India has long ways to go when it comes to providing real solutions to real problems. The OBC reservation bill for instance...I think it is a mistake, a grave mistake. When this bill takes effect everywhere next year, 49% of the seats will be reserved. Students who don't get a reserved seat will have to try harder and be prepared to be disappointed and frustrated. Apparently, merit and hard-work don't matter as much anymore.
The reservation bill is of course aimed to uplift the "oppressed" lower caste citizens who have suffered 2000 yrs of discrimination and rejection that they need all the help they can get at this time. I think it is our failure that even after 58 years of independence we have to give free rides to uplift citizens. Do we want to build a generation based on free rides or a generation based on merit? Do we want to cripple hard working students by medieval-age policies?
From what I understand this bill does two things - gives creamy layer an absolute free ride and gives the government some ammunition to respond to critics questioning their contribution. So creamy layer. For folks who don't understand this. Creamy layer example - children of OBC parents who are doctors, judges, ministers etc etc. So their parents got into medical school because of reservation, graduated, found a job because of reservation(maybe) and make enough money to raise a family and provide for them. Their children grew up with every opportunity they needed. But since this bill considers them at par with the genuinely poor lower caste citizens, they get an absolute free ride. I think most of the seats will be filled by free riders. That is a very sad deal.
About the second thing the bill does. Millions of Indians live in poverty. Our great economic growth in the last few years didn't make a difference to millions of people who still live in total poverty. This bill will not help them. People who don't have food to eat, water to drink don't care about a medical seat "reserved" for them. Our economic growth is mostly limited to cities and towns. Do the villages have enough water for everyone? Electricity? Health care? People in villages need jobs. Let the people help themselves. Build infrastructure in rural India. That can use the work force in the villages. Bring agricultural reforms that actually helps the farmers and not the middle man and government. For instance I know that by growing paddy(rice) in my village you cannot make enough money. But the price of rice in your super market is not dropping. It is rising. They blame it on gas prices, taxes, warehousing problem etc etc. Solve those problems.
So if you find a minister who can eaten up half the treasury and ask him what he and his party contributed, he would proudly say they cleared a reservation bill which uplifts and poor and gives opportunities to the poor. Opportunities...what a joke!
I have seen poor people in my village stay poor over the years. If the reservations are supposed to uplift the poor, why are they still poor? Why didn't they go to schools and colleges? I don't know about everyone's case but I know some of them had to go to work instead of school. They went to work because their parents couldn't find work jobs that provide for the whole family. They still do the same kind of work as their parents did and can't provide enough for their family. The system clearly failed.
Reservations might help but not the way it has been drafted. This is mostly for the creamy layer and that just sucks! We need reforms that empower people not give them free rides. We need to be a nation built on strength not weakness. Hard working students are not asking for a helping hand but they don't want their legs cut off either!
I feel sad as I think about the hard working students who are preparing to be disappointed and frustrated. I feel helpless when I should actually try to do something. But what? Am I doing anything? Can I do anything? A question we should all ask ourselves. This bill will be India's biggest mistake in many years to come and right now we are just looking at it wide-eyed and helpless...Our silence is worse than the government's policies.
As Martin Luther King said, In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Today I hate my silence! You should too!
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Yes, it’s really sad to know about this reservation bill. Let me tell you the way I think this whole idea of reservation started. I might be stepping on the nerves of some Gandhi vaadi’s here, but this is a blog so what the hell! This whole corrupt policy of reservation I believe was started by Mr. Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi (yeah…I know his full name too) long before people were literate enough to write our constitution. I remember seeing this play called “Mahatma Vs Gandhi” (Naseeruddin Shah played the role of Gandhi and it was a spectacular play. Kamal Haasan was inspired by this play for his movie 'Hey Ram'). Anyway, the play showed how Gandhi gave his wife and his kid’s second place in his life after deciding to fight for the freedom of our country. There was a scene where Gandhi is presented with an opportunity to send one person to London to study higher education in law (curious if there was a student visa system then, and if so how it worked). Gandhi’s eldest son Harilal had all the educational qualifications to go ahead and get a lawyers degree, but instead Gandhi decides to send a harijan (a person belonging to a backward caste, now also known as a Dalit). Of course the play did not highlight if the harijan candidate had the right educational qualifications and credentials.
The result – Gandhi was then on followed by few more backward community people who praised his decision of choosing the country over his son, and blah..blah..blah! Of course the other side of it was that Harilal lost faith in his father, and when Gandhi’s wife Kasturba asked Gandhi why for once he couldn’t put his family before his country. Gandhi said that if she has a problem with his decision and his feelings for his country she should start thinking about their relationship (huh…what? Wish Dr.Phill was there to counsel Gandhi and Kasturba). After this and many such small/big incidents, Harilal got into driking/smoking and all sorts of bad habits just to get the attention of his father who had now changed from a Gandhi to a Mahatma. My point (I know you were waiting for this…sorry it was a long story), if Gandhi would’ve had a proper conversation with both his son and the other candidate and decided on merit or credentials as to who is eligible (or could’ve even asked his other literate friends to help in decision making) it would’ve made things much easier now. I think that was the beginning of reservation at its lowest level by the father of our nation. After India received its independence and Gandhi passed away, the congress party was given the task of keeping up with Gandhian policies. One of their thoughts ( and I’m taking a very dumb guess at our politicians here) must’ve been, if we want to get more backward community people (read votes) with us, let’s give them more reservation quota. It doesn’t really matter if the backward class people then use the reservation or not or even worse the seats remain vacant and other students who actually had a chance don't get the opportunity. Let’s just not sway away from Gandhiji’s policies. God forbid if tomorrow some backward class kid commits suicide because of not getting admission in some college based on his merit, how will these politicians show their face to Gandhiji and to the dalit community. Inki maa ki to !@#!@#! Sorry I almost always lose my patience with most moronic Indian politicians who cannot intelligently back their decisions when they are asked why the decision was made in the first place (point in context Arjun Singh in the Karan Thapar interview - http://www.sandeepweb.com/2006/05/23/karan-thapar-rips-arjun-singh-apart/).
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