Reservation in India

If India has to emerge as a prominent economic power in the 21st century, the SCs, the STs, the OBCs and other minorities have to be equally equipped as any sector of the society. A level playing field has to be created to not only facilitate empowerment for downtrodden but also social harmony for all in the segments. The authors of India's governance or Constitutional Management thought that with the dedicated band of freedom fighters and rare efforts of Government the vulnerable sections of society would be brought to mainstream within the very short span of ten years. Those who were ignorant, illiterate and extremely poor were unable to reap the benefit of reservation. The constitutional promise of the egalitarian society was to be achieved through the means of reservations based on caste in the field of public employment and education. The idea of egalitarian society was envisaged and incorporated into the Constitution of India, which came into force in 1950 and mandated 15 per cent reservation from the scheduled castes (SCs), and the 7.5 per cent for the scheduled tribes (STs). The OBCs who have faced unequal opportunities in the society necessitated governmental action for it in the form of 27 per cent reservation. Other issues pertaining to reservation viz., the issue of women reservation, reservations in corporate sector, reservations for the disabled etc. are discussed at length in this book. This discourse on reservations in the private sector is gaining prominence which needs to be looked in depth for the upliftment of communities or individuals and have to go beyond the prism of reservations in the corporate sector. The idea of empowering women by making legal provisions of reserving one-third of seats for women in Parliament and State Assemblies have strengthened, yet many contradictory reactions have emerged on the Women's Bill from time to time.