Reservation: Future of India

I was deeply hurt by seeing the plight of youth agitating against the proposed reservation or quota system tabled by Arjun Singh, HRD minister for Govt of India. I, aged 30+ consider myself as one of the representative of Indian youth frustrated seeing same old vote bank politics of Congress and the government formed by that party since the time I started understanding the legislations / policies. The question I ask myself, what good this reservation doing to India in political, financial, social and administrational fronts without any solid answers to satisfy myself. Has the reservation system proved itself to be a boon improving the down trodden, oppressed, financially backward and so called deprived as it claims to be? Let us try to be find answers for all those questions while trying to understand whether future of India (as some times called the youth of India, just to make the similarity or an irony) lies in providing the reservation to section of people.

If I have understood the part of Indian history where British were trying their best to divide India by any means possible, I can say with complete confidence that we have had tremendously bad experience on prioritisation of section of society, which is probably the time 1925 - 1947. British understood clearly that they need support from some section of the people when time comes for them to answer the question if at all they have done any good for Indian sub continent. Who did they find initially, it was non other than those who ruled India considering themselves as Raj of the people for people’s good, the Indian Princes. Why would British make a policy of giving away the Raj they had to Princes when they wanted to have whole subcontinent under their rule. It was a cruel tactic of British to divide Indian mass and their opinion between the Congress and Raj. Also, they wanted Princes to speak for British in all occasion leave alone the appropriate time. But it wasn’t enough for them to create a division which makes easier for them to have control over fighting faction than the unified one. They indeed started finding the alternatives which were abundantly available in the society for uncanny British. Next one was religion, a pretty sensitive subject in India even today. They started taking the sides of minority Muslims of North West Indian subcontinent and East Bengal. We all know what happened by that British tactic which left whole South East Asian sub continent sensitive than ever before considering the geo political situation. As a next move British found the deprived classes within the Hindu religion itself and that created some opportunity for them to divide the masses and create more warring factions within the same community. And it went on and on until British participated in 2^nd world war and until 1947 leaving India for good.

It is not completely wrong that history give us opportunity to learn lessons and some light in the dark tides of unawareness. However it is up to people to consider history to be the lighthouse for their decision particularly for those who make decision for people for their future. Unfortunately it didn’t happen for the people of India when British left India leaving the future of India with Congress leaders who were representing the large section of Indian masses. Rather unifying India abolishing the prioritisation, Congress leaders thought of continuing it for 10 more years and then to make decision based on the facts and figures available later. I think this is a huge mistake on the part of politicians on whom largely the future of nation resides, thus building a platform which has been completely exploited by the next generation of Congress politicians in years to come. It is not hidden truth that Congress leaders at the time of independence didn’t bother much about the media which was short reaching and popular in the city areas. It continued until recently when electronic media took over and made the world smaller. Everything discussed in parliament is being broadcasted now educating people and creating awareness about the legislative process. Public do understand how well their representative in Parliament and can put forward queries through various means. Unfortunately it wasn’t case before 30 – 40 years where a legislation passed / rejected would never reach a common man, giving complete autonomy to legislative body to underestimate the power of people. If that is what was called democracy, then it was complete mockery.

The Government thought that by giving compulsory opportunity to few tribes and castes that are deprived of facilities available to people in improved villages, towns and cities a major change in terms of development is possible in the society. On a peripheral view it looks as a great thought making anyone impossible to deny, however there may be few shortfalls given a more insight to the policy. Firstly, it makes one to have opportunity forcing migration where the facility exists rather making facility available to the geological area where people in need of facility or opportunity. Secondly, there can never be a proper line to divide any community to make them have a facility for improvement. Let us take an example of a region where categorised castes and tribes reside along with the other people. I can confidently say that the plight of other people not belonging to categorised castes and tribes are too indifferent. In such cases, the line of division to be drawn is impossible for any administration to be fair. Thirdly it creates rift and tension between ‘facility reaper’ and common citizens thus creating a permanent damage in the social harmony. Fourthly, the vital ingredient of democracy, the ‘equal opportunity’ takes tumble in the path of realisation and implementation, making it difficult to believe democracy even work that way. Fifthly, the provision for constitution to consider all civilians equally under unequal circumstances (difference in the available opportunity and facility) remain totally false. Sixthly, it kills the drive for success in those people who think we shall get the facility irrespective of whether it was better utilised or under utilised, thus wasting the vital resource of government in terms of tax payers money. Lastly, the most important one is, Indian leadership took such an idea from British government whose main aim is to divide and rule. That is what we saw in next generation leaders, who created a kind of secure vote bank by kept on extending the 10 year provision for prioritisation till today. Long gone British from our land but the policy of ‘divide and rule’ still haunts the Indian public in the mask of selfish, power hungry, greedy and untrustworthy politicians.

Has the section of people receiving facility has improved tremendously, that is question I would like asking the administration hell bent on prioritisation policy. We have an answer in the form of proof to show the area, villages, tribes and castes receiving facility still in the same state as it was before apart from really few exceptions. Where has it gone wrong? The answer is, it has gone wrong in exactly seven points I mentioned in previous paragraph. Added on to those seven points, the resulting corruption took its toll and ruined the plan. There were several implications due to seven points in administrational level resulting in total failure of the policy. Do we still need that policy in place? I would be very tempted to say NO, but the truth is we do need such policies in different form as we shall discuss later. But such policies unfortunately shall stay around until the vote bank politics keep taking the prominence in political front of India. I would hate to leave it on the fate of Indian public who care little understanding the difference between power hunger politics and social service. Politics is all about clinging on to a highest post to reap the benefits of it by any means, is the new meaning of it and never to service the public for the good of society. A good society is sign of healthy development resulting in strong and unified nation, unlike the division which leaves common goal straying all over the place achieving little and causing problems in various sections.

Now back to current reservation proposal by Government which is last nail in coffin. It has reached the peak of it’s unreasoning by allowing scheduled castes and tribes along with other backward castes (OBC) to get more priorities. The OBC has been created by another vote bank idealist to get the continuous support from section of the community. Since our childhood we have seen the reservation for few people in our schools and I’m sure everyone wondered why they are being treated separately. The issue was never a forefront in school because of educational pressures, not understanding the actual reason behind such reservation and lack of unity, information exchange between student unions. Also, all political parties thinking in the similar way of creating their own vote banks never actually put forward formal protest against such bill neither in parliament nor in another platform. That leaves students themselves to handle the complete legislation procedure which they are not experienced of. Unless students form a country wide union inter-related to demonstrate the one voice of protest, the law of land doesn’t allow them to get what they are protesting for; curbing any of the protests using force of police. The problem itself is two fold, firstly the reservation for categorised community in the education and secondly reservation for categorised community in job. It makes extremely difficult for one to understand the real logic behind it stating either benefit should be given during the phase of shaping future (education) or at the job level providing the prioritised selection. Again the job level reservation proves to be catastrophic as it makes the best one not to get the suitable post and the post itself shall be governed by unsuitable person. As I previously explained there must be some form of reservation needed for the country like ours, I guess, it should be more practical to award reservation only during the education and not during the job selection. The current proposal is to award the reservation for higher education institutes like post graduation, IIT and IIM. Again, I try to convince myself really hard to believe that is what the categorised community want in future. Those premier institutes really depend on the skill of pupil who is level higher than the average pupils. It is not difficult to understand in that case whether any one needs reservation at that level tainting the dignity of such institutions. I strongly believe in the opinion that post level graduation must be earned by a particular student who is in best position to decide what exactly needed, than receiving a kind of award for person for being part of categorised community. Is it not a curse on those privileged pupils naturally going to earn that place in premier institutions by a selection procedure? By eliminating privileged pupil from the place he/she really deserve, government is not doing any good to the education system as a whole.

I appreciate the concern expressed by some of the private sector chiefs like Mr. Narayana Murthy, founder member of Infosys technology, Mr. Azim Premji, CEO of Wipro technologies (not very sure about the position at this point of time) and Ratan Tata, owner of Tata group of companies. The concern is about the ability of an individual to manage the task in an organisation to which he is responsible for. Those organisational positions meant to be for right individuals and it cannot be awarded by some kind of set rules as I explained earlier about the problem in such scenarios. The right individual is the perfect match for the responsible position generating revenues for the company and human resources wouldn’t like to jeopardise that by recruiting some one who gets the merit due to categorical distinction based on caste. Also there were objections from various heads of premier institutions like IIM and IIT. Those are welcome move as well, considering the government’s alternate solution of increasing the seats in the premier institutes in order for facilitating the reservation in premier institutes. This Congress government as I said earlier hell bent upon getting the reservation passed as legislation trying all possible methods of getting through just like ‘Everything possible in Love and War’. But it is not practical again, as the head of premier institutions put forward, the dignity and value of those institutions doesn’t remain the same by increasing the number of seats. We must respect the specific views at this point of time including premier educational heads as they stand firm in the best position to understand the situation considering the future of such post graduation. On the other hand, there are some political leaders mainly keep trading the minority, categorised caste cards like Laloo Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, VP Singh, Mulayam Singh and communists who never think of unified nation, rather try their best for power they want to have in their own state by luring the categorised community for votes. Also all those numerous intermediate associations trying to gather support for the government policy on reservation have their vested interests of various sorts including financial support in getting this policy as legislation.

At this point of time only doctors across the country are protesting against the reservation even though there are numerous incidents of violence against them. Police are acting on peaceful demonstrators violently avoiding any possible way for doctors to execute their civilian right for justice. One end up asking, Is it right for doctors to act while patients being denied of their treatment, a fair argument. However doctors think about the future role in years to come and very well understand the concept of ‘precaution is always better than cure’. They put government in a position to take responsibility for making patients not getting the required treatment thus trying to get the support of public in their fight. Also, if firm protests were not made then there will not remain any chance of negotiations from government considering government reaction for simple vociferous protests. I’m quite convinced that doctors are doing absolutely right in protesting the reservation to protect the future of themselves and next generation post graduates. All they lack is support from various other fronts. To be honest, all major post graduate people must join their hands to make government realise what the mistake they are committing in the name of prioritisation. I would think, people from all profession mainly representing the middle class society must join the hands in protest to protect the rights of themselves and their children in future India. There must be a movement to consider non-payment of taxes to government by the same society from whom all the support for categorised section comes from. Unless there a threat from people in terms of non payment of taxes, disobedience one cannot expect government to act. People should have right to deny the service from government if it proved inefficient in providing the good governance. Just the way a consumer asks for fair trading a civilian must have the right for fair governance. If not, civilian must act to get the good governance by non payment of taxes and civil disobedience.

India has been gaining pivotal importance in the world trade in terms of providing the human resources of very good quality. America and Europe is looking towards India for intellectual service which is financially beneficial considering the world economical state. But India on the other hand is not able to capitalise on it due to the policy of categorised reservation as one of the important issue. What exactly India needs for the overall uniform growth within the nation for bright future of India? Firstly, a uniform civil rights must be put into practice abolishing all types of prioritisation based on caste and tribe. But that, I do not believe shall solve the issues of uniform social growth. I think, planned industrial sectors must be spread across to regions of the deprived society in order for avoiding the concentration of wealth in few regions in the country. An education quota must be available until graduate level to provide education for ONLY poor section of the people irrespective of the caste and tribes they belong to. This shall avoid exploitation of quota and reservation by those categorised castes and tribes who have been taking the benefits even tough they can afford to get those benefits. Secondly, a board must be set up to look at the government policies if at all it is harmful in terms of unity in the society. Any such act of government must be immediately prevented. Election commission too should have a say on such post electoral activity of government as well as pre election promises. Thirdly, post graduate level education must be exempted from reservation for the reasons I explained earlier. Fourthly job allotment must be completely based on merit. Fifthly there must be unions in the field of education, labour, trade, services and any other arena where anything directly related to public, so as to counter the government more effectively than what could be achieved today. At this point of time, the doctors and students protesting the reservation have no good platform to take the protest to a level where government could be counter attacked. Recently there was a request from government to find the minority head count in army, navy and air force which was outright rejected by respective chiefs resulting in complete shame on the government. The future of India shall be very bright provided politicians in government make policies to unite people in the society to develop a sense of nationalism among every section of public. A policy of government must uphold the interest of nation rather than the interests of party, individual or administration.

Considering the present political situation surrounding reservations, I do not believe that Arjun Singh have acted alone to propose the new quota plans as few of the magazine depict for his own gains and benefits. Looking at the the Pranab Roy, the Defence minister making requests to military chiefs for the head count of minority population, it is more than obvious that it is the decision making body within the Congress trying to get these things on board including the reservations. So the Congress working committee must take the complete responsibility of the situations resulted aftermath of the quota proposals. It has to bare the complete responsibility of creating fighters out of youth, majority of them students, whose aim is to have right for justice and not justice itself at this point of time. The youth fighting now at the least wish that the right achieved will result in continuation of the fight for social equality, is the justice must be achieved for the sake of bright future of the nation.