A lot of anti-reservationists proclaim that they were fighting for merit, for equality. In fact they even spread their agenda under the Youth For Equality flag. But, I find it is ironical to in a system where there one finds everything from lost answer sheets to an economics teacher checking physics papers but not equality. A few things come to mind:-
Even in this age of transnational Indian we have an astounding number of boards which denies every student the right to be judged at the national level. For example, a 90% in CBSE is a good performance but the same in U.P.Board can only be achieved by a genius. Since genius guys are rare, therefore you won’t find many toppers coming from such Boards in places like Delhi University and we all thought the cutoffs were too high this year. Imagine the cutoffs for St.Stephens Eco Hons. if a nationalized system was in place ……..
Millions of Indian kids living in far flung remote areas in the North East as well as tribal belts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan do not have access to schools, or if they do, then all they find is absent teachers and outdated worn out text books, those too suffice only when shared by 5 kids. Compare this with the rich urban students studying in private schools for whom English is the mother tongue and computers their first toys. Tchhh …..and we thought there is too much competition nowadays.
The above arguments reflected a national perspective but things are even worse on a regional basis. A huge amount of discrepancies are reported in countless examinations. The most common cases are those of lost answer sheets, incorrect marks given &/or reported, marking done in an absurd manner and above all results being manipulated. The most hilarious, horrifying I may add too, incident was once accidentally witnessed by me ( classic case of being the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong place) when a mechanical engineering examiner checked papers of electrical engineering students at an institute in Madhya Pradesh. God only knows how beams could match with circuits.
Such is the equality that we in India have become used to and have formed an indifferent attitude towards it. The reservation policy is one such fine example of the consequences of such an attitude.
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Thanks for reading my review.