Reservation in the IITs

Today's Hindu carries an essay by a student of IIT Madras about one of the complaints against reservation in the IITs. I am going to address only the core of his argument and ignore the things he says about how JEE can be cleared just by cramming, how IIT graduates end up just being 'techno-clerks' in IT, and so on. Maybe later, if I work up sufficient enthusiasm for it [*].

He takes issue with the argument against reservation that "there should be no regulations upon excellence" and claims that the IITs aren't

actual centres of research that do indeed strive for creative and disciplined endeavour...

OK, conceding for a moment that better research gets done in other places like BARC, TIFR and IISc, how does it take away the calibre of the students passing out from IIT? Do they not *excel* in whatever they do in life after four years in the campus? And no, I don't buy the argument that they are simply "software-writing minions". IT jobs are not just about writing CRUDy business applications, you know.

[*] On second thoughts, maybe it is pertinent to address them, since they are put forward to downplay IITians' calibre.

Let's take JEE. I cleared it more than a decade ago, and things are bound to be different now, but even then I cannot accept the fact that someone can clear the exam just by rote-learning. You need a pretty strong grounding in the fundamentals of science and math to do well. Even if it is the case that sheer hard work will get you in (which I don't buy at all), someone who makes this concerted effort, sacrificing all the things a typical seventeen year-old gets to enjoy, and succeeds, *has* done an 'excellent' job, I'd say.

OK, what about this:

Temples of education? Of the 180 credits that a B. Tech student is required to accumulate towards completing his degree, how many do not relate to science and technology? A grand total of twelve -- including an instructional course in English. How much flexibility does a B. Tech student possess in deciding his course work? None.

News flash: The 'T' in IIT stands for 'Technology'.

Or this:

Even a cursory perusal of campus culture in the IITs -- their cultural hierarchy, their social interactions, their means of recreation, etc., paints a definitive picture of IIT students as self-aggrandising delusional brats living off the fat of the land in the form of subsidies that an indulgent government continues to ritually bestow upon a system that has deviated so far from its founding principles that it betokens those who feel responsible for it to look the other way.

Great prose, but whoa there, that's a mighty broad brush you got there, fella :-)