It is true that any hike in oil prices will have a cascading effect through enhanced transport costs. But planned price increases are better managed and more equitable than inflation The Supreme Court view that the creamy layer concept can only be abandoned when and if more than 50 per cent of the community in question attains graduate status is fallacious. Few countries in the world, not excluding the most advanced, can boast such levels Incorrigible may have been an appropriate epithet for the Left until some time back. No more. Ideologically destructive maybe a more accurate appellation today as we witness its ever more frequent spoiling capers. But the Left is not alone in this game. The BJP is in it to as well as are some other regional satraps. More surprisingly some in the Congress are getting more adept in scoring self goals. All this is being done in the name of high principle. But scratch a little deeper and partisan political advantage and electoral posturing would seem to be the driving force. The Left has done its shrillest best to block the civil nuclear deal, one consequence of which is that with domestic supplies of uranium fuel down, the country's power reactors are on average running at 30-50 per capacity . At the end of the day it is production that suffers, with aggravation of inflation being a hidden cost. The burden is ultimately borne by the poor man in whose name everything is agitated. The runaway increase in oil prices, now ruling at around $135 per barrel or almost 450 per cent more than a few years ago, is costing us, and all others, dear. Add to that the sharp rise in global food prices, partly on account of diversion of land, some of it crop lands, to grow bio-fuels. The combination has been devastating for most. Therefore to keep attributing inflation to mismanagement of the economy is a gross simplification and has impeded application of corrective measures. Indeed, inflation has become a handy election issue that some would appear to wish to keep alive. The best example of this surrounds oil prices, the exponential import cost of which threatens fiscal disarray . The oil companies are losing heavily on subsidising oil consumption and the country's foreign exchange earnings are increasingly being mortgaged to oil imports. This is wholly unviable. The simple remedy would be to raise oil prices suitably in keeping with needs and the user's capacity to pay . The Left says it will launch a countrywide agitation if this is done. Its remedy is to cut import duties and excises as the oil marketing companies purchase crude on lower longterm contract prices and have access to cheaper domestic crude and are thus making unrequited profits. This certainly could be addressed through the package of measures the Finance Minister might consider. But giving away indirect tax revenues beyond a point would entail coping with a larger fiscal deficit or a cutback in plan allocations and expenditures with all their implications for growth, employment generation and, consequently, prices. It is a fallacy to think that robbing Peter to pay Paul offers a lasting solution. It is true that any hike in oil prices will have a cascading effect through enhanced transport costs and will impinge on family and farm budgets as a result of higher kerosene, diesel and cooking gas prices. But planned price increases are better managed and more equitable than inflation. Then again, is it not time to think of demand management through price rationing and regulations? Higher petrol prices could curb nonmerit driving and would be far more effective given improved public transport coupled with car tolls for given zones and during given times of the day, and efforts to restore pedestrian and cycle-friendly measures on streets and sidewalks. The shrill, uninformed opposition to the introduction of a bus rapid transit corridor along what is as yet a single experimental route in South Delhi is indicative of the kind of mindless vested interests being created and cultivated in wasteful living. There is an obvious need for more road space and parking areas with increasing vehicular traffic as incomes rise and there is an upwardly mobile graduation from two wheelers to cars, with Nano-type cars facilitating the transition. But what is the cost of road and parking space and how is this distributed? And where is the equity in road taxation as between buses (social transport) and private vehicles? The current Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan and adjacent states is another example of mindless populism, largely targeted at electoral gain. The genesis lies in a feeling among the Gujjar community in Rajasthan that it has lagged behind in job opportunities, as against the Meenas, as they are classified as OBCs and not, like the latter, as Scheduled Tribes who enjoy 7.5 per cent reservation. Now it is probably true that the Rajasthan Gujjars have fewer positions in the civil service and professions than the Meenas, though many of them are in the military and have otherwise also done well. But the demand to move down the social ladder and be designated STs is bizarre at a time when the national endeavour is to move the weaker sections upwards socially and economically . And what benefit can ST status give Gujjars? Additional access to opportunity through ST reservations is a chimera. For a scholarly analysis indicates that the 27 per cent OBC quota, for which the Gujjars are entitled to compete, is currently heavily undersubscribed. In other words, there are larger reservation opportunities available to Gujjars in Rajasthan that are not being availed of than the smaller ST reservation quota sought by them. If this be so, what is the agitation about? Legitimate grievances regarding educational and social backwardness of any and every community must be addressed. But this should be done through targeted education and other means and not by holding people to ransom by blocking the highways and railways, pelting stones and damaging public property . Compelling police intervention to clear public spaces and permit public services to function and then making an issue of firing and the unfortunate fatalities that might ensue is unacceptable. The Gujjar agitation should also give pause to the UPA government which has permitted HRD Minister Arjun Singh to run away with the bit in his teeth by pressing a populist agenda for extending OBC reservations post haste to centres of higher learning and professional institutions without a care for proper preparations or standards. Any community that is backward merits special attention. But merit has been clouded by the insistence on including the creamy layer, consisting of elements that are relatively better off and have quite often been the beneficiaries of earlier rounds of reservation but are now not prepared to make room for others, thus preventing the more and most backward from garnering their desserts. The Supreme Court view that the creamy layer concept can only be abandoned when and if more than 50 per cent of the community in question attains graduate status is fallacious. Few countries in the world, not excluding the most advanced, can boast such high graduate levels. The BJP might snigger at all of this but has steadfastly pursued its own negative agenda. It continues to oppose the civil nuclear deal and peace talks with Pakistan (both of which it initiated). It is also dismissive of a federal crimes agency that will enable the country better to investigate and counter terror, which it accuses the Congress of being unwilling or unable to combat. When will they ever learn?