Anti-Reservation Protest, Hyderabad : Aug 25th 2006

August 25st is an historic day in many sorts for Youth For Equality and to the Anti Quota or Anti Reservation Protestors in India and across the World. This was supposed to be the D-Day as the Bill was expected to be passed in the Parliament. The Medicos and other students had already started their protests two days before 25th in Delhi and many other major Cities across the country followed suit. We in Hyderabad were slow to react but we decided to have a protest on Aug 25th in support of the People protesting in Delhi and other parts of India. The venue of the Protest was decided as Hitech City as the IT Employees formed major part of our Support Group.

I for myself was really dissappointed that i couldn't contribute much and was just a participant in the Protest March but really thinking i couldn't have done much too with the kind of things i got involved myself into.

Since the Protest march was to begin at 6.30, i decided to be there by 6.00 PM and so i got up at 5.00 PM(I work in a BPO, so i have to sleep in the afternoon). The news had just come in that the Quota Bill was not passed yet but was reffered to the Parliamentary Standing Committee, so would only be passed in the Winter Session of the Parliament. The main reason behind it seemed to be the non-inclusion of the Minority Institutions and the exclusion of the Creamy Layers of the OBC's. Anyway, it was still a good news for me as i thought the bill would pass without really taking into consideration the above two issues and also as the Bill was deffered for 3 months, it was something to be happy about. I also got to know that the Protests had been suspended for 3 months till the winter session of the Parliament starts again. So hearing this news, i left for the Protest at 5.30 from home and i would be going with Siddarth, a college friend of mine who seems to be the only person whom i have been able to convince to get involved in issues of National Importance and Social Activites.

I along with my friend reached Cyber Pearl at 6.15PM to see Shreyas, Saurabh and a couple of other guys. Though they were expecting more than 200 people but i wasn't that confident and didn't expect that many people to turn up. Anyway we started tying banners and flags so that the employees and people going by the road would know the cause of our protest and also the people who wanted to be a part of it, can assemble there looking at the banners. As we were busy in the build up activities, around 100-150 people had gathered by 7 PM.

The candlelight march started slowly from Cyber Pearl towards the Cyber Towers Area. It had about 150 people. Some press people had already arrived there. I thought it was a pretty dull protest with just the sloganeering and the slow walk towards Cyber Towers. As Saurabh had distributed many pamphlets in the National Institute of Fashion & Technology (NIFT) campus, it was decided to end the
protest at the NIFT Campus near the Cyber Towers area. As the protest march had reached the busy area of Cyber Towers and NIFT, i must say the atmosphere suddenly got lively with the sudden influx of Anti-Reservation Supporters from NIFT. The people who joined from NIFT, were bubbling with energy. After some real vocal sloganeering protest near the NIFT Campus which really caught the attention of the
commuters of the busy main road, it was decided at the spurt of the moment to block the road for a few minutes. Though we knew it would be very bad on our part to block but we just wanted to show the Govt that we can be violent as well as the Govt had been taking us lightly with us doing only peaceful protests which frankly i don't think created much impact.

Then i must say led by the courageous NIFT girls, we blocked the road for about 5-10 minutes and then we vacated the road as it wouldn't be nice on our part to continue any longer as it was meant just to show to the Shabby Govt that we can be violent as well. So we moved from NIFT Campus to the opposite side of the road, where we had some sloganeering and then ended the day by singing Patriotic Songs.

I had to leave at 8.30PM as i was getting late to work, so had to leave absuptly as the Patriotic Songs were being sung. All-in-all, it was a good event i thought, compared to other protests as the Protest happened in a high security and high visibility Zone unlike the other protests which were held in Lane like areas with Police Permission and also it had much more energy about it