Reservations : bane or boon

Even after forty-three years of independence, the metaphorical boat of Indian Polity, pulled through herculean efforts out of the quagmire of British slavery, remains entrenched in the morass of dreadening de pendence upon the State, which reduced the masses to the mockery of myriad and many make-beliefs, which were mended and bended, but never amended during the course of four decades since the promulga tion of the Constitution on January 26, 1950. The State policy of reser vation in Parliament and State legislatures as well as in educational institutions and public employment is undoubtedly an important par ticle of the hypnotising load of such make-beliefs. The reservation tends to bring home the fictional truth, that the resurrection of Indian society through equalisation of the laity at large by the off-shoots of social engineering. It is inherent in the process of reservations, not withstanding the fact that the concept of social engineering already. stands perverted beyond comprehension.

The powers-that-be would have us believe that denial of fun damental rights to one class of citizens, in order to give the same to the other section of society, is social engineering, quite oblivious of the fact that social engineering stands only for the utilisation of the surplus material resources of the nation and can never crystalise in en bloc reservations favouring the majority and by excluding the minority. The simple reason is that reservations in favour of the majority population cannot justify prejudice against the remaining minority.

The sort of misconception of reservations is responsible for reduc ing the pious principles behind the benevolent concession in favour of the poor and the needy. That is why the constitutional mandate in favour of the weaker sections came out to be the manipulation of the greedy and the opulent, receding in the background the purpose behind the process of equalisation, intended to uplift the lower strata of society to the level of equality conceived in the Constitution. Even tually, the process of reservations has perverted the formidable and the creamy layers of the sections of society.