The Interpretation of Indian Reservation

It has been the hot topic for the past month in India.I hope your discussion would have come out with many suggestions. I ll try to add on my views in the blog. I was going through the newspaper (' Dinamalar' to be precise) last friday when the results came for the +2 students in Tamil Nadu (many other states also released their +2 result on the same day) when i came across an interesting column which said that around (only ) 3600 students from rural area (the stats is for engineering college in Tamil Nadu) can make it to the professional course this year. Then I was scanning through ' The Hindu' on the same day which was also reiterating the same point, moreover it also said that reservation is not working for the rural people. It is only helping the people who are living in the urban areas.

I always thought that reservation should be based upon the economical basis because people in rural havent got any benefit out of reservation. The political parties in TN play mind games with the people regarding reservation. It is being done for the past 59 years since gaining independence.Reservation is being done based on community, so people think that people from BC or SC community are poor people, maybe it was the case when India got independence but it not now. For e.g., in a school in an urban area, there are students from BC and SC community, they also avail the tution facilites that are available in cities, but considering a school in a rural area, all the students studying there are the same, considering the fact that they have less facilites than their urban counterparts irrespective of their community or caste. Except for a few students from rural area has the money power (e.g. Pannaiyar or Naattamai of a village) to get higher education. Otherwise the students are on their own with no proper infrastructure and lab facilities. If a student from a rural area (say son of a Kovil Gurukal who is FC or son of a Good Pannaiyar who has gone broke because of a conspiracy of an evil Mirasu) who has put his heart and soul in his studies and has got good marks and aiming at a good college but doesnt have the cut off mark to enter the college, then there is no meaning for reservation. That is really unfair.Politcal parties have played this particular card very well for their purpose in the past years to come to power. The colleges dont fight against this , because most of the profesional colleges in TN submit only half theeir seats to Single Window System (SWS), the other half is filled by the management. The students who are filled in the management quota are not necessarily NRI or from other states, most of them are from TN and forced to study engineering and their parents obtain the seats in MQ. I have seen many people like this who are not interested in engineering but are forced to take the bitter pill. One of my friends had 18 arrears till his 6th semester and another guy had 3 arrears even after finishing college, now this aspect degrades the institution and the course thats why the number of Engineers (I meant real 'Engineers') passing out each year is dwindling. Neither the government nor the college management has done anything to stop this. The college wont protest , obviously as they get lot of money from students from MQ.That is the situation right now in the state eduacational system. I think this is the situation in most of the states in India, correct me if I am wrong.

Coming to the central govt. institutions like IIT's and IIM's, again we will be faced with the same problem, the enrance exam is competitve enough, so I guess we can apply the same economic rules here for a better results. Why there is a hue and cry among the people about this reservations in central govt. institutions, because they say that it affects the quality. As I have stated above the quality goes down only when people who are not interested are allowed to study, I think reservation with economic basis will not fail if used.

Several ideas were put forth in the discussion group, one such is bringing reservation in schools...that is an interesting ( an innovative idea too) idea , but as somebody said the schools dont shape a student's career, but college does in professional courses. Another idea was increasing seats is increase seats in those IIT's and IIM's but some said that it is not feasible. I was thinking of an alternative way, it has been already done to Rourkee University 3 yrs back.. i.e. Upgrading an existing college into IIT or NIT or IIM standard. Rourkee University is now IIT Rourkee ( Consider this upgrading CIT into IIT Coimbatore!!!!!). That I think is a good idea as there are a lot of vacant seats in TN (in engg.), so this will also increse the number of IIT and the number of vacant seats also gets increased and those who cant into central govt. institutions can get into other state institutions.... Well, thats my personal view on reservation. Any method will have both advantage and disadvantage, but people should choose the method which have less disadvantage and more advantage....

But when we look at the north eatern states, they offer you a different picture from the rest of India, one of my former room mate is from Arunachal Pradesh. He said that there are only SC's or ST's in the state...The govt. seem to be neglecting the whole of North East, what abt the students from NE???? Thats a question that should be answered by politicians....