Reservation or Affirmative action for the lower caste (specially SC/ST) has been there since the time of independence and what started off as a 10-15 year policy has extended and became bigger and bigger as the years gone by.
It was hard growing up with these policies and was the hardest to endure when we were in 12th grade. Students who were with us (our good friends), whose parents had the same or higher education than ours and who were to an extent more affluent than us and lastly in terms of grades scored equal to us managed to get into much better colleges and branches than us. Why, because they had the reserved quota.
Coming out of the professional colleges, we knew the public sector had its reservations and bureaucracy, hence most of us were interested in the private sector where the field was open to play. But some of my friends wanted to try their hand in the Indian administrative services for they believed once you are in, then the promotions and all are based on your seniority and performance. I have huge respects for those guys.
The latest is the amendment by the congress seems to undermine this and want to inject caste as the basis for promotions also. The reason being there is less representation of the lower caste people in the upper echelons of the government and that needs to be fixed.
This I think is ridiculous, here is why. Last I heard India was still a democracy and the upper most echelons of the government is the elected representatives, we definitely have reservations there. Coming to the secretaries and joint secretaries, who are responsible to advice our some what dumb and some times illiterate elected representatives, shouldn’t they be the smartest of the smartest in the country and not based upon caste or creed or color. Up to what level does an IAS or IPS need to carry the identity of his caste?, from the day he joined the service till he retires?, if that is the case then where does the society free from caste creed and color stand. Reminds me of the quote from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All are equal but some are more equal than others”.
What next, the esteemed Indian cricket team will have reservations and the next time we send a contestant to the world wide beauty pageant we will have reservations there also?
1 comment:
Reservation in Cricket is not a new thing.. SA has had it for years.. Though many failed, Amla has been a product of quota system there..
On the other hand, they lost KP to England :)
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