At the fag end of the Winter Session of Parliament, the Govt has introduced a bill to reserve 10 percent seats in Educational Institutions and in government employment for the poorer sections of the unreserved category. This is clearly an undisguised election move to woo the communities, high-caste Hindus, like Patels, Marathas and Kapus in AP etc., who have missed the bus of reservations as the upper castes have recently punished BJP in the Assembly Elections. Originally, if you look back it was Mr. PV Narasimha Rao who had brought an identical 10 percent reservation for the upper castes in the wake of the backlash of Mandal Commission. But it was struck down by the Supreme Court.
Now if you see, this move, at the last lap of its tenure to give reservations to upper castes on the basis of economic condition goes against the very purpose for which reservation was introduced and constitutionally validated, in order to correct the historical wrongs and injustices.The fear of losing votes drives the government to try every trick in the book.
If one recalls, Indian Railways called applications for 63,000 vacancies and drew a response of 1.9 crore people for jobs like helpers, porters, cleaners, gatemen etc. In India, the paradox is that though it’s one of the fast-growing economies, it’s unable to generate a sufficient number of jobs for the youth. On the other hands, we have seen Demonetisation had played havoc, created endless problems and it’s important that these problems are addressed. Especially when more educated young people enter the workforce. Therefore, I fail to understand how will quotas for the backward or forward classes will help? Growth has proved elusive with unemployment, inflation etc, however much we may wish to sanitise the facts. Quotas may not be the answer, but it’s clear that NDA is desperate to retain power at any cost, as it has failed to fulfill poll promises of 2014, which is why it’s resorting to such gimmicks and it's trying to manage the perceptions. The criterion is that only people with 8 lakhs income will be excluded, thus 96 percent will now become eligible for reservations, but the moot question here is where are the jobs?
Now if you see, this move, at the last lap of its tenure to give reservations to upper castes on the basis of economic condition goes against the very purpose for which reservation was introduced and constitutionally validated, in order to correct the historical wrongs and injustices.The fear of losing votes drives the government to try every trick in the book.
If one recalls, Indian Railways called applications for 63,000 vacancies and drew a response of 1.9 crore people for jobs like helpers, porters, cleaners, gatemen etc. In India, the paradox is that though it’s one of the fast-growing economies, it’s unable to generate a sufficient number of jobs for the youth. On the other hands, we have seen Demonetisation had played havoc, created endless problems and it’s important that these problems are addressed. Especially when more educated young people enter the workforce. Therefore, I fail to understand how will quotas for the backward or forward classes will help? Growth has proved elusive with unemployment, inflation etc, however much we may wish to sanitise the facts. Quotas may not be the answer, but it’s clear that NDA is desperate to retain power at any cost, as it has failed to fulfill poll promises of 2014, which is why it’s resorting to such gimmicks and it's trying to manage the perceptions. The criterion is that only people with 8 lakhs income will be excluded, thus 96 percent will now become eligible for reservations, but the moot question here is where are the jobs?
