Students with a will
Third year summer holidays. If you are at IIT, that means you are spending your time doing an internship at a company and also contemplating your future. But current events have forced me to take a critical look at myself. 19 student of AIMS are into their ninth day of hunger strike, and I ask myself can I go without food for twelve hours. ( Probably not, because I operate at critical mass ) . I have realized I am too self-centered.The worst thing is that I cant even get myself to do something about it. I guess i am what you call a comman man who is more worried about his life than anything else in this world. I do feel strongly about reservation. I have had debates with my friends over the issue. Have passionately argued against reservation. I dont agree with the idea of merit being the sole criteria. I do believe that I was in a better position to get through JEE than an under-priveleged guy, what with all the coaching my parents could afford. There is a divide in this society which we have to realize. But all reservation does is deepen this divide. If and when this reservation is passed, it will be a clue for me to head home for safety for I am sure there will be riots that day. Remember the last time, V.P.Singh's government tried to implement reservation, a student immolated himself. Last time at least the government took it back. This time with dumb-*** like Arjun Singh ( read his interview with Karan Thapar if you have any doubts) at the top of this, I have lesser hopes. I hope Manmohan Singh is sensible enough.
My views about reservation aside, what I really want to point out is the mentality of the common man. I blame the government, support passively the students who protest , but am too comfortable in my life to actually come out and bear the hardships of protest. Sounds like I am a loser, but there you go. Most of the people in this country are like that. They do want things to change over-night with out them actually doing anything. Of course it is wrong, the way we think. We have the easiest excuse. What can we do about it? We Indians are the worst free-loaders ever.
All I have seen most people do is send around the same e-mail that I would have at some stage sent to them. E-mail campaign is a good thing, but after some time it is just annoying. Now any mail regarding reservation, I blindly archive it. ( Thanks to Google for that lovely feature )
I am actually surprised so many students have come out in protests against the reservation. Some of my friends too(Actually only one till now) . You must really applaud their courage. What do they stand to gain from this? Why is it that they are willing to go to such great extents? Most of the students protesting are already in colleges. They will not have to face this problem of reservation, and who knows what will happen between the time when their kids grow up to join colleges. I guess that is the miracle of democracy. Makes a way for ordinary people to become extra-ordinary.
There is definitely a change brewing in the thinking process of Indians. Who knows one day even I may get on to the streets to protest? I hope that day comes soon. But for now, I will just lay back and write a blog about it.
posted by Mahesh.R @ 7:51 AM
4 Comments:
blogging is an easy way out...i agree. if iitm had been open, i am sure lot of would have supported the anti-reservation rallies. i had never seen a protest in such as massive scale before in the country...it not just about us...we may be affected by reservation in IIMs...or sometime in future in job as well...you know the story of camel asking for shelter in the tent right? or if you give him a glass of milk, he will ask for a donut (or vice versa :P )
Well, i see your point. But something interesting came on NDTV yesterday. According to their poll 57% of people wanted reservation. So do we really know the "pulse" of the country?
Need I remind you that we are not an ochlocracy(Hope it means what I want it to mean).
@shanks: This is not a case of the camel and the tent. This is something that people asking for it have a right to. How much is, I think, the only question, and its structure, and not the idea itself.
Also, polls are questionable things. There are always questions of sample size, demographic coverage of the sample, how well people are informed about these things, and the like. So, that is a statistic I would take with some salt.(Especially seeing that it is probably lacking in my food here :-) )
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