{"id":4894,"date":"2008-04-11T14:50:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-11T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indiauncut.com\/?p=2603"},"modified":"2008-04-11T14:50:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-11T09:20:00","slug":"open-letter-to-mitra-kalita-re-reservations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indiauncut.com\/open-letter-to-mitra-kalita-re-reservations\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Mitra Kalita"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Mitra<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livemint.com\/2008\/04\/10225425\/Look-back-to-go-forward.html\" title=\"Look back to go forward -- S Mitra Kalita\">You write in your column today<\/a> that your support of reservations &#8220;is not a socialist stance.&#8221; Quick question: Are you aware of the meaning of the word <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Socialism\" title=\"Socialism -- Wikipedia\">&#8216;socialist&#8217;<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>A socialist society typically redistributes wealth&#8212;reservations redistribute opportunities. Same difference. <\/p>\n<p>You speak about &#8220;universities (and eventually the private sector, I hope)&#8221; being &#8220;forced&#8221; to implement reservations. Forced? So you see coercion as the basis of social justice? That sounds familiar.<\/p>\n<p>You write at the end of your piece: &#8220;[A] day might come in the rest of India where you ask two young men on a college campus what caste the other is&#8212;and each will say he doesn&#8217;t even know.&#8221; Well, I wasn&#8217;t aware of my caste in my college years, or that of my friends. With prosperity and an open economy, barriers of caste gradually erode. Yes, India has a long, <i>long<\/i> way to go before we&#8217;re prosperous enough and open enough, but consider that reservations actually <i>increase<\/i> one&#8217;s awareness of caste, and exacerbate tensions between them. You cannot fight injustice with injustice.<\/p>\n<p>Warm regards<\/p>\n<p>Amit<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p><i>Link via email from <a href=\"http:\/\/acorn.nationalinterest.in\/\" title=\"Nitin Pai\">Nitin Pai<\/a>. More open letters <a href=\"\/category\/Letters\/\" title=\"Letters on India Uncut\">here<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Mitra<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livemint.com\/2008\/04\/10225425\/Look-back-to-go-forward.html\" title=\"Look back to go forward -- S Mitra Kalita\">You write in your column today<\/a> that your support of reservations &#8220;is not a socialist stance.&#8221; Quick question: Are you aware of the meaning of the word <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Socialism\" title=\"Socialism -- Wikipedia\">&#8216;socialist&#8217;<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>A socialist society typically redistributes wealth&#8212;reservations redistribute opportunities. Same difference. <\/p>\n<p>You speak about &#8220;universities (and eventually the private sector, I hope)&#8221; being &#8220;forced&#8221; to implement reservations. Forced? So you see coercion as the basis of social justice? That sounds familiar.<\/p>\n<p>You write at the end of your piece: &#8220;[A] day might come in the rest of India where you ask two young men on a college campus what caste the other is&#8212;and each will say he doesn&#8217;t even know.&#8221; Well, I wasn&#8217;t aware of my caste in my college years, or that of my friends. With prosperity and an open economy, barriers of caste gradually erode. Yes, India has a long, <i>long<\/i> way to go before we&#8217;re prosperous enough and open enough, but consider that reservations actually <i>increase<\/i> one&#8217;s awareness of caste, and exacerbate tensions between them. You cannot fight injustice with injustice.<\/p>\n<p>Warm regards<\/p>\n<p>Amit<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p><i>Link via email from <a href=\"http:\/\/acorn.nationalinterest.in\/\" title=\"Nitin Pai\">Nitin Pai<\/a>. More open letters <a href=\"\"\/iublog\/categories\/category\/Letters\/\" title=\"Letters on India Uncut\">here<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3,41,4,17],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dear Mitra Kalita - India Uncut<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/indiauncut.com\/open-letter-to-mitra-kalita-re-reservations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dear Mitra Kalita - India Uncut\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear Mitra You write in your column today that your support of reservations &#8220;is not a socialist stance.&#8221; Quick question: Are you aware of the meaning of the word &#8216;socialist&#8217;? A socialist society typically redistributes wealth&#8212;reservations redistribute opportunities. Same difference.  You speak about &#8220;universities (and eventually the private sector, I hope)&#8221; being &#8220;forced&#8221; to implement reservations. Forced? So you see coercion as the basis of social justice? That sounds familiar. You write at the end of your piece: &#8220;[A] day might come in the rest of India where you ask two young men on a college campus what caste the other is&#8212;and each will say he doesn&#8217;t even know.&#8221; Well, I wasn&#8217;t aware of my caste in my college years, or that of my friends. With prosperity and an open economy, barriers of caste gradually erode. Yes, India has a long, long way to go before we&#8217;re prosperous enough and open enough, but consider that reservations actually increase one&#8217;s awareness of caste, and exacerbate tensions between them. You cannot fight injustice with injustice. Warm regards Amit * Link via email from Nitin Pai. 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