Indian government pushes caste quotas

The Indian government introduced a controversial bill in parliament on Friday that aims to reserve more college places for lower castes amid protests by upper caste students opposed to the move.
The bill, which is expected to be scrutinised by a parliamentary panel before being put to vote, will boost the number of college places reserved for lower caste students to 49.5 percent from 22.5 percent. The draft legislation, proposed four months ago and approved by the cabinet on Monday, has sharpened India's caste divide.
But the government said the move was to help underprivileged caste groups, which constitute the majority of India's 1.1 billion population. "Millions of backward classes all over the nation have been looking forward to get an opportunity for equitable access to institutions of higher learning maintained by the state," Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh told parliament while introducing the bill.
Lawmakers cheered him by thumping their desks. But on the streets of New Delhi and India's financial hub of Mumbai, upper caste students staged noisy protests on Friday. In Mumbai, police detained dozens of college students who marched on the streets, disrupting traffic. Some held banners that read: "Indians born free, later bonded by quota".
Students were shoved by police into waiting vans with some shouting: "Down with Arjun Singh". In the eastern city of Kolkata, hundreds of medical students boycotted classes and junior doctors stopped work, disrupting medical services at state hospitals.
Many protesters were from elite medical and technical colleges as the proposed legislation includes prestigious federal-run engineering, medical and management institutes.
But later on Friday, the student coalition leading the campaign said it would stop street protests for three months to allow activists to build public opinion across the country. The bill will be voted at the next session of parliament, due in winter.
"We will build public awareness against this quota policy which is against the nation," said Lokesh Paliwal, a junior doctor and a member of the Youth For Equality coalition. Supporters of the quota bill say the move is necessary because India's lower castes - part of the ancient Hindu system of social and economic stratification - have been traditionally disadvantaged with fewer opportunities for quality education.
A move in the 1990s to reserve more government jobs for lower castes led to widespread protests and dozens of upper caste students died after setting fire to themselves.