Infinite Sea of Opportunities

Yes, you read it correct. I am going to show you how.

Recently, I wrote an article When court accepted that the Caste based Reservations violate Fundamental Rights here I had mentioned a court case The State Of Madras vs Srimathi Champakam Dorairajan. The interesting part of the case was the Smt. Champakam Dorairajan filed the petition even when she had not applied for any of the colleges. Her statement was “If I were to apply for an engineering college or a medical college, I would be discriminated on the bases of caste” the court did not dismiss here petition. It was duly considered and trial happened. Later, another person S. Srinivasan, who had applied for the engineering college and was denied admission just because he was a Brahmin, also appealed against the general order passed by the state of Madras.

This is a hypothetical example, so as to prove the case where the current caste based reservation system not only violates the fundamental rights for the upper castes but also the lower castes. I have used the same argument that Smt. Champakam made in her petition and won the case. The only change I have made is by updating the reservation percentages to the current percentages.

Let’s say there are 25 seats available for admission. As per today’s reservation criteria, 27% of those seats (i.e. 6 seats) would be available only for the OBC, 15% (i.e. 4 seats) only for the SC and 7.5% (2 seats) only for the ST. Rest of the seats would be open for any body who is in the merit list i.e. the top 13 performers. They can be from any caste.

In the figure below, marks scored by various students are mentioned. The ones with the green background will get the admission and others won’t.

In this particular example, the fundamental rights of two SC students are violated because of caste based reservation. The two students in dark red with yellow background (Col3, Row5&6) scored 82 and 81 marks will be denied admission solely on the bases of their castes.

Why?

Because 82 and 81 are too less to make to the merit list. The last student in the un-reserved seats scored 94 (Gen list or Col 1). However, if you look carefully, there are four students who scored less than 81 but still manged to get admitted, shown in orange. From the OBC list, these students are 80,78 & 75(Col2, Row4,5&6) and from ST list the student is the one who scored 80(Col 4, Row 2). Now, I ask you a simple question, what is the fault of those two students other than they were of a specific caste?

The state in this case will be denying a student admission to an educational institute only and only on the basis of caste. That’s violation of Article 15(1), which is “discrimination on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them” and article 29(2) which is, “denying admission into an educational institution on grounds of religion, race, caste, language or any of them”. Exactly as in the case of Smt. Champakam Dorairajan vs State of Madras, with the only change that this time the student is SC instead of a Brahmin. So, what will the court say in this case? I don’t know, the court need to verify this. What about the Directive principles of state policy and uplifting of the socially and economically backward classes?

Another disturbing issue is “why have we not seen many such court cases in last 70 years?” We don’t see many reserved category people protesting against this, do we? On the other hand we do see general category students very vocal about the same, don’t we? And in case you are thinking that this is just a hypothetical case and will never/has never happened in reality, you are literally saying the reserved category aren’t capable to score high. So, don’t think in that direction, that simply is not true. I am pretty sure, these type of scenarios have already occurred, it is just that they are not highlighted.

The constitution before the first amendment specifically mentioned reservations in the government employment but not in education, and this makes a lot of sense. The state was supposed to find ways within the constitutional limits to make sure that the students from backward classes are able to clear that cut off, and there are many ways to do that. Its just that they aren’t as easy as reducing the cut off marks or awarding the seats. Instead of doing the right thing, Pt. Nehru just changed the constitution.

The harsh reality is that even after lowering the cut offs for these categories, the reserved seats go vacant. Its like these people are not interested in these subjects. There was a case in IIM Ahmadabad in 2013 where an ST student was admitted at mere 38 percentile, where as in the very same year general category student with 98 percentile were denied admissions.

How does a child grow intellectually if he gets admission in IIT/IIM even with a score that would not let him enter a regional college? It actually makes things worse for him in the long run. The dropout percentage of reserved category student comes out to be higher than the non-reserved students when the number of students admitted for each category is taken into consideration. And the worst side effect of this reservation system is that more and more Dalit students are committing suicides in elite institutions like IITs. Reservation gets them in, but don’t help them complete. Even if we consider upper caste, it would be unrealistic to make a 40% scoring child compete with 90% scoring child; if you do this, it would generate immense stress, pressure on the child. That’s what exactly is happening with the reservation category. Its better that the government should simply come up and say we will pay salary to a reserved caste person as soon as he/she is 18, at least they will get to live a life with reduced stress. With this reservation system, its a ticking time bomb for every one; upper caste is running out of country and the reserved caste is dying or living a traumatized life.

I agree certain social and economically backward castes need support, but this type of reservation isn’t working. Instead of people moving out of the backward castes, they are protesting to become one. This type of reservation is making these communities dependent on support, this is making sure that no matter what happens, the vote bank always remains intact. Politicians used caste based reservations for their benefits rather than the community’s benefit.This is a simple divide and rule politics, British started it, Congress followed it. The worst part is government comes out clean by saying “see we are doing our best to uplift them“.

After Sachar Committee report was published Indian Muslims realized that Congress had always been treating them as just votes. And only when the reservation categories realize that this caste based reservation is making their children lose confidence in themselves, I hope it would change for good.

Thank you for reading!!!

Also read: When or How does a child become “caste-literate”?

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