Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Long Live Reservation Policy-Why we need reservation for another 150 years


A kinda disclaimer:
All the views presented below are of my own research and intuition. I am not saying all this is correct, because I am not a bio-technologist but I have a strong gut feeling for the correctness of my theory. Well, if you find my theory fine, then it’s fine for me too! If not comment on where my theory is flawed or curse me lol. After reading this if you feel like thrashing me, then I can’t help but saying that please KISS MY ASS.


Before I start this let me say a few words about me. I come from a Brahmin family where we follow almost all required/logical customs seriously and I support reservation system wholeheartedly. I came to know about this reservation stuff in educational instis during my 9th grade. One of my cousins missed out his desired seat in the college of his choice and hadn’t reservation been there he would have got it for sure. He had to get a payment seat and now he is well off and that is a horse of a different color. He described his anxious moments of admission in counseling hall-how seats vanished before his eyes and all that crap ...TN guys know this, but definitely not, my college guys!

Even some of my close upper caste friends, peers lost their seats; some had to get a payment seat. Still I’d say that I’m pro-reservation. Honestly speaking, when my turn of ‘engineering admission’ came, I had no problems and I got the most coveted branch in the most coveted college then (2003). The % of seats for the OC is 31% in Tamil Nadu, rest 69 % is reserved. Even if the percentage for OC was 0.83% instead of 31% I would have obtained the same seat!!(Total no of seats in ECE is 120).

I support the government’s stand of the 27% reservation for OBC. I know that it might lessen the chances of my MBA but still I am for it, coz I have realized the truth. I have always been intrigued by a question-“Why is that always upper caste people shine better than the lower caste people in education/learning?” Some might say that all this upper caste and lower caste theory is crap. If a boy is given good primary education, nourished food, and bestowed with good standard of living, then he might study well, irrespective of the caste which he belongs to. In other words, a boy from a decent economic background, with the mindset to study well would do well irrespective of the community he belongs to. So people, who support ECONOMY BASED RESERVATION, use this case to drive home their idea. I don’t deny this fact completely but would like to provide a subtle variation to this theory. I want people to look into the bigger picture.

Let me put forward some facts before I proceed. A case rather (case based learning- IIMA rocks). A boy is born in a middle class upper caste family. At the same time another boy is born in rich family (so called lower caste family). This second chap’s dad is an IAS officer (yes, he used his ‘SC quota’ to become an IAS officer). Both guys go to the same school. In fact the former guy’s standard of living is below that of the latter. But still this upper caste guy’s dad gives him all facilities he can afford to. Both guys are serious about their studies. They play together, work together; spend their time together in school. In short they are close friends. But this upper caste guy scores ahead of this lower caste guy always. Why does this happen? Both are from good family, both have the same facilities, good nutritious food and above all both have the same inclination towards studies. At the end both ended up in the same college, same class irrespective of the fact that the latter scored far below the former. Thanks to reservation.

This is not the only case. I have seen N such cases. So I say that the genes play a major part. It all depends on how nourished your gene is, irrespective of the caste, creed, religion. When genes determine your height, personality, character it is an obvious conclusion that genes determine your brilliance.

Again one might ask what a gene to do with caste. Here I’d like to say something, with reference to Indian history. If you see in the past for thousands of years IN MOST CASES the so called upper caste people had been involved in intellectual work and the so called lower caste people had been, in the bull work; also the so called upper caste people had been living rich and the so called lower caste people had been living poor. Their food habits obviously differed. So genetically speaking the so called lower caste people are weaker, in most cases.

What is the fault of a child to be born, genetically inferior? Can it determine its gene? Is this equality? I would swear that every individual is NOT BORN WITH THE SAME LEVEL of intelligence. Who is to be blamed? And this is the general pattern; upper castes are born superior to the lower castes. The reason can be attributed either to the following

1. The suppression of the poor by the rich for thousands of years

2. A chain which always continued in the past. Son of a farmer was a farmer, of that of a cobbler was cobbler, of that of a teacher was a teacher. I don’t know how flexible the society was, whether a person had his own choice in choosing his career or not. But mind you, what you have been doing for thousands of years does count in the form of genetic strength.

Whatever may be the past; in this flat world I believe there must be equality. The first and foremost goal of India should be the well being of its hundred crore + population. When the whole world is progressing towards superior technological advancements, every child which is born must have the same intellectual capability. For this to happen there must be a minimum of 150 years of the same kind of caste based reservation system. Then the whole country would reach SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM.

Here’s another case to drive my point. I personally know a few Brahmin guys who are extremely intelligent, can crack CAT without preparation, but are rogues. Yes, they are rogues in the sense that, they booze like hell, eat non vegetarian stuffs, smoke badly, shag badly and all that crap which is against the Brahman Dharma. I ain’t saying that eating NV stuff is bad, boozing is bad or shagging too much is bad, but it is bad for a Brahman. Coz his gene is not adapted to this culture for thousands of years. When there is a sudden change in his lifestyle, it might adversely affect his genes and that might be reflected in the intelligence levels of his future generations. He is now intelligent bcoz of his ancestors and their lifestyle (most cases). If he indulges in this “Sanskruti Brashtachar” continuously he’ll lose his entire genetic legacy. Let that happen, I don’t care. But I‘d love to live a true Brahman all my life.

What is Equality? All I am trying to say is that if a person works really hard, he should get what he deserves. Genetics should not come in the middle and hamper. We unfortunately don’t have the power to meddle with our genes to a larger extent. The only way we could provide the correction is by means of reservation. I am not saying that reservation will be beneficial to all. There might be genetically inferior Brahmins who would suffer and genetically superior lower castes that would have undue advantage (as I said standard of living determines the genes and in most cases upper castes were rich and lower castes were poor, with some exceptions- the ones mentioned in the previous point) but, by and large this current reservation policy would benefit the majority. Till every soul in this Bhoomi is born with the same intellectual capability, the reservations should continue. Long live reservation system - at least for another 150 years.

PS:
1. The problem in this current 27% reservation move is that there is no well defined way in which people are grouped into FCs and OBCs in our diverse country. What I mean here is that in TamilNadu number of so called FCs is lesser compared to that of North Indian states. It doesn’t mean that N India is better progressed, but many N Indian castes are classified as FCs compared to the numbers in Tamil Nadu. So this will give an undue and unfair advantage to TN OBCs. Hope you get my point.
2. If my theory is wrong, then I would emphatically say that there is no purpose of this reservation system in the country and the reason stated by the GREAT MEN (politicians of course!) for reservation is f****** lame.

Why did I blog?

Reliance rocks!! Eventually I got an internet connection in my hostel room, and so I am invading this blogging space again. Most of us know about blogging, why people blog so on and so forth. But honestly I have this question, a million dollar question (who knows this expression might one day become karod rupya question worldwide-India and its economy rocks man!) - Why Should I blog? Do I have really readers who read my blog? But honestly I started blogging for various reasons, some of which I have listed below.

1. Most IIM aspirants blog.
2. Blogging gives me a feeling of moving up the flat world.
3. I know I write crappy English on my answer scripts just for the heck of writing my exams, and I fear my English would be in soup if I write my exams-what I actually mean here is that, to cover all the points, I actually write just phrases or blocks of words in my answer books. Another aspect of driving home the idea is the way we write SMS’-the bullshit way. So by blogging I m still in touch with writing good English (I wonder!) or I fear I might forget grammar.
4. Initially I blogged to just use some words which I came across here and there.
5. It gives my pleasure to read my own doodling.

Honestly I don’t know if I’ll be an active blogger or not, but I would say that definitely my next post is something that all readers might find interesting.