No, They Aren't: The very idea of providing reservations to any segment of the population is based on negatives. It allows for preferential treatment without a thought being given to the caliber or eligibility aspect. Just about any individual from the reserved castes scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward castes can get a Government job or admission in an educational institution on a much lower eligibility criterion for percentage of marks and a higher age. This lowering of standard breeds inefficiency, discourages the really meritorious and negates the very concept of equality of opportunity. 49.5 percent reservation means that half the administrative machinery has inbuilt inefficiency, while Article 335 of our Constitution lays down that reservation should be consistent with the maintenance of efficiency of administration.
By rejecting people of higher competence from general category and accepting the reserved category with lower competence, the reservation policy acts as a disincentive to the meritorious and more capable. Thus inhibits healthy growth or development of an individual. Such brilliant students, victims of unfair favoritism of our reservation policy, get frustrated and leave for foreign countries which favor merit alone. This brain-drain adversely affects the intellectual capability of our country. Not only this, the system of reservation, says Justice Chinnappa Reddy, has in many cases paradoxically generated “a spirit of self-denigration” - each community of caste competing to be more backward than others.
Private enterprises, being interested in efficiency alone, do not follow the retrograde policy of reservation. Their sole criterion of selecting people is merit and ability to deliver the goods. This is why they are doing extremely well. But, of late, demands for introducing reservations in private sector have been raised in some influential quarters. Should this come about, God save whatever efficiency we still have in at least a few segments of our administration and economy.
It is a shame that in this computer and space age we, by institutionalizing our reservation policy, admit that we are a decadent society based on caste. What image does it convey in the international field? Can casteism be done away with by having caste based reservations? Should we not follow economic criterion instead so that only a few families do not benefit perpetually by this unfair policy? The criterion of creamy layer is patently humbug, for it is so applied that even those with sufficient means and standing in society succeed in getting the benefit of reservation. All this breeds discontent and occasions social unrest. Therefore, the sooner we do away with reservations the better for the nation.
Reservations were supposed to be an interim arrangement for 10 years as per our constitution so that the low caste people could come up socially. But encouraged by our shortsighted politicians with their sights fixed on this sizeable vote-bank, its beneficiaries have formed it into a habit to claim reservation as a matter of right. Instead of striving hard to excel, they seek the shortcut of reservations and the vested political interests perpetuate it. This vicious circle can be broken by the Government by having a firm cutoff year for reservations and spreading education among the depressed classes on a priority basis. But can we do so by assigning low priority to education with a mere 4 percent budget allocation for it?
Instead of facilitating spatial growth of education and development among the depressed classes, reservations have spawned a new elitist group a mere 5 percent among them, which has cornered all the benefits meant for 22.5 per cent. The same is going to be the fate of the most backwards among backward classes.
A further reservation of 27 percent to the other backward classes has aggravated the employment problem and has formed caste animosities and hatred. This retrograde step is not going to do any good to the nation. In the name of social justice, an injustice of the worst type is being perpetrated because of the accident of birth in a higher caste. Moreover, the argument that since the new reserved categories have suffered injustice through centuries at the hands of upper caste people, the latter should atone for that, is beyond comprehension. How could a young boy or girl be held responsible and guilty for an alleged crime supposed to have been committed by his or her forefathers? Two wrongs do not make one right?The only hope of the children of ordinary families for a better future is through education and open-to-all competitive examination. This has been shattered by the additional 27 per cent job quota for other Backward Class (BC) candidates following acceptance of the Mandal Commission Report. That is why they resorted to agitation and even self-immolation, but to no avail. It has further fractured our caste-ridden society. The author of the Mandal Commission Report himself admits that the system followed by the Commission in compiling the list is unscientific.
It is really damaging to the nation as a whole that instead of tackling our population problem largely due to the illiterate, backward and superstitious people of backward classes, we give them the lollipop of reservations! In spite of their wretchedness and poverty they produce more children and make the life of these innocents more miserable than theirs. Therefore, if at all reservations are to be given they must be linked with adoption of family-planning methods. This will prove to be an effective deterrent against population explosion and will also benefit these classes themselves.
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