Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Reservations the topic of the moment

This is a topic that is stirring up debate in all speheres of life in India at the moment. The crux of the matter is notifcation issued by the Government of India allocating 27% for the Other Backward Castes(OBC's) in educational central(federal) educational institututions.
As Usual I am running short on time and need to rush thru such a complex issue simply because I have read way too many one sided and quite frankly poorly written pieces.
Going back, way back the hindu caste system was broadly classified as Brahmin, Ksyatria, Vaishya's and Shudra with Shudras being the bottom of the barrel. Power has shifted between the others while Shudra's (dalits) were widely acknowledges to have been oppressed and ill treated for centuries. Not much has changed over the centuries for this deprived lot. At the time of independence it was decided by the framers of the constitution to allocate quotas that were to lead to their social upliftment. However what was not wittten, rather implied was that these quotas should have some time frame, otherwise they would just create a new breed of privileged citizenery.
What the framers of the constitution did'nt realise was that mere laws in the books was going to do nothing for the uplift of the masses, instead they had set a dangerous precedent where political parties would grant reservations for all and sundry in order to corner votes. Nearly 60 years after Indian independence thats exactly whats happening.
Now infact we have a left leaning government that sees no harm in allocating resources to communities based on there proportion of the overall population. Wether they intend to or not, the message they are sending the people of India is that the only way to corner more resources is to grow your numbers. A decent education, hardwork , innovation are all passe. Everything flows from the numbers of your commmunity, the worst manifestation of democracy possible.
I have to add here that I am a bramhin, I have already been through our education system and I wont be working in a government organzation any time soon.
And yet what angers me is that the poeple behind this move to hike reservations don't give a damn about the people its supposed to benefit, and by extension the country. These are the very same people who would like the indian government to have a stake in every aspect of Indian life so that their patronage dispensing network is strengthened. Alll this vitriol is not going to change anything. Once the genie has been let out of the bottle, no political party can take a stand against reservations and risk losing the OBC vote.
So ladies and gentlemen this flight was good while it lasted , kindly fasten your seat belts , we shall be landing shortly.

2 comments:

Vijay Krishna L said...

I didn't know much about the Mandal Commission when it happened, I was probably not old enough to care. In my ideal world, reservations shouldn't be given on your caste, but your economic background, but that almost sounds socialist! They definitely shouldn't raise the quota any further and you are right, will take a very brave govt to think about reducing the quota. Tch..

Anonymous said...

I concur with ur views that reservation cant be "the" solution.
Also a subsequent post talks of introducing reservation for the EBC and not the OBC.

These approaches might help a politician in garnering votes but if u are to look at it from a humanitarian perspective : U are not recognizing the intrinsic worth of the other person nor is the other guy realizing his own potential.

A famous quote, i guess: Giving somebody confidence is better than giving somebody food

we can make a better society if each one of us strives to be the best in our chosen fields