Editor’s note – The author uses admirable rhetoric and interesting data to claim his stance regarding how debilitating the politically motivated large-scale, albeit masked, caste-based discrimination by the government is on the common man. The author discusses many of the ill-effects of this system not only on the individual but the welfare of the society.
Author’s note – Our constitution promotes equality, yet we have reservations! Reservations were meant to uplift the lower castes but haven’t they become banks for votes for our politicians? What about the Millions who deserve to but don't get what they want? Is it fair? Isn't it injustice? I need your voice for this fight to bring about a change in our nation. Will you lend me your voice?
Binny and Raju, my dearest friends from the typical buttoned-down middle class of India, recently wrote the much hyped IIT-JEE to get into the ever more publicized and hence esteemed Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Raju, a son of a priest, is surefooted of getting around 80 marks more than Binny, but Binny, belonging to the scheduled caste of our society is footsure that he is getting into the IIT, quite unlike Raju who is charging his fate for being born in a Brahmin family, even though Binny’s father makes ten times more than Raju’s wretched family. Welcome to the GREAT INDIAN RESERVATION SYSTEM!
Before having an in-depth study on it, let us take a look at the facts – every Government institute in India has at an average 52.5% of its seats reserved for the scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST), and other backward classes (OBC). That means out of the 9600 seats in IITJEE, 5040 seats are for the various reserved categories leaving just 4560 seats for the general category (GC) when 76% of the total 4.85 lakh students writing IIT-JEE belong to GC. The trend, seen in IIT-JEE for the past few years, shows that the cut-off marks for students belonging to GC ranges from 180 to 190, where as the cut-off marks for students belonging to SC and ST ranges from just 85 to 95. And even more petrifying is the fact that out of the 5040 students selected from the reserved categories, only a meager 489 students have actually scored more than the cut off for the GC which shows that only 9.7% of the selected students from the reserved categories deserve to study in the premier technical institutes of our nation.
As if it was not enough to divide India into religions, state boundaries and languages, our forefathers further dissevered the endearing cake into castes to feed their numerous selfish breadbaskets. And the pieces of cake not having cherries on them were brushed aside and this led our constitution makers to provide welfares to these discounted pieces by providing confectionaries on them but cautioned that the public assistance should be furnished only for a few decades when these pieces of cake become as tasty and adorable as the rest. But our venomous administrators since then found these pieces as their vote bank and went on pleasing them to seize their valuable ballots and soon, one by one, many political parties joined the front and capitalized on their respective piece of cake to build upon their political empire. The rivalry for pieces of cake between the parties has been heightening and more and more sugarcoats are being given to gratify the souls of these pieces of cake. Hence, a situation has arrived where the initially snubbed pieces of cake are replete with candies leaving mortals like Raju to only wail and masses like Binny to only exuberate on their destiny. That too in a country whose constitution promotes constructive equality!
The repercussions of this existing reservation system are much more malicious, and their further reverberations are much more ravaging than what it looks like.
Reservations cause friction among social groups. Backward classes not included in reservations clash with castes already enjoying benefits of reservations and they agitate by interrupting the peace to also get included in reservations. Reservation system creates deep resentment in "higher" castes. They grow up with a hatred for the lower classes which interrupts the integrity and elevates intolerance. This coupled with rising aspirations and unemployment, has potential to cause large scale civil unrest. Unity among the nationals in a country is a key for progression but reservations preclude that. Caste Based Reservation only perpetuates the notion of caste in society, rather than weakening it as a factor of social consideration, as envisaged by the constitution. Reservation is a tool to meet narrow political ends.
Poor people from "forward castes" do not have any social or economical advantage over rich people from backward caste. In fact traditionally Brahmins have been poor. Studies based on the NFHS surveys indicate that many communities that fall under the Backward Caste category in many parts of India are socioeconomically better-off than those belonging to Forward Caste category; hence, a complete inequity is developed over those belonging to the forward classes.
This policy of the government has also already caused increase in brain drain and may aggravate further. When around 50% of the pupils and employees aren’t competent or talented enough to acquire the important places in Government organizations and there are much more deserving people to replace them, then how can we anticipate India to progress ahead? Just imagine! Just give a thought to it! A scholar belonging to any of the reserved categories won’t groom himself hard enough as he knows that he needs meager marks to get into the prestigious institutes and a pupil from the general category won’t get into the honored institutes no matter how much he prepares himself. This is nothing but sheer social injustice and that too in the 21st century when our nation is supposed to be leaping towards inclusive development!
There is no dubiousness on the solution to this social injustice – ABOLISH RESERVATION BASED ON CASTE SYSTEM AND REPLACE IT WITH RESERVATION BASED ONLY ON ECONOMIC CONDITION. ENCOURAGE INTER-CASTE MARRIAGES TO GET RID OF THE RIDICULOUS CASTE SYSTEM. The inconvenience is- WHO IS GOING TO DO IT FOR US? THE POLITICIANS? In fact, they will be the first one to controvert to this idea because their lives (politics) depend solely on the cakes (castes) which give them the nutrition (votes) to endure (robbing common men money) in this world (parliament). But this is the issue which can give a political party an ace under its sleeve (I hope someone sends this message to the struggling Congress). As simple statistics show that, around 55% of India’s population belongs to the GC and when around 70% of them will come to vote during elections, the ruling party will get an overwhelming majority of 38.5% of the votes even after ignoring all the poor people from backward classes who will benefit more from this spectacular change and would support the ruling party. Not just that, it will go down in the pages of history and the initiators would be all lauded with Bharat Ratnas’ as it will be the first time in India’s history that such an outstanding contribution would be done to the Indian society.
And if none of the political party takes this issue severely, the alternative option is always available, as shown by Anna Hazare- THE MIGHT OF THE COMMON MAN. The railway lines have already been tenanted by the Gujjars; let’s go for the national highways then, what say?
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