Friday, February 2, 2007

Reservation

Reservation policy in India has received a lot of criticism in the recent past by many of them. The very existence of the reservation is questioned again and again. If we ask ourself a question as to who created this so called lower caste and higher caste , the obvious answer would be we. If we talk about equality now, where was this thought in our minds for a 1000 year back. Most of the higher caste people were still educated even in those days , as a matter it was only the higher caste people who were allowed to study and lower cast were deprived not just education but even more things in life and were treated as slaves by most of the higher caste people who even to those many were educated.

The reservation came into fact only during the post independence . The question arises again , is 50 years a magnanimous time given for these low caste people to recover what we deprived them for more than 1000 years? In fact many argue that reservation is one of the reasons why India still remains backward. I again ask the question , why the very same , did not strike to our minds many years ago? But when when see the the other side of the coin , its true that many eligible candidates are deprived of their education , even though they are more fit for the same than many other candidates.

Many a times we talk about reservation only at higher level like graduation or job. But I feel the reservation problem lies much below than we actually talk about. Yes I am talking about schools where a child begins to dream of his future. A school run by a particular community or caste always prefer to give admissions to only children of the same community or caste most of which again belong to higher caste. Much lately schools also prefer to admit a child if the parents are in a good position in the society. Is not this also reservation? I some time feels the problem of reservation exists in the roots of our system. Probably solving this problem will also find a solution to reservation problem at much higher level.





4 comments:

Shankar said...

Reservation is a political evil as much as it is a social malaise. Petty vote-bank politics and appeasement policies are so deep rooted in our political establishment that none of our netas can muster enough courage to scrap reservation without the repurcussion of losing their "kursi". I personally would support to an extent reservation based on economic hardship but reservation based on social standing is a total farce.

sumanth said...

Indian politics is by the people and for the people :) I would rather hold the people responsible for the current situation. We are also a character of this farce.

Kishor Narayan said...

1. Caste-based reservation is not an answer to eliminating social discrimination. Two wrongs can never make one right. The need of the hour in a country like ours is to unite two sections of the society and not deepen the divisions holding the populace hostage from time immemorial.
2. The very initiation of caste-based reservation when India became independent was made on the pretext that it would be reviewed and later scrapped after 10-15 years. The policy makers of yesteryears felt that with an honest effort, a decade would be enough to bring the deprived classes on par with the mainstream population. Unfortunately, this has become hostage to the whims and fancies of the netas of today. Surprising yet interesting to note is that even in Communist ruled states of West Bengal / Kerala, castes still play an active role. Communism, it seems only determines economic policies in our land and not the social policies & behavior.
3. What happens to the 'under-privileged' people who have already got the benefit in the past 50 years? What is being made to avoid the familiar story of 'rich gets richer, poor gets poorer' syndrome? Who takes the onus of defining the 'creamy layer'? Should the courts intervene everytime to give us trivial definitions? Should the judiciary work overtime to keep the society on its toes?
4. What happens to the 'economically backward' portion of the population? Stories of 'India shining', 'India hogging headlines in Davos World Economic Forum summit', 'India registering 9+% GDP growth' seems utterly trivial when we see malnourished kids in tribal districts of Orissa. Isn't it a shame for the entire countrymen to ignore these bare facts? 'Farmers committing suicide without anything to eat' while 'Granaries are plagued by rhodents'. Isn't this a sad state of affairs? Why isn't the focus on this?

sumanth said...

1. Caste-based reservation is not an answer to eliminating social discrimination. I totally agree to this. Firstly intent of caste based reservation is not to eliminate social discrimination . But rather Give more opportunity for those sections of people who were devoid of many things for past many years.

2. To be precise its is actually 30 yrs. But in those 50 years, its just 50% of this population who were aware of it and have gained something. Adding more it was only after 30 years more than 50% of the lower caste had cognizance of these privileges.
Coming to neta's , do you think a neta can win elections without using name caste? if there is politician who goes to election campaign without this, he would never win. If we see this in deeper way the politicians are exploiting the weakness of people. So I would rather say its people who have to change , instead pointing at neta's. In today situation a neta has to use these "whims and fancies" cbcoz people fall for these whims and fancies.

3. If under privileged has received enough assistance from the past , a exception has to brought to those cases, reservation should not be given for then . The current reservation policy demands these kind of amendments.

4. Beyond all this one more amendment I would like is that , the economically backward people must also be part of this reservation irrespective of the fact as to which community he belongs to. I would rather call people to fight for these economically backward class than to fight to remove reservation coz reservation makes sense to me even today.

For the malnourished kids the government has already come up with anganvadi where these kids are fed and also provided with some basic educational facilities. But removal of the reservation does not in any way help these malnourished kids.!!!Lol.. I would rather take this problem under different category and not under reservation.