Why Reserve Seats?

I sometimes wonder whether some politicians have the minimum sense of ethics left in them or is it just the issue of the vote bank that has wiped out every shed of their dignity, if they had some?

If you realized that yet another blogger is going to take up the issue of reservation in the educational institutions, you are absolutely right. I know that there is already a lot of hue and cry regarding the matter; still I want to make my contribution in the discussion. I generally don’t analyze events or political decisions, but the issue is just too irritating not to make a comment on.

Why is the figure 49%? What is the logic? Arjun Singh has pointed out some Supreme Court ruling that makes the reservation legitimate. I don’t know about what the apex court had said, I don’t understand the legal intricacies but what I am sure of is that 49% of Indian people do not make up the backward classes. And if they don’t, what sort of reasoning led our minister to such a novel conclusion? Well, technically it’s not yet an official decision. But the hints were enough to decide which way our honorable minister is heading, or at least he is intending to.

Who really benefits from such a reservation? Definitely they are the SC/ST/OBC people but many of them are backward only in the paper. I have seen ‘underprivileged’ children of affluent doctors, engineers and officers walk away with a nice rank in JEE while some other friend of mine couldn’t clear the JEE altogether only because of holding a ‘privileged’ surname. But no complaints! This guy’s forefather once enjoyed the privileges; this is ‘payback time’!

That’s not always the case but it often is.

Is there really a need for reservation? Definitely, there is. But for people who are financially backward in this generation and not because someone’s great grandfather was a poor man. Why should I pay because of my great-great-grandpa refusing to touch yours when you wear the same brand of jeans I do?.

How long will we have reservations? An honest answer will be ‘always’. Reason – no politician will have the guts to propose a withdrawal, after all, the votes are all that matters. Prosperity or no prosperity, justice or no justice, I need to be in power and nothing else matters.

But such reservations are to make all people at par, well at least ideally. It’s to let the week people get a share of the pie so that next time he is strong enough to get some on his own. It’s not for making undernourished people sit and eat and eat no matter how overweight they get. There should be a limit to this ‘reservations’.

What can the limit be? There might be a time limit. Say another 10 years, 20 years or 50 years, but there has to be a limit. If someone can’t grab the opportunity and move up, one deserves being backward. And if the laws, instead of making fat people fatter, can look for real needy people, the plan might work. When we are giving all the privileges to the child of a doctor earning a lakh per month, we are missing out someone who actually needed that money.

If such a time frame is not possible, at least limit the level up to which someone enjoys ‘reservations’. If someone is ‘backward’ give him/her low-cost education, let him/her study all the way he/she is interested in but no reservation for competitive exams. You had a chance to study for free up to higher secondary level, now sit for the JEE on your own. You shouldn’t cry for minister uncle to push you up.

Gudi Padwa

Though spring has ushered in a technically new season in Mumbai, there is hardly anything new in the weather. It’s all hot and messy. I sometimes doubt whether there is any other season in Mumbai barring summer and the monsoons.

Nonetheless the festival of Gudi Padwa, the local New Year marked on the first day of Chaitra, was celebrated with adequate zeal and vigor this year. It’s not a very showy kind of celebration. A rather low profile occasion compared to the noisy and long-drawn Ganapati Utsav. In fact, the only thing I actually experienced on the day was a break from the office (an unexpected and welcome one). However, the newspapers with all the snapshots and reports suggested that the people had celebrated the day in elegance. They also state that the younger generation was far less enthusiastic regarding the issue compared to the older generation. Young minds are more attached to boisterous discos of English New Year rather than a solemn celebration in keeping with the tradition. Well, I don’t blame them, I think young people have always been like that for ages, even those who make up the older generation today. What was rather odd and caught my eye on the papers was a bike rally organized in Navi Mumabi on the day of Gudi Padwa. What marks the peculiarity is the participation of ladies in the rally. By ladies, I mean serious-looking sari-clad women. I don’t know if there was some kind of message in the rally, but it definitely managed to stand out from the ones we often encounter, with bikes or otherwise.

(I was trying to find a photo of the rally, but can't find one on the web right now.)