Reservations...

It’s funny that when people talked about reservations before.... they meant the trains.... but now it seems we have truly entered the 21st century as the debate on reservations has been hijacked by statistics. I question the word debate here coz debate means something that is inherently inclusive of differing viewpoints. The only debate I have seen on this issue has been in the elitist corporate media and the endless internet forums which serve as pastimes and ego-boosters for the sons of the other soil. I don’t mean to criticize people of my ilk but let us have some perspective in our rants. Here is my two cents...

1. About 200 million people form the Indian middle class and this middle class has been the primary beneficiary of reforms in the past decade. But obviously you cannot expect the trickle down effects of these reforms to reach the 900 million other people in a vast, stratified and diverse country like India. These people form the basis of the nation, they are the backbone of this country and even if some of them (just a few...) benefit from a higher quota at the expense of the some individuals from the middle class, it is an example of egalitarian justice and quite appropriate in a democratic (rule of majority) republic (rule of people).
2. Now of course there is the merit argument made by these very people who choose to send their sons and daughters to the very best institutions that money can buy. Of course this argument is fallacious at the very least.... methinks we have some thing like a selection bias in our education... If the IITs and IIMs select only the best how do we know what their contribution in training these supposedly best of the best engineers and managers; since these students would have excelled anyways in any institution. It is only when we have a large diversity in our pool that we will know how good these institutes are in reality. Even the so called do-no wrong universities like Harvard, Yale and Princeton have affirmative action and we do not seem to think low of their minority students nor has the aura of these universities diminished in the minds of our educated elites.
3. Methinks this has been the result of the self serving attitude of these middle classes, the result of ignoring the poverty on the roads, of creating magnificent sea-facing abodes in the desert of the slums not unlike the proletarians of Rome. How many educational institutes have been started by our elites? How many institutes have been started in the poorer sections? A little altruism is called for so that the elected government doesn’t have to step in to restore balance.

To those protesting, I would just repeat what Gandhi once said, "Be the change you want to see in the world". If you feel strongly about this issue write to your MLA and/or MP, collect signatures of a majority of your citizens, or better still create your own college that works on your ideals... If the government doesn’t accredit you, make your own (ISB doesn’t have govt. accreditation for some programs and they don’t care....). Just bring a little more perspective and think about 1 Billion for a change....