I am not against reservations, but at the same time I am against the way they are being implemented. I am against the way reservations became a vital card in the politics of India. I am against the criteria used to give reservations… I am against the current system of reservations and not the reservations as a whole.
The current system:
- Reservations are based on caste - I agree that in rural India, the caste a person belongs to almost everytime also speaks about his economic conditions, but its still very wrong to say that all the forward caste people can afford good education and that caste is the only feasible criteria to implement reservations! Reservations by caste only propogates casteism and delays the process of achieving a caste-free society.
- Ever increasing - When the reservations were first proposed, there was a plan to eliminate them gradually. Politicians or the few ill-minded people never let it happen. Moreover, new ways to increase reservations are being discovered, mostly aimed at gaining some political mileage and not with the aim of helping someone. Reservations need an elimination plan.
- The richer get richer - Those who took advantage of reservations once, take advantage of them again and again. How many people in rural India (those who actually need facilities and help) know about reservations at all? I know people who have studied in the same school as I did, enjoyed all the facilities I did but still had the benefits of reservation!
- Wrong place - Is reserving seats in the graduate and post-graduate colleges the best form of support? Should that not go to lower levels? If a person is not educated enough to fly a plane, you can’t recruit him to fly a plane just becuase you have already recruited 5 people and the next 5 should be from OBC, SC or ST. Necessary qualification is always a must! The right way to address the problem is to act at lower levels - but such things do not carry as much visibility as the reservations do… hence, not enough motivation for the leaders to do it!
Well, there are more and more reasons for me not liking the current system and I only highlighted the important few (by my list). I will support reservations when
- There is a proper elimination plan. If any one among the parents took advantage of reservations their children should not be allowed to claim reservations. That does include the grand children when grand parents used the reservations.
- Economic conditions - I am very much against the caste based system. Reservation based on economic conditions would help reservations reach the people who need it and would also help maintain a balance between the rich and the poor.
- Government should concentrate on better facilities at lower levels. I and many others would not mind paying multiples of the education cess that we currently pay!
Well, all that is my opinion. I also started hating congress for all the political steps being taken. Congress looks desperate to stay in power and not to serve the people.
I am Prasad Sunkari,
co-founder of
4 Comments
prasad u rightly said about reservations and its pros and cons, will you put some light on (lower levels of society) you mentioned in the above article.
Hi Karan,
The “lower levels” in my post are about identifying the fundamental problems and not the lower levels in the society.
The biggest fundamental problem is the public education system. Instead of saying that the poor have no access to quality education, the government could work on improving the public education. I don’t see any reason why public schools cannot be as good as the corporate/private schools.
I know it could cost a lot, but would we mind paying double the current education cess? This cost also is like an investment for brighter future of the country.
Really reservations given to the section of are not really getting the benefit of it.And the reservation issues are wrongly used by the dirty politions for their vote bank only.
hi i agree that reservation should be provided for economically backward as that will bring them at par with the society. the present scenario is not condusive as this is not really helping even those who r from the obc category as most of the facilities provided is conered by the richer among them. though the concept of creamy layer has been introduce its implementation is not followed to the point.
it is not caste which divide the society in contemporary times but its the politics. what i believe is that young people should join politics to right the wrong. i hope a time will come where policies implemented should be baed on merit rather that few selfish interest.