Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Shocking proposal

The report that the Human Resource Development Ministry is considering the Mandal Commission formula of 27 per cent reservation for the Backward Classes in Central educational institutions, IITs, and IIMs is shocking. It comes at a time when India is ready to take off as an economy. The proposal, if implemented, will harm the very institutions that have contributed the most towards India's resurgence.

Reservation is the easy way out for successive governments that have failed to provide infrastructure at the grassroots to the backward communities to improve their competitiveness. The move will affect the quality of engineers and managers in future.

Shubhasish Chattoraj,
Kharagpur, W.B.

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The proposal is in line with the vote-bank politics of the government of the day. If implemented, it will frustrate the youth. Students who have hitherto landed jobs on merit will get demoralised as their opportunities are sought to be curtailed.

Sankalp Shrivastav,
Karaikal, Pondicherry

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The move is far removed from the ground reality. Had reservation helped the children of my gardener, domestic help or driver get quality higher education, it would have made sense. The primary education system is such that their children drop out much before being able to benefit from reservation at college level.

Today those who get admission to colleges through reservation hail from a good socio-economic background, as they are second- or third-generation beneficiaries. The Government should instead focus on primary education.

Parul Bajaj,
Faridabad, Haryana

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The decision may not affect reputed institutes such as IITs and IIMs much because their admission procedure is so rigorous that the best of the brains alone get into them. But it will adversely impact on the quality of intake in second line institutes.

Amol O. Bulbule,
Belgaum, Karnataka

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Thanks to our politicians' lack of imagination and competence, reservation has been politicised to the extent where even honest and legitimate criticism is branded as anti-people. Why should the son of a doctor alone become a doctor was the question asked before the introduction of the reservation policy. Strangely the position is the same even after 60 years of implementation of this policy.

At this rate, even 100 years of reservation are not going to achieve the objective of the policy.

S. Rajagopalan,
Chennai

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The furore over the proposal is quite justified. If a student ought to be recognised, it should be on the basis of his merit alone. One of the reasons for the dilution of standards in education is the quota system.

We Indians bemoan the constant exodus of bright students to countries abroad. But if a student's merit cannot secure for him a seat in the premier institutions of his country, he is perfectly justified in leaving for distant shores.

Anuradha Rajan,
Bangalore

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How long are we going to continue widening the reservation net? IITs, IIMs, and other such institutions have built a brand image with their outstanding quality — as reflected by recent mega salary offers to IIM graduates. If governments in the last six decades have not been able to bridge disparities and remove backwardness, surely the reservation policy is flawed or there has been lack of sincerity. Let us not politicise education for narrow ends.

Air Cmde (retd.) Raghubir Singh,
Pune

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While our politicians have not proactively invested in capital assets like new institutes of higher education, they have no qualms about robbing seats in the name of social justice, discounting merit in the process, and pushing India further into the abyss of policy-induced incompetence. Discounting merit is no way to become a global knowledge society.

K. Chandrasekar,
Chennai

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