RE: Reservations

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Mr. Pankaj Gupta wrote: The point isn't if the people getting reservation
deserve it, most of them do. The point is: is this really an effective
instrument?

My answer to both points are in the negative.

Many people who are now cornering the benefits of reservation do not really
deserve it. They get the benefit simply because their parents were born in a
low caste family. In the Fifties the Grand Father deservedly got the benefit
of reservation , in the Seventies & Eighties his Son / Daughter got it. This
decade probably his / her son/daughter will get the benefit. I know it least
one person who was educated in an expensive school and yet got the benefit
of reservation to get into a senior position in Government. He was candid
enough to admit that he is not alone and that though his son is getting
educated in an expensive school, his son will also get the benefit. The
point is that a small percentage of the SC / ST families are cornering the
benefit generations after generations. Those who are really under-privileged
and therefore deserve the facility do not get the benefit because they have
to compete for it with the better educated, privileged persons in their
caste. 

Though it is highly effective as an instrument in Politics, the Policy of
Reservation has been ineffective as an instrument of social re-engineering.
50 years of reservation is proof enough of its ineffectiveness. Reserved
seats in higher education institutions goes abegging because there are not
enough candidates with HSC pass to fill them. The upliftment of the
under-privileged should commence from the primary education level. Make good
foundation of basic education, build it up brick by brick. Give good
education with free books and free lunch in schools. Parents will be
encouraged to send their children to schools at least to get fed and in the
process the children will learn something. The incentive must continue up to
SSC especially in the rural schools. Make the under-privileged able to
compete with others instead of throwing useless crumps of reservation to
them.  

The current policy of reservation is in fact counter-productive. Politicians
can pretend that they are doing so much for the under-privileged and at the
same time preserve them as uneducated, unquestioning deposits in their vote
banks. 50 years of caste-based reservation has only served to perpetuate the
caste divide. 

V.K.Venugopal







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