The reservation bomb re-exploded sometime in april, if I remember correctly. Since then I have been a mute spectator of the happenings. Kept on reading and watching activities associated with it. The cry is a bit silent now, but yet not over. This is probably the silence before the storm. As lot of things are beeing planned for August 15th. I feel now it’s my time also to take some stand on this issue.
Reservation has been there for the past 50 years in our country. If even after so many years of its implementation, we find the need for more of it, then it has. by all logical senses, failed to prove to be a good solution to uplift the socially backward elements.
Yesterday, I read the minister of social empowerment and justice making a statament that, socially deprived kids don’t get proper opportunities for education. To the best of my knowledge , no where in India, one can be denied admission in school or college because of his/her caste. Rather, one has more chances of getting admission in reputed colleges like IIT’s if he or she’s from SC/ST or Other BAckward Clas, even if he doesn’t doesn’t deserve that on the basis of merit.
Secondly, a friend of mine, who supports reservation, feels that scheduled caste people suffer from discrimination as they face name calling. They being addressed as ‘chooda’ or ‘chamar’ etc. For those sharing such beliefs, well, atleast I haven’t witnessed one instance of such discrimination right in front of my eyes. I did read about one case in Delhi University long time back. In my hostel, in my own lobby, we have people belonging to sc/st. They are good friends of mine. Such feeling never came amonst us. We eat together and attend classes together. Infact several important posts in our gymkhana are being held by sc/st. And then again , in 50 years if this tool of quota could not eliminate the evil of the name calling and all that dirty stuff, then how do they expect it do miracles now, by increasing the quota?
Only after this reservation issue was raised up, and we used to discuss things in the hostel, we realized tht in any department of our college, the under performers are mainly from sc/st. They are the ones who are amongst the rich guys . In our country, already corruption has roots strong enough to give benefits to undeserving , but rich and powerful people , will not this propsed quota hike further aggravate the situation? Ofcourse even rich people also don’t deserve discrimination. But ours is materialistic society. It was observed in shlokas also, that a rich person will always be respected, no matter whether he is learned one or not. So chances of rich being at the recieving end seem to be less. Nevertheless favoritism of any form shudn’t be tolerated, but will it be fair to ask reservations for that? Is tht the only solution?
Recently I saw one documentary on 60 minutes show of CBS. There they showed the plight of untouchables, the people of lowere castes. I learnt that in the rural areas of UP and AP, untouchables remove their shoes and bow their heads while passing by some upper caste. The job of cleaning in our society is still entrusted in the hands of lower castes. They clean laterine with bare hands.
Manual scavengers
A dalit family
Upper caste people often rape the girls of lowere caste and dalits are economically exploited by the upper caste people. The peasants of lower castes working on the lands of upper caste people are given very less or no wage. All this is indeed inhuman. My support and sympathy is with them . But can someone explain how is quota system going to improve this ? Why do we rather not have good judicial and law and order system that can severly the punish the upper class perpetrators of crime, rather than supporting them when a dalit goes to police station for filing a complain? Probably the work of cleaning is in the hands of untouchables because they don’t have any other work to earn from, because of their poor literacy level. No where they can be denied job because they are from lowere strata of society. For this some other important measures should be taken up :
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/sasia/india.htm
Also, in our nation, we have discrimination , not just based on caste, but also on so many other factors. I have myself seen in Assam, assamese are often favored, atleast by less educated people. And what about sexual minority? They are suprressesd not just in India but everywhere . So soon, different segemnts of our society and country will in its own right ask for reservation. So we will have social reservation, regional reservation (formation of new states is a already a consequence of that), sexual reservation and many other which I can’t imagine now.
Gupta Goes Greek 
Mera Bharat MahanHindustan Times 8th July news carries the following:While there have been recent cases of students scoring 90 per cent and not getting into colleges of their choice, two All India Engineering Entrance Examination 2006 candidates who scored six on 100 have been selected for admission in the engineering course of Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra.Rajesh Kisku of West Bengal and Ashok Jambhule of Maharashtra (names changed) will study civil engineering and biotechnology respectively, thanks to the Central Counselling Board (CCB) of the AIEEE. Both belong to the Scheduled Tribe category. They aren’t the only ones to benefit from reservation. Others with scores of 7, 10, 11 and 13 will also pursue engineering in this premier institution.They’ve got it made for now but there are many who aren’t happy about it. “It is correct. These are facts,” says BIT V-C Prof S.K. Mukherjee, blaming it on the CBSE norms. All-India seats are distributed state-wise and the same pattern is adopted while distributing SC/ST category seats. If a reserved category candidate with less marks opts for BIT in the CCB, he gets admission.“Such situations are a matter of concern. There should be a minimum cut-off mark,” Prof Mukherjee says. On the pattern of the IITs, he says, marks/rank obtained by a candidate in a competitive exam must be linked with marks obtained in a conventional exam.What’s more, things could get worse. “Reserved category candidates with lesser marks may get admission during the second round of counselling, ” the V-C says. “Some 50 reserved category seats are still vacant. And chances are that students who scored 1 or 2 may be considered for admission,” says a BIT professor.That means candidates who scored 270 would come last in the list of general category candidates granted admission. “It’s not fair,” says Samrendra, one such candidate. Admission over, the academically weak students find it hard to cope, says a professor of civil engineering.
Thanks for your informative comment, that further substantiates my blog.
Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran expressed the hope that Tamilnadu would get one more IIT. MHRD can make it into RIIT considering the passion for reservation in tamilnadu. Next you can expect Health minister Dr Anbumani (AIIMS would like to call him Hatemani) announcing that Tamilnadu will get a AIIMS with the aim of 100% reservation.
dude i feel the same way. Even after fifty years of implementation of reservation its very ineffective and has been far from achieving its goal. To run their political horses these ugly polticians are still supporting the decades old policy. Instead of contributing to society it is hollowing the whole track of progress.However this week was full of badluck for India. It failed a GSLV mission which was suppose to enhance the indian space capabilities. Also the failure of Agni III was a great setback. Then again these horrible bomb attacks in Mumbai. Hopefully India will come on track soon.see ya at IIT soon.
Archiects of Future India:This is an analysis of the ranks of students admitted at NIT Calicut from Kerala: Source Hindu Education Plus 11/7/2006.Branch, Last rank in open categoryFirst Rank in SC Category,Last in SC Category.Architecture 1992 7597 15799Civil 14054 99803 113527Comp Science 5186 41238 83642Electrical 7246 37792 85362Electronics 2921 12058 37362Mech 8191 38875 82922ProdEngg 9907 89380 90498Chemical 12326 92769 102590 ———————————-