Reservations: Good, Bad or Ugly?

For the last few days, ever since the reservation moolah has gripped the country, memories of childhood, of those students rioting against Mandal Commission, of V P Singh et al, come back.

I guess many of the people are fundamentally opposed to this quota system. Not to say that I'm not, but the idea behind them is not particularly wrong. When we oppose reservations, isnt't our behaviour as elitist as the brahmins of ancient India who thought that only they deserved any access to education. It doesn't take any rocket science to realise that people from well-educated families will tend to perform better in any exam, and hence any institute based purely on merit is bound to have only people with such background only. And this means that the fruits of development tend to get divided unequally.

The only issue with reservations is that they politicize the complete education sector, and take away any incentive that people might have towards working hard to earn a degree. The complete process is reduced to a mere game of knowing right people at the right times. And unfortunately, with such a diverse society that India is, every class of people would want their own share of reservations. This breeds corruption and furthers dirty caste/class/religion based politics. This further leads to class struggles, and promotes the Naxalite problem/separatist tendencies raging majority of our states today.

Being a democracy, and being one of the fast growing countries of the world at the moment, India not only needs to keep growing at a scorching pace, but also needs to ensure equitable development for all classes of people, to render stability to the complete system. With this background, what is an effective way of ensuring both social equality and high growth rate? Is there a long term solution at all? Or, will temporary local patch-ups, as always, serve the purpose?