Job Reservations - Is it time to do away

The constitution of India offers certain economically / socially backward classes of the society some special sancations; the most important of then being the reservations in government jobs.
There have been strong arguments on this on either side. Some believe in offering the reservsation to the sections of society with minimum earnings. Others believe that it is time the quota is withdrawn. And now it is even bein considered to extend the reservations to private sector.

would like to hear your views?

Babasaheb Ambedkar, who was himself born into a disempowered and socially and economically backward caste, did not want Schedule Ten to last for more than ten years. He thought it would be enough time for the disempowered to make good.
He may have been wrong on that count.
There is now what is called a 'creamy layer' but the vast majority of India's scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward communities, still suffer from the economic and social injustices that have been heaped on them for several aeons.
So I believe that reservation must last, until we have found a way to establish and egalitarian society based on merit, rather than on caste.

they say you give a child 20 paisa, when he extends his hands, and you have made him a beggar for life. in life anything you attain by easy methods, does not make you appreciate its worth. having said that, i do accept that there are many scheduled castes and tribes and other backward communities in india who have been wronged upon when basics like education etc were not given to them. things have to change and the people need to be educated and employment given so that communities can be uplifted!

the number of communities that was identified in the constitution that were in need of reservation was just a few hundreds (800 something i'm not sure), has now escalated in the 58 odd years to a few thousands approx 3600 and something)now. 58 years and we have increased the number of communities but has nothing been done by way of upliftment? i would have thought when you uplifted each community, you have raised their standard of living etc. but it seems to be that once they fall within the purview of reservations, it is theirs for their lifetime and of many generations more to come!

reservations upto educational levels is fine. reservation is schools, colleges including professional colleges are also equally important. once they qualify then they are on their own and have to compete on merit. becos from then on they are as uplifted as any of the others. on par in education. reserving quotas for jobs for a candidate who has scored lower percentage marks and lenient marking to enter a job is not fair. he will only bring with him mediocrity and continue to feel let down and squashed and overtaken by the meritorius students who come in! he may have a job, but he continues to feel inferior and gets treated like that too..

reservation should be on the basis of communities upto educational level, and thereafter if need be should be on the income group level and that too to enter into employment. the rest of the journey into life they make on their merit.

now if you admit a person on a quota in a medical college, give him lenient marking, and lower the pass marks, and then give him employment when he qualifies... how many of you will actually want to consult the chap when you are ill? maybe the poor and the uneducated will. but is life so cheap that we go to expensive doctors and relegate the poor to mediocrity bordering on incompetence? then why do we cry so much about a doctors imcompetence when he makes serious mistakes that results in death?

by and large, i think reservation is good only up to educational level. after that you compete on your merit! there is still a lot more i would like to say, but i shall restrain myself here at this point and see how the debate goes! 😃

Originally posted by: jasunap

by and large, i think reservation is good only up to educational level. after that you compete on your merit! there is still a lot more i would like to say, but i shall restrain myself here at this point and see how the debate goes! 😃

Doesn't seem like a popular topic anyway 😃

More or less I agree with you jasnup.. I believe reservation would be more effective if it were granted on economic status as opposed to social status.
Most of the untrained low wage workers otherwise known as the labourers are from these backward classes. They barely make enough to sustain an existence and for most of them it is unthinkable to put their children through professional education. these reservations end up being utilized not by the needy but by the middle class and upper middle class who , even otherwise, are able to afford an education.
Having said that, since these reforms were instituted for the betterment of the classes collectively , reservation in education should continue; but any special consideration when it comes to jobs would be unfair.

The discussion of reservation in colleges made me recollect something I noticed in college few years back and which I am sure is prevalant still. Students belonging to the backward classes, were they to also to qualify by merit in the general category would end up claiming the general category seat. Whether this is right or wrong is again debatable. Frankly, I cannot consider it as anything other than hypocrisy.

absolutely right mist. there is sc/st candidate in the GOI services. (they have seats reserved for them in grade and grade two of their services.) now this guy is an officer in govt of india. he gets a lot of facilities. his son goes to good schools. yest he avails himself of the privelages of the backward community. or take an officer in the foreign service, his children get educated abroad - all paid for by the govt. and then he goes back to india and claims a professional seat in a college instead of coming on merit. for how many generations will this go on? once the dad has the job in a well to do concern or govt etc they should be removed from the quota. this hypocracy is what makes the basically backward people remain where they are and the benefits are enjoyed by their richer counterparts. which is one of the main reasons that reservations should be on the economic status and not on basis of caste colour creed and religion!

Jasunap very well said . I had decided to think about it an d post my response yesterday . I always felt that reservations should be done till a certain time . Give say a decade or so for the upliftment , and then its high time we leave it to them to make it through merit .

But i loved what you wrote that make the reservation upto school - college level . Rest is up to them to fare well in the exams and make it through merit .

I dont know if this works in reality. I dont think they equip someone with what it takes to survive, education is one thing that cannot be imbibed without putting in an effort from your end. You can inherit wealth but not education. It is something to be earnt. To just grant someone a job and forget to soothe their past and nurture their future? How does this help?

Its not too bad if you are an engineer, its too bad if you are a bad engineer. Now that is what we'll end up having, a bunch of ill equipped professionals who are inadequately trained to do any job. The answer is not to give them a job, it is to give them the toolset to make them find that job for themselves.

And what backward castes are we talking about, in some states only if the father is backward is the caste card worth a job, if the mother is backward caste its not going to work. What kind of warped rule is that, so if the female had to undergo poor treatment its OK no medicine needed, but if the male was poorly treated generations of his family will be given free medicine that doesnt seem to be curing any ills.

Placebos are not given to a society that has been writhing in pain for centuries, it just wont work,we need something that cures the pain once and for all.

Its like saying -Uh-oh sorry your parents died of heart disease, you have the same and your children have the same and their children too. You'll all have to endure the pain throughout, we wont cure it, we wont even bother to try, but we'll give you all free hospital beds and food for life 😕

Rindam, well articulated indeed but your last comment on the beds and food threw me off 😊
Well considering that we are talking of the possibly the third generation that is now taking benefit of these reforms, what is the pain that is left to assuage?
I find it difficult to accept the analogy. Whatever extreme oppression the backward classes faced in the pre independance era certainly does not exist now. We have not eradicated casteism but this distinction that some members of 'upper class' communities still bear will hold against all - irrespective of them being educated, employed, successful/illiterate, poor.
To cure this pain once and for all we need a social reformation. Support in the form of reservation in education can just be , as u described, a toolset to equip them to make their own destinies.

WELL Said RINDAM ,APArna and JAS. Mist it is an interesting and relevant topic.
Affirmative actions such as reservation do good only for a limited period, as it has been pointed out earlier, it is good at the primary and school level. Professional courses demand a certain aptitude and only merit should be the consideration.
Reservation in India even after 57(?) years of independence has sadly not done much to the lives of the poor and the down trodden we had lalu yadav's kin( when he was the Cm)exploiting the OBC reservation to the hilt, his daughters got through engineering and med colleges even when they had scored poorly. Then what are they doing with the kind of education? nothing just wastage of exchequers finances.
Then recently, there was a move to extend reservation for Muslims in AMU ( Aligarh MUslim Univ) going against the constituion and character of the UNiv. It was aimed at getting votes. The courts trashed the move. Had they done it, it would have encouraged ghettoism and segregation. Reservation by its very nature encourages mediocrity and institutions and professions of higher learning should be kept away.