Eyes closed, this Arjun shoots from the hip

The result of Arjun Singh8217;s mad plan will not be better educated lower-caste Indians, but the replacement of excellence by mediocrity in institutions like the IITs and IIMs

Right. Enough is enough. It8217;s time for Arjun Singh to go before he implements his insane plan to reserve half the seats in institutions of higher education for the lower castes. If the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi are not prepared to sack the Minister of Human Resource Development for his irresponsible populism, it is time for us to appeal to the Supreme Court to stop the minister before he takes one more step towards destroying our institutes of higher learning at a time when India needs thousands more.

As it is the pressure on universities and technical colleges is so severe that it is easier for Indian students to find placement in colleges abroad than here. The largest number of foreign students in American universities last year came from India. Arjun Singh8217;s mad plan will ensure that our best students are forced out of the country to be replaced by those whose only qualification for college will be caste. The result will not be better educated lower-caste Indians, the result will be the replacement of excellence by mediocrity in institutions like the IITs and IIMs.

As these are virtually our only colleges that compare with the best in the world we must fight Arjun Singh. He cannot be allowed to go ahead with reserving 27 per cent of seats in central universities, IITs and IIMs for the OBCs. When this is added to the 22 per cent of seats already reserved for SCs and STs you almost end up needing reserved seats for those who qualify for these seats on merit and not caste.

This column once described Murli Manohar Joshi as a lousy HRD Minister. I take it back. He achieved little in terms of giving us better quality education because he spent most of his time meddling in trivia and raising secularist hackles, but when compared to Arjun Singh he shines like a beacon of enlightenment.Arjun Singh is the worst HRD Minister this country has ever had. He began his tenure with a drive to 8216;8216;detoxify8217;8217; textbooks that he claimed had been made toxic by BJP rule. The truth is that nobody has come up with more than a handful of examples of this so-called toxicity. If Joshi had been a good HRD minister he would have decolonised Indian education by introducing subjects that made Indian children understand their own culture and civilisation better. Instead, he meddled with history books and made some silly changes. There was no need for 8216;8216;detoxification8217;8217; but Arjun Singh needed to distract attention from his inability to give us an education policy that would improve the abysmal quality of our state schools.

Had he been able to do this, we would not have needed reservations in higher education because low-caste children would be able to compete on merit with those from the upper castes. As things stand, Dalit and Adivasi children start off handicapped by the dreadful quality of the state schools they are forced to go to since they cannot afford private education.

This is not true for OBC children. If Arjun Singh bothered to spend time in rural India, he would notice that the OBCs are far from being backward when it comes to education. Upper castes like the Rajputs are more backward because of their reluctance to educate their daughters. He might also notice that the OBCs have almost taken over the powers that the upper castes once exercised. To think Yadavs and Jats are underprivileged is almost too ludicrous to discuss.

But Arjun Singh is not motivated by concern for the educational backwardness of our so-called backward castes. He makes his reservations with a cynical eye on luring the backward castes of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This can be the only explanation for why he has been able to go ahead with announcing his second set of reserved sops.

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Earlier, he gave us the 104th constitutional amendment to ensure reservations for the educationally backward in private schools and colleges. It will serve mainly to enhance the powers of petty officials and provide them with a new channel of corruption. But, clearly the move had the support of the Prime Minister and his boss or it would not have happened.

The most dangerous aspect of what Arjun Singh is doing is its irreversibility. No political party can afford to oppose a move that ostensibly seeks the upliftment of the poor and the low of caste. If there is to be a fight it will have to be fought by you and I. It8217;s time to stand up and be counted, time to demand an end to all caste-based reservations. Let us demand good schools instead, now that education is a fundamental right.

write to tavleen.singhexpressindia.com