LONG LIVE MEDIOCRITY

When you just thought that things could never ever get worse, the HRD ministry has proven again that it can surprise you and surpass your wildest imaginations. Here’s the deal. 50% reservations for SC ST and OBC people in the hallowed offices of the IITs. When did anyone hear of such an outrageous act of defiance against the meritorious and the deserving? When you have not yet imagined the full fledged ramifications of the quota system, you see the final nail driven into the coffin of merit.

No points for anyone for guessing the fact that it’s an election gimmick. The elections are near and the government is unstable and they are desperate to use every last arrow in their quiver. But the arrows are not aimed at the enemy, but at self-destruction, at the heart of the country’s future. The UPA is unwittingly removing big chunks off the foundation of our nation. This point is an axiom. I don’t have to prove it. It’s so evident from their clause, which says that the rule can be revoked next year, if it is not filled ‘despite all attempts’. A sure-shot ploy to remove it after the elections next year.

Everybody knows that the IITs have pioneered India’s revolution in the education sector, especially in the IT sector. The brilliant students have no doubt been at the forefront of it. But the great minds behind the innovation have been the professors who have guided and shaped them to endure ordeals of humungous magnitudes. It is so thoroughly a disgrace for them to have comrades who share the prestigious podium by default because of their caste and not their grey-cells. There should be a limiting point for anything. Things should not be dragged infinitely. What is the basis in having the quota for professors? How are they going to justify this? What sense does it make to have a quota in teaching? The reason that everyone should be given equal chance to succeed should stop at the school level. They stretched it and got it into college. Even after providing so many undue chances, does a person still need some bypassing the merit list? If so, I feel that the person is a complete failure, not to have utilized all the opportunities thrown at him all along.

What next? salary to the ‘qualified professors’ for just sitting at home? I think that it would be a better option than to utilize their ‘skills’ and spoil the party. Just sit at home and have the cash. Don’t teach us and worsen our already precarious position. Already we are a nation filled with a huge chunk of mediocre and lazy people who want the government to provide everything free of cost from food, water, electricity to even satellite television and more recently color television. Our country has got a very small number of entrepreneurs and high thinking leaders for the population and intelligence pool that we have, compared to other countries. Does the government want to demean it even more? We are a country constantly in war with ourselves and it is left to the elite few to get back some semblance of sanity into our ravaged lives.

No one cares a dime about the country going to the dogs. It so thoroughly disgusts me to read such farces and gimmicks by the elected officials early in the morning when I open the paper. A very nice cartoon depicting the trust we have on our leaders has appeared in the Times today. A lie-detector fitted on the podium where a politician renders a speech. Aptly captures the mindset of the totally disgruntled reader who is so thoroughly helpless. Waiting for the dawn...