Campaign Against Increase in Reservations

I strongly oppose the proposed increase in reservations. This will serve a death blow to anybody's hope of getting into an institution solely based on merit. It completely undermines the very notion of equality. The country is doomed if merit and hard work are going to be ignored in favour of reservations based on caste.

Charanya

Please copy this and paste it onto a fresh mail. Put your name at the bottom and send it to feedback@ndtv.com

Our goal is to get atleast 1500 signed petitons by this Sunday and then for the number to keep growing. Please flood the NDTV inboxes or send an sms on 6388.

One of the greatest ironies I have noticed is that "India is a secular nation". And, this is what I got in my inbox today! One of the raging talks going on in the Indian democracy.

Reservations were brought in at the time of Independence to the country in 1947 by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. This was a public "apology" and a way to atone the sins of the forefathers of the nation for discriminating against the "minorities" during the the pre-Independent India. [Flaw #1, rather than providing equal opportunities for all, classify based on religion and give a quasi equality]

The Reservation system, which essentially "books an advanced place" in various institutions for the "minorities" were supposed to last 15 years since the declaration of Independence. Two things that come onto my mind - How did they ever think that 15 years was enough to atone for whatever comeuppance the minorities faced? Under what basis did they decide the "minorities" then?

Anyway, came the year 1962, reservations were prolonged and the act to abolish it has been postponed indefinitely [or so it seems] for the simple reason that it's the year 2005 and reservations are still present.

Let me analyse the situation! Reservations basically give a certain number of positions to the class of people. First of all, being a secular nation, it's wrong to classify people based on religion. Second of all, they are taking away the fact that the nation itself considers all people equal, essentially eroding the tenets of secularism on which the country should be beleiving in.

According to me, Religion should be the last thing on which you should award reservations in a secular country. Isn't it high time that India restructured its belief in this particular act of atonement? Why can't it be based on some other parameter like income for the family etc?

It's believed that people under these categories are financially handicapped, they are not able to get the same class of education, the same degree of necessities that other people in India face! At prima facie, it's justified, however, on deeper analysis, it's dead wrong spot on. I agree that the people under these categories, had financial challenges. They were not provided the same facilities of education, and other comforts, which the "higher" class of people enjoyed. But, the situation has drastically changed now.

Now onto another situation that is coming up. Reservations also cause quite a few of the "deserving" people to lose out on chances. Although people are not going against it en masse, there is a lot of tension brewing around it. Proof: the mail that I have pasted at the beginning of this blog. Also, I have personally experienced and seen when people who really deserve seats, places in good colleges by their merit are denied for the simple reason that they are of a higher class.

How can the people be held accountable and responsible for being born to a higher class/lower class? The definitions of the classes themselves being well over 52 years old!

Secondly, why do we have the whole point of an entrance test and then decide the seats based on the weighted average of the "class" the students were born in and their performance in the exam [necessarily in that order as well]? It doesn't justify the need for an examination in the first place then.

Thirdly, why are the umpteenth generation of a particular "class" pay for what their forefathers did?

If an insitution really wants the meritorious students, why the hell are they adopting this strategy of placements? I personally think it's high time that the Government reconsiders the factors needed for a reservation. If India truly needs to be a secular nation, it has to reconsider classifying people based on class/religion!!