On Reservation from someone from Dalit Background (it's complicated)

The recent "reservation hatao movement" instagram page, has again brought the debate on the forefront. I want to get few things out of the way. It's bogus to assume that a OBC-SC-ST who got into a medical college and becomes a doctor is less capable than a general student. Both category goes through the same system and passes the same exam and does the same internship without any lower cut off and it's just plain casteism that general category people don't want to get treated by them. The same discussion is not reserved for EWS and Management quota candidates. Also its hilarious that they use the Ambedkar quote of Educate-Agitate-Organise in their bio, the irony.

Now since this is out of the way, I have to bring one of the major reason why reservation exists, which is of representation. We need a diverse background since a machinery cannot exclude the marginalised community since we need them to work for the 80% of marginalised community (rough numbers). As someone's father is in administration, he would recount stories of out of touch upper castes in the service who have no clue about the ground reality. My favourite example being an IAS ordering during COVID that all labourers arriving home to the state should have Aarogya Setu installed on their phone to which my father replied that they are too poor to own a phone, forget a smartphone! And Im not even going into the promotion issue, SC STs barely get promoted to upper ranks, pretty much an issue of casteism.

It should also be mentioned that such debates on reservation has returned since the economy is in tatters, the state is not recruiting the number of employees it used to and a lot of employment has been shifted to contractual work or has been privatised. The worst affected is the Education sector with state universities is in absolute ruins. Look at the state of universities in Chhattisgarh, lack of teachers, outdated syllabus, barely any scholarship and lets not even go to employment. The private sector on the other hand is also facing major layoffs, especially in Tech. The upper castes have to realise that its not the marginalised but the state which have killed employment opportunities, the one dalit candidate who has gotten a seat, the favourite punching bag of upper castes, there's lakhs of dalits who have not and additionally been ruined by the sorry state of education with either outdated syllabus or being taught in a language (hindi) which makes them more unemployable while rich upper castes can afford private schools and universities education.

However, one issue which even dalits and ambedkarites don't touch upon is the cornering of seats and employment by a dominant dalit groups. Caste hierarchy gives even certain dalits and tribals to feel superior than other SC STs communities who are lower in the chain, which leads to cornering of resources by the very group. The Supreme Court decision of subcategorisation of SC STs is a welcome step, since government cannot be represented by just one group. Additionally, one solution could also be that children of OBC SC STs could be given reservation in just colleges and not employment and the third generation be said to write exams with a general tag. Although I am aware that in a society, a dalit person despite being a civil servant or a doctor would still be made to feel inferior but there's no easy answers or solutions.

The issue with reservation or caste is that we need a complete reimagination of the Indian society. A welcome first step would be great investment on Indian education, a radical first step would be to have free state education till college which saves the Indian population to sell their lands and souls just for their kids to study in a government college. It feels like a distant dream but we have to increase our GDP expenditure on Education from a mere 2.5%. Spending more on education would generate employment since a lot of people could be absorbed in teaching, which is desperately needed.

Coming back to reservation hatao movement, it is a savarna upper caste dream that if you don't use your surname and reservation is removed, there will be no casteism. The same group will be able to identify your caste by hearing your accent, knowing where you live, the pop culture you consume. And the state is already present to discriminate you who knows everything about you. Such understanding of casteism is of someone who never read anything or is currently 14. BJP have tried in their last 12 years, with great success, by bringing the non savarnas into Hindutva fold and such an anti reservation movement will again bring discontent. Just two years ago, when BJP leaders said of Constitution change, a large section felt their reservation rights would be taken away, which brought BJP to 240. It would be funny to see if Savarna implosion takes more core non savarnas hindutva voters away from.