The Scribble Pad

It was proposed and approved in the parliament unanimously. That's a fact. Whether it means that all our representatives have sold out, or all of them just are doing their job correctly - we don't know. That's what we want to know, I agree.

And from what I know, the entire 27% will be implemented from the next year. This phased manner introduction was proposed by Pranob Mukherji, but was rejected by the Left. Only the infrastructure building will happen in a phased manner. How long will it take? Your guess is as good as mine.

Taking resources from one section, and giving it to another is the only way you can give resources to the target section when, as a country, we lack resources overall. The overall resource building problem will take ages; why delay the re-distribution?

Also, just primary education is not enough. Handholding is done, typically, in our setup, till a student graduates from some university course. Or sometimes, as I have seen recently, much to my surprise, even till post-graduation. Do we really expect the under-privileged children who come till 12th on reservation to have enough cultural arsenal to fight it out with students whose parents are graduates?

Personally, I am scared that this 50% overall reservation number might be flawed. The hope is that it is good enough to bring up the backward classes of our society without compromising on our overall progress as a country. If anyone can do such an extrapolative study into the future, I'd be glad

The decision whether unanimous or not needs to be justified with upto-date statistics and communicated to the people who will be affected. Furthermore, increasing the quota w/o proper provisions is unjust and loosely motivated. Taking a year or so for the survey/review followed by gradual increase in resources would have been the right way to go. Especially since the Mandal report they abide too is 10 yrs old anyways!

Handholding upto the level of higher education fosters complacency. Better incentives right from the start is the only way they can really learn and progress. A better entrance program like the one in IIT should be taken seriously.

The progress of the country shouldn't be hampered if above steps are adequately taken. Our country is not too short on resources, not for the twenty odd institutes of higher education atleast!!

>1. All state level institutions already implement the 22% SC/ST and 27% OBC reservations.

Which states you are talking about? Yes its true for all south India states and Maharashtra. Not true for all the states. For e.g. Delhi do not have any reservation for OBC.

>The anti-reservation (hike) activists have doubts regarding the effectiveness of reservations as a tool to uplift the socially oppressed lower classes.

I doubt, their doubt. There will be always a group who wants to hold thier power and don't allow others to enter.

> The government should also focus on primary/secondary education and look to cultivate better candidates through scholarships, so that reservations are not needed for higher education. Finally the only way to evaluate that we know of is MERIT.

If govt. start doing this 100 more years will be needed to achieve it. Till then what the unprivillaged people should do? The term MERIT is not just plain marks.

There are similar reservations in MP, UP, Rajasthan ,etc. Delhi aur baki states mein shayad naa ho to wahan lagoo kiya ja sakta hai!

Reservations can be useful only if u ensure that the benefit reaches those that really need it. You can see how the reservation scheme is being mis-used. And it will be always, but government should ensure steps to prevent any such misuse and not just increase the quota.

Focussing on primary/secondary education will yield better results. How much time do you think will increasing a few seats in higher education institutes will take? Without proper provisioning this is all SHAM!

The seats should be increased for OBC students not at the expense of general students, but by increasing the total seats together with special training program for those that lack the necessary skills to cope with higher standards of education at these institutes.

Finally, excellence should be driven by MERIT which is more indicated by marks than social class!

"Finally, excellence should be driven by MERIT which is more indicated by marks than social class!"

True - if your goal is purely excellence..
But if the goal is to reduce the difference between the percentage population of a certain category of persons, and the percentage of people from the category getting through some college (that does not have reservation for the same) - then what should be done?

-Praj

The final goal is to achieve a society where excellence is the primary benchmark. The goal of reservations is not to make the higher classes payback for unjustice, but to get the historically under-privileged on same grounds.

This should be done w/o making the higher classes the oppressed ones! Temporary discomfort is tolerable i guess :(

It would be wrong to say its pay-back..
As tejaswi mentioned, with limited resources, in order to provide resources to a section, you need to take them away from another section..
Also, if there is X% reservation for a class of persons that has Y% population (X < Y ), it cant really be termed as opressing.. The goal is not to oppress - its betterment of a certain class of people..
If there is a better way than reservation to do that, there is no harm in using the same..
-Praj

Yes, I agree. But the government should be concentrating on better infrastructure as a prerequisite to any such reallocation.

The bottomline is the government has ignored the implementation aspect completely before imposing the reservation bill. Also, as outlined earlier, a review of the backward class criteria and its distribution is called for with immediate effect.

Until then, this will just add to the woes of general people who suffer the wrath of 3-4 seats at premier institutes!

Also, as outlined earlier, a review of the backward class criteria and its distribution is called for with immediate effect.

It took 25 years to implement Mandal commission's recommendation fully. This 'immediate effect' thing is a dream at best, in a flawed system like India's. So, if we go by the past, such immediate reports might not come about in the near future; what do we do?

And necessary infrastructure cannot be built before July 2007, but reservations can be introduced. Now, the question is, what kind of losses does India suffer as a country because the 'worst' of the 'best' are missing out on the best seats because the 'best' of the 'worst' are taking them? That too, just 27% more seats. Is this loss really that substantial? Compared to the loss of keeping an entire section of the population unhappy?

I will write a longer post consolidating my viewpoints on my blog later.

@ Tejaswi,
It's a great thing you said, 'worst of best' and 'best of worst'.

I too agree it may happen that for few years after reservation is implemented, India may produce few secondary doctors and engineers. But still in long run as a country, India will be benifited.

Would someone like to comment on why it took 25 years for implementing the Mandal Commission's recommendations? The reason is more political than anything else.

Why are we not doing the right thing now? Postponing the hike till the necessary provisions was made, was the only way this country wouldn't have been divided into two camps!

And don't tell me this will take years. It shouldn't ..

Implementing the reservation thing this way will only see people pushing for being included in the OBC list in every state. Even within the OBC castes, only the 'best' (who probably don't need it) of them take advantage while the 'worst' still suffer!!

Haphazard reservations will only leave a bad taste in the mouth and nothing more :((