Monday, May 01, 2006

The reservation system: an antidote worse than the disease

Democracy is about Equality. When we consider all fellow citizens equal why do we give designated scheduled castes and tribes, privileged treatment?

Pre-Independence reservations were provided to religious communities. Today reservations target the rights and representation and empowerment of some ill-defined sections of society.

Every democracy must address the issue of equal rights and opportunities. Most of India is backward. Religions and castes present a rich diversity. Wealth distribution is highly unequal. At traffic signals, beggar children solicit alms while rich limousines wait for the red signal to turn green.

Discriminatory antidote
India’s reservation policy seeks to reverse the results of an ancient caste system. But it violates the cardinal principle -- transparent equality within a democracy. Purporting to empower and protect the deprived, it provides reservations for higher education, jobs and political representation. This sows the seeds of deeper division in people’s minds.

Will inflicting new wounds on the high-born today, heal the old wounds of the low-born?

There is an acute shortage of medical and engineering educational facilities. A biased privilege for the scheduled castes or tribes, decisively destroys fair opportunity for the careers of young and bright students.

On the one hand, people who benefit from such biased treatment and special privileges, merely on the basis of their birth in scheduled castes or tribes, learn to demand more and more. Caste sentiments perennially dwell in their minds.

On the other, those deprived of opportunity despite good marks and credentials grow to bitterly hate the scheduled castes and tribes. Discrimination and hatred passes on to the next generation.

Back to square one!

Vested interest in backwardness
The more backward you are the more advantages you get. So many definite and undeserved benefits create a vested interest in staying backward. People want to be considered “backward” and expect an unfair bias towards themselves in everything.

Reservation is exploited as a means to gain more benefits. Newer backward groups and sections of society are being spawned everyday. One such example is the demand for separate reservation for Muslims and Christians.

Political parties are given to championing some particular community, denigrating leaders belonging to other castes and religions. This corrupts the voters’ minds.
Only an SC/ST/OBC leader can truly protect the interests and aspirations of his own community.

Misuse
Since the reservation is meant for the minorities and the oppressed, shouldn’t the percentage of seats reserved be restricted to their percentages? Tamil Nadu’s reservation of 69 per cent, either suggests that backward classes constitute 69% of that state, or mirrors the vested interests behind increasing the limit for voters.

Secondly should the privilege of reservation benefit people who are already economically well-to-do? Showing privileged treatment to the rich ‘backward’ caste businessmen defeats the whole purpose. In fact, people from these upper layers steal the reserved seats from their other backward counterparts for whom these reservations would have actually made a difference.


Message
We should strive for an egalitarian society, not for compensating damage inflicted to the scheduled caste’s ancestors in the hoary past. There should be a terminal date fixed for expiry of all reservations.

This will need bold statesmen to fight for equality and educate the people that continuing to divide and discriminate based on caste or religion will only harm the country’s interests in the long run.