The Supreme Court has given its verdict and the reservations have come to stay. The OBC reservations of 27% and the SC/ST reservations of 22.5% total to 49.5%. The arguments for and against reservations have been flogged to death and I am not going to repeat them. In contentious issues someone has to take a call and no matter what there will always be an aggrieved party. Exclusion of the “creamy layer” along with a clear definition of the “creamy layer” is a very welcome step and one that I am sure will mitigate many a heartburn.
If I may compare this issue to the treatment of a disease then the reservations is like administering a painkiller. It cannot be construed as the treatment of the disease. What I am afraid will happen is that the pain killer dose will keep on increasing and no one will bother about the treatment of the disease. The percentage in due course may go up beyond current levels. The reservation policy may become applicable to an increasing category of educational institutes. I wish the executive and the judiciary had taken steps to preempt this from happening.
One step that immediately needs to be implemented is to ensure that the percent never increases beyond current levels, no matter what the proportion of the beneficiaries be in future populations. In fact there is a pressing need to legislate that by the end of fifty years the percentage will be reduced to half. This means that from 2018 the combined reservations would be reduced to 45%, from 2028 to 40% and so on. The government meanwhile has to treat this malaise. The whole idea is to bring the backward classes on par with the others and not to subsidize them for eternity. The constitution has to be amended suitably.
The reservation policy will actually benefit a miniscule proportion of the backward classes because after all the size of the pie is miniscule. Therefore a mechanism needs to be put in place to ensure that the same families are not benefiting again and again. This is not an easy task but it must be done in order to ensure that the benefits are as widely spread out as possible. Some possibilities come to mind and I would like to share them here. Once a person has availed of a benefit under this scheme, he or she should not be eligible for any other benefit given to SC, STs or OBCs. I would even go as far as stating that such benefits should not accrue to the descendants of persons who have been given a benefit under this policy. Such steps are essential in the interests of true social justice.
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