Is The Reservation In Indian Education System Justified? | Shajat Lone

Your perspective depends on whether you are benefiting from this reservation system or losing from it. Basically, the reason behind reservation is that certain disadvantaged groups get a push to make them competent with the groups that don't have any inherent disadvantage. These not only include backward castes, but also financially backward people.

You may argue against this, that there are a lot of rich people in the backward castes today and so reservation is unnecessary. This may seem true, but the people from backward castes who are rich represent only a small minority of the total population of the backward castes. Also, it is precisely for this reason that there is a provision for excluding people who fail to provide a non-creamy layer certificate stating that their income is below so-and-so level. Also, in a country where people were exploited by their caste till recently and in some places are still exploited, it is our moral obligation to do all that is possible to make them go ahead.

There is a philosophical reason behind this too. If a certain section has been disadvantaged and exploited, it is natural, for that section to rise against oppression and demand privileges. The living conditions of these people are appalling especially in backward areas and villages.

Upper caste people will always have an upper hand in education. This is because of the following reasons:

• There is a high probability that their parents are educated and hence education is encouraged.

• Financial problems are relatively non-existent in comparison with lower caste people.

• Even if financial problems are present, children are not made to earn money.

• These people can afford to buy books, join classes and travel on cars, bikes for the purpose of education.

The lower caste people face the following hurdles:

• Their parents are mostly uneducated; therefore, education is taken lightly. Even if parents are ready to educate, they face hurdles like not knowing which stream to take, which stream is good for a career or what type of profile to build for a job.

• Financial problems rule the roost. This is the biggest problem. There isn't enough money for books, forget tuitions or bikes.

• Children think that education is privilege not a right. This mentality makes them think earning money is more important than getting educated.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of reservation. The objective behind it was positive discrimination. And in a democracy its a vital tool to promote inclusion and overall well-being.

Imagine someone belonging to a family that has been economically and educationally discriminated, how can that individual claim equal opportunity until state does not support him.

For he can’t afford an education, grooming, environment that someone living in a well to do family can. In such a case state needs to provide financial support, education support and employment support to uplift such families/communities. Thereby in order to promote the true concept of equality we need to promote equity that was the true intent of reservation.

So, the issue is not with reservation, but with who is using it? Does he really need it or not? There are always few who will be availing the benefit even if they do not require but we have to accept some subjectivity. However, but we need to update the reservation policy keeping the contemporary context so that new criteria of selection and rejections can be created to ensure who genuinely needs it gets it.

We wanted to uplift vulnerable communities who were inflicted with caste system, however the way reservation got used it created classes among caste groups. It is the rich, well-off, service class, business class people among these communities who are mostly making the use of quota, however those really needing are missing out due to lack of resources. We have failed to identify the new parameters of vulnerability.

Yes, caste is one (in a dissected form), but income, occupation, marginalised community should have been parameters of the new criteria. So, we are not able to provide reservation to many who actually need it.

We need to update our reservation policies. Making changes and implementing these suggestions might have its own set of challenges, reservation system in india is a political issue and no political party dares to challenge it.