Walk Alone

I have shifted to RVBHUTE.ORG. The blog has moved to blog.rvbhute.org; though if you are reading this, you already know it.

A big thanks to Thite for getting me the domain. And walking me through the process of getting the domain hosted.

Lots of links to update, both internal and external. Plus when I move to a different host sometime in the future, it would be another round of setting up the domain…

Nothing beats having your own domain. Take my word for it.

Don’t forget to update your links!

The Supreme Court has threatened to initiate contempt proceedings against the protesting fools. I whole-heartedly support it. Opinions and beliefs aside, YFE committed some signal errors in its protest which have not been in the best of its interests.

1. Shutting down medical services. A strict no-no. Along with tap water, electricity and garbage disposal, medical services are necessary for a modern society to function. Not only did they stop their own service, they stopped others from helping too.
2. Protests included writing posters in blood, sweeping the streets and begging. Just what in hell were these protestors implying? If anything made me angry, it was this. It was disgusting.
3. Their argument of merit was flawed. Refer to my previous post. There are other ways in which merit is being compromised. Why haven’t they been attacked?

Those fools better clean up their acts, or the SC’s contempt action is going to be the least of their troubles.

I’m laughing my head off.

It is difficult to believe the Gujuratis (the “inconsiderate bastards” mentioned earlier are also Gujju, btw) are so sensitive. And brainless. As far as I know, Aamir asked the Gujurat government to make sure the PAPs got their share of compensation, land, etc. He never asked for the dam construction to be stopped. As for his comments on the recent Vadodara riots, I won’t repeat the spiel about democracy, but Aamir has the right to speak his mind. Tough luck for the government, if the media listens to whatever he says.

The reaction is similar to burning copies of Arundhati Roy’s The Greater Common Good. For all the resources that the State commands (in addition to blind support by its constituency), the reaction was - childish. What it should have done what bring out a book repudiating all the accusations made in Roy’s book. It didn’t; because it couldn’t - Roy had facts and statistics, and worse, government documents to back her up. The next best thing was to whip up the populace…

Coming back to Aamir, the same Gujurat that is banning Fanaa showered accolades on him post-Lagaan. specially after he pitched in to help a village devastated by the Kutch earthquake. How fickle is that?

From The Times of India, Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - “Striking AIIMS docs live in a glass house” -

NEW DELHI: The main grouse of AIIMS students - at the forefront of the stir against 27% reservation for OBCs - is that merit is being sacrificed at the altar of votebank politics. But they forget two things: 25% reservation that AIIMS graduates get in PG admission and the Supreme Court judgment of 2001 that declares the earlier system of 33% reservation for them bad in law.

In fact, the SC, while stating that 33% institutional reservation is “unconstitutional”, agreed with the findings of the Delhi High Court, which had earlier set aside the reservation.

The HC had found that “AIIMS students, who had secured as low as 14% or 19% or 22% in the (all-India) entrance examination got admission to PG courses while SC or ST candidates could not secure admission in their 15% or 7% quota in PG courses, in spite of having obtained marks far higher than the in-house candidates of the institute.” HC had analysed admission data over five years.

The apex court also agreed with the HC that the “figure of 33% reservation for in-house candidates was statistically so arrived at as to secure 100% reservation for AIIMS students. There were about 40 AIIMS candidates. The PG seats being 120, 33% thereof worked out to be 40.” That meant all 40 AIIMS graduates were assured of PG seats.

Merit here was clearly being sacrificed, the study showed. For instance, in the January 1996 session, an AIIMS student with 46.167% marks - lowest for an AIIMS student that year - got PG admission.

However, an SC student with the same grades was admitted but denied coveted course such as obstetrics and gynaecology. The SC student got shunted to community while AIIMS students easily won berths in prestigious disciplines.

Twelve AIIMS candidates were selected even though they got less marks than the SC candidate who secured 60.33% marks. Similarly, 16 AIIMS students got admission to PG courses even though they got less marks than another ST student who got 62.16%.

Basing itself on this study, SC said, “Institutional reservation is not supported by the Constitution or constitutional principles.” “A certain degree of preference for students of the same institution intended to prosecute further studies therein is permissible on grounds of convenience, suitability and familiarity with an educational environment,” it added.

Preferences, the court said, had to be “reasonable and not excessive…Minimum standards cannot be so diluted as to become practically non-existent.” In the similar vein, SC said, “It cannot be forgotten that the medical graduates of AIIMS are not ’sons of soil’. They are drawn from all over the country.”

The court reasoned that these students had “no moorings in Delhi. They are neither backward nor weaker sections of society. Their achieving an all-India merit and entry in the premier institution of national importance should not bring in a brooding sense of complacence in them”.

Extending the damning logic, the court said in preserving quotas for its own students, “the zeal for preserving excellence is lost. The students lose craving for learning.”

There are a few comments supporting the inhouse reservations - all I can say is, if AIIMS graduates work for 18 hours a day servicing patients, so do others who appear for the PG courses. Its a requirement in the medical courses. See it online. Looks like the white lab-coats are more than a symbol of anti-reservation - they also hide in-house reservations.

YFE and Kunal Krishna have yet to answer my mails. My arguments are as follows:

1. Don’t hold medical services to ransom.
2. Attack sidelining of merit on all fronts -
   1. Reservations for girls - yes, we have them, inspite of girls beating us boys at every exam.
   2. NRI/management seats - money power, eh?
   3. Local MLA/MP “recommendations”
   4. And now, inhouse reservations
3. If you can, please avoid making it an anti-OBC movement.

Poll results in the Mumbai edition of The Times of India, dated Saturday, May 20, 2006. If polled, my response shall tip in with the ones in bold.

1. Should reservations be extended to OBCs in central educational institutes? Yes - 41% No - 59%
Thats obvious by now. Reservation is not the solution.

2. Will reservations promote social justice? Yes - 41% No - 59%
The opposite, rather. People get more prejudiced. “Reservations se aaya hai, hum open se aaye hain“. Talk of soul corrosion.

3. Is the medical students’ strike justified? Yes - 47% No - 53%
Holding the sick to ransom? BAD idea. Just hope that your loved ones don’t ever get sick during a strike, bandh or a riot.

4. Do SCs, STs and OBCs lack merit? Yes - 39% No - 61%
Face the truth - the upper castes are not genetically engineered super-Aryans. In fact, the lower castes who have survived till now, are the fittest of the oppressed, according to Darwin’s laws, while the upper castes must have degenerated their gene pool because of lack of competition.

5. Are quotas in perpetuity a good idea? Yes - 40% No - 60%
Refer 1 above. Affirmative action is the key.

Also from today’s TOI, “Now, IIT students take to the streets”

We have made it to IIT thanks to the quota but we face discrimination in every walk of life. From insulting names within the IIT campus to being rejected for jobs because of our Dalit status, we are the ignored lot.
- Neil Ratan Shinde, pro-reservation student in IIT Mumbai

I sent the following mail to Kunal Krishna from my college, a rather persistent anti-reservationist.

Are you truly against reservations because they bypass *merit* ? If yes, then what are you (and YFE) doing about NRI and management quotas? Or are you ignoring them because they form a very small percentage of the total seats? See

link to reservations - unequal entry

for more details.

There has been no reply so far.

The conclusions I have drawn so far are

1. The protestors are “youth” who have spare time, money or both.
2. They are just basking in their 15 seconds of fame.

You might say I’m a cloaked pro-reservation guy. But I’m not. People like those in YFE are simply acting in a juvenile fashion. They got the muscle to organise protests, but no brains to know what to protest against. If reservations are like acne on India’s face, then the idea of reducing reservations is like pimple removal cream. What we need is a blood purification program.

1. Is Neil Shinde speaking the truth? If so, what does YFE have to say about it?
2. Can YFE ensure that primary education and social equality is delivered to the oppressed class/caste?
3. Can YFE remove social prejudice? Truly remove it? For real? Can they ask their parents, families, relatives and friends to shed their prejudices? Ask firmly and act even more definitively?
4. Will YFE members stay back and help their country - the one they claimed was “disowning them”? Surely, obligations work both ways.
5. What does YFE think of the fact that over 70-80% of the population comes under the “reserved category”? Surely, something is wrong? Is something wrong in the air Indians breathe? The water that we drink? Or have the upper castes subtly become the face of the country, making the country and the world believe the remaining 30-20% is India?
6. Is YFE going to adopt further issues, or dissolve after the current one is resolved?There are others - social equality, economic parity, corruption (yeah right - rich kids fighting corruption), environment (what does YFE think about asbestos laden ships and the Narmada problem?) and many others.

Guess, there are no answers.