Blog: Please Stop; India Need Growth, Don't Need Protests Anymore

The country-wide protests against Citizen Amendment Bill (CAA) reminds me the strong opposition to reservation in government jobs to certain castes on basis of birth rather than merit of the candidate as recommended by the Mandal Commission in early nineties.

The protests against Mandal Commission reservation were so loud and wide-spread that roads and highways were blocked; transportation and public services were paralyzed and schools, colleges and businesses remained closed for many days in India. Angry students even attempted self-immolation.

Rajiv Goswami a student at Deshbandhu College, Delhi University was the first student to attempt self-immolation protest against reservation. His action sparked a series of self-immolation by college students.

Surinder Singh Chauhan was the first student to perform self-immolation while an evening student of Deshbandhu College (Delhi University) on September 24, 1990. He left a suicide note stating that "The responsibility f my death lies with those people who consider reservation a vote bank."

The political cost of the such protests are too high as these escalate to paralyze the economic activities. The distressing features of these protests are bandhs, destruction of public property, looting, and intimidation. Unfortunately, in India nation has to pay for the misdoings of ruling class time and again. And our politicians haven't learnt any lessons from dark days of emergency in 1975, high cost of protests against Mandal Commission reservation (Now almost every state and union govt have given reservation on the basis of caste) and similar protests thereafter.

With 4 fresh deaths in protesters-clashes with police, the death toll has reached 14 within a week of unrest triggered by a contentious citizenship law.The there are fear that protests may further escalate unless govt sits down with the protesters and address their concerns. The democratic way of dealing with public anger is to address the opposition , not use force to quell the protests. Please stop all this and let India walk on fast-track of growth.

(Chander Sharma)