One Nation , One Reservation , One Time Only
In the past few years India is moving towards ‘One Nation One System’ policy. In this regard Government has taken various initiatives such as ‘One Nation One Constitution’ (Abrogation of article 370 and 35A), ‘One Nation One Tax System’ (GST), ‘One Nation One Identity’ proof (Adhaar Card), ‘One Rank One Pension’ (OROP) and now after COVID, India is going for ‘One Nation One Ration Card’. So it is high time to reform our reservation system as well.
India should think seriously on prevailing reservation system since independence and evaluate its efficacy. Post-independence, the father of our Constitution, Dr B. R. Ambedkar had added the reservation policy for the upliftment of people who were discriminated because of the caste they were born into. The idea was to provide them with an opportunity so that they can overcome the shadows of their birth and place themselves with respect in the society. The architect of Indian Constitution also added a rule that said that reservation should only exist for 15 years. But unfortunately no Government has revoked it in these 70 years for the fear of losing their vote bank.
Reservation system in India is long overdue for reform. In India, the reservation is caste based where some percentage of seats is reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC), Schedule Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) in education and jobs. Currently in our country there are different policies of reservation among different states. Tamil Nadu 69%, Maharashtra 52% where as there is National Cap of 50% reservation.
One major oversight is that this reservation does not take into account the economically backward people. Some people belonging to SC, ST and OBC bracket are utilizing the reservation policy and thus have rose financially in their respective communities. But there are still other people within these communities who could never avail these benefits and as such have still remained poor and downtrodden. The divide within the community is therefore also increasing.
At this point, I would like to bring forward, one imperative policy of the government, which states that any personnel in government job, armed forces and other semi-government agencies is untimely demised, a family member is given job as per the qualification of that family member. And this offer is for one family member and is given only once.
Thus I propose a similar policy for reservation also “One Nation One Reservation One Time”. For a given family, if any one family member (father or mother) has availed the reservation benefits once, then their children should not be eligible for reservation benefits. The reason for this suggestion is that when a family has taken the benefits of reservation, this helps them to stand professionally, economically, psychologically and helps them to make a place for themselves in the society. This would consequently help other families to take the benefits and uplift themselves too.
The idea behind Reservation was to entail equality amongst all. Every person should be known by their “karam” and not “janam”. Every person is the master of their destiny and the architects of our Constitution wanted India to be a country where every individual is recognized by their “karam”!
Jai Hind Jai Bharat
Dr. Ajay Rana