The tragic suicide of a Hyderabad PhD scholar (no, we will not call him a "Dalit Scholar" as most of the "presstitute" media is calling him, because we don't believe in castism and for us, he was a scholar since the University considered him qualified enough to admit him to the PhD course) has led to the rekindling of the 'Dalit' and 'reservation' debate in the country. With most of the 'heavy weight' CMs and political party leaders (who have no better work to do in their respective states or constituencies hellbent on giving a political turn and getting mileage out of a poor man's death, the country really seem to be heading in a totally wrong direction.
Since we had never written anything on this topic of reservation (in fact, we have not written anything since the past many days!!) and since we know that Nobody cares to listen to our views, hence it becomes our duty to at least tell Nobody regarding our views. So, here goes:-
Why was reservation given??
The reason was very simple. What our founding fathers of the constitution thought was that since the caste system was very deeply entrenched in the minds of our general junta and they were not ready to mingle with people whom they thought to be of "lower castes", it would be better if the government takes things in its own hands. The government decided to "positively discriminate" some castes in our society so that they can be given jobs in government/public sector by giving relaxations in the selection criteria. In this way, there will start a homogeneous population of all castes in the public sector organizations and thus removing the misconceptions regarding "upper and lower" in the minds of the people over a period of time. This time limit was initially fixed to be 10 years.
After 10 years, when the netas realized that reservation was an excellent tool to garner votes by bringing more and more people under the reservation net and giving them laddoos of easy government jobs (while they all knew that increasing the reservation was neither going to increase the vacancies in the government jobs nor going to reduce the competition in a significant way). They continued this system as such and this system is being followed till now. Neither the system nor the modus operandi of hoodwinking the poor population in the name of "reservation" has changed. Now more and more castes/tribes/sub-castes, etc. are coming forward and want to get the status of 'backward' so as to get 'better representation' in the public sector space since they feel that if the person sitting on the sarkaari chair belongs to his/her 'own caste' he may favour him/her. The recent Paatidar agitation in Gujarat is a glaring example of the same.
So what is the problem with the present system?
The straight verbatim answer is:- The majority of the people who are presently benefiting from the system are those who have already once taken the benefit of reservation and are very well off due to that. For example, a person who has become an civil servant or any officer in any PSU in the 1970s or 1980s will be a financially well off man today and very well be living in a group A metro city with his children getting some of the best educational facilities. But still the same convent-educated children get the benefit of reservation when they appear for competitive exams thus taking away the rightful dues of the really backward, poor, and the downtrodden castes, many of whom are not even educated enough to know that government is offering them incentives to study and get on their feet.
What is the way out then?
The way out is pretty simple but not easy at all since the netas will never let anybody (even plain simple logic) to take over their vote banks since in our country people don't caste their vote but vote their caste. But then we are famous for finding a "practical path". We propose the following:-
1. Reservations should be continued definitely because there still lies various anomalies in our society and the wealth and economic distribution of our society is not at all homogeneous or equitable. The spectrum of economic condition in our country span from a person earning 1 million rupees a day to just 1 rupee a day. The reservation has become a necessity for the latter person - whether anybody likes it or not. But for this to happen, reservation should be invariably given on the basis of economic condition of the family rather than on caste specifications.
2. Reservation should be made a "one reservation per family" concept. That is to say that if a person who has taken the benefit of reservation and has become an IAS, bank officer, doctor, engineer and is doing financially well, then their children should not be given the benefit of reservation since they are educated enough to know their rights and have grown economically and financially.
3. Ghettos of societies to be dismantled by removing caste/religion-specific institutions. The origin of discrimination lies in the minds of the people. Why should be reinforce the same by creating institutions which are caste/religion-specific? For example, there are many castes/creeds/religions that go for creating educational and charitable institutions throughout the country for the "upliftment" of their own castes. Although it is argued and it is there in our constitution also that people are free to propagate their castes/religions, etc., what such kind of structuralism does is to create a barrier in the minds of the "other" people regarding that particular caste/religion. Any institution formed in Bharat should be for the Bharatiya junta as a whole and not for any particular section of the society. However, reservation should be given in order to generate a homogeneous profile within the institution and to prevent groupism by particular sections which may form a majority.
4. Recruitment can be conducted based on the grounds of proportionate representation for all sections of the society. This is another area where the government needs to bring a paradigm shift in the policy. Rather than giving blanket reservation, why not give proportionate representation to all sections of a society in a particular geographic area while conducting the recruitment. Say for example, there are six castes/sections in any state, say A, B, C, D, E, and F. And say their respective populations are A - 60%, B-20%, and C, D, E, and F each 5%. Then the vacancies can also be distributed in the same proportion so that any government department will mirror the actual population density of that area and their will be equal and proportional distribution of opportunities for all sections of the society. But then the problem with our Bharatiya netas is that as soon as this policy is brought forth, they will further divide the sections into sub-sections and further sub-sub-sections so as to divide and rule. They will then ask for separate reservation for that particular sub-section and the cycle will continue. And that brings us back to point no. 1!
Hence, we have tried to analyze and provide an amicable solution to this reservation conundrum because right now, whether anybody wishes to acknowledge or not, the country is boiling from within. There is a lot of discontentment among the masses regarding these policies which have brought further division of our society through vote bank politics rather than actual upliftment of the people and social integration. Something needs to be done urgently to prevent such kind of incidents in the future - and just as our PM told, it is a son who has been lost rather than a person belonging to any particular community. This should never happen again.
Happy Ethmos to all!
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