Much has been made of the reservation quota in higher education as proposed by a certain Mr. Arjun Singh. Here, I add my own few bits to the issue that has sparked so many revolts around the nation. I will not add anything new, I know. I just want to speak what I feel about the whole issue.
I was introduced to reservation quotas when it was time for me to seek admission to junior college. I never knew that the Indian society was divided into so many sects. Throughout my schooling years, I learnt in Civics that India is a secular country, where the individual and his/her abilities are placed above everything else. I grew up in a secular environment, thanks to my educated and well-groomed parents. I was never even aware, till my junior college admission, that I belonged to the so called upper caste. I did get admission to the college of my choice and that was based upon merit. The sense of satisfaction that I got is something that people who get admission by miscellaneous routes will never be able to gauge.
People will probably say, "Wake up and smell the coffee, kid! You are an idiot if you thought that the country is secular". This might probably be true. I am an idiot. Until the riots of 1993, I did not know about communal hatred. Heck, I didn't even know what Hindu and Muslim was. I was all of 10 years and I lacked this information. Not that it is important in any way, but there you have it. And the other day, when I was assissting my senior with her project at a slum in Saki Naka, I was asked by a six year old Muslim kid whether I was a Hindu. Imagine that, a kid all of SIX years of age. Kids these days are more pragmatic and more tuned in to the world around them, it would seem. Either that or their parents don't have the sense to keep them away from such meaningless and pointless things such as caste, religion, faith. But I am veering away from the topic at hand. My veering away is justified though; enough has been said about the reservation issue and therefore I don't think I have anything new to add. I will make it clear that I am very much against the hike in reservation.
Other anti-reservation-hike people will probably say that as an IIT-ian, I should be more active than the rest of the country in protesting against the reservation. Well, it's not as if we IIT-ians are taking everything lying down. There has been a lot of activity going around in the seven IITs and I can assure you that we are doing our bit for the anti-res-hike movement. Let's just hope that the madness ceases and wiser counsel prevails.
