A couple of days ago, I was sitting in class, minding my own business when I noticed the chap sitting next to me.

The guy was an academically restructured (year back) student. He had really squinted eyes and was struggling to read things from his own notebook and laptop, let alone the black board.

Even when he had to read something from the board, he used to open the camera app on his phone and zoom it in to the largest possible extent and read it through there, sometimes taking a pic to help him note it down. In case you haven’t registered by now, he was a student belonging to the Differently Abled category.

The guy made me wonder, we all talk about affirmative action, reservation, uplifting the down-trodden sections of the society. We have so many policies, acts, judgments aimed at uplifting differently abled people, people who have historically been discriminated against on the basis of caste, creed religion etc., but do we ever stop and wonder, does this system even work?

In fact, the only people I know who have been restructured for the next academic year are either differently abled or are belonging to one of the other kinds of reservation, and it’s not even my problem, it’s them who are losing out on one extra year of fee and one less year for working and paying off your education debt.

Such people get admissions because of the government’s affirmative action plans by practically doing nothing their entire life, and suddenly they’re expected to compete with people who’ve worked hard, paid their dues and gotten admission, which I feel, is wrong for both the parties.

First of all, let’s talk about disability reservation. Since most of the educational institutes follow curve grading, how do you expect a disadvantaged person to be equivalent to a regular student, which they often overcome by working hard.

There even is a separate Special Olympics for differently abled people, so how do you expect them to automatically be equivalent to a regular student in a fiercely competitive environment? It’s like judging a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree.

Further, if we talk about the socially disadvantaged classes, their kids are on their own as far as school education is concerned, but as soon as they’re ready to go to college, they’re quickly fast-tracked to the best of colleges at a fraction of the entrance exam score of the so called “Tyrant” class student.

How can you expect such a student to do well at such a prestigious institute where even the professors expect that you are a smart quick learner since you cleared the coveted entrance exam?

Now, I’m not insinuating that every one from the disadvantaged classes is weak in studies. Even I have classmates from such backgrounds who have done well, but that’s because of their hard work and drive, no thanks to the government.

Hence, the core of the issue is that we’re happy with appeasing policies but I feel that’s the worst form of self-serving behaviour. We feel great that we’ve finally given them the same pedestal to compete, which is great, but what have we done to ensure that such people would be able to compete at the same pace?

Dear Reader,

What do you think we could do to ensure the proper upliftment of the disadvantaged sections of our society without giving away too many freebies?

Or, would you rather tear me up for writing about such a sensitive topic?

Well, the comments section is wide open, let’s have a discussion.

P.S. It is highly unlikely that you’ve missed my writings over here, but if you did, I apologize and I promise to be more active now.