Caste and caste-based reservations have always been a controversial topic in India. People have strong views depending on which side of the fence they are. There is a hunger strike in Delhi with doctors from the prestigious AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) protesting against the bill that reserves 27 percent of college places for "low-caste" people (In that there are categories like "Other backward classes" (OBC), "Scheduled Castes" (SC) and "Scheduled Tribes" (ST) etc.). You can read the article here.
The fact is that Dalits are still treated very badly in India. I have included this article about an incident that happened sometime back. This despite the fact that Dr. Ambedkar, born a Dalit, rose against all odds to architect the Indian constitution and India has had a Dalit president as well. I suppose it might be difficult to completely get rid of two thousand years of biases from the Indian psyche. I remember this story from Mahabharat when Dronacharya asked Eklavyya, a tribal archer, to give him his thumb as "guru dakshina" so that he cannot be superior to Prince Arjuna (I cannot believe that I found entries for all the above on Wikipedia).
Caste biases are a regressive aspect of India and it is still alive and kicking in the 21st Century. The atrocities and heinous crimes commited under the name of caste by the so called "high castes" cannot be denied. The question is that is reservation an efficient way of helping the underpriviledged sections of society? Is that an efficient solution to the problem? Does it help the most deserving candidates to get ahead in life? In addition, accountability is the biggest challenge here; of course this is applicable to anyone in public service in India, no matter what their caste.
6 comments:
the caste bias is propogated by the politicians to suit themselves. Do click on the url to read my blog on reservation ....
http://cutthecrap.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/04/reservation-politics.htm
http://cutthecrap.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/04/reservation-politics.htm
@Magiceye: THanks for your comments and the url of your blog. I read that as well.
I agree with you about the politicians that is why I said accountability is a factor in our country. Also there might be very deserving candidates in the "lower" sections of society, who have the brilliance to shine. Have these reservations helped them?
If we can get the deserving to rise up, then reservations are ideal. HOwever, reservations are only a small part of the solution and are certainly not ideal, especially when it is the more well off who use them.
Need to get more education for dalits and ensure that discriminations laws ensure that nobody dares to try this kind of apartheid against the 'lower castes'
@Ashish: Thanks for your comments and the wonderful points that you have mentioned.
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