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Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Protest Idea

Just thought of this interesting new way to protest the reservation bill. What if all future students marked the 'OBC' column in their application forms? It should be fairly simple to obtain appropriate documents, albiet illegally. Maybe they can even change their caste? Surely the government cannot have a say in conversion, since that interferes with personal choice. I know this is not a really practical idea, but am intrigued as to what the government can do to counter it if it is done en masse.

posted by k2 at 4:05 PM

3 Comments:

  • my 2 cents worth..

    interesting but again this mechanism wont work..remmeber that the government is not upfront "committing" to the policy that they choose...therefore as long as there is incentive for them to deviate from their chosen action, the players in the game will not choose to cascade on OBC..what say u???

    By Blogger Mad Max, at 3:34 PM  

  • didn't know one could change caste . hmm .. but obtaining fake certificates seems to be fairly easy

    By Blogger procrastinator, at 10:51 AM  

  • Well, if one can be made to change their religion, changing castes may not be that difficult - it might be particularly tempting for those who get most affected by the reservation bill. After all, castes originally only denoted the vocation of the person.

    But I think the root of the problem lies in the fact that the huge majority of the groups that get most affected by this bill don't vote - and sadly even after all this, they probably won't bother to! So as long as the parties don't need their votes to win, they couldn't care less about them.

    I sincerely think that a long term solution would be for them to pull up their sleeves and get to the voting booths. If that is done en masse, then the govt. will be left with little choice but to take notice.

    I don't necessarily wish that the situation is reversed (these kinds of systems only make the divisions between people deeper), but at least they may get rid of it and pave the way for creating a truly meritocratic society!

    The saddest thing about the current reservation system is that it benefits no one - definitely not the people it is touted to benefit. A salary based funding system might do much better to benefit the real needy. All the current system does is to particularly disadvantage the people on the other side of the line.

    By Blogger Rhydhun, at 8:10 PM  

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