Thursday, January 05, 2006
Everybody seems to write about reservation, why not me?!!!
Firstly, I am not able to come to a conclusion whether reservation (atleast about the version that exists in paper) is good or bad. I read most of the links from Sen's post and I think reservation falls into one of those grey areas. "A mind is a wonderful thing to waste", not sure who said it, but it is quite true. Does not make a difference if it is an upper caste mind or lower caste mind. But when stomach growls, mind and logic take back seat. Reservation will definitely help the downtrodden. I have no problem in understanding this point. Few questions for which I dont know the answer but would love to know are
1. Is the reservation and the way it is being implemented in India, helpful to the people?
2. Apart from the regular statistics of caste percentage in India as a whole, what is the caste percentage when it comes to number of students applying for MBBS, BE/BTech (including IIT), LAW, Arts and sciences. I have a premonition that such a statistic if available is going to vastly be different from the general all India statistic (note: I m not interested in the number of students appearing or passing 12th std).
3. Only reasonable outcome of reservation could be economic empowerment. Social equality comes by change in people attitudes which will take a generation. So, if money is the deal (which is really nice for people who dont have it - and lower castes seem not to have these green thingies in general!), then for how many generations should an SC/ST family be granted reservation?
4. Reservation in private sector jobs is a stupid idea. On the other hand, redistribution of land has been proved (take the case of West Bengal) to drastically reduce poverty and bring "up" lower castes. So why does the supporters of reservation and the political parties never talk about this?
My final conclusion is that reservation by economic status makes more sense than reservation by caste when it comes to education. I am also under the impression that, this would any way result in the automatic removal of most of the higher castes and few of the really well to do lower castes from the reservation. But, I am pretty sure such a tag of economic status cannot be maintainted in our country as it is now. The best thing that could happen is a total reorganization of lower caste lists and conduct a proper investigation as to why so many "lower caste" lists have grown suddenly. To those who support reservation, never ever say merit can be sacrificed. That is nonsense. Just remember you are not fighting for the downtrodden but for those "higher castes" who have entered into reservation as lower castes. And as for those who oppose reservation (assuming you are from upper caste), the world is not a fair place. Learn to deal with it, tough luck. But never ever be so arrogant to assume you are clever and so is everyone in your caste. That again is bullshit.
On a final note, we can have endless discussions on these topics, eat pizza, have a beer and go to sleep under A/C. Something's wrong with the previous sentence. That's right. "Be the change you want" - Gandhi. So educate a poor kid, grow a tree and do some good that touches profoundly atleast 4 or 5 people in your life time. May be we dont need reservation, if we can all reserve some little part of our heart. :-)
Comments:
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Hmm..interesting questions. Classic category is the yadav's who are OBCs and the meenas who are also OBCs. traditionally they have never been oppressed. but because of votebank politics they have been included in OBC and some of them even in ST category.
Reservations in India is a political tool to gain brownie points. Not a single politician cares about upliftment. In Bihar SCs are exploited by Yadav's and not by upper castes.
Also after u empower them with reservations in education, there should be no more reservations in job.. government or private. Because, once in a lifetime empowerment should be good enough.
I support affirmative action, definitely not caste and religion based reservations.
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Reservations in India is a political tool to gain brownie points. Not a single politician cares about upliftment. In Bihar SCs are exploited by Yadav's and not by upper castes.
Also after u empower them with reservations in education, there should be no more reservations in job.. government or private. Because, once in a lifetime empowerment should be good enough.
I support affirmative action, definitely not caste and religion based reservations.
# posted by 
: 2:18 PM
: 2:18 PM
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