IIM students join medicos in anti-reservation stir

AHMEDABAD: Students of the coveted Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) on Thursday joined ranks with medical students across the country to protest the OBC quota proposal.

Unlike the medicos of AIIMS who braved tear-gas shells and water canons in New Delhi, the protest by students at IIM-Ahmedabad was unexpectedly sedate — ‘very corporate-style’, as a passer-by commented.

A group of around 70 students claiming to represent 470 students of the institute, walked across the campus holding flickering candles as a mark of protest and at the end of it they called a customary press conference where journalists were handed out a well-scripted ‘press note’.

The students steered clear of any controversy and made it known that they did not represent the institute nor each and every student of IIM-A.

The students holding candles marched across the campus and carried out a silent demonstration at an already specified location outside the campus. The press release handed out at a media conference, said, “There are a large number of us who feel that reservation does not address the issues it professes to.

The ground realities that exist in large parts of the country and much-touted social and economic parameters that we often quote have not really shown the sort of shift that had been envisaged by the ‘makers’ of our constitution.”

They talked about the issues that the government should address instead of reservation at the premier institutes.

At IIM-B, about 300 students participated in candlelight protest. Shree Hari, president, student affairs council, IIM Bangalore said, “We are preparing a white paper on the OBC reservation issue which will be sent to the government.

A pan-IIM alumni association is staging protest in Delhi. It will meet the PM and the president to register its protests. We are in constant touch with the medico-students protesting against the reservation.” At IIM-C also the scene was no different. Students marched through the campus with candle lights.