TOPIC: Reservations: Is Indian Democracy Turning Into Indian ’QUOTACRACY’?
I. Introduction:
The Central Government has come up with an illogical and unjust hurried decision to implement Reservation as high as 27 per cent to OBCs in all Elitist Institutions like IITs & IIMs & Central Universities. It has opened the legendary Pandora’s Box & is facing the nation’s ire!
It is said this is as per the committed Mandal Formula already agreed upon & approved by the Parliament last winter, paving way for this arbitrary admission.
Who are for the Reservation for OBCs? None other than the OBCs themselves and its politician-brokers cutting across party-lines!
II. Reservation: Its Origin & Growth:
a) Dr.B.R. Ambedkar wanted Reservation for the downtrodden but later, it was mischievously linked with castes. It all started as a benignant, innocuous measure toward Nation-building by aiming at Equality & Social Justice. But it has now turned into a multi-headed hydra shaking the very foundations of our Society & Democracy!
b) Extension After Extension with no end in sight:
When the Constitution was enacted in 1950, the Reservations were to cease after 10 years but they got extended to 20, 30, 40, 50. and now 60 years till 2010. Is it not high time that a Termination Date was fixed for all Reservations!
III. Anti-Quota Agitators’ Stand, Protests & Demands:
a) They call it a ’Reverse Discrimination’. The stir & protest in the form of marches & rally, slogan-shouting & silent processions, effigy burning, human-chains has acquired a national dimension. Contentious Reservation Issue has triggered spontaneous & nation-wide protests (spearheaded by ’Youth For Equality’ in Delhi) almost all over India by Medical Students & Jr.Doctors, IITians, Engineers, lawyers, scientists, parents & public & ’Celebrities’ like Motivational Guru Shiv Khera & Navjot Siddhu.
b) (i)Why do the students in General Category consider the proposed Legislation ’atrocious’?
Currently, there is 15 percent Reservation for SCs, & 7.5 percent for ST students & some percent for the handicapped in Central Government-funded higher educational institutions. If the new legislation of 27 per cent to OBCs comes through, it will take the overall reservation to a whopping 49.5-plus %.
ii) Already, there is paucity of seats in these prestigious elitist Institutions for which students all over India compete. To cite an example, the seven IITs in the country offer just 4500-odd seats. But, it is said, as huge as four lakh students compete for them every year. the new Reservation will rob as many as 1.200 IIT seats from the merit (General) category.
iii) They’re of the view that Caste should not be allowed to overwrite merit at any cost. So they gird up their loins for an all-out ’Reserve Vs Deserve’ War.
c)Secondly, these Anti-quota proponents raise serious & valid objections to the reservation for the OBCs on the following grounds:
1) ’OBCs’ is just a Govt.’s interpretation’.
2) What castes come under OBCs are not known.
3) No data on the OBCs Population available.
4) This step will result in qualified Individuals being denied admission.
d) So the Anti-quota agitators have put forth the following Three Point Memorandum Of Demands viz, total rollback of the proposed quota-hike, appointment of an Expert Committee to go into all aspects of Reservation & The P.M.’s concrete statement on this issue.
IV. Pro-Quota Agitators’ Claims & Contentions:
a) On the other hand, let us see what the Pro-Quota Proponents’ claim & contentions are.
Mr.Jethmalani asserts that all Reservation is ’Compensation for historical wrongs. The present society will have to pay for the sins of our ancestors’. Some extremists talk of 5000 years of hegemony( Control) by one group viz. Brahmins. (But why some other castes are classified as Forward community? Abettors?)
b) They contend that ’reservation is not a concession or privilege extended to them. It is to ’Give Power To the People’.
c) Pro-Reservationists are of the view that ’ Reservation is’the Only Way to Ensure Quality Education for the POOR Students’
V. Why No Such Reservations in Other Fields?
a) There are Constituencies Reserved for SC & ST. But, there is no
quota for OBCs in State Assemblies & Two Houses of Parliament. Why?
b) No 33% Quota for women in Parliament in sight. The Central Cabinet is silent & dormant on this burning issue for obvious reasons!
VI. Other Points:
a) We need to take into consideration what Mr. Prakash Ambedkar says on Reservation:
’Dr.B.R.Ambedkar made a demand to the Govt. to kindly make a PROCESS whereby the reservation is done away with because he knew that one day, these reservations are going to become in itself a hinderance to development.’
But we know how the successive Governments did only lip-service to the upliftment of the downtrodden (having a large chunk of their children as School Drop-outs) without evolving a time-bound process.
b) Reservation is ’A cure worse than the disease’ as ’it perpetuates division along caste-lines’. Again ’Divide & Rule Policy’ as that of the Colonial British Regime!
VII. Conclusion:
Much can be said for & against Reservation & Quota. Finally, the decision has to be made as per our ’inner-voice’ & not on personal gains or political considerations.
Any right-thinking person will agree that poverty knows no caste, creed, or color. Why to give special rights to some merely on the basis of which caste they were born into?
So, the permanent solution to this vexatious problem (Gordian Knot) would be: Reservation on the basis of economic status. Why give crutches to those having strong legs & are able to stand, walk, run & kick too?
I feel, we have to concur with Navjot Sidhu who exhorted, ’Give Reservation but based on the Economic Criterion!’
VIII. Friends:
What do you say on this? Please speak your heart on the topic & review in the Comment Section!
I’m all ears.