Monday, May 15, 2006
Doctoring Dreams
I feel strongly about the reservations issue. I've spoken about it before, before it snowballed into such a huge thing over the weekend. Lathi charging doctors. Amazing. So many of those policemen will go for treatment to those same doctors some years hence. That's the funny part. Would be fun to see if the docs then tell them to FCUK off. Then there's the other possibility that the government would sack these medicos and hire a whole lot of OBCs in their space, and then it would be amusing to see what kind of treatment the cops really receive!
A couple of things jumped out at me, though, from the newspapers this morning. One, was how the reporters proclaimed that the spirit of Rang de Basanti had fired up the students. Hilarious, really, when you consider how all of this comes just a coupla weeks after Aamir's fashionable stand at Delhi. And I can't help but wonder where the hell the great Khan was, when students were getting caned. Aaa, well, perhaps he can't be blamed. Reservations are much more controversial than displacement is - it fires up many more people than displacement does, despite poor Medha's protests. And poor Aamir knows, standing up for/against reservation will earn him many more brickbats than anything concerning a dam.
The second thing that struck me: an editorial in one of the papers that argued, the possible loss of standards due to reservation is an Acceptable Price to pay in order to bring them in. I wanted to throw something at the author. Honestly, how daft can you get?! This is the age, when industry and policy planners are going gaga about India in the World order. The same paper has a story where the PM is talking about opening a new institute, so that bright young people can be induced to stay and study in India, rather than flee elsewhere. (Fat chance, with quotas coming in - I hear the UK colleges are already rubbing their hands in glee, expecting a mass exodus to their campus!) And he says, it's an Acceptable Price. It's easy for him to say that, since he's not the one who has to pay it.
The third thing was of course, that ass Arjun Singh. And that other ass, Rahul Gandhi. RG is touted as the face of GenZ. If the reservation issue becomes that big, I would bet on anything that most of those disenchanted would vote for RG, hoping he would be able to do something for their cause. And I'm equally game to bet on anything that RG will do zilch. Simple thing, really, and we're all to blame for it: it's the OBCs who vote. Striking medicos don't. Bitter bloggers don't. Malabar Hill residents don't. So RG and that ass Arjun Singh will sit on their arses and push through Mandal II despite all our anger and protests. They will order the lathicharges, and then they will simper to the media of how it was overzealous cops who did it, and an enquiry will soon be underway.
As for us journalists, this is Big News. For someone like me, who wasn't old enough to understand Mandal I, when it happend, this is a chance to understand Injustice, firsthand. A valuable experience.
I think.
3 Comments:
When I entered Med school in Cal there was a similar protest against the Mandal commission which led to a court injunction and suspension of classes. But nothing came out of it. Nothing ever does. When you put together all the diff reserved seats (SC ST, All India Exam quota, chief minister quota etc etc) there was almost 50% reserved seats. It was not fair. People protested. Many of my desrving friends missed out on the list due to the quota and never made it to Med school. Nothing has changed since then. And I think it's just getting worse.
It is a good thing, the momentum this war has gained, but on the other, don't you think a a communal rift has been created?
And maybe, just maybe, it could be what the Ministers in question wanted anyways.
Could be.
I remember Mandal I. I was in Delhi at that time and witnessed it first hand. Mandal was ultimately reponsible for bringing down VP Singh's govenment. I'm very surprised at the very diluted response this time around. Maybe people are resigned to the fact that nothing good ever comes out of it.
But there's more. I think they timed it perfectly. What we have right now is a very very weak opposition. If it was BJP or the erstwhile era I did say the situation would be very volatile.
jEDI
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