Reservations, and To Kill a MockingBird..
A lot of indian youth battle the move against proposed reservations.
I shouldnt call it battle, because the online petitions are quite passive, and though I have signed them, I am not even sure they will be sent to the addresses by the petition authors.
I am not even thinking of going the Rang De Basanti way .. into battle.
Its a strange coincidence, that as this news & its altercations brew, I have been re-reading To kill a mocking bird. Its one of my all time favourites. The aspect I like the most about the book is that its a narrative & the person narrating is a nine year old girl. The book is set up around 1935, when there was a lot of discrimination against the African Americans.
It shows in a simple & beautiful manner, the inability of a child to understand this discrimination. Her elder brother is just about fathoming the differences in society & figuring out the complicated minds of 'elders', and trying to explain to her why "there are 4 kinds of folks", while she insists that there is only 1 kind of folks - Folks.
Anyways, its interesting to contrast a scenaro where the downtrodden had to suffer at the hand of the "powers-that-be" as compared to the proposal for reservations by the "powers-that-be" for the upliftment of the downtrodden ..
Now, now, Who are we fooling? (I was talking like Scout Finch)
- There have been no metrics to measure the success of reservations in the past. (At least I am not aware of them, Anybody knows how to seek this under RTI ?)
- Its a small co-incidence that this was made known only to the media around the times when campaigning for quite a few elections across the country is ending. The heads of IITs & IIMs have not recieved any information about this, so much for them being - "deemed" & independent universities
- The definition of OBC(Other Backward classes) is not defined in the law or the constitution, it is open to interpretation by the government. My childish mind stops here .. to think further needs me to face things I dont want to know about.
Instead of creating newer avenues, this move will dilute the brand & quality of great institutions that India & Indians have built over a longish period of time.
The growing Indian middle-class, which makes most marketeers around the world ogle, will pay the biggest price .. Spend more to get an education - which can only be got outside India, as Indian institutes are not for you & anyways, they are not good enough.
what was that again ... All men are equal, some are ...
I shouldnt call it battle, because the online petitions are quite passive, and though I have signed them, I am not even sure they will be sent to the addresses by the petition authors.
I am not even thinking of going the Rang De Basanti way .. into battle.
Its a strange coincidence, that as this news & its altercations brew, I have been re-reading To kill a mocking bird. Its one of my all time favourites. The aspect I like the most about the book is that its a narrative & the person narrating is a nine year old girl. The book is set up around 1935, when there was a lot of discrimination against the African Americans.
It shows in a simple & beautiful manner, the inability of a child to understand this discrimination. Her elder brother is just about fathoming the differences in society & figuring out the complicated minds of 'elders', and trying to explain to her why "there are 4 kinds of folks", while she insists that there is only 1 kind of folks - Folks.
Anyways, its interesting to contrast a scenaro where the downtrodden had to suffer at the hand of the "powers-that-be" as compared to the proposal for reservations by the "powers-that-be" for the upliftment of the downtrodden ..
Now, now, Who are we fooling? (I was talking like Scout Finch)
- There have been no metrics to measure the success of reservations in the past. (At least I am not aware of them, Anybody knows how to seek this under RTI ?)
- Its a small co-incidence that this was made known only to the media around the times when campaigning for quite a few elections across the country is ending. The heads of IITs & IIMs have not recieved any information about this, so much for them being - "deemed" & independent universities
- The definition of OBC(Other Backward classes) is not defined in the law or the constitution, it is open to interpretation by the government. My childish mind stops here .. to think further needs me to face things I dont want to know about.
Instead of creating newer avenues, this move will dilute the brand & quality of great institutions that India & Indians have built over a longish period of time.
The growing Indian middle-class, which makes most marketeers around the world ogle, will pay the biggest price .. Spend more to get an education - which can only be got outside India, as Indian institutes are not for you & anyways, they are not good enough.
what was that again ... All men are equal, some are ...