Mandal Redux


The Governments decision to make 27% reservation for OBC's for educational institutions is deplorable. The decision will take the reservation quota to 49.5% (the maximum reservation that can lawfully be imposed) and in doing so will signal the death knell for thousands of hard working students who will miss out beacuse they are in the open quota. Years of politics over reservations and the rise of regional and national backward caste parties have ensured that the proposal to increase the reservation to nearly 50% was unanimous amongst the political class. The propsal which is said to have the blessings of the PM will end meritocracy (if there was any) to an age where caste decided your future. While many may argue that thousands of years of the caste system in India led to many bright Dalits and backward classes to suffer at the hands of upper castes, and now that the reverse is happening the upper caste controlled middle India is protesting. However, it is also true that the reservation system which was meant to benefit the poorest of the poor in the country have largerly been ignored in the humdrum of reservation politics. The plights of the SC/ST's and OBC in the Indian heartland remains the way it has been for eons. The same rigid fuedal system prevails in the villages and rural hinterland. The benefit of various reservation programmes have not benefitted these people but political parties and the so called “creamy layer” amongst the SC/ST's.

The messiah of the SC/ST's Lalloo Yadav after having ruled Bihar for 15 years on thepretext of making every poor Bihari self sufficient failed miserably and the condition of the peopel who got him to power more or less remains the same. A similar case in point is that of Mayawati, who after going after the Bahujan samaj has now courting the Brahmins and Thakurs in UP, not to help the caste she represents but to ultimately grab the CM's chair from the other caste politics flip flopper Mulayam Singh Yadav.

It is imperative that the Government aoids such policies in higher education and research and instead try to work on the economic and social conditions of the SC'ST's and OBC's. Of what use is reserving seats in institutes like the IIM's, IIT's and AIIMS when people in the villages do not even have access to basic education and and healthcare. Surely, the benefits of such reservatin policies will not affect the villages, instead it will help the creamy layer of the SC/ST's in towns and cities. Why should a person who has gotten through to a good college or say the Civil Services through the quota have his children avail the same benefits that he/she did? Will this not make the “well off” SC/ST's even better off while leaving the ones who need a push still way behind. isn't reservation politics making the divide between urban and rural backward classes even more acute?

The politicians don't seem to think so, they argue that it is required. This when the origianl idea behind the policy of reservations was meant for a period of ten years only. But the politicians want to woo the backward classes, as they form a sizeable chunk of the electorate, hence the complete silence from the Congress and the BJP on the issue (especially in a election year). The move will also start another brain drain of sorts, students who cannot get through to Indian unviversities will prefer to go abroad. This in a day and age when India is a rising power and is alos shifting towars a knowledge based society. As a country is important that the best minds get exposed to the best institues and help build a progressive nation. Years later when we will look back at the myopic policies of the politicians of the time, we will realise not only did we increase the urban-rural rich -poor divide, we will also impeded the nations growth, with the best minds feeling left out in the scheme of things. Is it a price worth paying?