Viru Mal

Sh. Viru Mal Viru Mal Sh. Viru Mal was born on 16 April, 1931 in the village Dhabliwala (Now in Pakistan). He was born to Sh. Maghar Ram and Smt. Hukami Devi. Born in a very poor family he had to struggle for education. He did his matriculation in the year 1951 from a missionary school. He joined a petty government job in the year 1951 and did his graduation in 1952. Then there was no looking back. He got a job in Punjab Civil Secretariat retired as Deputy Secretary in the year 1989. In between, during emergency (Chinese aggression) he served Indian Air Force from 1962 to 1967. He received three medals for war service.   He had to fight a legal battle for his due in the services and that showed him the way to mission of his life. At present, at the age of 80, he is working as President of North Zone SC ST Welfare Federation and doing the work vigorously. If I ask him what his life’s mission is, he would say, “Eating and sleeping”. But it is not. He still works for the government employees and helps them getting their due. It is something interesting that he is more popular with Ravidasia community. I am reproducing one of articles published in Megh Chetna magazine.     Socio-economic Development of Weaker Sections The Constitution of India aims at ‘equality of status and of opportunity’ and “Justice- social economic and political” for, all citizen including the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the other Socially and Educationally Backward classes (SCs, STs & OSEBCs). The preamble contains the goals to be achieved. The Directives lay down and the Fundamental Rights in Part III prescribe the means through which the goals are to be reached. These represent core of the Indian constitutional philosophy envisaging the methodology for removal of historic injustices and inequalities, social and economic disparities and ultimately for achieving the objectives in terms of the basic structure so spelt out by the 'Preamble', so that the down-trodden section of society in poverty, possessing no wealth or influence, having no education, much less higher education and suffering from oppression and suppression, should not be denied equal opportunity in the matter of public employment. The Constitution has not failed us but we have failed the Constitution. Any exercise to tinker with the constitutional provisions so deliberately framed by the Wiseman, amount to an act of anti social resolution. we should ensure that the basic philosophy behind the Constitution and fundamental socio-economic soul of the Constitution remain sacrosanct, however, amendments stepping towards the essence of Gandhian dream in form of social justice and social democracy, also to meet the dire necessity and needs of the weaker sections or to remove loopholes and lacunae for the purpose of securing goals of Justice- social, economic and political should be considered reviews in view of above said observations. Late Dr Radha Krishanan (President of India said in the Constituent Assembly : “India must have a socio-economic resolution designed not only to bring about the real satisfaction of the fundamental needs of the common man but to go much deeper and bring about a fundamental change in the structure of Indian society.” The Directive principles in Part II of the Constitution are designed to bring about the social and economic relation that remained to be fulfilled even after 63 years of Independence. Without faithfully implementing the Directive principles, it is not possible to achieve the goal named ‘Welfare State’ contemplated by the Constitution. A society like ours steeped in poverty and ignorance cannot realize the benefit of human rights without satisfying the minimum economic needs of every citizen of country. Any Government which fails to fulfill the pledge taken under the Constitution cannot be said to have been faithful to the Constitution. The Fundamental Rights, as blamed, are not the cause of our failure to implement the Directive Principles. It is not the Constitution that has failed us but we have failed to rise up to its expectations. The attack against Fundamental rights is merely an alibi and an attempt to find a scapegoat on the part of those who were unable or unwilling to implement the Directives. The union and the states take the plea that interpretations placed by the courts on some of the Articles in Part III of the Constitution have placed impediments in the way of the States in implementing the Directives. These are required to be removed. Employment is important and by far the dominant remunerative occupation, and when it is with the Government, Semi-Government, Government Controlled private organizations it is coupled with power and prestige of varying degrees and nature, depending upon the establishment. The employment under the State may help achieve the triple goal of social, economic and political justice and is an attempt to achieve the socio-economic goal also as ordained in the Preamble. The mandate of the Preamble the Directive principles and the provisions and Part III (Fundament Rights) of the Constitution relating to reservation, special provisions, advancement and promotion of interest so of the SCs, STs & OSEBCs with special care in the services under the State is shoring of State power and the empowerment of the deprived section of society and to give them a share in the administrative apparatus. Equality not only  of opportunity is to be given to all but special opportunity for educational, economic and cultural growth must be given to these backward groups so as  to enabled them to catch-up those   who are ahead of  them. The figures  show  that their  employment  position  in  the  services  throughout  the country  is drastically  low   from  the minimum  required  at least   equivalent  to  their  proportion  of  population which establish that the Governments have not implemented the policy of representation  in all services faithfully. This is the reason that there is huge backlog in their representation in all services. A rapid societal transformation and others progressive changes such as globalization, privatization, Information Technology (IT) Internet etc., have taken place, yet a major section of people (SCs and STs, OBCs) living below poverty line (BPL)  and suffering from social  ostracism still stand far behind and lack in every respect to keep pace with the advanced section of the people. In spite of a number of land mark judgments of and of Full Court of the Supreme Court in relation to social justice, the naked truth is that no ray of hope of attaining the equality and of opportunity and socio-economic parity in any other sphere is visible. Therefore socio-economic policies and program should aggressively be implemented, and impediments recently created by some judgments are required to be removed by suitable amendments of certain Articles of the Constitution.  Now Loophole- free orders/instructions/notifications are required to be re-issued for better and speedy implementation of reservation policy which is one aspect of socio-economic changes and development. Meghs and Kabirpanthis have been declared of Scheduled Castes in the States of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Union Territory Chandigarh, J&K and Rajasthan under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 7950, issued by the President of India in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (i) of article 341 of the Constitution of India. They are the weaker sections of ‘the people of India’ so far as securing justice- ‘social, economic and political' to them is concerned. Our society should, therefore, arise, awake and stops not till the constitutional goals of ‘Equality and Justice’ are reached and brought at par with the advanced sections of the society. Viru Mal Dy. Secretary (Retd.) Punjab Government (Courtesy: ‘Megh Chetna’) Linked to MEGHnet