rights so that India of the future would be divided and weak. A
number of prominent politicians had acted as agents of the Raj to
implement that line of action. Among them was BR Ambedkar. Although
today he is regarded as a founding father of the nation, the writer
of the Constitution and the cult figure of the backward castes with
four universities named after him, he took no part in the freedom
movement. Instead, like EVR Periyarer of Tamil Nadu, CP Ramaswamy Aiyar
of Kerala, Jinnah and Mohammed Iqbal, he was a staunch loyalist of the
empire, hand-in-glove with the British to divide India along caste,
religion and tribal lines.
The followers of the same person today include the Communists who,
forgetting the essentials of the Marx-Lenin ideology, are supporting
job reservation along caste and religious lines.
Equality of opportunity is the basis of a true democracy and as such
affirmative action is required to equalise opportunities among people
who are endowed differently. Even in the USA, affirmative action
was promoted first by President Lyndon Johnson in 1974 to promote
American blacks, who were deprived of most opportunities. However,
it was not a success. The countries where it was most successful are
Japan, the former Soviet Union and other former socialist countries
of East Europe along with Cuba and Vietnam.
India should take a lesson from them to implement a proper policy on
affirmative action.
The success of the Soviet society regarding affirmative action was
observed by Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote: “Throughout the ages,
civilised communities have contained groups of nameless people.
They toil most, yet theirs is the largest measure of indignity. They
are deprived of everything that makes life worth living. I had often
thought about them, but came to the conclusion that there was no
help for them… In Russia at last. Whichever way I look I am filled
with wonder. From top to bottom they are rousing everyone up without
distinction”.
Immediately after the revolution, Lenin proclaimed the affirmative
action known as korenizatsiia to provide affirmative preferences
for non-Russians, backward ethnic groups and poor Russians. To gain
the support of the non-Russian, who were largely illiterate except in
Georgia and Armenia, a Sovietization in three phases was developed. In
the first phase, the respective cultures were promoted. This aroused
their national conscience. This eventually led to the second phase
which was rapprochement and finally to the third phase which was
merger. Non-Russians were awarded their own administrative territories
and accorded preference in educational and promotion policies. This
policy led to the creation of massive educational facilities in the
republics of the backward people, employment for the representatives
of the ethnic intelligentsia, foundation of republican academies of
science and research centres supporting ethnic unions of writers,
painters and film-makers. The policy was applied uniformly to create
elites, which, like their culture, would be national in form, but
with the same content in all units of the union.
However, there was no fixed quota in admissions to the educational
establishments or in jobs. Instead, education was made free at all
stages and compulsory up to certain ages depending on their ethnic
background. Every qualified student was entitled to scholarship to
cover his or her costs of maintenance.
Education was taken to the people where they lived.
Even mobile schools and libraries were established for the nomadic
populations of central Asia. A certain number of students from
the backward areas of the Soviet Union was taken to the very best
universities and institutes of higher learning. They got separate
training so that they could compete effectively with the more advanced
Russian students.
Due to this social engineering, within two decades the Soviet Union
had eradicated illiteracy and had the best educated population in
the world. It wasn’t a reservation system for the backward people,
but completely free education and massive extension of education. Both
the Soviet Union and Japan improved the lot of the totally uneducated
without any formal reservation or quota system but through compulsory
free education on a massive scale.
Japanese system
The guiding principle of the Japanese system of education is
uniformity, conformity and integration.
There is no room for special rights or reservations in that regimented
system, which is available equally for everyone.
In the USA, the term affirmative action was first used in the
Executive Order 11246, issued by President Johnson. The order called
on federal government contractors to “take affirmative action to
ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated
during employment, without regard to their race, creed, colour, or
national origin.” However, those who were already educated or advanced
financially among the blacks or Hispanics, equivalent to the creamy
layers in India, got the benefits. Thus, the affirmative action could
not change the basic nature of the most unequal society. There was
considerable opposition to the system in the days of Reagan. Today,
nearly 26 per cent of the population is functionally illiterate. Social
mobility is on the decline. There is widespread homelessness and
poverty among the blacks and Hispanics. In a word, affirmative action
hasn’t changed the characteristics of American society.
(To be concluded)
The author is Professor in International Economics, Nagasaki University

APPOINTMENT OF THE NEW US AMBASSADOR AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ISSUE (ANALYSIS)
Armen Manvelyan
Public Radio of Armenia
Sept 19 2006
During the past 10 days the struggle around the appointment of a new US
Ambassador to Armenia has been transferred from the Foreign Relations
Committee to the Senate itself. The main question specialists are
concerned with is whether the upper House of the US Congress will
vote or the nomination will be postponed. To remind, Senator Robert
Menendez has declared he is against Hagland’s candidacy, which means
that the discussion of the question may be delayed. Nevertheless,
notwithstanding all this Hoagland may be appointed next US
Ambassador to Armenia with the simple majority of the votes. It
should be mentioned that members of Bush’s party comprise majority
in the Senate, which means 51 votes will be enough for Hoagland’s
appointment. Therefore, it is possible that for the first time in
the history of the Senate the Ambassador will be appointed with the
simple majority of votes, while up to now all Ambassadors have been
confirmed, receiving 100 percent of the ballots. The situation with the
appointment of a new US Ambassador to Armenia is associated with the
activity of Armenian lobbyist organizations in the US – the Armenian
National Committee of America (ANCA) and the Armenian Assembly of
America (AAA), which demand from George Bush to fulfill his promise and
recognize the Armenian Genocide. To remind, the recall of the former
US Ambassador to Armenia John M. Evans by the Department of State was
connected with the fact that the latter properly characterized the
events at the turn of the century as genocide. The Armenian lobbyist
organizations consider that it is immoral to appoint an Ambassador
to Yerevan, who does not recognize the Genocide or avoids using the
term. However, this was the approach Richard Hoagland demonstrated
during the inquiry in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: he
used evasive terms when responding to questions about the events
in the Ottoman Empire. Thus, we can assert that Richard Hoagland
has become the victim of the struggle between George Bush’s policy
on the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian lobbyist organizations and
pro-Armenian Senators. Famous Democrat Senator John Kerry has declared:
“I will vote “no,” but I don’t mind Hoagland’s candidacy. I disagree
with the Administration’s policy.” We can say that the struggle over
Hoagland’s nomination shows that number one world power, which has
declared itself the main agent of freedom and justice in the world,
should understand at last that it cannot endlessly deny the demand
of the Armenian American community to characterize the massacre of
Armenians as genocide.

THE PROCES OF RECOGNITION OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BY CZECH REPUBLIC NOT GOING TO BE SIMPLE
Public Radio of Armenia
Sept 19 2006
The process of recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide
in the Czech Republic will not be simple, RA Ambassador to Czechia
Ashot Hovakimyan told “Armenpress.” The Ambassador clarified that
recently parliamentary elections were held in the country, while the
process of government formation is rather complex. In a few weeks
elections to the Senate are expected in the Czech Republic, and it
is not clear whether Senator known for their pro-Armenian position
will be elected to the Senate or not.
To remind, several members of the Czech Parliament, including Senator
Yaromir Shtetina, intend to present a bill on condemnation of the
Armenian Genocide to the consideration of the Parliament.

FOREIGN MINISTER: ARMENIA-DIASPORA RELATIONS BASED ON MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING AND TRUST
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 18 2006
YEREVAN, September 18. /ARKA – Novosti-Armenia/. Armenia-Diaspora
relations are based on mutual understanding and trust, Armenian
Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said Monday speaking at the third
Armenia-Diaspora forum opening in Yerevan.
He said the forum would give a new impetus to these relations.
In his words, the forum will outline future activities of all Armenians
worldwide, who has many common problems.
“We don’t overestimate our expectations from the forum and don’t think
it will solve all problems in Armenia and Diaspora. However it will
spur these relations and we’ll be able to reach our goals thanks to
consolidation”, Oskanyan said.

SHUSHI (NKR) MAY BECOME SCIENTIFIC AND EDUCATIONAL, HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CENTER OF ALL-ARMENIAN SIGNIFICANCE
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 19 2006
YEREVAN, September 19. /ARKA/. President of the Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic Arkady Ghukasyan told journalists in Yerevan on Monday
that Shushi city (NKR) might become a scientific and educational,
historical and cultural center of all-Armenian significance.
He said that the program on rehabilitation of Shushi was one of
the wide-ranging directions of rehabilitation and development of
Nagorno-Karabakh.
“It’s also a serious political step of NKR in strengthening of peace”,
he said.
In this connection Ghukasyan emphasized that one of the most
perspective directions of cooperation of Karabakh and Diaspora is the
intellectual sphere, and particularly search for ways of cooperation
with leading Armenian businessmen of world scientific centers.
“The international experience and the best scientific and educational
traditions of Armenia may become a basis for creation of a system of
training of high-qualified specialists in Karabakh”, Ghukasyan said.
On September 18-23, the third Armenia-Diaspora forum is being
held in Yerevan. Presidents of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Robert
Kocharyan and Arkady Ghukasyan, Catholicos of all-Armenians Garegin
II and Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I, as well as
representatives of the scientific and educational spheres, Diaspora
and national minorities.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SILVER COMMEMORATIVE COIN DEDICATED TO 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF ARMENIA’S INDEPENDENCE PUT IN CIRCULATION IN SEP 2006
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 18 2006
YEREVAN, September 18. /ARKA/. A silver commemorative coin,
dedicated to the 15th anniversary of Armenia’s independence, is put in
circulation on September 2006. The press service of the Central Bank
of Armenia reported that this coin is the seventh from the series of
commemorative coins titled “Armenian Statehood”.
The nominal value of the coin is AMD 5000. It is made from pure
silver. It’s weight amounts to five troy ounces, the diameter being
63 mm. The image of the Armenian president’s residence is stamped on
the coin. There are a total of 300 coins.
In 2001, the CBA issued another commemorative coin, dedicated to the
10th anniversary of Armenia’s independence.

ARMENIA’S GDP FOR RECENT FIVE YEARS AVERAGES 12.21%
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 18 2006
YEREVAN, September 18. /ARKA/. Armenia’s average GDP for recent five
years has made 12.21%, Armenian President Robert Kocharyan said Monday
at Armenia-Diaspora 3rd forum.
He said private sector contributed 85% to the growth, of which 40%
came from small- and mid-scale entrepreneurship.
The president said offshore investments totaled $500 million last year.
He finds this a great achievement for a country having neither oil
nor gas.
Kocharyan also pointed out that large-scale reforms had been
implemented in Armenia last four years.
He stressed that Armenia’s membership in WTO speeded up the country’s
integration in the world economy and made its relations with trade
partners predictable.
The head of state singled out energy sector as well as mining,
processing and jewelry industries, information technologies and
construction as the leading areas in the country’s economy.
He stressed the role Armenian communities worldwide with their direct
investments play in Armenia’s economy.
The 3rd Armenia-Diaspora forum is to last three days – from September
18 to 20 – in Yerevan.
Armenian Apostolic Church leader Catholicos Garegin II is set to
speak at the forum.

DEFENSE OF MULTIPLE ROOTS LANDS BEST-SELLING AUTHOR IN COURT
by Nicolas Cheviron
Agence France Presse — English
September 19, 2006 Tuesday 1:45 AM GMT
Multicultural and multilingual and determined to defend her right
to be so, prominent author Elif Shafak’s ruffling of establishment
feathers in Turkey has resulted in a lawsuit for “denigrating the
Turkish national identity” that begins here Thursday.
The novels of the 35-year-old Shafak, peopled with uprooted characters
who switch nationality, religion and even sex, has managed to offend
almost all sectors of Turkey’s complex establishment.
Militant secular defenders of the principles set by Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, the founder of the republic, conservative Islamists and far
right nationalists all disapprove.
She angered the Kemalists by reproaching the republic, founded by
Ataturk from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, of rejecting
the Ottomans’ multicultural past and replacing it with what she sees
as an impoverished, if monolithic, national identity.
They also frowned at her column in the Islamist — albeit moderate
— daily Zaman and her marriage to a former commentator of the same
newspaper, which has alleged links to a powerful religious brotherhood.
Conservative Muslims were indignant when her first novel, “Pinhan”
(The Sufi), published in 1998, told the story of a hermaphrodite
Muslim mystic.
For the far right, the last straw was a passage in her latest opus,
“Baba ve Pic” (The Bastard of Istanbul), calling for a national
reflection on the near-taboo subject of the Armenian massacres of
World War I, whose “genocide” label Turkey vehemently rejects.
An association of far-right lawyers that has distinguished itself
over the past few years by instigating lawsuits against liberal
intellectuals is behind the trial scheduled to begin before an Istanbul
court on Thursday.
“The Bastard of Istanbul” is sweeping saga of four generations of
women moving between Turkey and the United States and recounting the
tale of an Armenian family that fled the massacres of 1915, leaving
behind a child who was reared as a Turk and a Muslim.
Shafak knows what she is talking about: the product of the Kemalist
establishment she criticizes, the granddaughter of a military family
and the daughter of diplomats, she has led a nomadic existence.
Born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971, she spent her youth in Spain
and Jordan and shares her time between Turkey and the United States,
where she teaches at the University of Arizona.
“I do have roots, but my roots are not in one place, neither in the
ground nor in the air,” she explained in a 2005 interview in New
Perspectives Quarterly.
“Im connected to different cultures, and thats, I think, part of the
reason why I believe its possible to be multicultural, multilingual
and multifaith,” she said.
After the controversial “The Sufi” came “The Mirrors of the City”,
which told the tale of conversos — Jews converted to Catholicism to
flee the Spanish inquisition — who sought refuge in Istanbul.
“The Gaze” was the story of women’s quest for independence throughout
the centuries and “The Flea Palace” recounted the moral and physical
collapse of the residents of an Istanbul apartment building.
And “The Saint of Incipient Insanities”, written in English in 2004,
is the story of a score of foreigners’ fruitless quest for fulfillment
in the United States.
Whether Shafak will appear at her trial on Thursday is still unclear,
however.
She became a mother for the first time on Saturday and her baby
daughter’s name reflects Shafak’s preoccupations as a writer —
Shehrazad Zelda, after, respectively, the legendary teller of the
1001 tales of the Arabian Nights, and the talented and tragic spouse
of US author F. Scott Fitzgerald.

ANOTHER WRITER GOES ON TRIAL IN NEW BLOW TO TURKEY’S EU CREDENTIALS
Agence France Presse — English
September 19, 2006 Tuesday 1:44 AM GMT
A celebrated Turkish novelist goes on trial Thursday over her book
on the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, casting fresh
doubts on Turkey’s democratic credentials just weeks before the EU
releases a key report on its troubled membership bid.
Elif Shafak, 35, is the latest in a string of intellectuals to
answer charges of “denigrating the Turkish national identity” under
an infamous penal code provision that has led the European Union to
question Turkey’s commitment to freedom of speech.
The case, in which Shafak risks up to three years in jail, has ignited
further criticism because the charges stem from remarks by fictional
Armenian characters in her best-selling novel “The Bastard of Istanbul”
or “Baba ve Pic” (The Father and the Bastard) in Turkish.
Article 301 has landed many other intellectuals in court, including
Turkey’s best-known writer Orhan Pamuk.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn urged Ankara in July to amend
Article 301 “in order to guarantee freedom of expression”, after an
appeals court upheld a conviction against Turkish-Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink under the same provision, setting a precedent.
Dink’s six-month sentence was suspended, while the case against Pamuk
was dropped on a technicality. No one has so far gone to jail under
the article, but dozens of cases are pending.
“Article 301 is being used so heedlessly to crush people in
courtrooms,” Dink said in February after he was acquitted in an
earlier case tried under the 301 clause.
“What needs to be done is repeal the article,” he said.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul recently hinted the provision may be
amended as part of reforms that the government is planning to rush
through parliament before the European Commission gives its verdict on
Turkey’s progress towards membership in a crucial report on October 24.
Turkey’s accession talks are already in trouble over its rejection
to open its sea and air ports to Greek Cypriot use under a customs
union accord with the European Union.
The proceedings against Shafak were initiated after a complaint
filed by a nationalist lawyer notorious for relentlessly pursuing
before the courts intellectuals who dispute the official line on the
Armenian massacres.
Much to Turkey’s chagrin, the World War I killings have been recognized
as genocide by many countries and open debate of the issue often
drives nationalist sentiment into a frenzy.
It was unclear whether Shafak will be present in the courtroom Thursday
as she just gave birth to her first child, a girl, at the weekend.
“The Bastard of Istanbul”, originally written in English, was
released here in March 2006 and quickly became a bestseller. It will
be published in the United States and Britain next year.
The novel moves between Istanbul and San Fransisco as it tells
the intertwined stories of four generations of Turkish women and
an Armenian-American family, the descendants of survivors of the
massacres.
Armenians assert that up to 1.5 million of their people were
slaughtered in what was a genocide between 1915 and 1917.
Turkey argues that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks
died in civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence in
eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling
Ottoman Empire.
Shafak, who was born in France and spent her teenage years abroad as
the daughter of a Turkish diplomat, writes both in English and Turkish.
She is also an assistant professor at Arizona University’s Near
Eastern Studies department and divides her time between Turkey and
the United States.

OSCE MG FREEZES NK PEACE RROCESS: ANM MEMBER
ARMINFO News Agency
September 19, 2006 Tuesday
The OSCE MG has frozen the Karabakh peace process and the problem has
been transferred to other international organizations, particularly,
to the UN, says the representative of the formerly ruling Armenian
National Movement party David Shahnazaryan.
The OSCE MG will make no new proposals and the old ones parrot the
stage-by-stage scenario – which is against Armenia’s interests. The
situation is turning against the Armenian side.
The Karabakh problem is lost chess game of the present authorities.
Azerbaijan has pushed its resolution on occupied territories into the
UN agenda, Azeri refugees are going to appeal to the European Court
for getting compensation from Armenia. “And what is the Armenian
side doing? Nothing.” Instead of using its lobby in the US to push a
resolution on the destruction of cultural monument in Nakhichevan and
other documents into the UN agenda, Yerevan is keeping silence and uses
its lobby just to hold actions against the change of the US ambassador
to Armenia. “They are acting like rabbits!” says Shahnazaryan.
He says that under present condition the Nagorno Karabakh authorities
should say that Armenian President Robert Kocharyan does not represent
their official position and only then will the international community
agree to involve Nagorno Karabakh in the negotiating process. But
instead the NK authorities are passively watching the process.
As a result of the present regime’s policy Armenia has become a toy in
the hands of super powers, but, unlike Azerbaijan, it is uninteresting
and useless toy. The building of the Kars-Tbilisi rail will put Armenia
in full isolation. The present regime’s policy is delaying the Karabakh
peace process giving Azerbaijan time for gaining strength. If this
policy continues the international community will impose a solution
on Yerevan and Yerevan will have to accept it.
The situation is moving towards war and unless the Armenian authorities
want it they will have to accept the unacceptable stage-by-stage
scenario. If in 90s this scenario could give Armenia big dividends
now the country may get only the stoppage of the Kars-Tbilisi project.
Shahnazaryan sees just one way out of the situation – the change of
the present criminal regime led by Kocharyan.