The series of mails regarding the Striking Doctors and other intellectuals against Reservations, and the debates going on in every news channel made me to put this post.
Let me make it clear that I don’t have a singularist view on this. I’m neutral in this issue and that is how we should be looking at this issue, look at it from both the point of views.
Firstly, having reservations will definitely help in the upliftment of the backward CLASSES. Unfortunately India still hasn’t reached the stage where it can truly say it treats people of all sections equally. For example in some of the northern states like UP, Bihar, Rajasthan and North Eastern states, Orissa still there are caste discrimination. The lower caste people are denied access to education, leave alone education they don’t even have access to the basic amenities that some of the upper caste enjoy. For the benefit of such people there has to be reservation.
One more thing, when I say I support reservation, its not that the reservation has to be only on the basis of caste, it has to be also based on the financial background, gender and to some extent even region wise is also not a bad idea. Note: Earlier I have used the word CLASS and not Caste.
Reservations based on only caste has many loopholes, and the one’s who are benefiting from these are the rich urbanites belonging to the BCs and the politicians with the cheap trick of vote bank politics. The original intended people to be benefited are still backward. So the need of the hour is to have a reservation policy where it takes in to count all the factors and not just the caste. Even the upper caste people whose economic background is not good even they need to have reservation. The girl child is still denied education in most parts of the country; they need to have reservations for the girl child.
Another point is reservation doesn’t mean that a candidate can enjoy these benefits without scoring a minimum number of marks. There has to be a certain cut-off marks for the candidate. The cut-off marks can be different based on the region the candidates comes from, say for example a candidate who does his primary education in kannada medium may not do that well in the vocabulary section in English, and his percentage may get affected, that’s not his fault that he studied in kannada medium, it’s the inability of the education system or rather the government. 70% scored by a rural candidate is same as that of 90% scored by an urbanite. An urbanite enjoys all the facilities of computer, internet, coaching class and in most cases educated parents, who can guide them, but none of these facilities are available for the ruralites, they are even deprived of electricity.
There was a placard saying “Reservations Killing Merit” I don’t think this is completely true, reservations will have some impact on the meritorious students of the so called upper class, but what about the rich people who are buying seats, doesn’t that kill the merit? Who is striking about that? Except for a few sting operations in some news channels that lasts for a day or two nobody raises any voice on that.
Please don’t give examples of people who have come up in life on their own, yes I do agree there are people who have come up but there are only a lucky few like Sir MV.
From the other point of view, reservation is not a long term option. We can’t have the caste discrimination and denying education of girls for long and even the economic inequalities. But removing economic inequalities is a very tough task. At least we can try to eradicate poverty.
Reservation to the extent of 49% is too much, and more over in the institutes that are world renowned for its intellectuals, reservation shouldn’t be there. The upliftment of the backward doesn’t mean make reservations in the elite institutions. Reservation till the bachelor’s degree is ok, and about the medical there you can have reservation but the cutoff marks should be set, below that no admission.
The government has to take steps to improve the educational infrastructure right from the grass root level and from the remotest of the villages. Just saw a news report recently where in West Bengal children have to go to Bangladesh to attend school, reason; no school in their village. Is this how the government wants the upliftment.
