Why is it that everything in Pakistan has to boil down to who is punjabi and who is “muhajir” and who is not? Is it too difficult for people there to look beyond their parochial interests for the sake of the country they inhabit?
It is one thing if you have a "quota system" for minorities/disadvantaged groups; it is quite another if you have a system where the relatively better off groups are the ones benefiting from such a system. Both "muhajirs" and punjabis come under the latter category so it is amusing that they the ones with an enviable share of quotas reserved for them.
Is it possible to have quotas for Sindhis and Balochis while at least the punjabis and the muhajirs compete on merit? I think it is. After all there is a thing known as affirmative action where the disadvantaged groups receive priority to an extent but other groups do not have a fixed share of seats in colleges/jobs allocated for them in advance. It is win-win situation because it allows upward social mobility for the disadvantaged segments of society, diminishing resentment, while still ensuring that meritocracy is not completely stripped off in the process.
I agree with you on this. The qouta should not be on basis of ethnicity but on basis of social circumstances like for students studying in village schools or inhabitants of far off areas etc. Neverthless, my father and uncles came from villages, studied in village schools and yet competed with city dwellers from Lahore, Pindi, Islamabad on merit and became engineers, economists, army officers without help of any qouta.
The point here is that a priveleged community considers itself as discriminated against, i don't buy that.