Reservation is a spice for Indian politics and it is serving as the most important ingredient during elections. During the formation of Indian Constitution, Dr B.R. Ambedkar introduced the reservation policy based on caste and since then it is an integral part of Indian social and political movements. Although, the reservation policy made for schedule caste SC and schedule tribe ST are important to improve the involvement of these people in both social and bureaucratic spectrum.
There are parts in India where the effect of government policies and job securities doesn’t make any impact due to various reasons such as caste barriers, economic difference, lack of fundamental rights, etc. for that reason it is necessary to develop some mechanism so that, it is possible to associate the people from all parts, caste, and social status in the development of the nation. Now the question is why the reservation is only based on caste and is the policy proposed by Dr. Ambedkar is still relevant.
From the pre-independence era, there are sections of people who are deprived from the rights to have education, economic and social status and opportunities which is a fact and no one denies it, though most of the people are concentrated on the Dalits and other backward classes, but it is surely Dr. Ambedkar who include the ancient tribes of India under the reservation policy. The northeastern part of India is mostly neglected from the entire picture and the reservation policy for the tribes help them to improve their social and economic status, though the tribals of northeastern region still suffer racism in many parts of India and till today the situation is just improving but not vanished entirely. Thus implementation of reservation policy is a smart and essential mechanism to improve the situation of such people and as these discriminations are usually based on caste and tribes so it is quite obvious that, the initial implementation is necessarily based caste and tribes.
Now the question is that, whether the reservation policy is relevant in the present context? In order to understand this we must know what has been changed in the reservation policy in the last 75 years. In the last 75 years, the reservation policy act as a spice for the Indian politics and nothing else. Initially the reservation policy is implemented for just 10 years but after 10 years no survey has been conducted to identify the SC’s and ST’s whose social and economic status has been improved and they don’t need these tag of SC and ST anymore for their children and the benefits of being an SC and ST is now available to those who doesn’t have the access of good education and job due to the same reasons and in that way the social and economic imbalance between the upper and lower caste will diminish eventually.
But for the political benefits no political party is interested in providing the facilities to the SC & ST people who are still fighting to get the equal socio-economic status. In reality the benefits of reservation is far from the reach of poor and needy people rather it is enjoyed by the people of elite and upper middle class who are economically sufficient to provide better education and opportunities to their children.
The negative impact of the reservation is that, the people having three course meal everyday and a good life now believes that, they can have job and other opportunities with poor performance. Because a student getting 45% marks with three meals, complete tuition and in a convent school is far inferior as compare to a student getting 45% marks in a public school with hardly two meal a day and without tuition. It’s not the caste that makes you worthy for a job or selection in a college/university but it’s your sincerity and attention that makes you a deserved candidate for the rightful place, reservation is a medium to take you their, getting 45% with all the facilities shows that you are certainly not sincere and attentive and so not worthy to have that cake of success in that particular place only because you belong to a certain caste.
And I am sure Dr. Ambedkar will agree with me on this and that is the reason, initially he proposed the reservation policy for 10 years only, Dr. Ambedkar was a wise man and he surely knew that, once a person improve his/her economic status in the society, the society will accept him and his social status automatically improves. But with a sad note it is evident that our politicians are not smart and wise enough to implement this beautiful policy in a progressive and effective manner otherwise the situation of SC and ST doesn’t remains same after the 75 years of independence. The change that can be observe is the slight improvement in the social status and it is not due to the reservation policy but due to the progressive minds of the new generation. The problem of caste discriminations due to economic status can be improved with 30 years after independence if the politicians actually wanted to improve it but instead of improving the situation they increases the categories for reservation.
In the context of present India, reservation policy is necessary to uplift the people in different corners of the land. Although the necessity of caste based reservation is marginalized as most the society is now trending towards equilibrium that is, equality in terms of social status and in another 20 years, the caste discriminations will be abolished completely from the society. However the need of reservation based on economic status is important because India is still developing and the number of people under and on the poverty line is significant so providing temporary reservation in health, education and job to the families till they remain under and on the poverty line is a solution to the problem. In this way the economic status of the population will improve exponentially due to focused implementation of reservation policy.
