Some thoughts that came up during the whole song and dance about Reservations-

The Constitution of our country describes OBC as Other Backward CLASSES and not Castes, so the whole debate and accusations about "the government should help financially backward people and 'say no to caste based reservation' etc etc" is pointless and only reflects our greed (will explain in detail later on, some patients will help).
I had a tough time through this debate because it was the time when I joined work and had to hear and see too much of it... There were people saying things like "we are not against reservation but it should be based on financial background and not the caste... If there is a poor Brahmin or higher caste he can't get the governments' assistance because of caste based discrimination..." Well shows how much they know about the whole issue.
The other disturbing thought is that if they do know what OBC is then they were actually only against the reservations provided for the SC/ST categories...?!

OR it just goes to show the depth and reach of discrimination in our society.

Class in all aspects is an economical concept therefore it is reservation based on financial background and not just caste background.
Although caste and class are strongly interlinked, especially in India they are still not one and the same thing… atleast in my understanding of the system.

The anti-reservation protests and demonstrations for most people signified a very important landmark, that of “so many people united together for a single cause”. A ‘cause’ that was for many a ‘great and just cause’.

Given that the states’ reaction (violent repression of protests, water canons and tear gas) were unjustified. And the violent attempt at suppressing the ‘voice of dissent’ (as I would like to call it) was not needed and just added fuel to the fire.

The Rang de Basanti (a big contemporary bollywood hit ) analogy drove me up the wall… from both the protestors’ side as well as the authority’s side… I did not see the connection between the movie and the happenings around me, or what the anti- reservation supporters were saying and what the movie seemed to convey. Other than maybe at a very superficial level, and that is scary because it shows how any attempt at expression can be misappropriated and turned on its head.
The lack of connection between the two messages (of the movie and the protestors’) could be because I heard ‘the voice of dissent’ as the voice of GREED. All I could see was these people screaming themselves hoarse in the guise of equality but actually only conveying “we have goodies that we will not share with others”.
For me the movie was about the need to articulate dissent and not sit with hands in your lap waiting for things to change and keep complaining till they do change... It articulated the apathy of my generation but also said that there are greater things than the self, that one needs to look at. A point that according to me was lost in the anti reservation debate.

There is a possibility that this was an unfair conclusion, maybe we are so unconnected and ignorant of our society’s reality (in its totality) that we actually believe fighting reservation is justified.
We seem to believe that there is no inequality other than the one created by the politicians. We also seem to be unable to look beyond are urban modernized cities and lifestyles to see what is happening to a larger section of our country… We of course do not see rapes of Dalit women, lynching of Dalit men, lower castes being shot point blank because they aspire for more than a life at the margins. We don’t take into account the Kalinga Killing- 13 Dalits shot because they refused to give up land that legally belongs to them, the unjust Panchayts in Tamilnadu where there is a provision in the state constitution of reservation for the posts of the head of the panchayat in certain districts to be filled only by lower caste people… but that is not permitted by the higher castes through spreading terror/ social isolation etc etc.

This ‘benefit of the doubt’ syndrome came about in me after having to spend long days at the admission counters of Delhi University as part of my assignments. Here there were numerous people enquiring about every possible reservation policy that they could avail off. People who really did not need these reservations either on financial background or social, they had a decent percentage, affluence and other required criteria for admission into undergraduate programs… But why not take the easy way out, I suppose.

Then the question arose as to “if people want reservation, what is all the hue and cry when reservation is announced?” Still have not find the answer, other than the deep discrimination and unwillingness to share privileges.

Despite all these ‘exceptions to the rule’ there is something fundamentally wrong with the anti-reservation protests… One thing that really baffles me is the group of protestors calling themselves “Youth for EQUALITY”…!!! Whose equality are we talking about?
Equality is not a random abstract concept; it is rooted in the socio- economic reality of the time. So how do we even begin to compare sections requiring reservations and the general category…???

We can afford private schools, tuitions and other resources to give us an upper edge over the others who cannot even afford more than two set of uniforms per year and whose houses do not get enough electricity cause the government has to ensure the air conditioners in our localities run 24*7.

Are we not automatically privileged?

(A poem sent to me by one of my Professors’ in the next post).