While it is heartening to read that the UGC has sought to provide special concessions to the Parsi students, there remains a big doubt whether allocating seats for them would address the real issue.
Students who go abroad generally do so for higher studies like an MS, MBA or PhD, for which there might not be an equivalent specialization available back home. Students do not merely go abroad because they do not get admission in India, they do so because they want to.
In the past, there have been reserved seats for Parsi students at reputed institutes like VJTI in Mumbai (which was discontinued a while ago as seats went unfilled) and at Walchand College in Sangli for engineering. However these reservations while helping some Parsi students prevent other more deserving ones from getting those seats.
During my engineering admissions, when I did not get admission to a top college like VJTI, I choose the next best available option for me in Mumbai.
Besides there has been a lot of hue and cry lately about the massive amount of reservations of university seats for the so-called backward classes, which creates an unfair bias among those vying for open seats and those eligible for a reserved seat. Why should the educated Parsi community seek any allocation of seats – every student should instead be promoted to fight it out and gain admission on his or her merit.
