Principle on the bench

I find it amazing how some people, successful professionals, can be so very ignorant. Especially, people who flaunt bylines with neat surnames, smirk from syndicated columns and express 'opinion' supposedly derived from much knowledge and experience. I refer again to Barkha Dutt.
'Life has turned full circle, and I’m finally stepping out from the shadow of political correctness, to think, maybe we weren’t so wrong back then; our reasons may have been uninformed and uneducated, our motives questionable, but we had batted on the right side, even if by accident.'
Why does she think she had batted on the right side? (Such an ironical choice of words- you were batting for your side, how can you decide it was the right one? There are no right sides in cricket, only two sides).
' It’s a tough nut to crack but my own view is that quotas would probably be most effective at the school level, but here too there should be an economic benchmark.'
So she subscribes to a principle. But then what she was doing all these 10 years or so she was with NDTV., and what were her fellow champions of the anti-reservations movement doing all these years when reservations were being implemented in most states in the country without taking into account the economic benchmark? Simple, they were either a. unaware of it b. the principle should be applied to only central universities and institutions or c. she has just formulated the principle.
Actually the principle isn't new. There have been anti-reservation stirs in the country in the seventies, the eighties and on the threshold of the nineties. States which could see quite plainly the underrepresentation of the OBCs in the government and in educational institutions had to take measures to bridge the gap, at least partially. And of course political advantages to be gained from bringing in reservations were part of the motives. And the anti-reservationists brought up the economic principle everytime this was done.
In 1989 Ms.Dutt was too young to actually check the figures -how grossly underrepresented the OBCs were in the Central Government. And in the States. Why can't she check those figures now ? Find out for herself whether it's simple economics or something much more complex that's blocking the OBCs entry into the higher echelons of education? The figures she quotes are, to say the least, meaningless. She refers to vacant reserved seats in vocational institutions and engineering colleges. What kind of vacant seats and where? Dalit or OBC seats? In the States or in institutions run by the Centre? When were the figures collected?
And why bring up the figures now, and why not earlier if she (or other like-minded folks) was/were ever serious about persuading people about the economic principle? The principle is brought up everytime there is a renewed threat to the hegemony of the elite. It's flaunted along with a wide plethora of theories, emotions, theory-emotions, theatrics etc., to block, stall and dilute attempts to broaden opportunities for the OBCs. And it's forgotten as soon as the moment passes . The elite doesn't ever take the reservationists seriously- a fatal error of judgment, in my view. Because the reservationists have shown more character, resilience and strength than the elite who oppose reservations. So everytime the issue grabs the attention of the media, the elite makes the mistake of thinking it's yet another freak catastrophe- it'll pass. And doesn't see the need to develop a coherent, informed response to the issue.
Such a shoddy, haphazard, uninformed approach to a serious issue. And this from people who value competence over everything else.