15 years ago I participated in Mandal Commission protests. The Mandal Commission stated that “social and backward” people in India should have education and government employment reservation (something like Affirmation). Nice idea but the problem was that the total reservations would have been raised to a little under than 50% for the “social and backward” people of India from 25%. This was gross injustice to the rest of the “castes” which comprised of more than 70% of the Indian population.
The result of the protest was that the prime minister who backed the report had to ultimately resign and the report and it’s recommendations dropped. Reservations did come up again and have been creeping up in a lot of states but it never doubled like it did 15 years ago.
So why am I bringing it up? This happened this week :-
Expressing solidarity with their counterparts in Delhi, undergraduate medical students from a government medical college here today staged a day-long fast, protesting against the proposed move to increase OBC quotas in educational institutions.
Just when you think an issue is over and done with, the political class has to drag it over the fire again.
Desi In Toronto 