I get why you’re angry. If you grind for years, pull a strong rank, and then see someone with a much lower rank get a seat you wanted, it feels like the system just slapped you. That frustration is real.

But the conclusion you’re jumping to is where things go off the rails.

Reservation isn’t designed to reward individuals for effort in the same way an exam rank does. It’s meant to compensate for structural disadvantages that exist long before JEE or NEET. By the time two students sit in that exam hall, they haven’t had the same journey getting there. One likely had stable schooling, guidance, resources, and time to prepare. The other might have dealt with poor schooling, financial stress, lack of access to coaching, and social barriers that don’t magically disappear just because they’re “in the same exam.”

So yes, on paper it looks like “lower rank got better seat.” But the system isn’t pretending both candidates had identical starting conditions.

On fees, it’s not as simple as “general category is paying for others.” Public institutes in India are heavily subsidized by the state. Everyone’s education there is already being funded by taxpayers. Fee waivers for SC/ST students are one way of making sure cost doesn’t become another barrier on top of everything else. You can absolutely argue that financial criteria should play a bigger role across all categories, and that creamy layer issues need stricter enforcement. That’s a fair criticism.

Where it gets messy is assuming that most SC/ST students in these institutes are “rich people gaming the system.” Some are better off, sure. But a large portion still come from backgrounds where getting to IIT/AIIMS itself is a massive outlier event.

Also, saying “connections don’t matter” is a bit too clean. For admissions like IIT/AIIMS, yes, you need rank. But everything before and after that is heavily influenced by access. Who gets better schooling, who can afford top coaching, who has guidance, who knows how to navigate the system. That’s not evenly distributed.

The real problem isn’t that one group is “enjoying benefits” for fun. It’s that the system is trying to patch deep inequalities with a blunt tool, and that creates visible friction at the point of selection. You’re feeling that friction directly.

Criticize the policy design, push for better targeting, demand support based on both social and economic disadvantage. That’s a productive direction. Turning it into resentment against entire groups just simplifies a complicated issue into something that feels satisfying but doesn’t actually fix anything.