Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Is reservation necessary?

In year 2002, when I had to take admission for the hostels in College of Engineering, Pune I came across the concept of reservation system for the first time in my life. Even, the Indian caste system I recognized for the first time in 2002! I heard and read about the caste system in syllabus textbooks but not having that much understanding about the caste system.
One of my friends, Shekhar Garge has ‘illustrated’ me the concept of Indian reservation system. He also told, how the reservation is allotted to ‘unreserved categories’ and to the OBC, SC, ST, NT, SBC, VJ, PH, J&K etc. I was shocked by this concept when I heard for first time! I even did not know the castes of the peoples. I found it is a huge phenomenon of Indian government to keep caste system of ancient Indians alive…!
Frankly speaking, I am against every type of reservation provided in any of the departments. As per my opinion the ‘caste’ must be removed by all types of the government documents. I found the base of this system that it was only intended for first 10-15 years but still this is in execution. And our politicians have found a good best working tool for their politics and vote banks. Whenever you differentiate among the people on the base of castes, you are just neglecting the talent of the persons. As India is one of the secular democracies, why caste system and religions are still in existence? That is one of the questions that always come in my mind. Whenever any talented person is neglected only due to its unreserved caste, that is one of the injustice imposed by the government.
I remember, only 20 percent of the students of my class were paying the whole fees of the institute because they were under unreserved categories. We don’t know, when these systems are going to finish. Probably not… because now the reservation is given to women in the parliament! It will be extended now to minority and SC/ST…
It is laughing matter that, when the reservation bill passed in legislative council on international women’s day the newspapers has written that, it is a victory for women like Savitribai Phule, Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, Kiran Bedi, Sonia Gandhi etc. It was meaning that, only due to reservation, these women were able to stand in Indian social life. I think, government has to set example of these women, to inspire other Indian women to be the part of social life or the politics…! But, they are just doing it in reverse of this. Today, the main posts of the Indian government like president, legislative assembly speaker, president of largest party of India, opposition leader in legislative assembly and few of the political chiefs are women. They are not because of the reservation but because of their abilities to stand still. We have examples of these; not the examples of the women reservation in other countries! Because, we have produced the prime minister like Indira Gandhi for the first time in world history not the other nations…! Women should keep such examples in front of them to gain the encouragement.
We have seen many of the women in Panchayat Raaj are not having actual rights to handle the ‘Grampanchayat’, ‘Panchayat Samiti’ or ‘Zilla Parishad’. It is actually handled by their spouse for 90 percent of times. Now, how can we guarantee that, the same will not be repeated for the politics at the state or at the national level? This is the fact and we should accept it. Women have to become forward by their own inspiration but not because of the imposing by the political parties. If any region is not having any women contestant then political parties then they will surely import the candidates to win the seat. What can be done on such situations? An eligible man candidate will loose his seat from such constituency.
Some of the political parties are now demanding the reservation based on caste and religion. These types of demands will now increase in future. We are dividing our citizens on castes, religions and now on gender.
I do remember, when someone was asking me my caste. I always used to tell ‘totally open’ because I am not in OBC, SC, ST, SBC, VJ, DT, NT1, NT2, NT3, not even EBC, not physically handicapped, not son of ex-servicemen, not J&K migrant, not from any minority religion and now not a woman…!

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