Reservation turns Allahabad univ into battlefield

The university campus is driving people to road blockades, effigy burning and other modes of protest.

As highly conflicting reactions to the issue of reservation in institutions of higher education come from different parts of the country, the University of Allahabad, recently granted central status, has virtually become a battlefield for those favouring or opposing reservation.

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Located in this town of eastern Uttar Pradesh, a region that has been the hotbed of 'Mandal' politics, the university campus is driving people to road blockades, effigy burning and other modes of protest.

In the crossfire is caught the recently appointed Chancellor Verghese Kurien who spoke against the reservation and the union HRD minister Arjun Singh who, as an alumnus of the university, held out the promise of continuing with reservation.

Defending the stance of anti-reservationists, Abhishek Shukla, co-ordinator of 'Arakshan Virodhi Sangharsh Morcha', says "we cannot over emphasise the damage caused to our social fabric by the virulent caste politics that has now become a characterisic feature of the hindi heartland".