~ Harshdeep Singh
Every citizen of our country, some or the other day, must have thought about weather the concept of Reservation is right or not when our Constitution promotes No Discrimination policy through Article 15 of our Constitution which says that the State has no right to discriminate the citizens on the basis of caste, religion, sex, race or place of birth. Our country follows a reservation system based on the caste or we can say some categories are defined like General, OBC, SC, ST etc. Firstly, this system is somehow lawful that means the State has the right to make such provisions because of some exceptions mentioned in Article 15.
EXCEPTIONS TO ARTICLE 15
This Article shall not prevent the State from making any special provision for women & children and nothing shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
This clears that the State has the authority to make such provisions. But when the reservation policy was introduced, our society’s elite class was not treating the lower or socially backward classes well. They used to treat them as untouchables. And at that point of time, this was a necessary policy. But today, the circumstances are different or we can say the society has changed a lot. Earlier, the lower class used to earn money through some small jobs only, their field of work was somehow defined but today the situation is controlled. The problems are now-a-days faced by the economically weaker sections who doesn’t belong to the reserved categories. Our current Government has first time in India introduced a reservation category for Economically weaker section (EWS) which is a step towards a change in the society. With changing time, the policies should also be changed.
WHAT IF WE CHANGE OUR POLICY FROM SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS TO ECONOMICAL BACKWARDNESS?
Reservation on the basis of income is what our society needs today. The situation is this that the majority of uneducated people are from economically weaker section because they don't get equal opportunity as the reservation provided to the socially backward classes is very high. We are not of the opinion that the Government should finish the reservation but considering the circumstances, the Government should lower the percentage of reservation. The citizens or students for any exam should be given more amount of probability to get selected on the basis of their merit. There are a lot of students who didn’t get admission because a large number of seats are reserved. Also, there are some economically weak families who need the reservation policy because they can’t afford the fees of some institutions. Personally mentioning, the reservation policy should not be present in the schools or colleges. The seat allotment should be done on the basis of merit only. There are a large number of students who are in the merit list but didn’t get admission because the general quota gets filled. Our society needs a lot of change, the discrimination is done by the people on the basis of caste, color, etc. but the need of the hour is upliftment of the economically weaker sections also. Both should go hand in hand.
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