Caste based reservations are needed in our society and our Governments over the years for once are doing what is needed though not in the right manner(not surprising though). Just for reference I belong to a forward caste

Opponents of reservation, they are dime a dozen, justify their opposition citing meritocracy, democracy, USA, Europe etc etc. A famous example often used by these folks (recently a popular socialite and savvy businessman quoted the same example on a TV talk show) is " if you are on the operating table, would you like to be operated upon by a doctor who has come through reservation" How absurd and foolish? quite often I laugh at these examples, but sometimes it sounds scary.

It is as if forward castes have complete jurisdiction over "merit". Mind you, examples as above are never cited about doctors or engineers coming out of private colleges after paying huge capitation fees. Yeah, forgot to add that Rich too like forward castes have complete ownership of "merit".

Lets dig deeper, even today after 60 years of independence and reservations, FCs constituting about 25% of our population, occupy nearly 65 to 70% of central government jobs, the percentage goes up substantially in class 1 government jobs to around 75 to 80%. On the face of it, "merit" dominates the government sector jobs. Now the question arises, what level is the quality of performance of this sector? the answer is simple and straightforward, substandard. Where has merit gone?

A society which prides it self for being top of the heap in every international corruption index, where health care to rural areas is still a joke, where killing female foetuses and dicriminating against the girl child is cottage industry, that society talking about adverse affects on "merit" due to caste based reservations is bit far fetched and to put it in colloquial hindi "hazam nahin hua boss"
Another argument that our friends have is, reservation divides society (trust them never to give up). Dunno if reservation is responsible for two progressive southern states indulging in gutter level mudslinging and violence over river water, another two states over a district. Another bunch of idiots in the commercial capital of India, discriminating against their own brethen through violence and blatant threats, because they happen to be from a different part of India. None of these examples given above have anything to do with reservations, yet our opposition friends talk of "reservations dividing India".

Today Government is not the sole or the over dominant job providor, compared to about 15-20 years back, so it is flawed to assume that reservations in government sector is enough to emancipate those sections of society which need to benefit from reservation.

The private sector today is a key or some would argue, the dominant player in providing jobs, reservations should be extended to the private sector, not at the level of the government, but certainly at a significant level. Why not? initially they can take a a cue from IIT's "zeroth year" concept. Students who can avail reservations but have not cleared the entrance exams in the reservation category are given a one year training after which they become part of the regular students. The private sector can so something similar, people who have not cleared their interviews at the first instance, should be trained for a three or a six month period after which they can be absorbed into the company payroll.


The bricks and mortar companies would oppose primarily on the basis of "Merit", development, democracy etc etc, they should be reminded, at least majority of them that not too long back when the country initiated economic liberalization, some of the big guns in these industries spoke about level playing field, special privileges to compete against MNCs. Was that not reservations (quotas) in a different guise?

Second comes the New economy companies, these companies, atleast a majority of them will besides talking about "merit" and other such stuff, would also talk about customer service, international operations etc. There should be an additional layer to counter their arguments, apart from what was used to counter the old economy guys, one needs to mention that for years, international companies have first encountered central government employees(dominated by "meritorious" FC category people), whenever thay wanted to set shop in India. They faced incompetency, corruption and an absolute lack of transparency at different levels.

Wow, all this looks so simple, but I know that I know how it all works...Politicians and other interest groups will continue to play politics with reservations, PLU will continue to talk about "merit" "democracy" etc.... people who have been discriminated and throttled for years will continue to done the same.

Dalits and people from other discriminated communities will continue to be denied the right to pray in a temple, the right to fall in love with a upper caste woman/man and above all the right to live with dignity.
Let me end with some statistics....

Cheers to merit, democracy etc etc etc........