Reservations against reservations

The Hindu society, traditionally, has had well defined class divisions since the Vedic times. Such divisions had primarily originated on the basis of profession, but gradually, as for generations people in the same family continued to adhere to the same profession, these divisions started to be determined by birth. Soon the caste system became deeply established in the society, with members of one class forbidden to take up occupations of the other classes, and the gaps between adjacent groups continued to widen. Over a period of several millenia, these barriers became more and more strong, and by the end of the nineteenth century, member of an 'upper' caste would cringe from even interacting with member of a 'lower' caste, let alone eat, drink or socially meet together. As the caste system grew more and more complex, and new sub-castes emerged, certain groups of people were identified as the 'Panchamas' (the fifth) or the 'Asprshyas' (untouchables); those who supposedly fell below the ranks of all the four major castes: viz., Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. Medeival and British India in particular, witnessed severe ostracism and inhumanity against these people. Ill-treated, abused and segregated by the 'elite' fraction of the society these people lived in wretched conditions, even though they constituted a significant part of the entire population.

As India gradually rediscovered her way into enlightenment in the 1900's, the necessity to eliminate such an atrocious system of social injustice was realized. It was decided that social reforms would be carried out all over the land to ensure the obliteration of caste based atrocities. Meanwhile, reservations in higher education and public sector jobs would be offered to people coming from the lowest castes to compensate the negative effects that social segregation was having on them. Caste based reservations have thus been a part of the Indian system since independence.

However, as India moves forward into the 21st century, caste based reservations have lead to some significant controversy. The basic assumption that members of a 'scheduled' caste or tribe are always exploited socially and economically is severely flawed. Though that might be the truth for many cases, that is not true universally, and such a generalisation thus, is ultimately too gross. There are thousands of 'upper caste' people living in abject poverty and severly lacking in resources, while there are many 'scheduled caste' people who are financially and socially well established. The sad truth is that in most cases, all the benefits and facilities reserved for the 'scheduled' classes are enjoyed by the people belonging to the second category, while those of the first category are never eligible for any of these benefits. Poor people belonging to the 'scheduled castes' are so poor and socially backward that they seldom cross the layers of primary education and rarely reach the threshold of higher education or the job sector, from which stages reservations are available. At the same time, reservations tend to work against the very reason they were put to effect. In the given system, a so-called "Backward" guy would always apply as a "reserved" candidate; and take no action to improve himself academically, which would have enabled him to compete with the general guys on the same platform. An "upper-caste" guy would continue to despise a "lower-caste" guy, not because of his birth; but because of him being a "reserved" candidate.

The situation may be addressed with the following analogy: some people are tall, and some are short and malnourished. Our aim is to ensure that everyone's head touches the same level. Reservation gives an easy solution, it simply adds up an altitude bias to the short guys, by, let's say, making them wear high heels, to make them appear taller. This is a flawed method, for this would eventually reduce the average natural height of the upper layer of the population, and would also eliminate naturally tall people from the system in favour of artifically tall people. There's an alternative way to acheive the same goal. That is to take extra care of the short guys, nourish them properly to ensure they're tall enough when they grow up. The caste system must be eradicated right from the grass roots of our society, right from the dark chasms from which such obnoxiousness emanates. By providing special aid to the socially and economically backward children at the primary level, it must be ensured that when they grow up, they don't need any reserved seats.

The caste system has crippled our society for centuries. Such social segregation cannot and must not persist in the system and has to be eliminated. But, reservations will never solve the problem. Rather than eliminating the problem, reservations continue to reinforce the concepts of social segregation.