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Seriously, this nonchalant take is the dumbest one on this issue. I'm not even going to refute it except to say that "supressed" and "underprivileged" go together in the Indian context. And yes, it matters if your grandfather is not able to provide for your father because of "supression" and in turn, your father was unable to provide for you. If it had been happening for a few generations before you, you would NOT be what your profile says you are. The last thing we need is expatriates retrograding society back into the times where latrine-cleaners trained their children to clean latrines, even if they had the talent to develop enterprise scale applications. Please...

Well you could just pay and get a scheduled cast certificate.... Not too hard to get done.

But yea the backward class system is ballocks, what can we do if you ancestors were suppressed ? How the hell does that make you underpriviliged ? Please....

the suggestion makes sense, but its practicality when it comes to implementation so as to negate the effects of the policy in place is in question, simply because the soulution is idealistic, but the world we live in never was and never would be.

Of course, social prejudice is made more acute because of reservations. So the solution would be to remove both. While reservations can be removed with a stroke of a pen, what about prejudice?

I guess you already know my stand. I won't put it down here, because I'm saving it for later.

You have two pertinent flaws in your solution. The first is, of course, you expect us all to be angels reborn and reject reservation. Thats Utopian. The second is you are asking us to come on a level playing field when it is, in fact, not level. I'm not convinced that its level. Of course, the plain truth is 99% of the caste people will be knocked off by an impartial judge - the merit criteria. So far, so good. What about the rest? What about the system in situ? If I'm not wrong, outside of official gazettes and such, India has always had a bias towards the higher castes. Or maybe one word is enough - prejudice. Social prejudice. Will the successful 1% be protected from the social prejudice and guaranteed an impartial judgement for the rest of their careers? That was a rhetorical question, BTW. I already know the answer.

Rest assured, if I get a kid, I'm going to sit him/her down and say "Honey, reservation is bad for your soul. Ask your father. So you better slave off and get into that college on your own credentials and when you get to where you can kick serious butt, show them what you got".

I agree with Hairdas. People wont give up their seats that easily. Only a handful of students will give up their status.

However, it can be implemented on a case-to-case basis. If the reserved category person's annual income exceeds a particular threshold, he must be converted to general category. But of course, which politician would want to lose his votebank by implementing this?

Btw, you might want to read today's TOI editrial page bottom left article(Devil's Advocate, i think). The author has ridiculed the system in a very interesting way.

Which isn't, of course, to say that all the people who gain reservation don't deserve it. Some genuinely do. But I'm against blanket reservations. Do them on a case-to-case basis. If they really, really deserve it.

I accept these points, and am fully aware of the, shall I say, selfishness. In fact, if I were one of the candidates rewarded with reservation, I'd prolly accept it.

But, all that I wanted to highlight was, rather than curing the symptoms, why not do away with the problem itself? Change the attitude of the people. Make them deserve the seat / post that they are being offered.

Anyway, just my 2p.

I firmly believe that we are as human beings are very hollow. We like to work less (as u mentioned in ur last post) and get more. Maybe its a similar idea in case of reservations. Essentially they are doing less (or ability to do less) and getting the same benefits as the other classes. Well who would not want that ? So, the idea of a person giving up a reservation seat is very very remote. And in a country like India where seats are premium (atleast in A grade institutions) & for every 1 seat there are 3,000 - 4,000 candidates, I doubt whether so many people would have a high moral standing. Even if we have a wonderful start I doubt whether extinction of reservation would take place before 2050. I firmly believe that the sole power of exercising the eradication of reservation lies with the Government, not with the individuals. It should not only ensure complete abolition of reservation from each and every field but also see that every private institution does not carry out reservation policies. The problem is inspite of living in a cosmopolitan society we are getting more and more community specific. We have groups of Gujaratis making colleges, Sindhis making colleges, Marwaris, Jains, ......... and so on. And then they reserve outrageous no. of seats (50%) to that community. It is a social evil. Every institution, every society, every location of social interaction should be avoiding this and Govt. should work towards stopping it rather than encouraging it.
Foreign institutions are allowing more and more diverse culture assimilation. on the other hand indian institutions (inspite of having a rich culture mix) is doing just the opposite. If we intend to be competitive in the future and develop a growing and sustaining economy we should be open and promote a competitive atmosphere in every possible arena.