Quota bewilders foreigners

The reservation fiasco has foreigners completely baffled. This is a crisis of national proportions. Given that the media is typically socialistic in most countries, it could be expected that they would cheer for it with all they got. But so far we had one cautious piece from the Economist which we covered here. Yahoo gave it some coverage. Business Week ran a feature too. This feature is so extremely confusing that we did not even read it. An example passage:

He suggests converting the caste system back into a guild system, encouraging those with traditional skills to pursue them. "Caste's positive aspect should be the basis of India's competitive strength in manufacturing," he says.

Hello?

The most affected are foreigners in India. Unable to decide which side to bat for, many are depressed. Some have reached conclusions. Here is a blog post by Peter Foster, Daily Telegraph's South Asia corrspondent:

Has India gone bonkers?

I guess being a Brit he knows how to cut though the South Asian crap (they did it for several centuries) and absorb the salient points.

So, here is a sample conversation between a pro-reservation guy, an anti-reservation chap and a foreigner.

Pro: Reservation is just affirmative action. This Brahmin is a jerk. Won't let me work.
Foreigner: Affirmative Action is good. Definitely good.
Con: But quotas are not AA ... there are a lot of diff.. (his voice is drowned by Pro's shouts).
Pro: He discriminates against me, he won't even touch me.
Con: Why do you want me to touch you? That's so gay.
Foreigner: (accusatory tone at Con) Bad doggie.
Pro: (now shouting at the top of his voice) See! Foreigner supports us! Affirmative Action must be implemented.
Con: (somehow manages to shut Pro up by putting his hand across Pro's mouth): But it is 50%.
Foreigner: Eh? What?
Con: (barely able to contain a struggling Pro) It is 50% of all seats in colleges, jobs. Sometimes it is even more than that.
(at this point Pro breaks free and starts beating Con)
Foreigner: (confused and breaking into a sweat) Oh my goodness.

As a matter of fact many foreigners could hardly conceal their glee when the full situation including the student unrest etc. were explained to them. A full-scale civil strife in India would mean many IT/BPO jobs would come back home and it means a lot.