Monsters Inc.

It is evident that the reservation system has failed to reach the masses that it was intended to reach and horribly so at that. Most unfortunately, the system has created a group of individuals, freeloaders if you please, that are benefitting from the system for generations to come. These people have become very adept at gaming the system and spewing hatred all over.

Take for instance the blog The Other India. It started off innocuously enough so that prominent bloggers like Rashmi Bansal linked it as a pro-argument blog. Soon enough this blog turned into an anti-progress and pretty much anti-civilization spiel. Ironically the bloggers at this site wave American examples ad nauseum, often out of context. They talk about AA (Affirmative Action) while not realizing that it is a completely voluntary exercise on the part of the US universities. Well, we will let it go at that.

Talking of America, let's take the simple example of freedom of speech. In the past few days, I posted at least a dozen comments on their blog. These comments were removed in no time. Furthermore, they turned on moderation and removed pretty much any comment that opposed their views. On the other hand, they are spamming the internet with their own comments:

Anonymous comment on a blog. Also here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here. I noticed at least a dozen other blogs on which the comment has been posted, mostly under the handle Shylock, sometimes under handle Narayan and sometimes anonymously. Note that some of the urls will not correctly scroll to the comment since there is not enough page length to scroll up.

A nice rebuttal here.

Compare this to the comment on the Other India Blog by poster Shylock (*).

I sited this example because in the comment, they are viciously attacking "merit" and its validity. Here are some of my arguments against this comment which were removed from their blog (assuming this deserves rebuttal):

What "merit" are we talking of anyway ? Scores in entrance exams at age of 17?

My Dear Sir, the age limits for SC/STs are often relaxed by 3 to 5 years. Hence if you believe the poor old Dalit babies need more nurturing, you need not worry. Oh by the way, even after the age handicap, they are allowed free seats.

The CAT exam is based on the SAT exam in the USA . It has been proved beyond doubt that the SAT test is culturally biased. Blacks and hispanics do poorly at it year after year.

Looks like you love America a little too much! So are you saying Blacks and Hispanics may have some anthropological link to Dalits? I thought the Dalit leader Dr. Ambedkar claimed that Dalits were of Aryan descent?

Approximately 25 % of CAT test is about English! Another 25 % is about English Comprehension!!!! There you are !!!! About 50 % so called aptitude test is a hoax for someone who is from a non-english speaking background .

Well, how do you explain the IIT-JEE and scores of other Engineering and Science admission tests? English does not even feature in those. Also, keep in mind that CAT is a test for a post-graduate degree and often candidates with 2-5 years of job experience are preferred. So, are you saying that an undergraduate education (obtained via free seats) and few years of job experience is not enough to catch up on your English skills?

Dhirubhai Ambani had a poor command over English . He would not have made it through CAT. So what “merit” are we talking of?

Last time I checked, they attributed Mr. Ambani's success to extreme hard work, discipline and (oh the horror) merit.

(*) Note: There is a vicious reason the Dalit anonymous poster chose this Jewish handle. I will elaborate it on a later post.

Update: My own blog was spammed by the anti-merit comment as well.