Our honorable Chief Justice is never out of news. First it was his infamous remark “CJI is not a public servant but a constitutional authority and thus out of RTI’s purview”, this time around he has vacated Calcutta HC’s stay on PG Quota. His judgment of the same case made for an interesting read.

Justice Balakrishnan who headed the Constitution bench on the OBC quota matter,said earlier matriculation was the benchmark was the benchmark for determining the SEBCs (Socially and economically bacward class) which has now gone up to graduation. Now the point is that even if one concedes to the reservation policy as a means of upliftment of the people who have had a history of being denied equal status and growth opportunities in our society, one cannot close his eyes to the almost no result of the reservation policy. A superficial view may take you look at a handful of people belonging to these classes drawing benefits from such a scheme but the ground reality is that those who need such policy the most have little knowledge of it, keep apart the benefit they would derive out of it. So what the CJ said, in effect translates to the fact that instead of a positive effect of the policy it has made the matter worse. In simple terms,People who needed the reservation till the level of graduation now need the benefit at the postgraduate level too. Not just there is reservation for them in the field of education alone they avail of the same privilege in jobs, promotion. In such a situation one tends to see reservation more as a problem and less as a solution. For the justice meted out the backward classes is an injustice for the other people. This i guess is a grave problem for it will turn out to be a vicious circle with no end.

I am strictly against caste based reservations and i have some logic in support of my firm stand on the issue. Firstly nobody would deny the fact that with the changing times one needs to look at these concerns in view of the realities of the present world. Today the emphasis is on talent and merit rather than anything else. As citizens of the global world one needs to look beyond the ever so narrow distinctions of religion, caste and creed. India cannot afford to lag behind in this world of cut throat competition embracing the excuse of reservation. Secondly, the social exclusion and exploitation the backward classes faced was in the ancient Indian society. These days as far as i now we don’t live in a society where the Hindu hierarchy is divided into four Varnas namely Kshatriya, brahmin, vaishya and shoodra. There has to be no reservation for the backward classes as the society has no reservations against them, atleast this holds true of urban India.

On the other hand i feel there is a strong need for reservation for the havenots in the society. Caste is no longer an indicator of social status but money is. For people with lack of resources are seen as outcast in the society. If we want a spirit of fair competition to prevail, both the competitors X and Y need to be at the same level with the equal resources at each end.

As far as the Arjun Singh’s rhetoric or reservation goes it has just one explanation that Congress will leave no stone unturned cashing on it in view of the upcoming elections. The government’s mindless reservation policy can be assessed by the fact that after more than 50 years that reservation has been put in place there have been no efforts to evaluate its result. This is nothing but vote bank politics, Congress is pro at. We must not let petty politics and poor logic behind the caste based reservation let pass with our passive attitude. We need to ask them,On what basis is the government going ahead with the new reservation scheme for the OBCs when the result of the reservation policies in the past has not been evaluated till now?We need to question those who rule us for it we who have given them this reservation.