The movie theme beautifully moves away from the title of reservation to discover the root of corruption. What is the root of corruption in India, if one were to point out a single reason, than it is to be pointed at the burgeoning industry of education. From coaching classes to capitation fees with urge to study abroad, all parents are burdened with increased cost of education. Ultimately if you ask any single reason to be corrupt, an individual would say that he did it for his children’s education. *
The movie begins with the principal Dr Anand ( Amitabh Bachchan ) being very helpful to all strata of society. He rejects the idea of giving seat to an influential ministers son in front of the committee. This naturally infuriates the minister concerned who with the help of the committee members wants to plug the powers of principal with appointment of vice principal in the form of Mitlesh Singh ( Manoj Bajpai ) who acts as a villian.
Deepak Kumar ( Saif Ali Khan ) acts as a dalit student who is under the umbrella of Prof Anand, when he fails to get selected because of his caste. The interview panel makes fun of his background, questioning his capacity to groom youngsters. He is recruited as Asst. Prof in the institute by Dr Anand and he is in love with Prof daughter Poorvi ( Deepika Padukone ) How they move apart because of the bitter battle of reservation policy adopted by the govt and than realise their folly is the basic storyline of the movie.
Mandal commission was a political means to identify the backward classes and their need to be uplifted in the society. The commission came out with a finding that 54% of the populace were belonging to backward classes and therefore recommended a reservation varying between 27 to 49%. This obviously triggered off massive protests, since other religious minority too got into the fray. It would have lead to a reservation amounting to 75% if one includes reservation for other religious sects such as Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhist etc.
The actual reality is that the entire issue of reservation took a twist into mushrooming of education institutions, and karnataka was first off the block. It lead to massive infusion or boom of medical colleges and engineering colleges in the guise of protecting the minority. Imagine a parent shelling out close to 30 lakhs for a basic MBBS degree and more than a crore for an MD. What will such a doctor do when he passes out, how is he going to recover his dads investment is for anybody to guess.
The movie is path breaking in the sense, that it has moved away from the controversy of reservation silently and attacked the root of corruption in education in the form of coaching classes and capitation fee. Just watch the anti climax, which is purported to be the solution for this malady. But the actual remedy is in the minds of the parents and students. The ethical question remains whether the parent would like to pamper his children with education beyond his means.
Titbits : I knew a parent who would go to the extent of buying a question paper for his daughter so that she passes out with flying colours. My dad used to say don t worry son, perfect your medical education, it does not matter that you fail in your exams now, I am there to sponsor your studies. Be perfect and don t end killing the patients in future. Lolz We hated tutions in those days, it was sort of punishment for dull students. We got rid of tution as soon as possible, but attending coaching has become a trend or hep nowerdays. I hope the Jan Lokpal activists keep this in mind to root out corruption, otherwise it would be futile effort to fight corruption unless one attacks the root of corruption.