Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Reservations in private sector..Is this move justified?

I was busy, doing my work day before yesterday when I got this mail saying Govt. is trying to build consensus on giving reservation to scheduled castes in jobs in private sector also and if you are opposing this step sign on petitiononline.com. I don’t know the authenticity of petitiononline.com or the affect that this petition will create and neither I signed it, still it excited and provoked my thinking buds to grind my opinions on this issue.

Do we really need to provide reservation to SC/ST’s or OBC’s in education or services? Do they really need reservation? Will it improve their condition socially and economically and will this reservation policy bring them out of the tag of “deprived class”? I have tried to find out the answers and more appropriately I have tried to through some light on futility of this policy.

1. In my opinion, first and the foremost thing is, the term “reservation” is totally against a very basic right of every citizen that is given in the constitution i.e. “Right to Equality”. According to this, every citizen is equal and is entitled for all the opportunities and according to which no discrimination can be made on the basis of caste, creed, color, region or religion. This provision of reservation kills the basic idea of this right and is against the spirits of constitution. So first of all we need to delete this trivial right of ours.



2. Those advocating this reservation policy vehemently give this reason for this quota system “ They are the deprived class”. So, does that mean only SC/ST’s are deprived and all the others come under the creamy layer of the society?? Caste has nothing to do with the economic status of a person. A Brahmin may be in tatters and a harijan may be in all the luxuries and still, if the govt. is hell bent on giving reservations, then economic status should be the criteria and not the caste.


3. 80% of the “deprived” schedules caste population lives in rural areas, which is also deprived economically and academically. The basic aim of providing reservations is to bring these rural scheduled population to the main stream, which is deprived in real sense and to empower them by giving them jobs and by protecting them through reservation. While on the other hand what is required in Private sector is education and skills. The rural scheduled caste population has neither of them. So these posts will be absorbed by the their urban counterparts which are any way well-to-do and some are even living life of luxury. So the basic idea of providing reservation dies another death here.


4. Now, here is an eye opener for all those who are for reservation in Private sector. There is a phenomenal backlog of vacant posts in Govt. sector that are reserved for scheduled castes and even after trying hard, govt. is finding it difficult to fill these posts. Has anyone pondered over this issue before starting advocating reservation in Private sector? The reason for this backlog is, they are not fulfilling the bare minimum criteria of education. They are not educated, a condition which can directly be attributed to their economic background. They are below poverty line (so as other high castes people also, although their no. might be less). Instead of striking at the root cause of the problem i.e. poverty and illiteracy, we are pushing for reservations which only deprives suitable and more deserving candidates. And if I m wrong and if there are deserving candidates in scheduled castes that’s straightaway means that govt has failed to identify them and failed to provide jobs that are ear marked for them and if govt. is not finding suitable candidates how can we expect private sector to fill the posts for them successfully??

Strangely enough, there has not been any demand for this sort of reservation from the public but the government is trying to build the consensus on this issue. (If there was demand, I haven’t heard any!!) For me, it seems to be another political stunt. This time by UPA govt. It seems they just want to cement their place in govt till eternity by providing this illogical and mind boggling reservation in private sector!

This vicious circle of giving and taking reservations will continue to grow and would become grim even more in future. This is the time we need to sincerely bend our backs and work sincerely towards providing education and improving economic conditions of the poor population of our country. Providing reservations on the name of giving equal opportunity sounds similar to an Ostrich who dump its head in sand when it sees a danger coming towards it, thinking that it has evaded the danger….


11 comments:

  1. U have a very good capability for analysing such social topics.. the example of the Ostrich evading danger was really apt...
    Nice going Maverick !!

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  2. well u think a lot maverick,,its just a move by govt to get the SC/ST votes nothing else. It will not get implemented simply because the business houses fund the elections and they will not let this happen.

    SIMPLE...

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  3. hiya..me after after a looooong time...howz u doin?

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  4. Hey Ankz...
    Its not about thinking too much ..its about keeping an open eye on whats happening around you and not accepting everything that is being served to u...

    But the point that u have raised sums it all...!!

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  5. To all..
    Pls dont forget to write u r name if you dont want to be anonymous..i dont have a proper comment box with e mail id ..url and all..so pls mention u r name if u dont want to remain in covers...!!

    as far as last anonymoys comment is concerned...I doing finr and planning to watch Jagjit Singh live today evening...

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  6. oops...sorry...that was me....MEHAK

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  7. bahut ho gaya...ab kuch post bhi karo....mehak

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  8. Hmmm...
    Will post something in the evening...
    Abhi thoda kaam hai yaar...

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  9. kaam ke beech mein bloghopping...gud....btw...put some msg box too...cuz its one lenghty process to leave comments here.....will chk ur blog in the even for a new post....byeeee....mehak

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