On Why These Reservation Protests Make Little Sense.

Do you think the students below would want swap their lives with the people above?

(*Hint: Those above get reservations!)

Whom would you rather be?

The students in the picture seem to think they are going to be worse off than those in picture above if the new reservation legislation comes about.

Their arguments,
1. The 'Quality' of students is going to detiororate, if you fix a percentage of seats in the country's best institutions.
2. They are going to have fewer seats and fewer jobs if the legislation comes about.

The second argument's rather selfish, if they are going to say they are worse off, then those from the 'Backward' castes can say the same thing if the lawmakers decide against.
Moreover, the 'backward' castes, represented poorly in the private sector and in the country's top educational institutions, have a more legitimate claim.

So that leaves us with argument no. 1,
'Quality' is going to detiororate, let's take that to be true, so let's say the reservation doesn't go through on these grounds, who benefits?
The 'upper' castes, simply because they are going to take a disproportionately large share of the benefits that accrue from economic growth.
So that's two self serving arguments that claim to act for the nations' sake.

Reservations need to be opposed because they fail and their failure is pretty evident thanks to a small number of 'backward' caste beneficiaries taking a big chunk of the benefits.
Incentives that make improving the status of the backward castes a national priority by including private sector firms, schools, universities are likely to bring more change than half hearted attempts by India's lethargic bureaucracy.
These could include -
1. Tax cuts for companies that have diverse caste populations
2. More govt funding for those schools that follow population patterns in castes and incentives for top city schools to take students from villages and backward castes such as vouchers, tax cuts etc etc.
3. Lumpsum payments for girls who complete class X, Class XII, and Intermediate and University.
4. University admission policies can be altered as the IIMs seem to do to take in more girls, Backward castes can be accommodated without a strict rule for 49% or whatever.
5. More scholarships and funding for backward caste students.

Obsolete best describes the nature of the protests today, with old ideas from the unsuccessful Mandal protests passing through high tech communication networks .

The angry young man is passe', they don't even make movies like that these days.

No anti-reservation protest can be complete without a recognition that more needs to be done for the 'backward' castes. That's why the current protests are bound to fail.

Pictures: (Anti reservation protest online e-mail campaign, conservationtech.com )