Karnataka - Bangalore   

Students' unions to hold dharna in support of quota

Staff Reporter

Term anti-reservation protests motivated

BANGALORE: Dubbing the ongoing anti-reservation protests as "motivated and stage-managed by vested interests," six major students' unions in the State have teamed up to hold aloft the banner of reservation. As a first step, the outfits will hold a dharna at the Mahatma Gandhi Statue here on Tuesday.

"The anti-reservation students have an unscientific way of looking at merit. They are feudal in their outlook. First and foremost, they should know how to evaluate merit. When the majority — the underprivileged backward sections of the society — is being crushed by the minority, the elite class, you cannot call it merit. You call it exploitation," contended Students Federation of India (SFI) State unit president B. Rajashekharamurthy.

The students' unions are pointing at the intense competition even for the 27 per cent of seats proposed to be reserved for Other Backward Castes (OBCs). "But who benefits from the seats reserved for the general merit? The cash rich. Merit has no place there," said National Students Union of India (NSUI) State unit president N. Srinivas.

But what about the rich students from backward castes? Did they need reservation? Opinion was divided on this. While some unions felt they could be kept out of reservations, the others considered reservation a must. "You should reserve seats for all backward castes. Within this section, priority can be given to poor students," said a union representative. The pro-reservation streak of the unions is strong. After all, the unions, each ideologically different from the other had come together to jointly fight the anti-reservation lobby under a platform called "Joint Action Committee." Represented in the committee are SFI, All India Students Federation (AISF), NSUI, All India Progressive Janata Dal Students Wing, Dalit Students' Federation (DSF) and Akhila Karnataka Vidyarthi Parishad (AKVP).

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