So many friends wrote to me asking me why I was “silent” on the reservations issue. I told them that I was silent, because I am convinced that we are faced with a fait accompli. Like it or not, this battle is lost. Reservations will not go away. Their stranglehold will increase. No group which gets concessions is going to let go of it. More and more groups will spend time, energy and money getting themselves classified as “backward”. Others will buy fake certificates. Just like we have ghost voters, ghost ration card holders and ghost employees, we will have ghost members of OBC groups and the Chief Commissioner of OBCs (such a post will be created if it does not exist) will frequently investigate wrongdoings, punish a few and allow many to go free!

Even as I was getting depressed, my mercenary, money grubbing, profit smelling self reasserted itself. There has to be a business opportunity here. When such an absurd arbitrage is forced upon us, there must be a larger scale and more legitimate business proposition here than merely printing fake caste certificates. And then lo and behold, from the depths of my market-loving soul there emerged the contours of a brilliant business opportunity.

The decisions of our honourable Central cabinet (populated doubtless by honourable men and women), the diktats of our feudal-socialist HRD minister, the directives of our much-amended constitution do not apply in...Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Singapore, Dubai, Pakistan. They are are all exempt and some have enlightened rulers. Eureka! Let every educational entrepreneur worth his salt open up colleges in these “unreserved” countries. All who can afford and some who cannot (but who will borrow — an opportunity for our banks!) will become willing students in these colleges. Given that most engineering, medical and management colleges involve hostel-living anyway, the additional burden may not be much. And trust me, the holders of “unreserved” foreign degrees will command higher wages than holders of “reserved” domestic degrees. The immutable laws of the labour market shall prevail and once again our cabinet of central planning aficionados will be made fools of, albeit after adding transaction costs to the economy and unbearable and avoidable angst to thousands of deserving “non-backward” students who are not rich enough to cross the borders to the new colleges that spring up.

... contd.