MNS supremo Raj Thackeray has made a very true, logical and bold statement by declaring that caste based reservation should be eliminated. I feel glad that a politician has boldly come out with this suggestion pertaining to the reservation system. The quota policy, on the whole, has today, taken a wider proportion and is more often “misused”- even after 69 years of India’s independence. The system, as it stands today, prevents those students despite scoring high percentage of marks (especially those belonging to the upper caste are not covered under the reservation policy) from getting admission and employment as their right. This is because that in the field of education and employment seats are “reserved” for SC/STs and Other Backward Castes (OBC). Thus most deserving candidates scoring percentages as high as above as 90 possessing extremely brilliant academic records are deprived of their seats in the engineering, management, medical colleges and employment too. And, now with the new provision, the SC/STs will get promotion under the quota policy.
In other words, efficiency, merit, sincerity and performance will have no meaning and just by taking advantage of the quota policy, the SC/ST will get promoted to higher grades, even if one proves to be inefficient and an ‘under-performer’. On the other hand, the truly meritorious and sincere performer will have to wait for his turn as per the policy of the government or the organization. What is happening, therefore today is that every caste and tribe wants to be treated as ST/SC or at least be included under the OBC category so that the benefits under the “reservations policy” can be availed of, irrespective of the economic and financial background. It’s sad to notice that the Jat community had violently protested and reservation was granted to them. Now the Maratha community in Maharashtra are holding rallies for quotas.
Today, it has become a “privilege matter” to be treated as an ST or SC, which was not so at least about a decade ago. The extreme extension of reservation by the Indian political leaders and the government, just to appease one community after the other, repeatedly, has now led to the “deprived caste or class” demanding “reservation” as a matter of right. At this rate, the day is not far off when the real upper caste strata (like Brahmins etc…) also start demanding reservation because, today, they feel the heat and are the real ones who are deprived of admissions, jobs etc, due to “over patronage” of certain caste and communities. Moreover, in our country, every year one caste or the tribe keep rising up to demand reservation!
The solution lies in saying that “enough is enough” and we stopped these politicians from tinkering with the “reservation policy”, year after year and especially on the eve of elections. I don’t understand when our government will do away with this outdated “quota policy” altogether and when will our politicians stop appeasing certain sections of the community in the name of “reservation”. Today only merit should count and “reservation should be based on economic status”. Abolish caste, class, creed or community based reservation altogether.
Or better still…..remove reservations once for all.
S.KrishnaKumar
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
