Reservations in India, increase again...

I got a message on Orkut today which talked about the recent proposal by Government of India to introduce reservations in premier institutes in India for backward classes bringing the total reservations up to 49.5% of total available seats. The message also gave a link to an online petition and urged all to go there and sign the petition electronically. I read the petition made out to the HRD ministry and signed it. I feel happy that I did and made my opinion known. Whether this petition will change anything remains to be seen. But the good thing is, awareness is increasing. I sent it to all my friends.

India is independent country for 59 years now and I seriously think that reservations have outlived teir usefulness. In fact the person who proposed reservations, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar wanted them only for 10 years. But the politicians thought otherwise and did not want to upset their vote banks by being the one to make hard decisions. The logic behind Dr. Ambedkar's requirement is very simple to understand. If you cannot make progress in 10 years, then you have not chance of making progress at all. The reservations were meant to give a launchpad for the downtrodden people not as a benefit. Instead of cutting back the reservations, it is increasing.

I strongly feel that India cannot make progress by continuing with the policy of maintaining reservations for the "backward" classes. Come on folks. It's been long enough. Enough of this nonsense. There have been some innovative ideas from people about how to provide a launchpad to the true backward classes.

There is a concept of a coupon. Every person who meets (or fails to meet) certain minimum criteria regardless of religion, caste or creed is given that. This coupon can only be used once in the person's lifetime and cannot be transferred to anyone else. The person can then decide to use this coupon at anytime that he needs assistance. Be it admission to some college, university or for a job. But once he uses it, it gone. He cannot use it again.

This seemed to me to be a very sound idea. This idea came from one of the bloggers from Mysore, Kamal Tripathi. Kamal actualy calls it as a Lottery system. But as I wrote in a comment there, I would rather not call it lottery but just a coupon system. After all the person is not gambling but is making an informed decision.

Let's try to implement it.