If you remove C from BJMC Pune the history of institute goes back to 19th century, 1871 to be precise. Started as BJ Medical school with a generous donation from Jeejibhoy family Became college in 1946 and I am one of the fortunate to have passed out from this motherly institute.
The scenario in 1970 was totally different than what it is today. Pune university as such catered colleges, so many, right from Khandesh to Ratnagiri and from Thane to Ahmednagar, that it was practically overcrowded. So city like Mumbai had 4 colleges only for her students while Pune had to bear the load of rest of Western Maharashtra including part of Southern Maharashtra, as 80 seats were reserved for Shivaji University. Injustice? whom to blame?
When I entered the premises, many faces I saw were really should not have been there in the 1st place, at least in my opinion, because merit was the thing I had in mind. To my shock, which was rude, to say the least, for the first time in my life I got to know about a parallel system like reservation quota. Though coming from elite Brahmani school, such taboos were never taught, nor practised and we were never made aware of such things. Absolutely cohesive camaraderie. Well below the cut off percentage for open category, this lot definitely studied hard but always fumbled in viva for want of fluency in spoken English, maybe examiners too knew where they came from, it was a small world then, so used to help them in clearing the exams. And thus through the same system, many enrolled even for PG courses.
Today many of them, gracefully retired, mostly from Government services rub shoulders with the elites without any prejudice whatsoever, of course, it should not be there, but it seems to be laced with covert arrogance, making it amply clear by utterances, behaviours, and body language. If a co-student from open category happened to be subordinate in Government service it became more apparent, or it seemed so. My own friends, co batch mates today are no less than me in any way, they wear good clothes, eat at 5-star restaurants, their wards go to English medium schools, many are studying abroad and they pay the income tax by the same slab what I pay but..... big but ! But still they and their children, the ones who went to English medium schools, attended same private tuition classes, wore branded shoes and took tennis lessons, still avail facilities under the backward category. At this stage, I then wonder what exactly it means by backwards?
The whole idea was, to bring real, real backward classes to a particular standard of living, once that achieved how far it is feasible for this class to continue with the reservation policy.
No, I am definitely not against reservations. You go 50 miles north of Mumbai, number one metropolis of India and we have Jawhar and Mokhada where for simple drinking water you have to struggle day in and day out, electricity is seldom available, schools are distant and ill staffed, in short, no gateway to mainstream society. This is the deserving lot and not the one who sits next to each other in Secretariat as officers or high levels managers but one enjoys and other doesn't, that's discrepancy! And the constitution I know is against it fundamentally.
We may be from the same Alma mater but has a system made a rift or is it so?
Another thorn in the leg was rampant nepotism. The professional rapport among-st the teaching staff and the practising but visiting consultants was so thick that the wards of the doctors got undeservedly better percentage in the finals enabling them, to hog all the coveted PG seats though in reality, they did not deserve. Now they buy in the open market!
Don't know where people like me started with dreams in eyes and goals in heart and practised honestly throughout life and where is it going to end?
The scenario in 1970 was totally different than what it is today. Pune university as such catered colleges, so many, right from Khandesh to Ratnagiri and from Thane to Ahmednagar, that it was practically overcrowded. So city like Mumbai had 4 colleges only for her students while Pune had to bear the load of rest of Western Maharashtra including part of Southern Maharashtra, as 80 seats were reserved for Shivaji University. Injustice? whom to blame?
When I entered the premises, many faces I saw were really should not have been there in the 1st place, at least in my opinion, because merit was the thing I had in mind. To my shock, which was rude, to say the least, for the first time in my life I got to know about a parallel system like reservation quota. Though coming from elite Brahmani school, such taboos were never taught, nor practised and we were never made aware of such things. Absolutely cohesive camaraderie. Well below the cut off percentage for open category, this lot definitely studied hard but always fumbled in viva for want of fluency in spoken English, maybe examiners too knew where they came from, it was a small world then, so used to help them in clearing the exams. And thus through the same system, many enrolled even for PG courses.
Today many of them, gracefully retired, mostly from Government services rub shoulders with the elites without any prejudice whatsoever, of course, it should not be there, but it seems to be laced with covert arrogance, making it amply clear by utterances, behaviours, and body language. If a co-student from open category happened to be subordinate in Government service it became more apparent, or it seemed so. My own friends, co batch mates today are no less than me in any way, they wear good clothes, eat at 5-star restaurants, their wards go to English medium schools, many are studying abroad and they pay the income tax by the same slab what I pay but..... big but ! But still they and their children, the ones who went to English medium schools, attended same private tuition classes, wore branded shoes and took tennis lessons, still avail facilities under the backward category. At this stage, I then wonder what exactly it means by backwards?
The whole idea was, to bring real, real backward classes to a particular standard of living, once that achieved how far it is feasible for this class to continue with the reservation policy.
No, I am definitely not against reservations. You go 50 miles north of Mumbai, number one metropolis of India and we have Jawhar and Mokhada where for simple drinking water you have to struggle day in and day out, electricity is seldom available, schools are distant and ill staffed, in short, no gateway to mainstream society. This is the deserving lot and not the one who sits next to each other in Secretariat as officers or high levels managers but one enjoys and other doesn't, that's discrepancy! And the constitution I know is against it fundamentally.
We may be from the same Alma mater but has a system made a rift or is it so?
Another thorn in the leg was rampant nepotism. The professional rapport among-st the teaching staff and the practising but visiting consultants was so thick that the wards of the doctors got undeservedly better percentage in the finals enabling them, to hog all the coveted PG seats though in reality, they did not deserve. Now they buy in the open market!
Don't know where people like me started with dreams in eyes and goals in heart and practised honestly throughout life and where is it going to end?
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