Dear Mr. Vinay Kumar,

Thanks for your salutes, and I humbly accept them. My salutes to you back for your polite and cultured reply, though I disagree with you on facts.

Why am I spending so much time trying to convince you? Because, I believe you can be a very good leader against corruption, a worthy cause. You're steadfast.

Yes, I'm from open category, and some of us from my family have paid for that. But I never complained about it, and accepted what I got gracefully, because I always felt reservation was on sound reasoning.

True, there's the genuine question: "Is it fair that I pay for my previous generations' wrong-doings"? Whether we (from open category) see or not, we do genetically enjoy the fruits of the 'discrimination in our favour'. Somewhere we need to compensate and move along.

Sure enough, reservation is not being implemented fairly. If you make common cause with those from the deprived classes who are never allowed to enjoy the fruits of reservation by the creamy layer, you have a strong case and you may even have a good chance of winning, as you'll be then in a majority. But you won't gain if you win on this issue. Are you ready to fight for the marginalized among the oppressed?

Even in a horse race, they add handicaps to winnable horses to make every horse winnable, as much as possible.

There are times in life when 2 well-meaning people, 2 good propositions, come head-on. Most often, we side with our own people, and we can't see the fairness of the other side. This is true of the people on the other side also. So, 2 good (or at least non-wrong-doing) people end up fighting each other. Tragic indeed.

Do we want to be like animals in a jungle, fighting it out, or we want to resolve issues amicably? If the latter, we should be willing to see things from an unbiased angle. Very difficult, but do-able. Do we want to be like the rest of the 99%, or do we want to rise above them? We should decide.

I come from a rural background but my parents wisely moved into larger town (& later city) to take advantage of opportunities.

My next generation knew right from the start that they would be handicapped. So, they set their eyes higher and are doing very well, not requiring to compete within India. The world is their stage.

Take the case of the jews; you'll see they've made an advantage of their handicaps. (I'm not discussing as to whether Jews were wronged, or were the wrong-doers. That's a separate issue. I'm just saying that they were persecuted against, and reservation is in no way comparable to what the jews went through.) There are many such cases.

I agree that everyone may not make it like jews. But today, opportunities are aplenty, and you don't have to work on 'zero sum' basis. You can create your opportunities.

Take even the case of India. The west discriminated against us (and all developing countries). We imported heavily, but exported little. We beat them in their own game, through dominance in IT, not originally our strength, and now they are crying against outsourcing. The west are now the handicapped society. Their future is bleak.

Understand about 'survival of fittest'. You can get stronger if you ignore reservation and move on. The more the handicaps, the higher you can get. It's all in our minds. If you keep telling your children "you're suffering reservation", they will imbibe it, fight against it all their lives, and may never succeed. If you tell them, "look, you need to do well enough so reservation won't matter", they will do well globally.

Let me hasten to add. I genuinely believe reservation is a MUST to set right past prejudices.

Have you read the quote: "God, give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that can be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other"?

Let's face it. Any amount of whining won't undo reservation. You're wasting your time.
The wise convert every problem into an opportunity. The others see a problem in every opportunity.

Try to see how the whole society can move up, not just yourself and your kith and kin and your community. If those from the other communities don't do it, don't worry. You can't change the world. But you can surely change yourself. And the moment you see things with a different perspective, you'll see a very different picture... a world full of opportunities. Life is not just goodies,... the material things. The world is full of opportunities.

Work for everyone, including those you consider in your opposite camp. It will surely be difficult initially. But the moment you start seeing things in that perspective, you'll enjoy your life more and more. You'll be at peace with yourself. Till then, you'll only keep suffering.

Reservation puts one section of people against another, neither of them being a wrong-doer. A very unjust situation. So, we need an honourable way out for everyone, not just for us.

Corruption puts thieves against the rest of the people who are not wrong-doers. (Even if they pay bribe, they often do it left with no choice; I'm not talking about those who use bribing as a tool to get their work done. I'm talking about aam aadmi). So, we need to fight it tooth and nail. We have borne it for over 6 decades. When someone like Anna leads, it FOCUS like laser and try to make the movement succeed.

Even if you are not convinced about all these arguments, purely from a pragmatic angle, it is better to fight the very few wrong-doers (corrupt) first, and reserve your fight against reservation for a time after corruption is substantially minimized with something like a good Lokpal.

Thanks,

Ganesan. :~)