The alumni as well as the students of IIT have come together and called out for a peaceful candle light procession on 5 July 2008, in different cities of India, including New Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai against the central government’s directive of implementing 50 % reservation in IIT faculty. They have raised several questions on this issue. According to the IITians, the government is playing with the autonomy of institutes of national importance especially IITs, IIMs and AIIMS. The government has recently enforced 50 per cent faculty reservation in IITs with ’immediate effect’; it is a matter of time when this rule is enforced in IIMs, medical institutions and other colleges.

"The definition of creamy layer is being modified to people having more than 5 lakh annual income which is completely illogical and in defiance of the spirit of Supreme Court order," says an IITian. "The ruling that graduates and above should not get quota has been blatantly overruled by the government. Reservation in the faculty of IITs implies that the government considers even PhDs as backwards."

An alumni of IIT says, "The protests are also to express displeasure over the way Arjun Singh has single-handedly destroyed whatever reputable was there about the Indian education system. The Supreme Court judgments have been interpreted and implemented in their own bizarre ways. The autonomy has been snatched from almost all Indian institutions of excellence. And the final nail in the coffin of excellence came in the form of the draconian directive of implementing 50 per cent reservation in the IIT faculty."

The IITians said that they want to initiate an organised struggle against government’s caste-based reservation policies. Historically, protests have at least temporarily stopped the government’s nefarious designs. If we remain quiet today, that day is not far away when reservations would be implemented even in the private sector. And we would be left with no option but to leave our beloved nation, according to the IITians.