[Reader-list] a min for the future

[mahmood farooqui]

It seems to me as if the government is stealing half the seats from
the rest of the normative population that is addressed in this mail.
Is it not the case that the government is reserving fifty percent
seats for roughly fifty percent of the population too?

So it is stealing seats from the normative public, the readers of this
list, people in good schools and colleges, people whose fathers and
mothers and families are generally pretty well ensconced in the upper
echelons and who are by and large NOT from OBC communities. The
aggrieved party, axiomatically, is non-OBC.

Before signing the petition let us clearly state that we are non-OBCs
and therefore we oppose it. In the name of India (which obviously is
US only), in the name of merit, efficiency and globalisation etc.
Nevertheless, we the non-OBCs condemn the government's move to give
further benefits to the OBCs.

Of course the OBC's dominate the political parties which rule us, in
several states. But they are not yet the ruling class. The ruling
class, the bureaucrats, the media, the professionals still
overwhelmingly hail from the non-OBC classes. Name me one business
concern of any value controlled by an OBC. IITs and IIMs are the
greatest arenas for the ruling class to reproduce itself.

If the government had any gumption in fact it would go ahead and
reserve seats for Muslims too. After all IITs and IIMs is where the
real perks today lie, and therefore it makes perfect sense to share
the cream of our educational achievment with those who are touted to
be backward.

This does not make it a perfect solution but until we arrive at one we
can tinker with the existing hegemonies. And tinkering, unfortunately,
is all that we are capable of achieving.

I have heard frequent lamentations about the wastefulness of
reservations, about the fact that fifty years on we still do not have
any single study about the effectiveness or achievments of
reservations. But I have never heard any disquiet on the absence of
any study detailing how much our society, our civil society, is still
dominated by forward castes.

Is there an explanation for the fact that nearly ninety percent of
Hindi newspaper editors in this country are Brahmins? That nearly
eighty percent of the top journalists in every newspaper, tv channel
and radio station are either Brahmins or forward castes? I raised a
question about the business class earlier, let us study now how many
Professors in our universities belong to the backward castes and the
few that are there, would they have been there without reservations.

Until a utopian Indian state comes before us which is going to give us
perfect affirmative action at the primary and grass roots levels and
make competition open at the top, we must tinker with the top
competition only. It is not just, it is barely affirmative but that is
all we have.

Thank God for the political class, it is the only class that sometimes
seems to speak up for the slum dwellers, the only class that still
sometimes seems to favor the peasants and farmers, the only class that
still recognises the reality of upper caste hegemony in the country at
large.

Viva la politicians, down with the upper caste dissenters.

Mahmood

On 09/04/06, Aaditya Dar <aadityadar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Please sign the petition at:
> http://www.PetitionOnline.com/re225495/petition.html and
> forward this mail to your friends, and relatives   Thank you for your
> cooperation!   for more: http://ecosockmc.blogspot.com
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  The Government plans to increase the quota of reservations from the
> already existing 22.5% to 49.5%, in all central universities and colleges.
>
> This means HALF of the seats would be reserved in the Indian Institute
> of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), All India
> Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi University (DU),
> Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), national Institute of Fashion Design
> (NIFT),
> National School of Drama (NSD) and other prestigious institutes.
>
> The move is based on a Mandal Commission Report, which was commissioned
> in 1980, which used pre-independence data (1930s) to pen down the
>  recommendations! Decades have passed since then. While the 'real'
> recommendations were not implemented, only the 27% quota was, to gain
> political mileage. The announcement has also been timed just before the
> eve of elections, when 5 states are going to polls.
>
> If this isn't vote bank politics, then what is this?
> Will starving farmers stop committing suicide if their son's and
> daughter's are granted reservations in IITs/IIMs?
>
> Why is a Yadav in Bihar is an OBC, but a Yadav elsewhere is not?
>
> Is India a country where we tend to appreciate mediocrity?
>
> Who should sign the petition?
>
> If you are a school student or a student at the university: It cuts
> down your chances to get into the above mentioned institutes by 50%
>
> Or even if you are a concerned citizen. At a time when India is eyeing
> a position is the global markets, where we can be proud of the alumni of
> the IITs, IIMs... etc to having put India on the world map, do we want to
> sacrifice this, and compromise on quality education. Do meritious
> students deserve this??
> The law in the constitution on this has already been amended, but still
> all hope is not lost.
> Its time we raised our voices and stop as my friend termed it 'the rape of
> the silent
> electorate'
>
> Sign the petition for your future, for the future of the country.
>
> --
> AY+IbAA
> aadityadar at gmail.com
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