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They deserve Honour and Education; Not Alms of
Reservation
By Amba Charan
Vashishth
May 31, 2008 |
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Reservation
was certainly a necessity – legal, social and
economic -- when such a provision was made in
the Constitution. The framers of the
Constitution were men of wisdom and foresight.
They knew that making such a provision permanent
would make it have an adverse effect on the
Indian society and may ultimately divide it on
the basis of caste. They actually had a vision
of India as a nation not divided on caste lines,
as it was in the past till India won freedom.
That was why the provision for reservation was
made for just 10 years. In the Constituent
Assembly, Dr. Ambedkar had with a sense of pride
declared that the scheduled castes would not beg
for it after that.
But that is a history now. There was a time when
claiming to belong to a scheduled caste/tribe
family looked embarrassing. Reservation too
looked upon like a gracious favour. But today it
has become a matter of pride, a sign of status,
and something one should fight and even
sacrifice for.
Without going into the justification or
otherwise of their demand, the recent agitation
by Gurjars for grant of scheduled tribes (and
not the Other Backward Class status, as the
Government has granted), has to be seen in this
very light. Of late, in Rajasthan some sections
among the forward castes of Brahmins and Rajputs
too have come out with a demand for granting
them backward/scheduled caste status. Even the
non-Hindu religions, which hitherto prided
themselves in being casteless creeds in
denunciation of Hindu society, are now
condescending to demand reservation on the basis
of castes – a fact which their religion doesn't
recognize. Such demands will continue to be on
the increase as long as there is reservation.
This situation has ignited the spark of a
class/caste conflict in the society. Rajasthan's
Meena community, already enjoying a scheduled
tribe status, is equally vehement in opposing
the Gurjars.
Malady lies not in the demand, but in the
politics behind in the name of votes. The
reservation provision that was temporary for a
decade has now become a permanent feature of the
Constitution. No political party can dare to do
otherwise
There was no narrow electoral politics at play
when the Constitution in one of its Directive
Principles provided for enactment of a uniform
civil code in the country, a provision about
which the Supreme Court has also reminded the
Union government not once, but at least thrice.
But now the electoral considerations have made
our leaders deaf, blind and dumb on the issue.
Similar is the story about the Article 370
which, again, was a temporary one. Now it has
virtually turned into a permanent feature, as
against the spirit of the Constitution, lest it
costs the ruling party votes of a particular
community.
No serious effort has been made, for obvious
reasons, to assess the extent of amelioration
the reservation provision has ushered in the
condition of the scheduled castes/tribes. In the
absence of the creamy layer provision, now
enforced because of Supreme Court verdict, the
benefit of reservation has been usurped by only
a very few families. We can count on our tips
the families whose four generations are in the
IAS, IPS and other prestigious Central services.
Others continue to indulge in the age-old
professions as before, living in slums in
pecuniary.
Reality is that those who got into power and
prestige because of reservation no longer wish
to be identified with the castes to which they
belonged. They snapped their relations with the
community and married off themselves in higher
castes, instead of doing so to uplift someone in
their own community. For them the value of the
caste certificate was reduced to just claiming
benefit. Inter-caste and inter-community
marriages should always be welcome. But,
unfortunately, doing so in these cases has only
resulted in the neglect of the rest in their own
community. And that was not what our
Constitution visualized.
In fact, reservation is a curse on the merit of
the mankind. What we should have done was to
extend the benefit of a good education and
multiplicity of opportunities the higher castes
enjoyed more because of their economic condition
and less because of their social upbringing. We
should have empowered the scheduled
tribes/castes and backward classes by providing
them with a good environment for higher
education and coaching to compete with the
higher castes on the platform of equality on the
strength of their merit. It is a folly to think
that the reserve classes lack merit or
intelligence and that they can survive or march
forward only if there is reservation to the
exclusion of merit. Given the opportunity that
have excelled in fields nobody could earlier
think even.
Thousands of crores has been wasted during the
past sixty years without any significant and
tangible improvement in the life and condition
of our neglected and dalit sections of society.
Why were they not provided the type of education
and extent of opportunities other castes
enjoyed?
The present agitations by more and more castes
for their inclusion in the scheduled
castes/scheduled tribe category is because of
the impression ingrained in their mind that the
very act of their inclusion in these proud
categories will overnight make their wards grab
prized posts without earning the merit. A sense
of inferiority complex has been generated in the
minds of these neglected sections that they can
never earn merit and reservation is the only
panacea. The neglected castes have been made to
beg for the alms of reservation and not to
agitate for their right to education and merit.
That is the crux of the problem. Empowering the
downtrodden doesn't fetch votes; our politicians
know it very well.
Our rulers will have to change their mindset to
barter favours with electoral benefits from
certain castes and communities. Unless this is
done, the kind of situation that developed in
Rajasthan may erupt in other parts of the
country with similar demands from other
castes/communities. Let our politicians ponder
in a cool manner.
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Discussion on this topic is now
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