Recently, the Central government has decided to introduce 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in 20 Central universities across the country. The new reservation is in addition to the 22.5 per cent reservation for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, and will lead to a total reservation of 49.5 per cent.
This petition is to register a protest against this proposed reservation in the premier educational institutes of India, especially the IITs & IIMs. IITs and IIMs are brands symbolizing quality education that India offers. This has been possible not because these institutes have quality faculty members, but also because of the fact that they get really deserving and meritorious students at the entry level. The tough entrance examination separates the grains from the husks, so as to say.
Substandard students – no matter of which caste or tribe - will never excel, no matter how many concessions are given to them. One may lead a horse to the pond, but one can not force it to drink.
One picks up meritorious students from the weaker sections of the society, and prepares them for competitions, instead of giving them an "underdog" chance which doesn’t make much of them at all, instead only giving them:

a) Complacency or laziness. They will (and most often do) take it easy, thinking that they anyway have seats reserved, so they don’t bother to study as much as the other non-privileged candidates.

b) A false idea of how tough this world can be, which is quite harmful for them. Even before, SC/ST students joining institutes like IIT-K used to suffer from an inferiority complex and had to take extra courses to ensure they coped with the syllabus, which proves that they were not really deserving of the seats.The IITs and IIMs are the epitome of management and technical education in this country.

In fact, a character (Asok) in the famous "Dilbert" comic strip is based on an IIT graduate, proving the global fame that these institutions have achieved. Admissions to such institutions in this country should be purely on merit basis and devoid of caste, creed and any other racial basis. So far we had believed that IITs and IIMs are only for the exceptionally brilliant and skilled candidates. If the government passes any bill to issue reservation quota for SC/ST/Muslims or any minority, it is going to become one of the worst and most unfortunate decisions ever taken in the field of education.
If a student/candidate is exceptionally good in studies, he/she will definitely get admission in IIT or IIM. If people can not get into IIT/IIM through the normal admission procedures, it is better that they believe that they are not good enough to go there. This reservation undoes all that these institutions stand for.
It will erode away the pillars of Indian higher education, leaving behind naught but a crumbling image of what could have been.
The reservation as we perceive it will only be the beginning of the downfall of these institutes. This year it is quota. Next year they shall lower the qualifying marks for entrance tests for the reserved category students so that merit will take a back seat and persons with lower marks will have admission over a non-reserved students with more marks. And then shall come relaxation in age limits, increase in number of attempts and so on.
As an old English verse goes:
“For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
For want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For want of a rider, the army was lost.
For want of an army, the kingdom was lost.
All for the want of a nail.”
Instead of merit, caste will be a determining factor in education.
We would like to put across a few points that people short-sightedly (or sometimes conveniently) fail to take note of:

1. Most of the reserved seats are filled by students belonging to families which have already benefitted from such a reservation earlier. This does not help the needy.

2. Most of the OBCs are backward only in terms of caste and not in terms of wealth. Most of them are wealthy and can buy seats in any of the colleges in India.

3. By reserving seats in institutes of higher education, government is shying away from its responsibility of giving quality primary education to all (and thereby providing a level playing field), which is one of our Directive Principles of State Policy.

4. Many students belonging to the so-called 'upper castes' are poor and are unable to get decent education while most reserved seats are filled by students who have earlier recieved a decent education.

5. Many students who fill the reserved seats drop out because they have not been selected based on their merit and hence were not able to cope with the workload. This means a precious seat has been wasted in a premier educational institution.

6. Admission to premier institutes is highly competitive and a large number of meritorious students are left out because they have been born in a general category family.

7. With time, the prestige of these premier institutes would degrade as the students would not be admitted based on their merit but on their castes. This is already evident from the skewed placement statistics of the IITs and IIMs.

8. When the whole world is moving towards globalisation, Indian government is resorting to protectionism, a kind of “divide-and-rule policy”. By protecting the so-called OBCs, they are mollycoddling them instead of giving them the competitive edge.

One should not provide a fisherman with fish, but with the means to catch his own.This move is totally uncalled for at this stage when everything was going on well.We feel that there should be no reservations based solely on the principles of caste. The government should focus on providing quality primary education to all, rather than fiddling with the higher institutes, which are functioning very well. Kindly see that this unfair and unjust reservation is put down.