The HRD ministry’s proposal to raise the reservation quota of students inthe professional institutions and central universities to 49.5 per cent from 22per cent has raised quite a clamour. But some important issues have been lost inthe debate. Nobody seems to be raising the basic issue: Why do we still require thecrutch of reservations to enable students from the deprived sections to stand ontheir feet even 60 years after Independence? What has happened to the tallclaims of affirmative action aimed at raising the educational and economicstandards of the SCs, STs and OBCs, so that their children are able to competeon their own merit? Arjun Singh’s proposal has been derisively described asMandal-II. As the Mandal Commission report is said to be the source of the ‘reservationsyndrome’, I as the former secretary of the Commission would like to point outhow unfair various governments have been to the Commission’s recommendations.