The Issue of Reservation- Do we need it?

I’ve been thinking of writing on this subject for a long time…The students reservation issue. Its perhaps the most important national issue today. Its bigger than the volatility of the sensex, the assembly election results or LN Mittal’s Arcelor bid.

Is this democracy? Is this equality? I have nothing against SC/ST s or any other castes. But I feel unfairly treated, I feel cheated! Damn, I work my ass off for a whole year and struggle to get a 95 odd percentile in CAT and get into some top 15 B School . And then there’s a guy from a “backward class”, whose father is an IAS officer (and he got into the IAS cadre thru the reservation quota) and is hence quite rich , enjoys through his engineering days roaming around with his GF in his bike, having parties in weekends when I was giving SIMCATs and MOCK CATs. Finally he gives CAT coz his dad wanted him to, and being moderately bright, he manages to get a modest 75 percentile. But lo and behold, he gets calls from all 6 IIMs.
Wait a minute, 75 percentile ???? Gimme a break…I could’ve scored 75 percentile even if you had woken me up in the middle of the night when I was dead asleep and asked me give the test. I work my ass off, made all those sacrifices and still did not manage to get a single IIM call despite getting 95 percentile, and you tell me that this undeserving asshole is now thru to IIM A! What the heck! C’mon, there must be something wrong in the system somewhere! Yeah, damn right, there is something wrong. Quotas are OK, if they go to deserving candidates. They must satisfy the objective behind the quotas. If this isn’t happening then there’s no place for quotas. Isn’t this simple. Aren’t our politicians smart enough to understand this? Well, they are smarter than this. The only reason we still have caste based quotas is because it is a tool for certain political parties with which to play vote bank politics.

The following is the reaction of Narayana Murthy:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-802267813236081900


There are strong student protests going on across the nation against reservation. I hope somehow they succeed. I wonder whether the student community must ve been more proactive. Perhaps we should’ve started a student movement for reduction and elimination of quotas even before this episode started. Having this amount of quota for so many years itself is bad enough.

I don’t have the guts to go out onto the streets and join the protests that the medicos and many other brave students are currently participating in, across the country. But I will do what’s possible in my own way. And I am really proud –like I am,of our freedom fighters- of all the brave students and doctors who are putting their careers and much more on the line for such an important national issue.

I am shocked that there is little voice being raised by the corporate world against these govt moves. We all know that in this country if such reservation happens, its near impossible to reverse such a move. And I am sure that if this happens, it will have a mush bigger and long lasting effect on the economy than any budget or market crash. God help this country!

BTW, if there is anyone reading this article who feels that caste based (rather than economic status based) reservation is necessary, please let me know along with your line of reasoning.I would like to know

I urge all youth in this country to stand up and do something (apart from forwarding chain mails) , some little effort that will help this cause.

The following are some inspirational lines from a poem many of us have read in our schools:

“Ab Bhi Jiska Khoon Na Khaula, Voh Khoon Nahin Voh Paani Hai,
Jo Des Ke Kaam Na Aaye, Voh Bekaar Jawaani Hai“