Mr Vinod Mehta: Please Talk Sense
Today I just saw Outlook Editor Mr.Vinod
Mehta on CNN IBN’s face the nation talking something which did not make
any sense at all!!
He accused the 24/7 channels of being biased on reservation policy and telecasting only nationwide student protests.
Mr. Mehta, any person who reads your outlook magazine can be
absolutely clear that you are infact supporting the quota system. Now
aren’t you biased? And you are accusing the 24/7 channels for the
simple reason that they are not biased on the same side as yours
Recently I was shocked to read an article by you titled ‘Eyes, Ears And
Minds Closed’ in your magazine where in you said ‘India’s middle class
is hostile to the empowerment of the poor?’!!!!
Mr Mehta can you please tell me the percentage of middle class in India
10 years back and their percentage today? Where did this massive
increase in Indian middle class population come from?? Were they
created by a magci wand? Any sensible person knows that most middle
class families in India today are those who were poor just about 10
years back. It is the boom in the meritocracy based IT and ITES sector
and other sectors which have helped these poor families move up the
ladder. And do you think these very people who were once poor will be
against today’s poor?
And what is the funny basis of your argument? The anti-quota protests??
Who told you anti-quota protests are anti-poor? Quota is based on
caste, not on economic background. Has your magazine or you done any
survey as to how many of these anti-quota protesters support
reservation based on economic background. Almost all will support it,
because IT MAKES SENSE.
You who claim to be unbiased, why haven’t you reported about poor upper caste students who dont have either quotas or money?
It is highly unfortunate that an editor of a responsible magazine like
yours equates protests against caste based divisive politics of quota
system to middle class v/s poor. Do you mean to say there are no
SC/ST/OBC in middle class and upper class or do you mean there are no
poor people in the so called upper caste?? I can show you thousands of
both categories just in my place.
Also I observed that on CNN IBN you tried to mislead the audience by
talking about Affirmative action in USA by comparing it to quota
systems in India. But you never told in the debate the fact that
affirmative action does not have any concession on merit. In
affirmative action even a reserved catergory candidate needs to have
the same merit as required by general category candidates and only then
the reserved category candidate will be given prominence over the
general category candidates. In other words unlike Indian Quota system
there is no reverse discrimination in affirmative action practiced in
America. You either do not know the fact or you wanted the audience to
believe that there is quota system in USA!!! Mr. Mehta, you cannot fool
all the people all the time.