Reservations: Part I

Again the demon of reservation is out of the box and the great “politicians” of this great “democracy” are playing with it to gain some votes & keep their seats intact. One always wonder why the real issues take a back seat in indian politics and some creepy issues like castes, religion etc. become the most important. Accepted that in most of the countries in the world religion becomes an important part of politics but in a country like india even after thousand years of foreign rule if things like minority appeasement, ‘pseudo’ foreign rule, etc. happens, one ought to worry where the nation is heading to. Well, well… I shall just stick to the current topic viz. reservation and leave the religionism, for the time being, out of this discussion.

Cut to era of 50s, the great Dr. Ambedkar - the great architect of the ‘great’ indian constitution decides to uplift the backward classes by providing them reservations i.e. though they need not be suitable for the job or a position but they will get it. It could have been proved as a good step after what these poor guys have been facing since a millennium or so. But what actually followed, thanks to shrewd politicians of india, was creation of a vote bank and slow but steady widening of the gap between the so called upper and lower caste. The rich of the lower caste made use of the reservations and those from not so well-to-do families were left in their previous conditions. By the way, who don’t know, there are poor people in upper caste also who have no one to care about them neither reservations nor any other source because they belong to upper caste.

Cut to 1989, Mr. V. P. Singh is the PM, Mandal commission sets up and proposes 50% reservation. Wide spread violent protest and thanks to few incidents of suicides, decision is taken back.

Come 2006 and another Singh does Mandal 2 - let us kill the golden goose for some votes. The students are pre occupied with their problems, so why not just do something which is totally senseless. The whole story is in front of every one and I see no point in repeating it. Let us talk about what will be the effect of the this reservation, if implemented as proposed.