Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Is Arjun waiting for a Rajeev Goswami?

Bruised faces and swollen limbs—medical students protesting against the new reservation proposal are getting a first-hand treatment of police brutality and Government insensitivity.

Just when the anti-reservation agitation needed to be handled with patience and subtlety, police thrashed medical students in Mumbai. Before that, medical students in Delhi were attacked with water cannons and dragged away during protest marches. And all this was on camera.

Baton-wielding policemen chasing and beating up young, apron-clad boys, an innocent-looking Kolkata girl braving police water cannons and students being dragged out of a blockade to be beaten up black and blue in Mumbai — these have been some of the abiding images of the agitation, which is now fast taking the shape of Mandal II.

With Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh still playing hide and seek and the Manmohan Singh government observing an ominous silence on the reservation issue, it's both surprising and intriguing to see the police going all-out to stall a popular and growing protest.

Do we really need such strong-arm police tactics to stall a protest?

Where do we go from here? Is the Manmohan Singh government waiting for the protest to get more widespread and turn a far bigger issue so that it can derive the maximum political benefit out of it?

In 1990, it took Rajeev Goswami's self-immolation to shock the VP Singh government out of its acquiescence.

From the look of things — the way Arjun Singh is still trying to slug it out with his own Cabinet colleagues and the Knowledge Commission — it still appears that the issue is still at the discussion stage.

There is also a fair chance that more than anything else, the whole quota debate might just turn out to be just another gambit in the Congress' inside struggle for one upmanship.

Why then is the government letting things go this far? Couldn't this much have been avoided?

Why is Arjun Singh fiddling while the flames of protest have engulfed almost all of India?

Perhaps he is waiting for another Rajeev Goswami to make him understand the gravity of the situation.

Courtesy : ibnLive

4 comments:

CyberRowdy(Q8TechDrive) said...

how cant they do all these? they all wants to come back to power and loot us...for that, they need minority votes....they are eyeing the collective, united votebank....dirty idiots...sorry I dont expect much when the country is run by a shadow primeminister taking directions somewhere from europe...

Beau Peep said...

No, the jerk ain't waiting for another Rajeev Goswami. He is just a tool for the Congress-led government that thinks the best way to be popular is by keeping India backward. It is taking India to the times where it all began, if not further backwards.

Brijesh Nair said...

It is sad tht politicians fail to learn any lessons from past experiences. V P Singh tried to implement it and he failed thanks to great people like Rajeev Goswami. I am pretty sure that this time also the efforts of the politicians like Arjun Singh will fail. The protest by students against reservation is growing across India and government can;t afford to keep a blind eye towards these protest.

I am written a article on same lines about reservation in my blog
http://sonyvellayani.blogspot.com/2006/05/reservation-and-capitation-fees-two.html

Anonymous said...

Those deciding the educational policies are the ones who have never had any connection with education in their whole life. Add to that air-headed celebrities like Sunil Shetty, Mahesh Manjrekar et al who think of Lalu as their idol. And the media participates in this ruckus by glorification of illiteracy and promoting buffoonery in the name of entertainment.