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Nationwide OBC
reservation protests
o test the constitutional validity of the 93rd
Amendment, on April 5, 2006, Union HRD min-
ister Arjun Singh announced that the coalition
TUPA-I government at the Centre had approved
his ministry’s proposal to reserve an additional 27 percent
(in addition to the 22.5 percent reserved quota for sched-
uled castes and scheduled tribes) of capacity in Central
government promoted universities and higher education
institutions (JNU, IITs, IIMS, AIIMS, etc) for OBC (other
backward castes) students. The student community, par-
ticularly in north India, responded to this out-of-the-blue
reservation diktat with nationwide protests and campus
rioting. Following a huge public furore and media (includ-
ing EW) criticism, a special government committee recommended expansion of institutional capacity of Central
government institutions to avoid reduction of merit students’ quota.
The additional 27 percent reservation diktat has intensified competition for admission into the nation’s too-few
high-quality institutions for ‘merit’ students, diluted academic standards and generated social tensions in campus
India and society.
EW covered this issue with a cover story ‘Reservation shadow over campus India’ (See www.educationworld.in
Archives — May 2006)
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