Hai Ye Reservation!!!

I am tired of the reservation mania. I thought that Mandal will be childhood lore but it is here right in my face again. I hate the tags of upper and lower castes. It is magnifying those tiny parts of identities that should stop mattering when India is shining, talking nuclear stuff, launching the chandrayaan and eating, sleeping IT.

Yet sadly as long as politics will remain so will the caste issue. I am confused by now. I see the differing points. When oppression has been brutal and so complete, a weapon like reservation cannot be given up though the ends are not so noble. I also see some sense in the frenzy of the medical and engineering students so vehemently opposing it. Theirs is a lost cause as reservation is inevitable as it is not apolitical.

But is it going to be effective? Will the marginalized in villages be allowed to draw water and not be exploited? Will calling someone a chamar go out of fashion in the cow belt. Will discrimination completely go out? Will Ranvir Senas and Naxalism come to an end? The vote bank politics is drowning the real issues. Beyond emotional arguments, rhetoric, rousing sloganeering and possibly an increase in reserved seats the ground zero situation stays unaltered.

I have taken the anti reservation stand. Frankly it was instantaneous than thought out and could be to do with my caste affiliations. My reasons may be emotional . I thought will it matter whether you were right or wrong when you worked hard, were almost near the cutoff but couldn’t make it when someone in the reserved category did make it despite a poorer performance? Who will answer the security Guard in our locality who is a Brahmin from Gorakhpur, smokes bidi occasionally, coz he can ill afford it when there are more free takers, lives in Delhi and sends money home out of his salary of Rs. 4,000. I am more worried about the class divide and mehangai than caste divide. It is individualistic vs. the social argument but my point of view.