In DDLJ, SRK says to Kajol's mom that shortcuts might lead to immediate results, but they are never long lasting. Instead, the longer, harder route might be time taking and more difficult, the result will always be everlasting.
So when everyone might have watched DDLJ, why am I talking about it? coz the Gujjars are now on the roads (again) demanding reservations for them. Rajasthan is in a mess, and today Delhi is under siege. whoa. It was only recently that Supreme court had allowed the OBC reservation for higher institutes of learning. Mandal was not that long ago. I still remember the day Rajiv Goswami died of self immolation. There was a time a few months back when Sardars were contesting the revoking of their minority status in Punjab!
I was talking to my cousin sister once about this, and she said that given the amount of discrimination that was dealt out to some sections of the society, it actually makes all the sense to go with reservation to help these sections.
I took that point with a pinch of salt. Not because i don't agree to that, but because it seemed to be a very short term solution to a long standing problem. A section of people were already shouting foul coz there weren't even enough seats for the 'general' population.
The amount of money allocated to education in national budget has been 3% this year . I looked up more and found out that US has approx 1/5 of our young population and spends 5 times more on education. India lags behind even latin america and carribean and east and south east asia. That leaves us with the middle east, africa and central asia... click here for more details..
All this when we are touted as the next big thing in the world. We are really being messed around beyond words by our politicos. I dunno what we should do about it, but we really must do sumthing... Something like an Indian Political services on the lines of IAS.
The point is, reservations is a very myopic thing to do especially in a diverse culture base like ours, where if we divide even only the Hindu groups, all communities will become a minority. I also remember a talk about making kayasthas (my community) and OBC somewhere... In no time all communities will begin asking for reservations and blocking roads and burning traffic lights.
The better way i guess is to make govt spend properly in education. people like us must spread awareness about this among others and force the govt (ideally and technically).
Lemme know what u think, and I will add it to this page for everyone to read..
