Reservation for girls || Acharya Prashant, at AIIMS Nagpur (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Acharyaji, the meaning of reservation is providing equal opportunities in every sector to those

00:10who don't have proper resources or enough resources.

00:13So, you also said that you had a batch of 350 students and there were only 30 girls.

00:19In 2020, Government of India decided to have 20% reservation for girls in IITs.

00:26So, why are we giving reservation to the girls in IITs?

00:30Are we thinking that they are not capable of correcting things?

00:33Or are we just creating good numbers in these institutes?

00:38See, all these are ad hoc measures, reservations and all.

00:49I think reservation, the very concept, militates against the dignity of the human being.

00:55Reservation in any form, at any place, for anybody.

01:00I would rather empower the person.

01:04I pick up a person who has been disempowered and disabled for various reasons

01:12and I put that person in a particular institution without challenging the fundamental reason

01:21that caused him or her to feel weak, then I am not doing much.

01:28So, I take this very idea that women or girls should have more reservation as not very dignified.

01:40What we rather need is that girls and women should know who they are,

01:48their energy, their power has to be unlocked

01:54and a point has to come where there is no need for this concept of reservation.

02:03It's an ad hoc thing, it's a temporary solution.

02:06It's not even a solution, it's a temporary treatment that will not cure anything.

02:13But just for the temporary duration, it may have some utility.

02:19It has to be remembered that it has to be temporary

02:22and it has to be remembered that the real solution lies elsewhere.

02:28But Ajay, this temporary solution asks men also,

02:32like if a boy gets 6000 ranks and a girl gets 8000 ranks and she will not get admission,

02:38the boy will not get admission.

02:40So, this temporary solution is also…

02:43No, this kind of thinking is not good.

02:46Let's say they have 100 seats, right?

02:48And if you very well know that 20% have been reserved for a particular section,

02:54why do you still assume there are 100 seats?

02:57Fight for the remaining 80, raise your own level.

03:00Why crib later on that I had more marks than the ones who were in the reserved category

03:07and I didn't get admitted.

03:11First of all, be it a man or a woman,

03:17you have to stop energizing the victim within you.

03:21We take great pleasure in feeling victims

03:25because once you feel victimized,

03:27you feel authorized to claim compensation.

03:30And this is such a bad road.

03:34Don't go down this road.

03:37Even a lot of feminist narrative includes the story of victimization.

03:44I am a victim, so you better compensate me.

03:47The fact is we all are indeed victims at some point in our lives.

03:52But it's not very dignified to claim compensation.

03:56It is against the human spirit to play the sissy baby and say,

04:02Oh, the world has messed up with me.

04:05Things have gone wrong with me.

04:07Now come and correct those things.

04:09What happens to your own strength?

04:11Where are you?

04:12Rise and challenge.

04:14Rise and challenge.

04:16And that's why I don't, even if I try to,

04:19I can't agree with stories of victimization and oppression.

04:23How can somebody ill treat you for centuries without your passive consent?

04:30Please tell me.

04:31You surely had a stake in the system.

04:34Why don't you want to talk about that?

04:37Your real oppressor is not the other,

04:42but your own inner fear and greed and insecurity and ignorance.

04:47But you don't talk of your inner oppressor.

04:50You talk of the external oppressor and you can talk of that.

04:54And when you talk of that, you do get certain advantages.

05:00Somebody will come and say, well, you know, so many wrong things have happened.

05:05So, so much has to be paid to this person.

05:07But that does not build up your capacity.

05:10You are not born to live on compensation money.

05:15Right?

05:16Why do we take birth?

05:17Go back to the first principles.

05:19Why are we born?

05:20Why do we exist at all?

05:21We exist for the sake of liberation.

05:24We do not exist to seek compensation.

05:29You getting it?

05:31And so much of our behavior, whether as men or women, is determined by this kind of reactionism.

05:39Somebody has done me certain wrong, so now I get the rights to turn the tables on him.

05:48You messed up with me, so I'll mess up with you.

05:53History tells that you have denied me of certain things,

05:56so now I'll deny you of certain things.

05:59This takes you nowhere.

06:01This takes you nowhere.

06:03Realization of your true nature awakens a power that no privilege or compensation can match.

06:16You better awaken that power.

06:22See, these two sides of the same coin.

06:27A group of people comes and says, we are the victims, so you give us reservations.

06:32And the moment you give them reservations, another group stands up like this and says,

06:36oh, the seats have been all taken away and our cut-offs are way higher than their cut-offs,

06:43so now we are the victims.

06:45So what do we want now?

06:47We want compensation.

06:48Who will come to compensate you?

06:50If everybody is to be compensated, who exactly is the one making the compensations?

06:56We don't go into these questions.

06:58Don't ask for compensations.

07:00Even if you feel somebody has wronged you, take it in your stride.

07:05Tell yourself, you have taken away so much from me, now I'll show you who I am.

07:10You have taken 10 units away from me and that further awakens my spirit to earn 100 units.

07:19In fact, I thank you for snatching away those 10 units or whatever.

07:23Had you not challenged me that way, I would not have awakened to the potential.

07:30I would not have taken up the challenge and become bigger.

07:35Have that approach in life.

07:37Bit of an advice.

07:39As this year's Women's Day theme stands for gender equality,

07:43there still exists gender inequality in every aspect of the society.

07:49So do you think that education can bridge the gap of gender inequality

07:56and what are the changes that we can make in our education system

08:00to move towards a more gender equal society?

08:04No, I'll repeat that.

08:06Let's see.

08:11You are coming with a pre-prepared sheet of questions and that's why.

08:16Gender equality is a very ordinary objective.

08:21I am repeating that.

08:23It's a very, very ordinary objective.

08:26Gender equality is much the same as saying that since he is the male chimpanzee,

08:33so I want to be his equal as a female chimpanzee.

08:38How glorious does that sound?

08:40Please tell me.

08:41Do not ask for equality.

08:43Men are stupid.

08:47Why do you want to be equal to them?

08:50Why do you want to even proceed in the same dimension as they have?

08:57Political power has been with men.

09:00Economic power has been with men.

09:02Don't you see what they have done with their power?

09:05Please.

09:06Do you want to go down the same road as enlightened women?

09:10Please tell me.

09:13Do you want to be female copies of men remaining females biologically

09:22but trying to become men psychologically?

09:26Is that what you want to become?

09:27No.

09:28So, just don't try to seek parity with men.

09:32In fact, you can learn from all the misdeeds of men and woe to not repeat them.

09:38That's the only thing you can look towards men for.

09:42Look at men and say, I don't want to be equal to him.

09:46Being equal to him is an insult.

09:50Gender equality is a very, very ordinary objective.

09:54You need liberation from your gender identity.

09:59Gender comes from society, sex comes from biology.

10:02To begin with, kindly seek liberation from your gender identity and as you progress in life,

10:10see whether you can also be liberated from your sexual identity.

10:15That is what we are here for.

10:18That is the purpose of life.

10:20The purpose of life is not to fall in the same well as generations of men has been doing.

10:29That's not what we are here for.

10:39Sir, this liberation of women is such a new concept to me.

10:44Even the basic need like gender equality which is much less than liberation of women,

10:50I came to know about it such a later age.

10:53So, I want tomorrow's children to know about this or to get the ideas of this such a younger age than myself.

11:03So, how can that be brought about?

11:05Education is the key.

11:07Unfortunately, our education focuses almost completely on the material.

11:13The physical dimension of living is all that we address in our education.

11:17We need to address the real, the inner dimension of life.

11:23That which I am talking of is fundamentally Vedanta.

11:27Vedanta is not some abstract stuff in arcane Sanskrit that you cannot make head or tail of.

11:36Vedanta is this.

11:38Vedanta is a very living thing.

11:41It tells you what your next decision in life should be.

11:45It tells you how to live.

11:46It tells you who you are.

11:49That education needs to be there in our schools, colleges, universities and if our formal system

11:57fails to provide that or accommodate that, then there needs to be an informal way.

12:04By informal, I mean something outside the formal governmental system.

12:10I am trying a bit of that.

12:12The things that are happening here, the books that you are seeing in front of you are all that.

12:18I just hope that such books were rather present in our formal syllabus when we were in class 8th or class 10th.

12:29That's the time when these books must have been read, but better late than never.

12:34Now we are trying to disseminate the message of Vedanta and to the extent I can see, that is the only way.

12:48Sir, the idea of including sex education in a primary syllabus to cut down criminal rates etc.

12:59So what is your take on that?

13:02It's just that we call ourselves cultured and civilized.

13:09Therefore we call certain behaviours as unacceptable and criminal.

13:16But irrespective of how we label those behaviours, those behaviours have largely continued.

13:24Because those behaviours are commonplace in the jungle.

13:27I'll keep going back to the jungle because that's where these behaviours are really coming from.

13:35You are holding that sheet of paper, I snatch it away from you.

13:39You will say, see this is a crime.

13:41My property has been taken away, right?

13:44But is that not happening all the time in monkeys?

13:47You go and observe monkeys.

13:50They continuously keep snatching things away from each other.

13:54Because we are monkeys, we too do that.

13:59As long as we are monkeys, crime will remain.

14:04Because all crime is nothing but an attempt to extend the material self.

14:10That's the Vedantic definition of crime.

14:13An attempt to extend the material self at any cost, that's a crime.

14:20When you do not know who you are, then you take your welfare as completely divorced from the welfare of the other.

14:29Then it's a zero-sum game.

14:30She has something, then I don't have that thing.

14:33For me to have that thing, I must take it away from her.

14:37That's the material approach to life.

14:41You understand a zero-sum game?

14:44Plus one, minus one.

14:46If I have it, I have plus one.

14:48She has it, then it is a minus one for me.

14:53You flip the sides, it is still plus one and minus one.

14:56The sum remains zero.

14:58That's how Prakriti operates.

15:00If you have it, I don't have it.

15:01If I have it, you don't have it.

15:03And that's the thing that applies to all material, does it not?

15:07If I have this, how can you have this?

15:11And then there will be crime.

15:13Because you too want to have it, that is called desire.

15:16I too want this.

15:18And desire cares for nothing but itself.

15:21I too want to have this.

15:22And desire is what is killing this planet.

15:25Everybody wants to have a good life.

15:27All of us want to have lots of this.

15:31But the planet does not have enough to give each of us enough of this.

15:38And desire is saying, no, I too want this, I too want this.

15:41We too want to have the same kind of per capita consumption that the United States has.

15:45We too want to have the same kind of per capita usage of electricity that Germany has.

15:54I want to have the same number of kids as my neighbor has.

16:00And that's what is bringing us to a total destruction now.

16:05Please understand, that is crime.

16:08To care for the material beyond the worth of the material.

16:14To think that the material can give you what it really cannot, that is crime.

16:19That is the real definition of crime.

16:26But we do not have that definition because that definition is too much for us to handle.

16:31So we define crime in a very narrow way.

16:34We make certain rules, certain laws.

16:37And if somebody violates them, we say that fellow is a criminal.

16:41The fact is everybody who lives only in the material dimension of life is a criminal.

16:48Just that the crime might not have yet come to light.

16:52Just that the crime is not yet recognized by the rule books.

16:58But the fellow is a criminal, no doubt.

17:01Therefore, the only real way to eradicate crime is to wean the man and the woman away

17:09from only the biological material self.

17:13Otherwise crime is the reality of our biological existence.

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