Reservation: Where do you stand?

Reservation issue is topping the chart of ‘hot news’ category, in all the media, for last 6 months. Campaigns, protests, both pro and anti, and riots, have become an everyday activity and tempers are flying high on both sides. Government must be wishing for magic wand, which will fix all the issues but unfortunately there is none. While one part of the student body and intellectuals are taking stand against reservation and other section of students and activists supporting the reservations, common man is certainly left out without a clue.

To add to his woes, there are various campaigns happening simultaneously on this issue. Campaigns happening at various levels like: One, protesting any kind of reservations in the country and urging the country to be ‘reservation-free’; second, encouraging the reservation as it is seen as a way to leverage the oppressed people higher up in the society; and third, is a moderate, in between these two, group, which supports reservation but question the basis of reservation.

Campaigners in the first category consider reservation system as backward development of a nation, which is aiming to become an economic powerhouse and possibly, a super power within next decade. A nation boasting of 8% GDP growth, sky-rocketing stock markets, IT and BPO booms and finally, with Oxford and Harvard-trained economists as PM and FM and a hi-tech President speaking volumes of scientific innovations and space missions, of course, reservation system is a faulty and ugly system to be considered. But are we covering the entire populace?

According to them, a student from the general category is deprived of his right to compete for the educational seat, which he deserves based on his mark. The students for the so-called ‘Equality in admissions’ formed various forums and started lobbying for the cause, duly supported by various intellectuals in town. Unity of the students to come together and fight for a common national cause must certainly be appreciated.

However, the irony here is, that the students groups advocating the ‘equality’ have sprung up only now. Had they been two decades back, we may not be fighting today against these reservation policies in the first place – especially, during when poor tribals and dalits were harassed and beleaguered, Dalit woman suffering from the triple oppressions of poverty, being female and being female Dalits and the recent massacre of innocent tribals in Kalinganaga, Orissa, who were protesting for their right to live, a similar protest to the current one. These suppressed voices, with government ignoring their plight, needed some helping hands.

Where have you been all?

When current students can feel for the future generation affected by Reservation, why not feel for these under-served people too?

Dalits who have contested political office in village councils and municipalities through seats that have been constitutionally “reserved” for them have been threatened with physical abuse and even death in order to get them to withdraw from the campaign. In the four ‘reserved’ village bodies of Tamil Nadu - Pappapatti, Keeripatti, Nattarmangalam and Kottakatchiyendal - attempts to conduct elections have failed for last 10 years due to strong opposition from upper caste groups. This is one of the tens of thousand of examples happening in our country today. To those who claim, castism is not a malady of our country anymore, welcome to the real land.

Guest writer Rajat Narang in his latest article in rediff.com, Time to make India a no reservation country, quoted: “I do not know why the government is reserving seats for higher education where 8 out of 10 Dalit children drop out of school before Class X -- which means the drop-out rate is approximately 80 per cent.” I was shell-shocked to read this from an educated person like him. His above comment and his comparison of reservation to Indian cricket team are obnoxious – it is similar to making fun of a disabled person. Since 8 out of 10 child is a dropout, is author implying to ignore these community rather then working to bring more of them up in the society? Their dropout rate is only because of their social-economic system over past 5 decades and we, you and me, are partly responsible for this worst situation. All we can do now is, try to support reservation and lift them up rather than letting them down further.

It is very saddening to realize that current anti-reservation protest is just a knee-jerk reaction by the general community, including me, when deprived of something. Why is that we react only when it affects ourselves/neighbors? Isn’t our reaction is fully circumstantial and shortsighted? When the youths of today are ready to sacrifice their lives for their country, can we not see this issue as a remedy to our country’s ailment from caste? Can we not take one for the team India?

People who answers “yes” to the above questions belong to the second group of protestors – “pro” reservations. Looking into the larger picture of the country’s growth, they realize and support the need for reservation. However, some political groups, for their benefits, are exploiting this issue by demanding inclusion of creamy layers in the reservations. Whole point of reservation is to bring up the poor and subjugated people up and when even one of these two conditions is not valid, in this case for creamy layers, reservation should not be encouraged as it can help people who are needier than them.

Finally, third group of people, who understand and support the issue of reservation, but question the basis of the reservation system. Some argue for economy based reservations, there by including economically under-privileged general category students and others support exclusion of creamy layer and a process, which exactly identifies the deserved students of reservation.

I strongly support their argument and feel India should move in this direction. We, as a nation, are not ready to overlook caste-based reservation as of now; let’s first work on removing the prejudice in the society by creating an atmosphere where all feel equal by birth, then move on to economy based reservation before considering no reservation. Let us create a fair playing ground before expecting fair play. Yes, it will be ideal to make India, a ‘no-reservation country’ but we have to move towards it in phases and cannot jump overnight.

Let us realize India is a socialistic country and Affirmative action, or positive discrimination, is brought in only to help the oppressed people and not to oppress people.

Now, where do you stand?