Reservation in IITs & IIMs & other Professional Courses for OBC

The heat is on. Once more the so-called politicians,bureaucrats or the self proclaimed self reformers have taken the plunge to uplift the backward classes in India, the reality is that anyone who is even deaf,blind & mute can feel that they are here again to rot the system furthermore


Latest Update
The Ministry of HRD says that they plan to implement 27% quota for OBC in premium colleges like IITs n IIMs. This will take the total reservations to 49.5 % from the current 22.5% for SC/ST.

More Background
The announcement comes just before the Assembly Elections of 5 states. Clearly the move is a populism move .The Election Commision has asked Arjun Singh for violating the. model code of conduct. The Knowledge Commision which gives recommendations for excellence in education
has criticised the proposed amendment. Ratan Tata has gone ahead to say that it is "bad".
The reality still is that : No political party has the political will to oppose such a move.
Also not many famous stars of todays shining India would like to bring out anydispleasure to the
government by openly ,vehemently criticising such an abhorrent move.
The IITs n IIMs may have to tow the government line ,after being able to say that this will only
dip standards in these institutes.
Also the amendment is based on the Mandal Commision report which was brought out in 1980s
and first implemented in 1990s by V.P Singh only to gain political mileage & now it is again used
after 20 years when the country has dramatically progressed to new frontiers though the
classes for which the recommendations were applied in 1990s still continue to be a laggard pulling back the rising Tiger

Arguments in Support & Opposition

[+] The OBC are the ppl who have lagged behind & havent enjoyed the current socio-economic upliftment of the nation. Education is one mean to empower these so called backward classes
Also they form around 75% of the population(SC/ST +OBC), so it is legitimate to have reservations for them as they have remained underpriviledged as the other 25% has rose to power in every sphere of life
[-]The reservations have been there for some decades now. But there have been not any significant increase in the status of so called underpriviledged classes.Only the well-offs in these classes have taken the advantage to get the handsome jobs by reservation.
What use is providing reservation to a child whose father is an IAS or a police commissioner
on the basis of the class.
[-] Reservation are meant to provide some assistance to those capable people who due to
their penurial background cannot compete with the affluent in this hyper-competetive world.
But somehow the disadvantaged cannot take the advantage of the reservations as there are great costs involved in the preparation & reaching till the post graduation .

[-]If an assesment be made then a good chunk of "quota" ppl drop out from the IITs and IIMs
unable to face the stress and pressure of the day-to-day life over there.Also if they manage to
cling back their performance is no where near the people who have gone through the pains of getting admission by clearing the competition exams in the "general" category

[-] A lot of ppl who are in villages dont even know to write English alphabets properly. Neither
they do know about the education options avaiable . For them, it is important that the primary
education be given to them either by reservation or compulsorily. Somehow ,reservations are only made in IITs n IIMs and other prestigious centres of Education because these names
can easily fetch votes during election time
[-]Reservation is not the solution if someone is capable but not good enough. The best way is to
give proper training to these capable people , help them at each step, subsidise resources from them and then give them the assistance while considering their admission to halls of excellence.
This will strongly boost the confidence in these classes & empower them
[+] The so called 'elite' class is protesting beacuse the reservations have come for IITs n IIMs
But no one would have protested if the reservation would have come forthe government jobs



Repercussions
Will anyone would like to go a doctor who has earned his degree not by merit but by reservation?? What kind of faith can one have in such a person abilities
Will a person who has been supported throughout his life by reservation alone face the challenges of the real world??
Arent we breeding hatred & angst amongst the so-called "general" class against the so called
"quota" classes?? The students from the general category tend to vent out their frustration by talking foul about these classes and the opposite might start happening soon.
Will a person now try to work hard to get their education or will start focussing on
"how to get a class certificate"??
Isnt this leading to create stereotypes about the behaviour of SC/ST people??
The leaders of these underpriviledged classes may try to cut a bargain b/w current 22.5% & proposed 49.5% which would again be a step in the wrong direction
Or, The government migt try to increase the seats in the prestigious colleges such that the
increased seats can accomodate the reservations thus claiming that no loss has happened to
the general classes. This however will hugely affect the quality of education as we will be putting undue pressure on the already crippled infrastructure(read faculty,books,resources) besides diluting the brand value of the institutes
In Mandal Commision part-1 , students self-immolated themselves...hunger strikes & college boycotts have already begin in Delhi.One needs to understand that these are not the right approaches to tackle the problem but one can clearly see that the situation can outbreak to a potential epidemic.






Need of the Day [ Immediate Action Plan]
Our future is at risk. So is the future of our country if we fall to these gimmicks of the politicians.
We need to create a realisation that 22.5% reservation is more than enough. It is already doing no good to the underpriviledged. But only dividing ppl by one more classification. More fragmentation of the already broken Indian society

The need of the day is that the SC/ST people understand what is required for their children growth. They have to be aware about the political motives behind these announcement.
At the same time the elite classes have to realise that the country & they themselves cannot
progress without uplifting the people at the bottom of the pyramid



Solution To The Problem

India has been facing this problem since its originThe solution to the problem is not a matter of a day or in the hands of couple of ppl. It would require collective effort to create awareness by
way of healthy discussions , to improve quality of thinking of thr ppl