In IIT/Medico or not, general category or not, selfish or not. Whichever side of the
or one may lie on, it's tough to not feel strongly against the recently announced Reservation Policy in its present form. I have vague memories of the protests that happened after the Mandal Commisson Report in 1993. The protests were seldom violent but still weren't allowed by the erstwhile Govt. to be used as a means of expressing disagreement with the policy. And the occasional violence that did happen was because police drew the first blood. Indifference shown by policy makers fueled the protests with an extreme case of a student inflaming himself in front of media.
Little did I know back then that in just over a decades time an identical crisis will hit the nation once again. Ofcourse, the reason I call it a crisis is because it directly affects a large section of students to whom I can closely relate to. Crisis also because it highlights the dismal attitude of politicians to sacrifice the future of the hard-working youth for vote bank. What's more hilarious is that the parliament was unanimous in support of the proposition.
Story doesn't end here. While Arjun Singh (HRD minister), with his well-known jealousy for Manmohan Singh, is the apparent culprit, many believe that he's being used as
the scape-goat by the UPA Govt. PM side of the story is even more amusing. Immediately after the quota was announced, Manmohan Singh commented saying
"we're doing everything we can..." Ghaza's interpretation of this statement seems pretty reasonable, given the academic/intellectual and political background that PM boasts. As per Ghaza, it's a trade-off Manmohan Singh has to do to stay in office and hopefully be in position to take more critical decisions for the country & that the
we indicated that he is not in support of the move.
Yes, my last statement clearly implies that such a reservation policy, IMHO, will hardly contribute (in any way) to the development of the country. With an in-take percentage far lower than the leading colleges of the world, even with OBC quota these central universities will remain enriched with the same talent pool as earlier. What might change is the motivation level of these people as they won't know the value of what has been given to them. Here, I firmly believe, it's the so-called responsible crowd (the professors and the apparent victims of the policy) who need to rise up to the occasion and make sure this taken-for-granted attitude is short-lived and true hard work is required.
What makes the discussion questionable is the unavailability of credible stats pertaining to the issue. I am yet to see an effective use of authoritative data in any arguement made for or against the policy. Leaving aside the corrupt motives of UPA govt. (using socialistic principles as a sheild), the main arguement used by the protesters is on the unfairness that the policy dictates upon the
deserving students. Ironically, how
deserving a candidate is of receiving such quality education can only be gauged by the justice he does to the education and resources once he has completed it. Not entering the medical domain and strictly sticking to IIT, I see only a handful who can say with conviction that they deserved every bit of it. The others are just hypocrite bastards not realizing that they have been twice lucky in their life - once to have born in a family which provided them the opportunity and later when they passed JEE - which as we all know is a day's game.
Going further, why the sudden social awakening on part of the students? Wasting nation's money is never an issue for them, behaving irresponsibly has never stirred any such emotions inside them ever, getting fake income certificates and availing scholarships has never burdened their conscience... there are sooo many other things. Well, they are doing what they deem best. Meanwhile, I am arguing why I should not stand in the sun and stay hungry with an agenda (as I anyway starve myself half the time) and instead sit idle in the room doing nothing but laughing at the matter.
PS: Never am I saying that a protest should not happen. It's important for several reasons, specially in a country where democracy hardly exists as the to-be suffering class doesn't exercise its vote anyway. Why should any politician care about people who don't care about most issues but a couple that hit them directly in the eye?
