Protest
A decade after the commission gave its report, V.P. Singh, the Prime Minister at the time, tried to implement its recommendations in 1989. The criticism was sharp and colleges across the country held massive protests against it. Soon after, Rajiv Goswami, student of Delhi University, committed self-immolation in protest of the government's actions. His act further sparked a series of self-immolations by other college students and led to a formidable movement against job reservations for Backward Castes in India. First student to die due to self-immolation was Surinder Singh Chauhan on Sep 24, 1990.
Read more about this topic: Mandal Commission
Famous quotes containing the word protest:
“At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it; breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.”
—Cesare Pavese (1908–1950)
“Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer.... Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)