The basis for this reservation is based on the recommedation from the Mandal commission. and hence this commission has been in eye of storm since its recommedations were accepted. People on both side of this debate have attacked Mandal commission for providing the reservation based on castes. This charge is ill founded. The commission in fact used 11 social, economic and educational indicators which were worked out through sceintific investigation involving experts from various discliplines to identify the backward classes. Even a cursory look at these indicators can tell you that it has nothing to do with the castes. Befor levelling any accusations at the commmission, the opponents of reservation should look at their own conduct. Their protests smack of their high handedness and their insensitivenss towards the lower rungs of society. They behave as if no social inequality exists in the society !! The projection of reservation based on castes , which is actually not, shows the caste bias prevailing in their mind. The reality is that we need reservation because of the existing caste divide in the society and not the other way around.
The opposers of reservation argue that instead of providing reservation in higher education government should pay attention to primary education. They are right in their demand. But whether they really want this to happen is quite doubtful. The organisations(like Youth for equality) who take to streets on the very next day for theit anit-reservation protests have failed to hit the steets even once for the demand of improvemnet of primary education. In fact no one talked for it for nearly 2 yeras when their was a hearing going on in Supreme court (and the verdict seem to be going in their favour). But with the current infrastructure that government has, it might take another 50 years or even more to bring any significant improvement. In a country which has failed to provide proper meals three times a day to its people, the talk of giving free education sounds like a cruel joke. So using this as a ground to block reservation to the needy is an intelligent way to make sure that these people never become a part of the mainstream of the society.
Many people oppose reservation because it has failed to achieve its goals in tha last 60 years. True, we didn't got the results as we expected out of it, in many cases it failed to reach the needy people. But did anybody bothered to know the reasons behind it? In our country the top law makin bodies(parliaments, cabinets, secretariats), law enforcing agencies(central and state bueraucracies), even media have been dominated by people coming from the forward sections of the society(who constitute less then 20% of poulation) . And when your top decision making bodies have been heavily dominated by only one section of society, they ensured that the benefits of reservation didn't percolate down to the needy people. No wonder that many poor sections of the society are still not aware of the resrvation provided to them by the government. To ensure that reservation really achieves its purpose, its essential that people from the backward classes get proportionate representation in the power centres. And hence providing reservation in rea power centres like IAS, IITs and IIMs is the right step in this direction.With the reservation in IITs and IIMs , the talk of increase in brain drain is gaining ground.To me in this of era of globalisation and liberalisation the brain drain does not holds water. There is talent on one side and money on other. In a free market like this no one can control brain drain when everone keeps looking for greener pastures.
In a country like ours which has deep rooted fedual mindset and caste biases among the people, reservation is inescapable.Even after 60 years of independence, we still have our 80% of population ruled by rest 20%. The concept of democracy becomes meaningless if the power remains concentrated only in a few hands. So, despite how much concern we raise against the reservations, it is the need of the hour to create truly just society.
10 comments:
Good to read and know get some gyan that i hardly find in newspapers. I have my personal favour to the author for supporting the judgement.
Points are valid but every issue has it's pros and cons. Some data shows that OBC is getting more than 27 % of seats everywhere even though they are not reserved.
But yes, getting more seats in colleges like IIMs and IITs are more than welcome by those, who are burning mid night candles to get through IIMs, IISc, IITs and other premier collges.
The exclusion of creamy layer from reservation is the most imp thing which apex court has done in this whole resevation issue. Through this , the court has tried to makeup for the most imp loophole of Manadal comm recommendation. In Mandal comm , economic factors were given minimum weightage out of economic , educational and social. The other thing which is quite appreciating in supreme court's judgement is the revision of this list every five years.
All the political parties have tried to reap benifit out of this whole subject. It was more a personal issue for Arjun Singh than a country's issue. It was the same congress(Rajiv Gandhi , the leader of opposition then) who blasted V.P.Singh for implementing madal recommendations. And it is the same congress who had tried real hard to implement reservation so that it can gain its faith among OBCs .
Apart from implementing reservation , the government sud take necessary steps to improve the infrastructure. Oepning new IIM in shillong and proposal of opening 3 new IITs is a welcome decision of GOI.
The exclusion of creamy layer is there in the recommendations of the Mandal commission, but overlooked by the government for political reason. So the problem is not with the very concept of reservation, rather the way it has been implemented.The problem is also the way how it has been perceived, we can see it as a measure which will help those who are lagging behind the others rather than thinking on caste lines.
And of course, reservation in itself cannot be the end.It has to go in hand with the fixing other problems like improving primary education.But it certainly will alleviate the problem of social inequality to some extent.
The ever pervasive episode of reservations in India is not inline with the times.The issues which should have burnt out by now have just caught fire.
India as a developing nation needs to concentrate on more fundamental issues rather than reservations based on caste.The impetus should be on providing basic education,clean drinking water,sanitation,public health and employment to the mass living below poverty line irrespective of their caste.
Although there are both gud and bad aspects of everything but i see the reservations doing more bad to the country in the long run.
In era of cut throat competitiveness we may loose our hold due to an issue which is more of a political move to have a bigger bite on the vote banks rather than with the intention of doing something good.Moreover we might end up widening the caste divide in India.
.....also,how can you say for sure that the people lagging behind,belong to a particular caste???
Reservation is a pretty outcast method to deal with a fundamental issue of helping those lagging behind in the society in terms of opportunities.
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The Mandal commission used the following 11 criteria to identify the backward classes. I think its worth to mention it here.
Social
1.Castes/classes considered as socially backward by others.
2.Castes/classes which mainly depend on manual labour for their livelihood.
3.Castes/classes where the percentage of married women below 17 is 25% above the state average in rural areas and 10% in urban areas; and that of married men is 10% and 5% above the state average in rural and urban areas respectively.
4.Castes/classes where participation of females in work is at least 25% above the state average.
Educational
5.Castes/classes where the number of children in the age group of 5 to 15 years who never attended school is at least 25% above the state average.
6.Castes/classes where the rate of student drop-out in the age group of 5-15 years is at least 25% above the state average.
7.Castes/classes amongst whom the proportion of matriculates is at least 25% below the state average
Economic
8.Castes/classes where the average value of family assets is at least 25% below the state average.
9.Castes/classes where the number of families living in kachcha houses is at least 25 % above the state average.
10.Castes/classes where the source of drinking water is beyond half a kilometer for more than 50% of the households.
11.Castes/classes where the number of the house-holds having taken a consumption loan is at least 25% above the state average.
After going through these criteria your grudges about how we arrived at the list of backward castes will be mollified.
The worry of increase in caste divide is a mere hoax cry of those who fear that their social dominance would be threatened by the rise of oppressed masses.Any increase in the caste divide due to reservation still remains to be seen. Did anybody hear till date that a poor brahmin was denied entry to a temple by some wealthy dalits?? But the reverse happens on a daily basis in some part of the country.
The reality is that the caste factor is omnipresent in our society.The ideal solution to it would have been that forward sections of society themselves make some concessions for those who are lagging behind. But our current social mindset is strictly against it, in fact it takes pride in exploiting the lower sections of society.And hence the government has to ensure that the backward sections of society gets some concessions in form of reservation.So reservation might not be the ideal solution, but certainly it is the most practical one.
Mandal commission gave a weightage of 3 to social factors , 2 to educational and 1 to economic factors. By doing so , they have widened the gap among different castes . In this global world where money is a very important tool , economic factors sud be paid maximum weightage. An upper caste guy with an empty stomach cannot afford to sit with 5 guys of his same community whereas a guy from backward class , if he is affluent will be paid respect in the society.
So as per me , a new list has to prepared with keeping economic status of people in mind.
Arre guru ji...likhna kyu band kar dia !!
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