Reservation issue has raised lot
of controversy in the past. Now one of the prominent leaders of Aam Admi Party Mr. Yogendra Yadav has stoked
the coals once again by stating that AAP cannot ignore the reservation issue.
Mr. Yogendra Yadav is a social
scientist in his own right. In the year 2006 when Mandal II was hogging the lime light, Mr. Yadav along with Mr. Satish Deshpande
came out with a formula on how to give fair weightage to not only merit and
caste/community, but also other disabling
factors like gender, poverty, hailing
from a backward region, type of schooling one had etc.
The formula was refreshingly new.
But there were no takers for it in the political establishment because it could
not serve the needs of vote bank politics. But now the question is will AAP
show the guts to break from the past and adopt a fair and at the same time
humane approach to the problem by adopting this formula in the place of a
purely caste based reservation.
The following are the links to the
two part article published in THE HINDU in May 2006. Now is the time to take a
look at the formula and initiate a debate.
Sir, the idea of reservations initially had the noblest imaginable intentions. For several centuries, certain groups of people were allowed to unconscionably exploit a purely fortuitous circumstance of birth into a caste and enjoy various valuable privileges having significant bearing on quality of life, while intentionally denying these to those not so fortunate enough to be born in these fortunate circumstances. Something needed to be done to mitigate if not entirely negate this artificially accumulated inequalities for the sake of equity and Reservations were thought to be the best of available instruments both to effectuate the much needed reversal of fortunes for the long-suffering caste-groups and to the privileged castes to at least partially expiate the sins they accumulated through exploitation. Viewed in this sense, it is like royalty payable by the privileged classes to the affected caste and class groups for having savoured several profitable privileges at their expense for centuries.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, the questions of how long the reservations ought to continue? and in which form? do not have easy answers. None, including the most vociferous of the anti-reservation groups can declare with honest certitude that we have satisfactorily achieved the original objective of reservation. You still find many pockets especially in the backward regions of North India which are in a state of time warp with respect to social progress. Anecdotal evidence abounds showing presence of people who are forcibly prevented from entering schools, places of religious worship, access to public services, etc. Unless real empowerment of these underprivileged sections is truly complete, it cannot honestly be argued that Reservations have served their use.
DeleteDear Subba Rao,
I fully agree with your balanced view. Certain conditions of life actually hinder the growth of personality and retard many qualities required for success in a competitive contest. For example, when a girl who grows up without proper nourishing food, without opportunities for gaining knowledge among people who are illiterate and who could not develop a positive attitude due to repeated failures in life competes with a boy who got the best of education, had nothing else to bother about in life than his studies, surely she will have to put in more efforts to match his achievement. If she scores 70% against the boy’s score of 80%, surely her achievement is superior. Hence something should be done to compensate her disadvantage to make the competition fair and just.
As you have rightly pointed out, in the early years of Independence Reservation was introduced to compensate the disadvantage of those who lived a handicapped life due to some historical circumstances. We need not go into the question of who and what was responsible for their condition. What is needed now is to ensure fair play for all.
In an earlier period, there were reasons to believe that caste based reservation was required because in those days caste discrimination broadly represented political, economic and cultural oppression. But due to various welfare measures including caste based reservation, the situation has changed to a great extent though not fully.
But we are still far removed from being a just society and as competition would be fair only among equals Reservation may have to be continued for some more time. But today we have reached a stage where disadvantage suffered by people not only on the basis of caste but also because of other factors should be considered. Caste is no longer the only factor to be considered. Poor people hailing from backward regions, villages, children of illiterate parents who work in the unorganised sector, children who have no other go than to be enrolled in schools without proper facilities and atmosphere, being a girl- all such persons need some sort of a support system to be successful in a competitive world.
It is in order to address these concerns that Mr Yogendra Yadav and Satish Deshpande came out with a novel formula in May 2006. As per this formula 80 out of 100 marks is awarded for academic performance. The remaining 20 is accorded as per the weightage given to each kind of disability some of which are mentioned above.
This formula is reasonable because 80 marks for academic performance takes care of merit and creamy layer factors and the 20 marks the social justice factor.
It can be surmised that
a girl of a backward caste, whose parents work in the unorganised sector with a low income, belonging to a backward village, studied in an ordinary non-english medium school would get the maximum weightage whereas a boy of upper caste whose parents are rich, studied in a high end English medium school and lives in a metropolitan city would get the lease or no weightage.
I feel this is reasonable enough.