Reservations: A saga of unanswered questions

Protests against reservations have now enthralled the nation and the voices of thousands unheard are making their presence felt not only on roads and medical colleges but also in the political corridors. Before riding high on emotions and taking sides, it’s important to identify few critical questions which strangely have been missed out by many. And if we try to look at the canvas from bird’s eye view, these issues may not look of importance however at ground level, the picture is somewhat different.

As the ghosts of mandal return after sixteen years to haunt the Indian middle and upper class, the protests doesn’t seem to be of the same ardor as they were in 1990. Why have we not reacted the way we did in 1990? Why are we tolerating this government and most importantly the man behind this? Arjun Singh’s dreams and ambitions seem to be way ahead of his abilities and power. As he aims to climb the next ladder to become the PM, he doesn’t realize that he is trying to step on crores of Indian youth who at no point would support him or his government. He claims that he has no “personal agenda” in pursuing the quota issue and at the same time, his attitude of airing the whole issue without discussion within the congress party suggests otherwise.

Thousands of medical students have now joined the protests which were started by medical students and junior doctors. Surprisingly a little support is visible from other disciplines. Are we satisfied with the dictatorship of Arjun Singh in the fields of management, technology, journalism, etc?
Every aspiring student in this country prefers to get in to IIM’s or FMS rather than any other private B School, Ask any aspiring techie and his dream institution would be IIT or DCE. IIMC is considered as the best place to learn journalism and mass communication which again is government institution. Won’t the quota regime affect such dreams?

Do OBC really NEED quota? A study done by two IIT Directors indicated that only 50% of vacancies at IITs for SC and ST’s are filled up. Of the remaining half, 25 percent dropout before completing the course. At a government medical college in Kanpur, as many as 50 percent of SC students for the final year MBBS exam failed the issue is not about providing favors to the OBC, its about denying the right of equality for general class and penalizing upper castes for being upper castes.

This one’s haunting me since the beginning of this debate. Can doctors deny treatment to sick people?
What happened to the oath they took for servicing sick? The first and foremost duty of every doctor is to treat sick people. Anger against government has taken over many of them and the services have been interrupted at many places causing huge problems for the patient. Can sick and poor people afford the suffering of the tussle between doctors and government? Though senior doctors have taken steps and have ensured operation of emergency services.
And as I write, I see a headline on NDTV which says that government has asked doctors to resume duty within 24 hours or leave hostel.
I believe the better way would be to operate open air OPDs at the place of protests which would not affect patients and would convey an even stronger message to the government.

The issue if not tackled would result in even further problems and then quota in private sector would no longer be a laughing matter!

In the end, I appeal to all the readers to contribute as much as possible by joining the protests. It would affect each one of us and we must not forget that we r living in a democracy, if our leaders (or rather politicians) don’t realize that, it is our duty to remind them.